Craigs’ big trip

(9th Sepember)

After a beer and a catchup, I headed over to the SPA to book a massage (not a ‘tap tap’ massage either), which fit me in at 6pm.

I headed back to the group and chatted for a bit.

6m rolls around, so I head over to the SPA.  I get organised, get into my towel and hop on the table which is infront of a large open bifold window, meters from the crashing waves…this is paradise!

The massage lasted an hour and the thai woman who wasnt very big, was certainly very strong.

The massage I had was an ‘aromatherapy’ message, which was basiccaly a full body massage/rub down as opposed to the traditional deep tissue, bending and cracking massage that the others had earlier.

OMG…I felt soo relaxed afterwards and the best thing, it was free as part of our group booking, but 250TB ($10NZ) is pretty cheep anyway, so I dont think this will be my last!.

Anyway, the dinner plan consisted of all of us (except Amanda and Cliff) heading into town (5 min walk).  It like trying to heard cats with this group!

We ended up along the beach where the FMP will be held, which is lined with stalls ready to sell booze.

We fond a resturant, and dragged 4 large tables together to accomodate all of us.  The first order of the day was a ‘bucket’, which is a common drinking vessel at the FMP.

The bucket, which is literaly is a small bucket is filled with whiskey or vodka, coke and red bull.  All this for 300TB ($12 NZD).

Ironically, they come with 4 straws, which would clearly indicate how many people should be sharing one.  We ordered 16, one each!.

OMFG…..Needless to say, dinner was very loud and i think we scared a few punter off.

Alot of the group had finished theirs…Kate, Im sure is a man in a pretty package, she was the first girl to finish hers (in fornt of most of the guys)…so drinking is one of her talents, as well as flying, riding bikes and driving articulated trucks…

I had about 1/4 of mine and couldnt do any more.  I’m sure if I had tried, it would of killed me….thank god for my low tollerance to alcohol and knowing my limits.

Afterwards, a few of the group jumped in to the pool, again, not sure if we were allowed to or not.

Emma hit her head on the bottom resulting in a MASSIVE lump on her head, so after some ice and calming down a bit, we all headed back to HQ.

A couple of the group wnet to bed and the rest went down to the beach and made lots of noise.

I retired about midnight.

CraigieeA signing off nonooo…nanooo

(9th September)

After my walk and getting a chance to update the last couple of days activities on teh blog, I caught up with Angela, Matt, Nicky , Jeremy and Bevan for breakfast.

Angela was quite excited because she had accepted a new role that had been waiting in the wings due to a restructure, so Matt and Angela had been celebrating with a couple of cocktails.

With breakfast out of the way, we decided the best plan for the day was to hire some motor bikes and ruise the island. 

We walked down to Han Rinn (5 mins) and had a look around.  Its a very cosey place, very narrow streets with lots of pot holes, very quiant.

There are hireage places littered around everywhere, so we chose one and hired 5 quad bikes and 2 scooters.

So, the wild hogs we have for the trip are : Me, Bevan, Steve, Jeremy & Nicky, Matt & Angela, Grant & Ruth, Sephan & Emma (who had just turned up today) .  There was a bit of ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ picking people up to take them to the bike shop to to get them sorted etc before we were finally ready to leave.

We headed out and drove for about an hour and a bit to almost the top of the island, all in convoy.

We found a great place on the beach for lunch.  After lunch, all the boys decided to take advantage of the pool that was part of the establishment (not sure if we were allowed to, but no one said anything).

After lunch, we all jumped back on our ‘hardleys’, Matts term for wannabe Harley, and the adventure continued.

We headed back home, via the center of the island which was also a very plesant trip, narrow roads, lots of pot holes and trucks to avoid.

We returned back and found Cliff and Amanda had arrived, the final peice of the puzzle was not in place, the group is complete…we have :
Me, Dave, Bevan, Steve. Matt & Angela, Matt & Kate, Jeremy & Nicky, Stehan & Emma, Cliff and Amanda, Grant & Ruth.

The group has a fantastic dynamic and its a pleasure to be part of it.

CraigieeA signing off  nanooo….nanooo

(9th September)

Damn body clock, as well as having a restless painful sleep, I was awake at 6am and couldnt get back to sleep.

I got up and went for a walk around with my camera and took a few snaps and sussed out the place, this will be our paradise home for the next few days.  I like it, I like it a lot!.

Today is a little vercast and windy, which is a shame, but I’m sure it will get better.

On the way back to the room, I met Mike, Sam and Chris, three english guys who had just arrived and are also gonig to the FMP (full moon party).  We had a bit of a chat, then got back to my room to write dwon what I had been doing this morning.

