Limping Cliches: A Story That Doesn't Involve Faeces

Strolling leisurely along beach, skipping through waves and laughing at dogs, like something out of a tampon advert, Helen and I were in particularly high spirits.

My stomach had settled down and she had felt good after berating a man who was hurling a drugged monkey around (each to their own I'd said, but what do I know?). We were on our way to meet Katie and Craig, Helen's friends from Coventry, who were getting into Samui later that afternoon.


Wistfully making a subconscious decision about whether to have nuts on my noodles or cheese in my sandwich at the plush resort they would be checking into, my ears pricked up - a somewhat familiar tone...

'Chris...?' came from somewhere on my right, but my ears aren't all they used to be and so I looked straight up.

'God?' I asked, but no answer. Again. 

'FINNEY!?' I could tell it wasn't God now because I don't know him well enough to be on nickname terms.

I looked right and there were five women, ladies, girls, members with the opposite members sunning themselves on the beach. They all had on those large sunglasses that girls wear to lie to boys about the shape of their faces.  

'Hello?' I said, in the same manner that a girl does walking into the house where the murderer is in a slasher film. 

One of the chapesses, with the aid of a forklift, lifted up her glasses to reveal a face that I had not seen in quite a while, especially that pink. It was none other than your own Hayley Derbyshire of Bournemouth School for Girls and Chris Rodia taming fame!

'By Jove!' or something equally cool, I exclaimed.

A vague scan of the remaining bikinis left me with no clues as to who her friends were, but luckily Hayley recognised that I was groping in the dark for names. Also, luckily, I was only meant to recognise one of the quartet, Sian, also from BSG. The other three were her buddies from Cardiff university. 

Helen has known Hayley for quite a while now which was a relief as it meant that I could sit there and smile rather than having to answer questions about where we had been (vague recollection) and where we were going (complete blank).

So it came to pass that we stayed on the beach and swapped old wart stories. Plus, 
it meant Helen and I didn't have to stare blankly into space or at each other for four hours while we waited for Katie and Craig.

(Never fear, all is well in Camp Francis. We ((I say we, but it was essentially me)) had lost the FHM cards on Koh Tao, meaning that our usual four-hour bouts of Shithead have had to come to a standstill. All I can hope is that they were picked up by the rather odd security guard that took a shining to Helen and I, even going so far as trying to show me - completely out of the blue - a pornographic video on his mobile phone involving a big fat Norwegian diving instructor man. How he had managed to come to get his strange little hands on this is still one for Scooby and the gang. Anyway...)

Katie and Craig eventually arrived, very late, very hot and very fed up with the Thai transport system. I believe that a twelve hour journey had taken them something more like 19 hours, and they were none best pleased, and if you know Katie, you know what that means.

Luckily there were no reported fatalities at the time of going to press, but four ticket inspectors remain in a stable but critical condition.

Craig, Katie, Hel, Hayley and Sian

We did actually have a really nice time together, in spite of what I'm writing here.

Skip two days of mucking around and at least five chicken sandwiches, and we arrive at the evening of the full moon party. It must be said that, to a man - or bird, I don't want to sound sexist - no one was really that keen on going to the party, but we thought it would seem a shame if we'd come all that way to a beautiful island and then we didn't get really drunk and smash the place up a bit.

The plan was to meet Hannah, George, Dave, Amy, Tom, Maz, Steve, Hayley, Sian and the Cardiff Massive at a place called the Outback Bar at seven o'clock. This would give us ample time to get some stodge down us (and also, cunningly, see the last hour of the Arsenal game.)

Alas, this was not to be. 

Me, the Dagger, Katie and Craig were ready, waiting and actually quite excited to get on the speedboat across to Koh Phangan to meet the rest of the mob.
Unfortunately for us, our diligent queuing was to no avail when we realised that it was an absolute fucking free-for-all. It was like the Titanic in reverse. And only slightly less tragic.

