3/8/2006
I wandered round the Khao San road in the morning, trying to ignore the faint whiff of sick in various spots, had my phone unlocked and bought a new sim card and had a leg wax for about ten quid altogether. I was in no mood to really enjoy bangkok, to be honest I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Having spent most of the last 5 years in London, I'm not that fussed about big cities at the moment. Maybe I'll enjoy it more in a few weeks.

I caught the 7pm overnight bus to Surat Thani, the port for Ko Pha Ngan and chatted to the couple in front of me who were off to Ko Samui. I had a little old Thai lady next to me whoi spoke even less English than I did Thai (no English compared to my vocabulary of toilet and thankyou).She seemed to be much more able to deal with sleeping on overnight buses than I was, judging by her snoring. I had foolishly left my travel pillow and my earplugs under the bus.

4/8/2006
I got dropped off at Surat Thani on my own at 5am (the bus was going on to Ko Samui), and tried to get myself a sawngthaew (a kind of pick up truck taxi with benches down each side) to the bus stop for the port. Sadly the driver seemed to think it was necessary to take me to a travel agency where they wanted to charge me twice the price necessary for a combined tourist bus and boat ticket. In kept explaining over and over again that I wasn't interested in overpriced tourist buses, that the local bus would be fine, could he please take me to Talet Kaset 1 bus stop. Three more travel agencies later (each of which he tried to convince me was a bus stop), he finally took me to the wrong bus stop (I think out of spite because he'd felt I'd wasted his time by not giving him a commission from rip-off prices). Thankfully, my ability to read the English sign above my head helped, and I refused to pay him until he took me to the correct bus stop.

When we finally got to the correct bus stop and I paid the guy, he was quite cross with me and waved his arms around a lot before he left. A nice, well dressed man came over to check that everything was ok. After the driver had gone, I got chatting to the guy, who tells me that his son was gewtting married that day. I looked over to the other side of the road and saw the whole wedding party preparing to depart for the ceremony in very bling cars decorated with ribbons and bows. I felt bad that one of the first things they'd seen on their wedding day was me arguing with the bastard, swindling driver, so I offered to take some photos for them before they left. Sadly they were all a bit shit. I think I need to practice more with my new camera before I become a wedding photographer!

Eventually the sawngthaew turned up and I got on. It goes along a set route, like a bus does, but people get on or off whenever they want, signalling to the driver that they want to get off by banging on the roof. When people got on, they were avoiding sitting next to me - I must have smelt pretty bad by this stage! A group of school girls in their late teens got on, one with a watch saying London Underground of all things. It turned out that she's never been to London and couldn't speak English, so she spent the next few minutes teaching me to say yes, no, goodbye and the numbers up to 5. I tried to explain to them that I'm a maths teacher using lots of complicated mimes and saying the numbers that I'd just learnt, but they just looked at me like I was mad and giggled a lot, so I gave up. They got off the bus and then I sat next to a 7 year old who just stared at me in a kind of bewildered horror - she wouldn't come near me, or take her eyes off me (for fear of what an evil, smelly creature like myself would do if she turned away perhaps?). I tried smiling at her and she edged away. I pulled faces and she hid in her Mum's T-shirt. She clearly thought that I was Buddhism's answer to beelzebub. I tried one last time when she got off the bus. I blew a rasberry at her and said goodbye in Thai. She finally giggled and ran away.

When I finally got to the ferry port I dumped my bags and went to have a quick and much needed wash. On the way, this old guy tried to cop a feel of my arse and then asked me for money. Oddly enough I didn't give him any money. I wonder if this is a strategy that normally works with female travellers?

On the ferry I got chatting to this Parisian guy called JB. There was a beautiful view of the mainland from the ferry with a huge sitting Buddha on a hill, and in the opposite direction, in the distance - the islands. Suddenly the sky darkened and the heavens opened. When the ferry docked and we got off we were bdrenched within seconds. I had planned to go straight to the north of the island, to the quieter, less developed beaches, but since most of the roads were unsealed, and the sawngthaew are open sided, this seemed like a bad idea. JB offered me the spare bed in his twin room, which was just a mile down the road, and I jumped at the chance to get out of the rain.

