Our beach was pretty mint and in an effort to drag ourselves away from it we hired a bike from my new best mate as this was apparently his other source of income other than working in the restaurant and buying and selling in the lucrative Thai guitar trade. We headed for the main beach of Samui, which is supposed to be like the Patong of this island (see previous post). We thought we were going for a nice quiet cruise down to the beach and maybe a look around the shops-how wrong we were. Cue Sally…. Sally was an English girl who pulled up next to us on the side of the main street of Chaweng and asked us the usual questions ‘How’re Ya goin’, Where’re from etc etc. After the formalities were over Sally produced some scratch cards and asked us if we would like to give them a go assuring us there was no strings attached and all that guff. Well why not, we were in a good mood and whaddaya know?! I had apparently won a ‘star prize’ which was exceptionally lucky as there were only about 6 of these out of the thousands of scratchy tickets issued and I had just scratched one. My prize was either a new laptop, a video camera, a dream holiday, $1000 U.S dollars and a couple other things I can’t remember right now. All I had to do was go to a certain office, answer a few questions and the gift would be mine. Simple! Or was it…I know what you’re thinking, ‘how could he fall for this shit? Doesn’t he know if it sounds to good to be true then…’ Yeah I know!! But at the time it didn’t seem much of a big deal and both Kate and I said to each other if they try to sell us something we’ll say no and then be on our way, hopefully with $1000 U.S dollars in tow. Sally was just about peeing herself with excitement as she stood to make 3000 baht (about $100 AUD) if I arrived to cash in my prize and I couldn’t let her lose out on her commission now could I? So off we went.
The next two and a half hours were a disturbing insight into the cut-throat business of tourism and development in Thailand, specifically Koh Samui, that was supposed to last no more than ninety minutes. Well, we had everyone there from the managers to the tea lady putting the hard sell on us to join their ‘membership club’. We even got driven up to one of their hotels to show us the benefits of joining their ‘club’. The hotel was like five plus stars and after our little back packer bungalow huts of the last couple months we were like two starving people being shown an all you can eat buffet. The sales pitches kept coming, and a particularly smarmy pom named ‘James’ sat us down and pumped every manipulative sales mind game he could muster into us and still we refused to crack. The jist of what they were offering was this; you pay $4000 AUD and for the next three years you can stay in any of their 3000+ four and five star hotels worldwide for about $150 per week. Do I look like someone that is going to need luxury hotel accommodation for the next three years to you?? Didn’t seem to bother James and after all his best sales pitches were spent our answer was…. Hell no!! We told him this (in slightly subtler terms) and we were on our way.
But wait!! What about our gift? The reason we had even darkened their door in the first place, what did I win? Well, dear reader, guess what? I didn’t win the money!! Surprise surprise. What I did ‘win’ was….a dream holiday to…Koh Samui, Phuket, or Pattaya! One weeks accommodation in a hotel of theirs in one of these places not redeemable for forty five days. Why? So you have to come back to Thailand again of course and it will only cost you…..69 Euros!! And….you will have to sit through a teeny tiny ninety minute presentation about….guess what?? Sound familiar?! By the time they had finally come clean myself and Kate were practically kicking the door down to be allowed outside and our freedom again. Satanists! Deal doers! Development devils that irreversibly spoil the island and enslave the locals!! Ahh…I digress but believe me when I say that we were both pretty angry after this experience and we couldn’t wait to get the hell away from Chaweng and the tourism devils that dwelt there. It was at this stage that we came out of Satan’s office to find our motorbike had a flat tyre!! Cruel fate, what have I done to make you curse me so?! To say we were both a little ‘scratchy’ by this stage wouldn’t quite be telling the whole truth. Thank god we had a great place where we were staying to go back to and chill out.
