Hey everyone, its 31st today and everything on this island is pointing towards the Full Moon party tonight, although its not really a proper Full Moon party because its not Full Moon, last night somewhere in the middle of Koh Pangan in a jungle was the Half Moon party. The proper Full Moon party is 2 weeks away yet. The day before yesterday we rented a bike and headed for Haad Rin, this is where the Full Moon parties are staged. Considering up to 30,000 people attend these parties once a month I thought to myself that the beach was very small. But still it looks like its gonna be off the hook!! Whilst in Haad Rin we decided to buy some outfits for the party, think along the lines of Mr Motivator and Timmy Mallet!!! Then add a deck chair to the equation and you might be close to what we look like. Pictures will be on Facebook very soon. Riding the bike was an enjoyable experience, I even had my own speed limiter in miss Alex, I was not aloud to go above 15mph!! A 20 minute bike ride took us an hour!!
Whilst in Haad Rin Miss Alex decided to go and see a nurse about some bites on her legs that had become infected. So miss Alex had her blood pressure taken and temperature, filled out a form, waited 5 minutes then headed for the clinic down the road. I must say everywhere we have been in Thailand ie Pharmacies and clinics have been really well kept and clean. As soon as we walked through the door of this one though we were met by a pile off vomit on the floor!! A young Aussie lad was hobbling about after he’d come off his bike. Maybe miss Alex was right with the 15mph restictions!! We waited for 10 minutes before miss Alex was seen by the “doctor,” who insisted miss Alex needed injections. 10 minutes before this, miss Alex had told me under no circumstances was she going to have injections in this filthy clinic, with vomit on the floor and used needles sat on a tray. The doctor said she could take tablets and cream, this was a result, because over here in Thailand medication is very cheap. So a nurse cleaned up the bites and plastered them up for her. When it came to cost they told us for all the tablets and cream it would cost 8100 baht. (£160) at least Dick Turpin wore a mask when he robbed people!! Miss Alex being a nurse was a godsend, she realised by name that most of the treatment was not necessary and took only the anti biotic cream. The clinic charged 500 baht (£10) just for the pleasure of seeing the doctor and 600 baht (£12) for the cream and to clean the dressing. The clever part here is on the way home miss Alex stopped at a pharmacy and bought the necessary treatment herself, ie anti biotic tablets, anti histamine tablets and dressings, at a cost of 1200 baht (£24) At this point now the infections are healing so miss Alex got it spot on and made a good judgement call. I however being a typical lad and believing everything I’m told, would have taken the 8100 baht charge.
The guesthouse we are staying at is called Seagate, it’s right on the beach front and is full of Kiwis and Aussies. Not really had much to do with them, its fair to say we miss our Koh Samui group. Also we had to pay for a toilet roll top up yesterday, I’m thinking if these want to play games like that they could find them selves with newspaper blocking the drains soon. I thought she was joking when the woman charged me, infact I actually started laughing. I waited for a response and just got the usual blank stare back. Miss Alex then told me this sometimes happens in Guesthouses.
Hopefully we’ll arrange today to meet the Koh Samui gang tonight for a bit of a reunion. We did meet up with Harry and Laura yesterday and rode around the island on 2 bikes. Stopping off at various places along the way. At one point we saw elephants, this photo opportunity was not going to missed by miss Alex. After seeing the elephants up close I cant wait to do a really good treck with them up in Chang Mai I know this is probably gonna be miss Alex’s favourite part of Thailand so we want it to be an experience, and Chang Mai is meant to be the best place to see the Elephants. We want to bath them and play in the water with them and have a ride too maybe even feed them. For some reason as I’m writing this I have that famous advert playing in my head, the Cadburys Rolo advert where the kid teases an Elephant with a rolo and snatches it away last minute to eat for himself, years later the Elephant spots a bloke in a crowd of people at a carnival and recognises the bloke as the little boy and gives him a whack. I’m just hoping I wasn’t mean to any Elephants as a child!! The next stop on our bike ride was a waterfall, I personally thought this waterfall was brilliant, it was nothing spectacular as in volume of water, it was more of a trickle. But the water was coming down on a 45% angle as opposed to a straight drop. It was following the rocks zig zagging in and out making its way down. Unimpressed with the waterfall Laura, Harry and miss Alex suggested we walk up to the view point. The sign said 500 metres. No chance it was only 500 metres away. It was a tough climb to the top and all 4 of us were feeling the midday heat at the top. But what a sight it was! Looking out to the east of the island we could see for miles. Harry is a top lad and he could talk to Martians if they landed, as it was no Martians were there, just a Scottish couple and within seconds we had 2 new people to our gang for the New Year party. The more the merrier!
After the viewpoint we headed back down which was equally as tough, and we decided to take Harry and Laura to Haad Rin to show them the beach where the party will be. Over the last year I must have had 6 punctures on my car, and true to form being in Thailand on bike makes no difference to me whatsoever. POP I had a “flatty.” But because I’m a positive person I always look as if the cup is half empty ……… or is it half full? Anyway 50 yards up the road was a garage. On a small island like this it could have been over on the other side to where I was. I got my inner tube replaced for 250 baht £5, bargain eh!! That was our day on the bike over, we decided to head back before my luck ran out and something major in the engine blew up. This would have been the case with my car back home I’m sure it knew when my luck was down, it always seemed to kick me hard! I didn’t wanna take any chances here as id have to pay for all repairs. I could just see myself at the side of the road like Basil Fawlty hitting the bike with a bamboo cane if it did blow up.
The weather has picked up a lot since we came to Koh Pangan and the rest of today will be panic tanning because miss Alex is convinced we’ve lost a shade of brown since Phi Phi.
2011 has been a really enjoyable year, even if it did start at the very bottom of the pile, I was working for a scaffold firm called Sterling and every Friday usually ended up with me and my mate Longy going into the office to argue over £20 that was missing from our wage. Now I’m Starting 2012 at the very top with miss Alex in Thailand on a beach in the sun with no such worries about £20 here or there. I couldn’t ask for a better start to the year. As this is my last blog of the year I would like to wish you all a very happy new year from miss Alex and me, to our parents we love you so much xxx
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