(9th September)

My moutgh feels like it has a drill in it.  It was killing me on the boat trip over but thankfully a couple of nurofen helped out for a couple of hours.

I was awoken by the pain at midnight and could not get back to sleep.

I’m a little concerned at how much this is hurting, I usually have quite a high pain threshhold.  I called the travel insurance place, the $5.50  minute seamed insignificant to this stage.

They were very helpful, but because it has to do with a filling in a tooth that is weaker than the rest, I may noy be covered.

I will have to go and see a dentist tomorrow and get it looked at.  8 more days of this would drive me insane!

I guess on the posotive side, its confronting one of my worst fears, being in a foreign country with an illness.

So tomorrow, Craigiees big adventure to the dentist…

(8th September)

The flight to Kph Samui is about an hr.  We landed at a very beautiful looking airport with pristine gardens and buildings with hatched roofs, it was pretty cool.

We organised a shuttle into town and the boat trip to the island where we would be staying, all up it cost us 300TB ($15 NZD) for both.

We arrived at the dock about 4:30pm and the ferry wasnt leaving till 6:30…so we did what we had been doing most of the trip so far.  We sat, we chatted and we drunk more beer.

Finally the ferry turns up to pick us up and everyone boards.  There was a pretty dark looking cloud on the horizon that seamed to get bigger and bigger, looks like rain.

We head off and we are all sitting on the top deck, which is partially covered, we are all sitting with our luggage.

All of a sudden. the rain hids hard and fast and we all get drenched while the boat starts rocking from side to side.  We all grab our suitcases and manage to get them downstairs with out too much drama.

in the meantime, my tooth is killing me, it hurt like a ….[please insert word(s) here]. 

So we finally arrived at the island about about an hours of being rocked and soaked.  We are picked up by the resport shuttle and taken to our slice of paradise.  We all take a chance and freshen up before meeting for more drinks and dinner.

I got to meet some more of the extended family, Jeremy and Nicky, Ruth and Grant (who we had breifly caught up with in Bangkok).  After a nice dinner and some cocktails, I called it a nigth at 10:30pm (3:00am NZ) fighting to keep my eyes open.

I add this last entry before I hop into bed.

 CraigieeA signing off nanoo…nanoo

(8th September) 

God damn, its 6am and I cant sleep anymore, even after a late night.  I have a dull ache in my mouth which I find is due to a chipped tooth and exposed nerves…Not a good start to the next leg of our adventure.

So today, we all head to Koh Samui via plane then catch a ferry to the island we are staying on and meet up with the next group of people we will be partying with…another 9 people.

This will ROCK!!!

A few of us met for breakfast and planned our activities before we get picked up at 12pm.

Kate, Matt, Dave and I caught a taxi to the Imperial Palace and had a good look around with the aid of a guide who also wanted to extort us, but we got her down to 500TB for the group.

The tour lasted about an hour and I took lots of pics.  It is certainly an amazing place  and the detail and intricacy of the work is astonishing.
All templed out, we returned and did our own thing for a bit, so I was on a mission to find an internet cafe so I could start publishing more stories.

We were all picked up at 12 and taken to the airport, where we checked in and I got to meet another new member of the team ‘Steve’ who had just flown in from NZ a couple of hrs before.

We all hopped on to a very colorful prop plane and headed to Koph Samui…I slept.

The n ext leg of our journey begins..

7th September

So, we are on our longboat for a 1 1/2 hr cruising of the canals, I’m sure its just like venice, but different.  There is a very stark contrast between rich and poor along the banks of the dirty river.  The trip was very cool and we saw some sort of water lizard and lots of huge fish, which I dont think I would really want to eat considering where they are comming from.

After the boat trip we caught a taxi to MBK which is a HUGE mall for some shopping!!!!

The afternoon was a bit of a blur, actually so is the evening and early hours of the following morning, we did so much.

We all came back and had some time to ourselves for a couple of hours.  Some slept, some shopped, I shopped.

I banged in to Sema again, I’m not sure if she was happy to see me again because she was being friendly, or just being friendly because she saw it as another to hussle some TB (Thai Bhat) from me.  I think it may of been both.

After some more shopping, we all went to dinner at a nice place of Koh San Rd (the road we are staying on), which I cant fir the life of me remember the name, it was something like sum yun gai, or maybe it wasn’t.

Dinner was great, I had duck with orange sauce and a few beers and a few Kamakazie drinks, which is a very cool blue cocktail served by the jug, which is a bout $12 NZD.  It is fair to say that we drunk a few of these.

