Koh Tao

After our 5 day stay of craziness that was Koh pha ngan we took a ferry to Koh tao, which is an island about an hour and half north of Koh pha ngan. Once we arrived we headed to our hostel which Lucy and James had reserved for us that day. The first thing we noticed about the place was how cheap it was, only 6 bonecrushers a night. The second thing we noticed was that the room had no AC…. just a ceiling fan. We were instantly bummed out and knew that sleeping would be a nearly impossible feat. After settling into our room at about 3 in the afternoon we wandered around the quaint little town that is Sai Ree. This was the perfect place to come after the full moon party because of its relaxed atmosphere. It was refreshing to walk down the street or beach without being haggled for the first time since Japan to rent a moped, or buy a suit or shades. 

After arriving at Koh Tao we spent nearly every waking moment with James and Lucy. The first night we were there we decided to grab a few drinks at one of the many laid back restaurants. There were a lot of cats on this island and this is where we learned of James' fear of cats. If a cat came near him he would run away from it and just stare at it from a distance as if it were the plague. His story goes kinda like this. He was three years old delivering Christmas cards to neighbors on Christmas Eve in his hometown of Birmingham, England. He rang the doorbell and when the door opened a cat leaped onto him and became caught in his jumper (we call it the right name.. a sweater). James threw the remaining cards in the air while trying to bat the cat off, but the cat held on,dangling with one paw from his sweater. With it's other paw the cat proceeded to throw haymakers at James' face, leaving him with a face full of scratches and tears. Because of this event we were unable to go to certain restaurants and places because of cats lurking around waiting to pounce on James. 

The next few days we spent lounging around the beach and taking in the beauty of southern Thailand. We bought a football one of the days and exchanged skills of how to throw a football vs throwing a rugby ball. Surprisingly you can throw a rugby ball quite far with the right underhand technique! One of the nights we went out and found the rest of our crew from the Full Moon Hostel and had a great night where we learned about laughing gas, which was sold in the bars like a drink. It's in all the clubs in England James & Lucy told us so we decided to try some. We got these balloons that were filled with NO2 and after only a ballon or two and some beers we were all feeling pretty hammered and proceeded to have another Changover in the morning. 

One of the last days we spent in Koh Tao we took a long boat out to Koh Nang Yuan which is a gorgeous little trio of islands that are all connected by spits of sand. It was a dazzling day with nothing but a few clouds in the sky and the clearest water I've ever seen. We all rented snorkeling equipment and according to James & Lucy who dived in the Great Barrier Reef it was the clearest water and the most fish they'd ever seen. There were fish of all shapes and colors from little clown fish to vivid rainbow colored ones to small barracudas. It was an unforgettable day and we really wished we'd had an underwater camera to show all you clowns just how cool it was.

#yoro

Bangkok/Koh Phangan & Full moon party

(Both of us wrote this one)

Sorry for the extremely long space between blog posts everyone but here is one that should get at least a couple laughs and we have one to add tomorrow as well.

So we made it to Bangkok safe and sound at around 11:30pm but once we stepped foot out of the terminal we were blasted with a brick wall of heat and sweat. At that point we knew we were in for an all new form of muggy heat from hell. With afternoon temperatures reaching over 100 (not to mention humidity) we had little to no motivation to explore the massive city, especially since we knew we were going to head back at the end of our trip. So after a couple days of attempting to walk around and failing we just said fuck it and booked our flight down to Koh Phangan, the home of the epic Full Moon party. 

If this guard couldn't stand the heat. How the hell are we supposed to?

The flight took us to Koh Samui which, is the island right next to Koh Phangan. This being said we then had to make our way to the dock to catch a ferry to our island of mid 20 year olds dreams. Right as we arrived to the dock we got to witness something straight out of a Cabo story. A girl had just gotten off a boat from Koh Phangan and walked past about 150-250 people with a bandage around her head and a man following her with an IV bag that was attached to her… Needless to say we got pumped up for what the island had in store for us.

After the 40 minute ferry ride we managed to find our hostel without any real trouble and were happy (at the time) to see that it was about 50 feet away from the beach. Sadly that was the only cool thing about our hostel (besides all the new friends we made) the rest of the place was pretty much a joke. Think of the fraternity dance floor filled with 15 or so bunk beds, shitty wood floors and three of the frat bathrooms/showers. That should paint a good picture for ya….

After getting situated we met some of the coolest people that we actually ended up traveling with. That first night we all decide to go out and so we went out and bought a bunch of Chang beers and buckets. I have to say something about Chang beer though. They are listed as being 6% alcohol but they are actually anywhere from 6-12%, so it always makes for surprise! This usually led to us singing In the morning "I gotta Changover  woahhhhh I've been drinking to much woahhhhh. I gotta Changover…" You get the picture! 

Anyways that first night we all just went straight HAM, playing drinking games, learning about each others cultures and stories. Our group of about 10-15 people meshed really well and we all went out to the beach (which is where all the bars are) that first night and had a glorious time, shotgunning, strawpedoing among other things. 

Full Moon beach rager

Ok onto the full moon party which was two days later. The small town of Had Rim was buzzing with energy, people were buying neon clothes, paint, and other accessories while huge structures were being put together on the beach. We followed suit and bought some real short neon shorts, tanks, headbands and paint. Shout out to Mandy, Val and Bridget for giving us glow sticks because those things were amazing seeing as we were literally the only ones on the beach with them! After everyone was all painted up with eccentric designs and liquored up we headed down to the beach at about midnight. Pictures can't do this party justice, because there were probably about 12,000 other people neoned out like us dancing and just going crazy on the beach. After about an hour our group started to disperse but still had a good core of about 10 people. One of our British friends, James (not Whelan) left us with his girlfriend Lucy to head back to the hostel because he wasn't feeling well. We told him we'd stay at one of the beach bars that we were at. They didn't return for at least an hour and when James finally came back we learned that he had been throwing up and his bucket that he had shared with another girl in our group (Kat) had been spiked. He was able to get it out of his system but she wasn't so lucky. Lucy never came back because she went with Kat to the hospital to make sure she was ok. We all moved down the beach from bar to bar as the night went on having a great time. Before we started drinking for this epic night we had promised each other we'd stay up until the sunrise and it was one of the most beautiful things we've seen in our lives. It was funny because we were looking at this serene sunrise on this beautiful beach and then we turned around and people were still going HAM to house music, dancing on stages or passed out in the sand.

After we watched the sun come up our crew decided we should really go and look for Kat and Lucy. We went to about 8 or 9 different clinics (shitty little hospitals) and it's about 7am when we finally found them. Luckily Kat was ok and after leaving we all went back to the hostel and tried to pass out around 8 in the morning but the music continued to bump through frat speakers until around 10. This is why being next to the beach actually ended up sucking..

PTFO on the beach. 

Visiting Kat. Probably would have been better of without us there...

After resting for a day both of us and Joel (another Brit we met in our hostel) decided we wanted to rent mopeds to see more of the island that had destroyed us. Anywhere you went in Had Rim you saw people with bandages, crutches and injuries, so mopeding around wasn't the safest thing to do. We ended up touring the island for nearly 6 hours and had a few close calls but overall it was a blast! 

Until next time... (promise there won't be a month gap this time)