Now after reading my little rant above you might think Koh Samui was all bad, on the contrary, it was actually pretty sweet. One amazingly unexpected thing that Koh Samui had was a skate park!! Believe it or not, dear reader, this ginga had actually done his homework via Google and was amazed to find pictures of a skate park on Koh Samui on the web. Who knew?! Well as luck would have it, it was located in Maenam near where we staying and I of course was there with bells on. I found the skate park but what I couldn’t find was any other skaters. The ‘park’ was actually someone’s front yard and whoever it was that had built this I could not find. We checked it out a couple of times but we couldn’t see anyone there at the house. On one afternoon though I happened to strike it when, I can only assume, the guy’s father was at home. He gave me what could be perhaps described as the world’s shittiest skateboard set-up and then gestured towards the tip box on the side of the park and retired back to couch where I had roused him from. So now I had a board and once I had cleaned the dog shit off the concrete it was skates on. It was about 33 degrees with about 80% humidity and I had arrived with no water and no money, a good way to lose weight I suppose. I kept the stoke going by myself for as long as I could and it felt pretty damn good to be rolling again I must say. The name of the place was ’Eternal’ skate park, but I don’t think the place has quite lived up to it’s name as it looked like it hadn’t been sessioned for a long time, but no matter. I skated until I thought I would pass out from dehydration (which was probably about 40 mins) and then I left my board outside the door and went back to our place to get some water and grab some money to take back for the tip box. I was gone all of ten minutes but in that time Dad had locked the house up and no doubt checked the tip box and cursed that bloody foreigner that was just here and skating his boy’s set up for free!! I’m sorry Dadoose!! I swear I put 100 baht in the box but you weren’t there! I hope they knew it was from me anyway because, let’s face it, I doubt it could have come from any other skaters that day.
After this epic day of skateboarding it was time to head off to Koh Phangang for the much hyped full moon party! We had bought tickets that would take us by mini van from our bungalow to the pier and then onto a super high powered speed boat that would jet us across to Koh Phangang for the party. The first people we met waiting for the speed boat were a bunch of pissed Aussies on a stags and hens night from Perth. They had flown over for the happy occasion and were hell bent on getting as messed up as possible before the wedding in a couple of days. The blokes were almost all exclusively covered in bandages from where, they happily informed me, they had been knocking each other off their scooters. One big bloke had been especially hard done by and had hit the kerb with his face just above the eye and now sported a huge bandage on his forehead that covered twenty five stitches and he was due to be in the wedding photos in a couple days-hilarious stuff! The boys thought this was a great joke but were aware that the ‘anal’ bride might ‘whinge a bit’. After one of the hens declared that she was ready to ‘jam out with her clam out!’ (who else but an Aussie could come out with a call like this) the boat docked and it was time to enter the madness that is a full moon party.
People everywhere were covered in fluorescent body paint and sculling buckets of spirits getting ready for the main party on the beach. The night from here takes on a surreal nature as we wandered up and down the beach to the various bars, dancing to this music or that whilst sipping buckets of red bull and vodka and taking in all the crazy sights and sounds of this colossal beach party. The entire beach was one long party with every bar blaring out their own brand of music and every second Thai bloke whispering ‘pills, pills’. Even I know better than to buy pills off a bloke on the beach in Thailand and no doubt I disappointed many a would be businessman that night but the buckets were more than enough. The vibe of the night was pretty good and most people seemed to be having an awesome time. We did witness one minor skirmish but it was nothing really and once one of the blokes copped a little tap on the cheek it was all over with-backpackers aren’t very tough.
One place had a slide set up that went from the top of their building down onto a pile of mattresses on the beach and watching messed up people fly down this and eat shit at the bottom was pretty damn amusing! The rest of the night was spent dancing around and meeting a few weird and interesting characters. There were gay guys and lady boys galore and towards the end of the night some stranger who I am adamant was a girl out of nowhere grabbed my fishing tackle as I was dancing away and I’m going to keep telling myself it was the female that ‘she’ resembled. It was a girl!! At least I think it was…After all the fun of the night it was time to get a speed boat back to Samui and try to sleep in spite of all the red bull we had just ingested.
After this we had a few more days chilling on Samui and after another couple exploratory trips around the island where we found beaches that weren’t as nice as the one where we were staying we decided to stay put for the short time we had left on the island. Before we knew it, it was time to pull up stumps yet again and head off to the ferry to Koh Phangang where I am sitting as I type this. Koh Samui was, on the whole, worth a visit, but it suffers from the same over development and sex industry tinged grimness that plagues Phuket. The number of places where girls sit outside and greet you with ‘Welcooome’ as you walk by is a little disconcerting and by the time we left we were glad to be on our way. Koh Phangang promises pristine beaches which are nearly deserted and chilled out days of relaxing on white sand beaches with precious little to do. Does it turn out that for your humble slitherants?? Find out next time. ‘Til then.
Below are a few photos of the Full Moon Party!! I don't think these need any explanations.
Tim working hard at his 'office'. You can see the beach and water just a few metres away from our bungalow. It was soo close to the beach and one of the cheapest bungalows the guesthouse had!!
Our beach at Mae Nam. Heaps of coconut trees.
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