OK. Koh Phangan. Definately the pinnacle of the trip.
Flew into Koh Samui, which is the island just south of Koh Phangan and has a quaint and adorable airport. While waiting for the bus to the dock to leave, the bus driver hands me a leaf and motions for me to chew it. I was pretty sure he was just having a laugh, but his friends explained it would "make me happy." So fuck it I ate it. It had a bitter oil, and I have no idea what it was but forty minutes later I did indeed feel pretty good and my vision was kind of fish-lensed. Anyone know what the fuck this was?
So I get on a boat to Koh Phangan and arrive on the island just after we lose the sunlight. Take a cab to Haad Yao, which is supposed to be a relatively low-key, but large beach on the west coast of the island. I did not-- NOT-- want to stay at haad rit, which is where the full moon party was, wanted to live away from the main party. Haad Yao:
A goodass kebab:
Wandered around the beach until I saw some bungalows that looked cool. For $16 a night I got my own hut just off the beach. That's smart. Had some coconut curry and tiki drinks for dinner, listened to some reggae music on the beach and watched the fire-twirlers, and then hit the hay.
Didn't do shit the next day except lie on the beach, lie by the pool, swim around, went for a jog around the island, and scope out some of the topless sunbathers while wearing my imitation ray-bans. That's a good day.
The next day I signed up for a tour type thing. First stop was an elephant camp... man elephants are pretty cool characters. They don't seem to mind people riding around on them and they don't forget anything.
Next stop was a pretty cool waterfall that was a gradual enough slope that you could climb it. Then a chinese temple that was pretty dumb, I'd seen enough temples at this point. Next we went out on a boat for some snorkeling, saw some pretty cool fishies and wished I had a waterproof camera. Boat didnt go anywhere for a while so we got to lie on some pretty secluded beaches. Not a bad day, all in all.
Went to a muay thai fight that night, after meeting some english people who included in their group a real live midget. Calling the venue a stadium is a huge stretch (see below.) Looking at the fight card, the first fighters were 90 lbs. WTF? Turned out muay thai fighters start young, and the first undercard was two twelve-year-olds or so. But after that we got to see some post-pubescent fighters and it was pretty sweet. Muay thai's pretty badass. There were two white fighters and for some reason they were matched up against really lousy thais. Not sure why, but they bothed KTFO'd their opponents.
Next morning I went to a muay thai practice myself, starting at 8 AM. The school was run by 5 thai guys, former fighters... they were average age 25, and had 300 fights apiece under their belts. I was the only backpacker there, everyone else was an ex-pat living there for various periods. Pretty cool life, if I ever have a period where I don't have any obligations, first thing I would do is something similar, except probably in Brazil doing BJJ.
Practice was pretty cool, good workout but not impossible by any means, worst part was getting kicked in the oblique which sucked because my back was sunburned. The trainers didn't really speak english but were pretty decent at teaching through pantomimes.
After the first practice I went with some of the guys in the class to a beach which they and seemingly no one else knew about. Hung out there for a couple hours:
I mean you have to admit, this would be a good life.
In the afternoon there was a second practice, and after that I went back to the hotel to get ready for that night's event. You see, the moon, she was full.
I went back to the muay thai school with two bottles of samsong (thai rum/whiskey) ready to get my drunk on. Drank and smoked some really, really good weed with: 4 thais, a swede, 2 finns, an irishman, a russian, a south african, and englishman, and a few decent looking norweigan girls. Some other cultures too, there were some who might have been japanese but who the fuck knows.
Around midnight, all of us pretty toasty, we headed to Haad Rit. Kilometer long beach, full of people... over 30k. Everyone getting drunk, drinking from plastic buckets, dancing, looking up at the moon which was not only fat in the sky but seemed to have some type of halo around it. Couldn't capture it in a picture so maybe it was my imagination, but other people saw it to so maybe it was their imagination as well. Went to the east part of the island and climbed some stairs that were carved into "mellow mountain." At the top was the following sign:
Oh my. I got myself a mushroom shake and found to my surprise that it was not unpleasant tasting. And the experience was not unpleasant either, it seemed to add a pleasantness to my well-developed drunk.
The muay thai trainers. LOL
Like I said the other day, I left around 6 AM and kind of regretted not toughing it out until sunrise. The people I came with were leaving and I left too. In the cab on the way back (not really a cab, actually a pickup truck with tourists in the back) I met a really hot aussie girl who I was planning to invite back to my bungalow, but the mushroom shake was making my tummy rumble something awful. And I just couldn't see myself taking her back, leaving her sitting on the bed while I took a shit, and then fucking her. Although in hindsight I probably should have tried that too.
That was pretty much it. Went kayaking the next day, did some last minute beach relaxing, and then flew back to bangkok. In bangkok I did another BJJ class and some souvenir shopping, but the trip was over.
All in all the trip was pretty tits. Got to do a lot of everything... cities, beaches, temples, bars, relaxing, drugs... not much I missed, right? Travelling solo is interesting. Good because you can do what you want, whenever you want. Annoying now and then because while it's easy to make friends, it's tough to make friends who are going to sleep with you because most girls who aren't travelling with their boyfriends are in groups, and it's tough to get in there without a wingman. I'm somewhat shocked that nothing bad happened to me... didn't have my passport stolen, never got eggregiously scammed, didn't get mugged, most importantly wasn't hospitalized bc of dehydration and head trauma. That was as likely to happen as not, to be honest. And somehow my phone managed to spontaneously break the day after I got back to london. I fucking loved southeast asia, it's as different from chicago/london as you can get, and you very quickly melt into the laid back feel and the stressfree way they live their lives here. I will definately be back this way in the future, and if I have my way I would like to live out there at some point in my life.
Fellow nubblites, thanks for reading