In the afternoon we went into Hat Rin, the traveller centre of Ko Pha Ngan, and Thailand's answer to Ibiza. It's a tacky place filled with travellers that are about 5-10 years younger than me, with a non-stop nightlife. To be honest, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

5/8/2006
I spent most of the morning sunbathing (or rather cloudbathing) n the lovely little stretch of bech in front of JB's bungalow. I made the mistake of assuming that, as the sun wasn't visible, factor 15 should suffice. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. My back is still recoverring from that error of judgement.

I spent the evening teaching JB to poi, eating wonderful spicy food cooked up by the lovely, smiley owners of the place, drinking vodka and fresh orange juice, and having after-sun rubbed into my back by any brave soul who was willing to get that close to the furnace that was my back. You could have made a Pad Thai on it, it was giving off so much heat.

6/8/2006

Sadly (for my back) I decided that it was time to move on as I wanted to get to the less-developed beaches to the north, and JB and I were starting to get in each other's hair a bit.

I heaved my luggage (of which there is far too much) onto my sore back and set off. I caught a sawngthaew with a sweet Irish boy called Jamie, and then we caught a boat together to Bottle beach - the latest minimally developed, beach hut filled beach (with squat toilets and electricity at certain times of the day, when it works). It's absolutely beautiful - a small, white sand bay enclosed on both sides by lushly forested hills. In places, the beach is covered in what looks like bindweed and I keep seeing geckos and butterflies everywhere. At times the wind picks up to a ridiculous degree and there's sand flying everywhere (when that happens everyone just piles into the restaurant, they put down screens and people just get pissed.

I spent the day avoiding the sun (my burn now seemed to be much redder and more painful since I'd carried my 16kg rucksack across the island), reading, and making new friends: Ben and Jamie are two New Yorkers who are travelling round Asia, both with guitars (you've got to admire their dedication to music). They listened to Tracey Chapman on my MP3 player, and within a few minutes they were able to play Fast Car perfectly while I sang. It was great! Later I ran into Jamie and his friends and we stayed up until the early hours of the morning, chatting shite and drinking cocktails on the beach.

7/8/2006

I had breakfast with Jamie, Craig and Susie before they left for Ko Sumui and we agreed to keep an eye out for each other at the full moon party in a couple of days. I went back to my beach hut and finished off the Time Traveller's Wife to avoid the sun. I left my hut in a bit of a daze from reading too much, checked my e-mail, and then went to get my dinner. I ran into Brian and Yohanna, my hut neighbours at the restaurant and spent a very pleasant evening chatting with them about where we'd been, where we were going, teaching (I might start telling people I'm an accountant or a shop manager or something - nobody will want to ask me questions about that), environmental problems and music. Being as they were both Canadian, and neither had any idea of whom Joni Mitchell was, I felt the need to correctv this absolute travesty and we went back to theirs, listened to music on my mp3 player and played San Juan.

Just before I went to bed, I went to the toilet (it's a shared toilet in a seperate building) and saw this HUGE spider, with a leg span larger than my fist, 3mm wide legs at least, and a body roughly the size (not shape) of a 50p piece). Eurgh.

I went back to my room, went to bed, but couldn't sleep as it was so hot. I decided to get up for a bit, I switched the light on and saw a cockroach that was far larger than any cockroach has a right to be in any reasonable and sane world. It was crawling along the ledge behind my pillow. I tried not to scream and just stood there, frozen to the spot in horror as it strolled towards the door (thank christ). I backed away from the door, and sadly into my bed, sat down on it heavily, and pulled the mosquito net down in the process. I had to stand on the ledge that the cockroach had just been on. Ick.

I went to bed again, took a while to get to sleep, and then got woken at 2am by a gnawing, scratching, rodenty sound coming from the same ledge behind my head. I just lay there in horror, thinking that if I put my hand out to switch on the light, it would be right across the escape route to the door for whatever creature it was, and I didn't want it running into (or biting) my arm. After about half an hour of thumping the bed frame periodically, and telling it to fuck off (which, oddly enough, had very little effect), I finally braved the light switch, only to find that it had already gone when I got out of bed.