So, stuck on Koh Samui for another hour, we resolved to have a sit down. We also decided that, to the best of our great, great, Great British ability, we would attempt to forget all previous knowledge of the queue system for the rest of the evening. 

This wasn't too hard for me. I'd already missed the first 80 minutes of the game and frankly I would have killed the entire contents of the queue in front of me to get on the boat. This attitude, however, was to be my undoing...

Once on the boat we squashed into a pitch black cabin and awaited the final destination. Nothing much happened on this journey apart from meeting an Aussie girl that was acting like she'd never been on a beach, seen a full moon or had a party before. Our spirits were high though, so we cut her some slack. Bloody enthusiasm. I hate it.

Disembarking, we realised what a mission it was going to be to find ourselves, let alone the dozen other people we were meant to be having a quiet evening with. Eventually finding the bar, we had a quick scope around. 

No one.

We were three quarters of an hour late. My hopes blew into thin air faster than the Halifax Harbour. (I have no idea why I would use this as an example, but I just have, so roll with it.) But then, like some kind of pissed-up child actor walking the streets of a Thai island, George appeared out of nowhere! Behind him were Hannah, Dave and Amy. Things were beginning to look up faster than an eight-year-old searching for 'fuck' in the dictionary.

We decided that we would get some sort of food. A pad thai stand beckoned us over and we had certifiably the best pad thai ever. The upside/downside to this chapter is that - through no real fault of my own - we also got it for free. Perhaps this is where the bad karma started to build up.

Sitting outside a bank drinking vodka and lemonade so strong it could beat Jeff Capes in an arm wrestle, I felt like I was 22 again. Multiple little incidents happened culminating in a rather amusing half hour or so. This included Dave telling Katie and Craig that Coventry was 'a hole where all of the shit of the world falls into'. He was born about fifteen minutes up the road.

Suddenly, like a barrel of howling banshees, the girls quietly rocked up. We were only a group of northern lads short of a beach party. Logically, we decided to go down to the beach where another 32,000 people were to try and look for them.

An indeterminable amount of time passed and suddenly the lads were there. Almost like they'd always been there. Very strange. We had a fantastic period of about ten minutes when we introduced everyone and then it all went to shit. Almost literally.
One of Sian's mates from Cardiff got so drunk she told everyone to 'Fuck off', before falling over and throwing-up down herself. For hours.

Katie felt ill and Helen took her to the toilet. Helen told me this. But I had no time-frame for reference and after chatting with Maz (who was on absolutely side-splittingly good form - much better out of a wetsuit) for what could only have been ten minutes, I thought I'd lost my girlfriend.
I walked up to the prearranged meeting point. 

No fucker was there, apart from a man who had probably had too many disco biscuits and quack candles who tried to douse me in fluorescent paint. I politely told him to 'Get the fuck away from me, I'm fucking dead if I don't find her.' This must have sketched him out a bit because he wandered off and faced the wall of the 7-Eleven.

When I finally did meet up with Helen (stood where everyone else was, where I'd been and where I never should have left) she wasn't in a great mood. I wasn't in a great mood, Maz was in a great mood, Katie was in a bad mood because Craig had gone off for a wander (like I had, to the meeting point - what's the point in having one if you're not going to use it? You know what that makes you? A fucking, er, dilweed. That's what.) and everyone else had even wandered off or drowned or something.

Therefore Helen and I took drastic action. We got the fuck off that beach and went to get on a boat. 

Forgetting the promise we made ourselves earlier about not standing in line, we queued up like the polite morons we are. For an hour and twenty minutes. Once we'd got within a safe enough distance to ensure that we would definitely be on the next ferry off that rock, we let our guard down...

XENOPHOBIA WARNING - THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH OR SO HAS AN EXPLICIT XENOPHOBIC SLANT AND I STAND BY EVERY SINGLE FUCKING WORD OF IT.

