Well I'm back. And after reading a mates blog for the first time, decided to resurrect this blog which I had "Deleted" (thankyou Google for the "Undelete" button!). Anyways, I'm sitting in my room at work after arriving home from my 10 nights in Thailand, and what a couple of weeks it's been!
8 flights in 14 days has seen me fly from work in the Pilbra to Perth, to Singapore, to Phuket and finally to Ko Phanang and then backwards again. And from all of that what have I concluded? That the charter craft used by Cobham Aviation is a lot more comfortable than Jetstar or Bangkok airways, leaving them squarely still in the crap basket for tall people!
As for the trip itself? Well what a corker. The lowest point for me would probably be the 3/4 of a day in bed after the Full Moon Party with suspected food poisoning which could've been contracted from numerous sources, each as likely as the other. Be it the pool water mixed in with the buckets of Vodka and Redbull or Singapore Slings, or the kebab I foolishly washed in tap water after dropping it whilst drunk (key word being drunk - not a normal act) or the dinner from the night before that was still far too spicey for my liking. As for the high's? Well where to start.
The foam parties at the Drop In Resort & Spa were pretty cool, the first day but lost their cool factor after day 3 when the playlist became memorised and we started to realise just how potent the water really was. To give you an idea of that, I recently had surgery on my ankle and the freshly healed scar started weeping whilst in the pool one afternoon. That in itself wasn't so worrying as annoying because it had taken a bit of a beating, but the scar on my chest which is a good 2 or 3 years old now also started weeping and this was a little more concerning. A good does of some antiseptic creams and they started clearing up (thankfully).
Then theres the Full Moon Party, the basis around which our trip was organised and the most looked forward to part of the whole holiday. This too also became a small let down for me. With Dan sick as a dog in bed and me not feeling too crash hot to start with, it became more of a spectacle to watch as the thousands of drunks around danced, drank, skipped (well attempted to) in a skipping rope of fire and partied in a fasion unseen back home. I think I'll go into this a bit more in a seperate post but for here, it just turned out to be less enjoyable than planned.
Phuket, now there is where the fun really started. There's the first night where just the boys went out to Bangla street (aka. party central) and got on the piss, loudly discussing (or more making fun of) whether the bird I was flirting with was actually a female or not, before me dragging them into a neighbouring AGoGo show with the allure of Free Entry. Soon found out why it was free. One round of beer on me (normally cheap beer too @ 60-80 Thai Baht) ended up costing me 4800 Baht for 6 people (@ 800 B each). Now I'm sure I've lost you here with the alien pricing so here's a conversion. AU$1 ~ B30 so B800 ~ AU$26.60 making 6 beers about $160!!!! Needless to say that we made them last longer than normal. At least that was made a little easier with the entertainment. First dragged on stage with the strippers was myself and another tourist who was probably a little more embarresed than myself (I was too busy laughing). As for what happened? I got off easy, only having to eat apple off a naked woman in different positions. Dan on the other hand wasn't so lucky. I won't detail it too much, but imagine him lying on stage with nothing but a bath towel and a blind fold and 3 naked woman rubbing bath oil all over him - without hands!
I'm gonna leave that night there as it is now essentially over, with the rest being for personal laughs later on.
Another highlight included canooing through the mangroves and islands near James Bond Island, to hiring a Speedboat to take the 8 of us out for the day around Raya Island to do some snorkelling and just relax in general on beautifal tropical beaches. Or there's the FantaSea theatrical show which was nothing short of spectacular. Amazing, colourful, huge. All words that come to mind.
Theres also the other night out on the town, starting at a Ping Pong show which was full of laughs with people constantly being dragged onto stage to assist with the show which is both disturbing and curiously amazing at the same time. Something you must see at least once whilst in Phuket.
But after all of this (if your still reading that is) I think the most exciting part was meeting all the different people also on holiday. Whilst Aussies are the dominant tourist in Phuket, there is still a large number of people from many interesting places, a few of which I would not have picked as being the larger tourist groups. In Ko Phanang, the other large group were Israeli's, one of which quit her job to go on holiday. Then in Phuket there were Russians. Facebookthats what I enjoy most about travelling, the people. A place may be beautifal, but without the people, it is just another place. Whether they're local or tourists like myself, they all still have stories that add character and a feeling of being a little more connected to a place that photo's in front of a red phone box or large rock on a postcard just can't give.
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