I decided that, much as I like going to sleep to the sounds of the wind and the sea, I would rather not know what was out there on the other side of my mosquito net, and wore earplugs for the rest of the night.

Sadly, I woke up yet again at about 4am when my mosquito net decided to fall on top of me.

8/8/2006

I got up and went through my usual routine of showering, brushing my teeth and applying copious quantities of after sun, sun cream and insect repellant all over. Then just lazed around in the restaurant and in my hut to avoid the sun. Eventually I got fed up of lazing and decided that I needed some exercise. I took a path behind the huts that Brian had told me about previously and did a pretty tough walk of about 4km for the return journey, climbing about 300m. The last bit involved climbing a steep rock face by balancing on the cracks. The views from the top made it all worthwhile though.

I was lucky to get back in time to miss a weather front that came in, bringing virtually gale force winds and rain - apparently it was the outer reaches of a tornado over S China.

I ran into Ben and Jeff at dinner (the guitar guys), and met a bunch of people that they'd been drinking with the night before. We all drank, smoked and chatted for hours. It turns out that Ben and Jeff are both teachers in inner city New York schools. Their school sounds remarkably like a couple that I've been in, except that thankfully, we rarely see guns. Jeff is also a mountaineering guide, travelling round after leading a trek in the Himalayas. Even he said that the walk up to the big rock is pretty tough!

I went to bed early to prepare for a very late night the following night, and to recover from the previous night.

As I was getting ready for bed, I saw the rodent from last night - a big bastard of a rat. He made me jump, but was kind of cute - I preferred him to the cockroach.

9/8/2006

I woke up, and went outside in the morning. After stretching and staring bleary-eyed at the world until I recognised things and could name them(trees, sea etc), I noticed that several of the huts were missing roof tiles - the storm had blown them off. I went and had a lovely breakfast of fresh fruit, yoghurt and a wierd rice pudding for just over a pound (I have to say, the food in Thailand has been amazing, it's foodie heaven). I went to one of the restaurants on the beach that has internet to find that it was still down because of the storm. I got chatting about the full moon party that night with this lovely Irish girl called Kate, and then ran into a couple of people that I'd met the previous evening, whose names I'd completely forgotten. I love this beach, it feels like a little community and everyone's so nice and friendly. Sadly I missed Brian and Yohanna leaving - still, that means that the next door hut is empty, and I can use their hammock. Aaaaaaaaaaah.

I'm currently sharing my room with what I think is a salamander - it's about the volume of my forarm, only it's longer and thinner and has legs. It runs quite quickly to the rafters whenever I come into the room (sadly before I have the chance to get my camera out), I think it's scared of me. It's actually quite cute, and it's nice that for once a creature is more scared of me than I am of it. I haven't actually been close enough to either to establish their gender with any degree of certainty, but as they appear to be my new roommates, I felt that they should have names - Sally and Roland.

The sunburn has now faded sufficiently that I feel able to step out of the shade and go for a swim periodically. The sea is just gorgeous - lovely and warm, and pretty clear.

Towards the evening I met Kate's friends - Ruth, Jamie and Caragh. Jamie and Caragh are on their honeymoon, travelling round SE Asia for a few weeks before they emigrate to Australia. Kate and Ruth are with them for a couple of weeks to say bye. The absolute darlings decided to adopt me for the full moon party that night.

I went back to my hut and got ready, gave my valuables to the hotel staff to put in the safe, and then waited for the transport to the other side of the island in a state of nervous excitement. The full moon parties are huge and much talked about events, but I had no idea what to expect at all.

A 4-wheel drive pick up with benches in the back turned up - we all crammed in, then went on a 40 minute ridiculously bumpy journey along some of the worst dirt tracks I've ever seen, through some amazing moonlit landscapes. The full moon lit up the hills, bathing everything in a mysterious blue light that just added to the atmosphere of anticipation as our bums were collectively bounced across Ko Pha Ngan.

To be continued....
(I'm not trying to be annoying, the internet is still down on Bottle beach, and I'm at the other end of the island right now, but have to catch the last boat back)