A group of nine or ten Ge*man lads and girls pushed in front of us. Without going overboard, we asked reasonably sensibly if they would go to the back of the queue and wait like the rest of us had. No movement. Helen took the most sensible course of action and started taking the piss out of their, admittedly very silly, hats that they were wearing. Their retort to this was to take the piss out of Helen's shorts. Fair sport.

Not content with this, they also started shouting at me, 'Who iz ze prezident of Thailant?'. That was it, insult my girlfriend as much as you want but highlight my inadequacies in naming South East Asian politicians and you've got it coming. 
I firmly asked if he was going to move to the back of the queue and touched him on the shoulder, to which he shrugged off and turned around. Fine, I thought, seething.

One Germa* girl then started stamping on Helen's feet and elbowed me in the stomach. We bit our tongue and eventually all got on to the boat. The ride back was an uncomfortable slanging match that we couldn't join in on as we weren't as multilingual. In fact, we were actually only about semi-lingual at this stage. 
Last onto the boat, we were the first ones off. Walking up the gangway and turning left we saw the jeep taxis that were to take us home. So we had another sit down.

The next four or five minutes are slightly hazy but details are available on request. One detail I will share now is that I was wearing a T-Shirt that says 'NOBODY KNOWS I'M A LESBIAN' on it. Therefore rendering my troglodyte machismo quite impotent. Scared the shit out of those German cowards anyway. So in a way, we won. A bit like the war.

The Lonely Planet guide, or something equally dismissive and banal, describes the full moon party as 'like Apocalypse Now, but without the war.' Does this mean that we actually made the party better for everyone by providing the war? I'd like to think so.

Whilst all this bullshit was happening, we also witnessed a lunar eclipse, the odds of which must be pretty astounding.

So it just goes to show, if you go to a foreign country, join literally thousands of other white people like yourself in making a mess of it and then do you best to get in a fist fight with a dozen Germans you will witness astrological phenomena.

I love the smell of Sangsom in the morning.

Same Same But Different

Throughout our time in Koh Tao we had kept in Spacebox contact with our buddies Hannah and George from Singapore, the plan being that we would meet up with them and fulfil all backpacking gap year traveller clichés in one go, and go to the Full Moon Party with them on Koh Phangan.

But, like a virgin on his birthday, they pulled out at the last moment. So, with heavy hearts and wet stomachs, we decided that we would instead try and meet them at the party. More on this disaster story later. (Honestly, Michael Bay wants to buy the rights...)


We travelled by a quick ferry to Koh Samui, where we planned to meet Katie - Helen's mate from Coventry with whom she had stomped these marshes when they were but spritley teens - and her husband Craig. We arrived a day earlier than them and found a nice cheap and cheerful place called Green Canyon, run by a lady called She.

She, as in She, had four kids, the oldest and boldest of which was a ten-year-old lad called Chris, who had been born on Christmas day. Chris thought it was hysterical that we had the same name, and therefore every time he saw me he shouted 'Chris'. Again, and again, and again.

We hit it off with her, as in She, and spent a lot of time talking about her business and also trying to get up to scratch with the situation with the former Prime Minister of Thailand, who I believe currently resides in our own fair London, with half of Thailand's life savings.

That evening we went for a walk through the main area of the town, which was the first properly seedy place that I had seen in Thailand. Getting annoyed and embarrassed in equal measures, we set off in a taxi-bus to the other side of the bay, Chennai Beach. This place was certainly different, but I'm not sure it was necessarily nicer.

Alas, we found a place to eat called Ninja Crepes. Sold.

After a nice meal, we set off back into the hubbub to try and find an internet cafe. On the walk, I suddenly began to feel what I think Helen must have felt on that fateful day in Mumbai - abject horror.

An unnatural rumble in my stomach measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale signalled that I would need to find refuge, and soon. The Ninja Crepes were about to kick some arse. My arse. From the inside out.