So after dinner, Matt and Kate went their own way as it was their 1 year anniversary (HAPPY ANIVERSARY) which was very cool.  They went back to their room, not sure why!!

Angela and Matt also went their own way, which left the 3 single (Dave, Bevan and I) to find something to do..

We went to Patpong Road (which is another famous area in Bangkok) for some more shopping and a show, which was expensively interesting to say the least!.

We got back to the base camp about 11pm (4aM nz) and had another look around, as the markets close at midnight.

Dave left for bed first, and Bevan not long after.  I was still wide awake, so kept walking and stopped and had a beer in one of the bars down the road which was open 24 hours.  I met some very cool people and finally headed to bed about 3am (8am NZ).  I think I may be a little sleep tomorrow.

We are off to the island tomorrow….YAY!!!!!

(6th September)
Today, well I awoke a couple of times with a burning throat and a churning stomach, was not lesent, but was gone by morning.
We all headed for breakfast in the hotel so we could plan our day.
We decided to walk to the Palance to have a look around, but were told that we shouldn’t go because the girls (Kate, Angela and Dave) were not covered up enough (no shorts or singlets, or bareing shoulders).
Oh, and on the way down to the temple, I was at the back of the pack and was confronted by a little old lady who had plastic bags of corn kernels for feeding the pigeons.
She grabbed my hand and empited a bag into it and shook my hand so all the corn fell on to the ground and I suddenly had a lot of feathered friends.
She then put 2 bags in my hand so I emptied them on the ground also, then she told me 150TB ($6NZ) per bag and she would not let me go until I paid her! That was the most expensive pop corn I ever brought!….
So to plan B it was.
We walked to the river to hire a long boat.
The guys at the desk certainly saw us comming and was going to charge up 1300TB ($55NZD)each for the boat. We had bartered him down to 400TB per person whilst a coulple of us went to another desk and found out it was 1300TB per BOAT. So needless to say, we walked away from the first guy.

(6th September)

OMFG….this place is amazing!!!!

So, here we are all sitting in an outdoor bar just down the road from the hotel.  We were just going to pop in for a quick bite before having a look around.  We left 7 houts later, all trollied loking for somewhere else for dinner (2am NZ time)

This is why we were at the bar for so long :

-I picked up the first tab for 12 large Toger beers (660mls) and meals for 7 of us, it was 2400 TB (Thai Bhat), about $90 NZ.
Subsequent rounds were even cheeper but also consisted of more Tiger beer, double vodka and red buuls and long island ice teas and a ‘tower’ of Singa beer.

-Street hawkers comming to the table every 5 minutes trying to sell you something.

-Limbless beggers comming to your table asking for money

-and my personal favourite, Sema.  Sema is a 9 year old girl  who sells roses, I brought 3 roses for 60TB for the girls at the table and she wanted to thumb wresstle me for another 100TB.  She kicked my ass!!!
She captivated the table for about an hour with magic tricks, card tricks and a very cheeky sense of humor.  This little girls knows how to husstle!.  She will be a hell of a sales women when she grows up.

So, after having, which I thought were just red bulls, I was feeling a little curious as to why I was feeling more drunk….It took me about 4 to realise that it wa double vodka and red bull…then I had to drink some more. just to make sure.

Anyway, we finally staggered out of ther bar and found a place for dinner just around the corner…WOWm it was nothing short of stunning.  It was an outdoor place with indoor rooms with couches and pretty lights on the trees.  It would of easily passed as a 5 star place in NZ except the waiteresses in Auckland dont wear short shirts and knee high boots.

We had dinner, and went back to the hotel (3am NZ time), I had a ouple more drinks with Dave and Bevan abnd hit the sack about 4am NZ time…..

So, that was was last night….

What a ride…..its has been non stop all of last night and a morning of flights with little sleep, but we finally made it!

We have just checked into our hotel, which is alled Buddy Hotel which is basic, but comfortable.  Directly outside the hotel are heaps of stalls of all sorts of goodies which we will be checking out very soon, we are all about to meet in 10 mins to start some sight seeing and check out the local area.  OMG, things here are so cheep, I think I’m going to have to buy a bigger suitcase.

I think the adrenaline will wear off eventually, but will certainly be making the most of before it does.

The hotel has a spa, internet cafe, tailor, tattoo parolur and a bar directly under it, which could make for an interesting evening…

Anyway, my internet counter is ticking down, and I dont have any coins left until I buy something….so this is CraigieeA signing off…  nonoo nanooo