The sunsetting on NYE
After spending New Years Eve on the island of Koh Phangnan, I think I can finally understand how crazy things can get and how you don’t have to plan everything in order to have a great time.
I spend most of my time at home having to be organised; work – emails and keeping on top of incoming news/onsales/cancelled events. Home – having to pay my bills on time, making sure enough money is in my bank to cover the numerous direct debits I currently have active. Training – making sure I’m there on time, my weight/diet is on point, if I’m competing – making sure I’m training enough or switching things up so it doesn’t get tedious and boring. Everything in western life has to be organised… but the trip to Koh Phangnan wasn’t.Well, not really… thanks to everyone who I stole pictures from, I didn’t take my camera, phone or anything with me. A pair of spare shorts, money and iPod… needless to say, it’s all I needed.
My Koh Phagnan survival kit
Our minibus met us at Tony’s at 6ish on 30th December and we began our trip to Surat Thani on the South East coast of Thailand which took just under 3 hours with a crazy, nose picking, death wish having minibus driver. Swerving through traffic and driving on the other side of the road as well as overtaking cars on blind corners was enough to have most of our pants feeling heavy. The neon lights and cool bass pumping sound system WASN’T enough to drown out the sound of the loud Australian lunatic shouting and laughing as I tried to sleep. Thanks Zena.
On board the Party Bus
Arriving at Surat Thani we were told to wait an hour until 10:45pm before we could board the next boat which wasn’t a problem. A quick run round for supplies, a sit down and we boarded. Wow. Is pretty much the only word which could sum it up. As interesting as our boat ride was, people shouldn’t be jealous.
At Surat Thani, moments before boarding the boat
The boat we took actually doubles as a transporter boat for vegetables, beers, luggage and various other things from mainland to islands. The main deck just happened to be cleared out and lined waist height shelving built in to be used as ‘beds’, which is reality were spaces with numbers. None of us however, had numbers. Which caused a few problems to say the least. First of all 6 of us crammed into 4 beds/spaces. Second of all, the 4 spaces were reduced to 2 as the rightful owners turned up to claim theirs. As much as Luke tried sweet talking them and putting himself out there to lie on top of one of them, the backpackers were having none of it.
Boat trip: Never will I complain about no legroom on a plane...
So 4 of us (Luke crashes with somebody else and Travis resorts to sharing a floor mattress with a random Thai woman), proceed to sleep in 2 spaces. Me and Brian spoon which took our training relationship a little further than I wanted. Melissa has her own space and Andy sleeps at the bottom by our feet. A Xanax and 6 hours later we woke up drowsy and in pain from the sleeping arrangements… Welcome to Koh Phangnan.
A taxi to the main beach set us back the equivalent of £2 each. Techno music blasted as ravers from the night before stumbled through the roads and beach. All sleep deprived and hungry we set off to find accommodation and food. We found both. The food was better. Costing 1300 baht for the eight of us (£26), we were driven to a barn in the middle of nowhere, a few miles out from the beach. Consisting of wooden floors, mattress, pillows and a cold water tap to wash in – we took it.
The Barn
Our garden furniture
Luke & Robin checking out the view
The sleeping arrangements
Another few hours later and we were back on the beach and we came to the decision of staying there until New Year. Mushroom Mountain was found and mushroom shakes were consumed by a few of my travelling friends. I drunk for the first time in a while, just the one. Although it wasn’t one. It was a full bottle of Sang Som rum, coke and Red Bull mixer which kept me going for a while.
NYE on Koh Phangnan was absolute brilliance. The way there was horrible but when the clock hit 00:00 the fireworks lit up the beach and the sea. Everybody went mental and the Drum & Bass just pumped. People were on top of makeshift platforms, skipping ropes were set alight and revellers were skipping, some falling others were a little luckier. A beam was set on fire and people limboed under it with fire dripping off the beam and falling onto the sand – mentalists. The MC summed it up; “Big up the people climbing on the frame and setting fire to sh*t, no health and safety here in Thailand…”. I’d like to clarify though, the people setting things on fire were the Thai organisers who were lighting “Happy New Year 2010” on a pre made frame.
Brian showing you how it's done
Thai advertising gets straight to the point
Melissa, Brian, Me
Staying there until 2am, I decided to make my way back with 2 of the others to catch some sleep. The boat back was 7am which meant we had to be up for 6. A quick tap shower to wash the body paint off and I was sound asleep only to be woken up by aforementioned Aussie lunatic stumbling through the barn grabbing her things to catch the boat shortly before 6 (she didn’t wait on for us, she just grabbed her stuff and left). We got up, grabbed everyone’s stuff just in case they made the drunken decision to meet us at the port and headed out. But the saga continues.
Robin, our token fire skipping Belgian, rings us to tell us his money was in his bag and he needed it to get to the port and since we had it… Our ferry was leaving within minutes. We handed the bag over to the Aussie lunatic who told us she’d wait as their boat was leaving slightly later. So 4 of us boarded the ferry. Cue frantic phone calls as the Belgian takes a taxi to meet us at the port to get his bag but we’d left it with Zena, who boarded her boat and was more or less refusing to get off to hand it to him as she was afraid the boat would leave without her. Even though he was calling for 10 minutes and their boat didn’t leave all the way through this 10 minute mess.
Brian saves the day, he takes the bag down to Robin, Brian’s boat leaves and Robin and Brian have to get a separate boat. But where’s Luke? Luke’s still going strong, he’s scored with a couple of girls and he’s back at the barn laying down the law.
The ferry pulls onto mainland 2 hours later, a connecting coach takes us to Surat Thani which takes an hour and we board another coach to Phuket. WHICH TAKES 6 HOURS. But we didn’t know this at the time. All we did know was we were heading home. On a packed coach.. no BUS. I spent half the journey crunched up on the back seat, next to the engine. Which was hot. So hot in fact, it nullified the air con completely.
Anna and Ben on the ferry back
We got back shortly after 6pm on 1st January (Happy New Year!) after what felt like a week of travelling and now after food, 12 hours sleep and a run. I’m writing this to you.
