Wow - glad to be here. The longest journey so far, beating the pants off last weeks trip to Phagnan.
In short , we drove across Phagnan to the ferry back to the mainland, followed by the bus across to Surit Tani, then hopped on the train to Bangkok. This was an overnight sleeper train (comfy enough), we had a day at the weekend market in Bangkok and indulged in retail therapy. After which we caught another overnight train to Chiang Mai. PHEW ... May give into a Thai massage today. It's $200baht which works out to be around $8NZD for an hour!
Chaing Mai is up at the northern end of Thailand, inland. Its a lot cleaner than Phuket and BKK , and very lush. We found a cool hotel with a pool and nice facilities , covered in vines, french architecture, painted pink. so cute. We'll be here tonight and off on a jungle trek over night tomorrow to some remote villages, waterfalls, white water and bamboo rafting and did i mention elephants ? cool cool!!
Back on Koh Phagnan we had a crazy night on the "full moon beach" on a non full moon day, which is, you guessed, it where they have the mad ass, sex fest, bucket drinking, glow stick toting, full moon parties.
We started the night out sensibly, rationing a small amount of money each to take along which was left over from our daily budget. We heeded the warnings all over our hotel not to take valuables (particularly digital cameras) to the party. We were pretty early there, not many people yet, so decided on one bucket at $270B (we were assured this was a 'goot brice' but later discover they are about half this) and also got a Turkish hubbly bubbly with apple tobacco to sit on as we watched the festivities.
An hour later party goers streamed in, I negotiated the next bucket for almost half the original with our remaining cash . We were out of moola and desperately wanted to stay on. Oh oh.... Our drunk selves betrayed the sober and Andy ran back to the hotel to get more and .....the camera! It was such an amazing scene we couldn't resist documenting it! I stayed behind and diligently guarded the bucket and hubbly. Ironically - we took one big pan of the scene and ran out of battery. ARGH!
We continued to have 2 more buckets as the tide edged in. The 'ravers' were mad with booze, dancing on tables , screaming to the bad music, throwing up on the shore. In stark contrast the locals walked along on the tide line with torches collecting the change the tourists drop as they go frivolously mad. The party was really going by this point and we were having some excellent debates when a massive wave came in (not tsunami size but the locals likened it to it) and splashed all up Andy 's leg, wetting our camera! I freaked, yanked it out of his pocket and dried it as much as poss - it was raining too so all round bad situation with a camera with no water resistance at all!
It died that night, I felt sick with frustration at making such a dumbass call ... but luckily when we hit Bangkok it miraculously came on. phewf.
xx
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3 comments:
phew for camera! You are such a good writer Emma! Enjoy yourselves on your grand safari in the north. Looking forward to hearing about that too!
Exclamation marks!!
oh my! heart in mouth! great suspense. have fun up north. love you x x
many off the full mooners come to Phnom Penh for the big Elsewhere parties now too... and that's the party we are going to on Friday night when you arrive!!! no tidal waves though to maneuvre through... but what does happen at the Elsewhere party is young things clad in white (or sometimes clad in nothing at all!) throwing themselves into the pool and you guessed it... it becomes a wet t-shirt comp!! but i go just to dance.... seriously ;)
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