Year: 2003

it was the night after new years, and we went back out to the cactus club. everything was very subdued and mellow. i guess that everyone was recovering from new years night. it was our last night on kho phangan though, and we wanted to get drunk and have a good time. the night before we had been really jealous of all the people that had been blowing up fireworks. unfortunately none were sold here in haat rin, but dawn had gone to a different town today and bought some. we spent the next half an hour blowing up fireworks on the beach. so fun!! like i have already written a bunch of times, there are hardly any laws here. we were able to blow up tons of fireworks and no one tried to stop us or anything. actually, it was kinda sketchy, cause we were blowing stuff up right near all the bars and tons of sparks etc were hitting the different bars and the forrest behind us. luckily nothing caught fire. phew! heh, actually at one point we lit off a rocket that was supposed to fly really high in the air, but instead, it blew up on the ground and we were bombarded w/ sparks all over the place, and all over us. doh!

so it was getting late and we remembered that we had promised joey that we’d go on a mission for him. he had gotten some photos of himself and other people he was traveling w/ taken w/ the owner of a bar called cafe hiatus. he asked us to drop these photos off to the owner of the bar. we set off to look for it, and it was really hard to find that late at night, but eventually we stumbled upon the bar. unfortunately the bar was pitch black and way closed. we were pretty drunk by then though, so we decided to just venture into the bar and drop off the photos somewhere (behind the bar maybe?). after stumbling about in the dark, all of sudden we hear someone’s voice yell out at us “what are you doing? what you want here?” we look around and finally notice a lady’s head peaking out of a window above the bar. all of a sudden we felt really stupid. we started trying to explaining that we had pretty much broken into this bar to drop off some photos. she looked at us with a quizzical face.. “photos??”. so she comes down all half asleep and tired and we try to explain that we have photos of the bar owner w/ some travelers etc and after showing her the photos, her face seemed to brighten up and she seemed to be in a good mood (i guess she recognized ?her husband?). we left the photos and took off back to the rooms. your welcome joey!

-v

when we were about to leave kho tao, we realized that a lot of the roads here were totally flooded. usually this wouldn’t be a problem (we could just take a taxi) but we needed to return our mopeds back to the pier. so we would have to brave the roads. also, i had dropped off my laundry at a place, and needed to get it back before we left the island. since it was raining, the laundry place hadn’t finished my laundry yet and for some bizarre reason the lady started screaming at us when i asked for the laundry back. she also gave us the nastiest scowl i’ve ever seen in my life. it’s so weird cause i’ve never seen any thai people act like this. i finally got my laundry back, clean but not dry, and didn’t realize till later that night that the lady had stolen (or forgotten) my shorts. damn!

so as i mentioned, the roads were insane and honestly i’m amazed that we were able to drive on them. at one point we went thru this stretch where the water was a foot deep, and we actually had to lift our feet off of the pedals so they wouldnt be submerged under water! when we got to the pier we told the ticket lady that we already had tickets for the 3pm ferry, but she tried to tell us that the boat was full so we couldnt go. no matter how many times we told her and showed her our tickets, she wouldnt budge. at this point we started to panic. it was the 31st, and if we couldnt get a ferry to the huge new years party on kho-phangan, we would be stuck on quiet kho tao for new years. finally we were able to talk to another lady who fixed the problem for us. it’s a shock how disorganized so much of the stuff here is. the ferries get canceled all the time, and the non-canceled ones are often late, hotels are often not sure how many rooms they have vacant, and basically everyone just goes about their jobs w/ not too much concern for the customer or anything else.

back on kho-phangan, all the hotels were completely booked up for nye so i ended up sharing a room w/ jenny and eric. their room is one of the nicest rooms i’ve seen so far: good water pressure in the shower and an actual flush toilet (it’s amazing how much you start valuing the little things in life). after enjoying a delicious dinner, we went out to start celebrating.

new years was so much fun! the whole beach is lined w/ bars, and all sorts of crazy day glo decorations. also there are makeshift bars set up all over the beach itself. there are tons of sound systems blaring music up and down the beach and everyone is rocking out. here you can get these buckets filled w/ whatever hard alcohol you choose, and the buckets have like 10 straws so you and all your friends can drink at the same time. soo much fun! the buckets are about 300B (7.50) and have tons of alcohol in them. needless to say, everyone out that night was drunk as hell.

being here to celebrate new years was so crazy. imagine the wildest party you’ve been to, times a hundred, mixed w/ 8,000 people from all over the planet, all set in a gorgeous tropical setting. people were also setting off fireworks all over the beach, and there were people spinning fire etc. we bought a bottle of champagne and when the clock hit midnight, we shook it up like crazy, sprayed it everywhere and drank what was left. i guess there’s some tradition where people are supposed to kiss on nye or something and several times through out the night random girls just came up to me and started kissing me, which was pretty cool. we spent the rest of the night dancing and partying until about 4:30 in the morning.

the next day was pretty mellow. woke up fairly late cause we were tired form the night before, and then i spent the rest of the day hanging out w/ jenny and eric. i didn’t know them at all before this trip and didn’t know what to expect from them, and they turned out to be hella cool and we had a good time hanging out. although usually i’m super shy w/ people i dont know well, i’ve felt very at ease w/ them.

we got a thai massage today, and it was sooooooo good. this one put the other one i had to shame! all 3 of us could barely walk after it was over. tonight is the last night here on kho-phangan, and tomorrow we’re leaving to go to krabi, on the west side of the south of thailand.

-v