My eyes scanned the horizon, a heady mix of flashing lights and car horns clouded my brain. But, in the distance, I saw the light - the glorious golden arches of a time foregone. 

It was time for my first international McPoo™.

Sprinting into McDonald's, I headed for what I thought must have been the toilet, staff cloakroom, shit... Erm.... I instinctively grabbed someone with three stars - 'Toilet?' I squirmed with more strain in my voice than in a Danni Minogue record. 

'Upstair.' Came the answer, the all-too-familiar: 'You're attempting a McPoo, and you've ordered it with extra Lies' tone ringing in my ears. Upstairs? Oh God.
Okay. Right. Decision time. Do I run and risk meltdown or do I walk and risk total combustion?

Running it was. I burst through the door in what I'd like to think was a sort of heroin chic look a la McGregor in Trainspotting, when in reality I probably looked slightly more like Nesbitt (of the Rab C. variety). Who cares, I'm on my own and I'm free. I'd made it.

Yeah. I'd made it. Made it in the same way that the fucking submariners in Das Boot had made it. Temporarily. I was about to get blown up in my own harbour.

No.
Sodding.
Paper.

Suffice to say, I'm glad I hadn't gone commando that evening.

Hitting Girls and Stealing Kids

The final instalment from the Koh Tao back catablogue is from the last night we had with Jeroen and Martina before they flew back to Holland.

Creatures of habit, they liked a bakery that was situated halfway down to the main road on the beach. The food there was rather cracking, and there was also a man that laughed at everything and a dog that never moved. It was here, on that very night, that Jeroen told us my favourite of his many, many stories from the crazy flat land.

I had been explaining to our continental cousins that whilst in India, Helen of Dagleyshire had been bitten on the eye and it had swollen up, making it look like I had 'popped her in the eye' as Eddie Murphy would say. And probably still does, come to think of it.

Jeroen: I hit a girl once.
Chris: God! Did you? I don't think I've ev-
J: I hit her very hard.
C: Right, ok! Wh-
J: I hit her very hard in the fayshe and knocked her out.
C: Fuck Jeroen! You knocked her out?! Why?!
J: She wash a Moroccan girl, and she had shaid some shit about me raping her shishter in the club. I do not like the Moroccan girlsh.

Now, to be one hundred percent honest and fair, there are a few details I could add here that make it seem slightly less unprovoked. But as Jeroen didn't explain them to us until later, this is the story I'm sharing with you.

Look how Dutch there are...

Later that night after a few rounds of Where's Hilary Duff? we were walking back towards our resort. Suddenly Jeroen dashed off like a bloodhound. He had, we found out, heard the voice of a Belgian man who they had met some weeks ago.

Apparently the Belgian had said that on the 8th of August, 2008, it was his 40th birthday party and that he would be getting some friends together to meet him out on Koh Tao, so they could have a barbeque on the beach.

When we looked, 'some friends' were in fact at least 50 people, all wearing t-shirts with '08.08.08 The Number of the Feast' on and having a whale of a time. They invited us all to come over and have a party with them, and without much twisting of our arms we went and sat down on some bean bags and watched the show.

'The Show' was namely a three year old Thai boy.

He was the single most enthusiastic, funny, mental-in-a-good-way and happy child I have ever encountered. He was, we were told, already a Thai boxer, and he was training to be a fire spinner. This lad ran round for hours entertaining everyone and, I say without shame, and only a slight fear of the law, I wanted to steal him.

I didn't. His little sister would've kicked seven shades of shit out of me.

The Boys, the Bullsharks and the Body-poppings

On the first morning of my diving lessons I met Tom, Steve and Maz. These three lads constantly ripped each other to shit and were a source of much amusement. They were all from somewhere around Wolverhampton, I believe, I could check but it's of no great concern to man nor beast really, is it? They had been travelling together and were basically doing the same sort of trip as us.

These boys were three out of the four people I'd be diving with, and the last member of the quad squad was a young whipper-snapper by the name of Oliver.

Ollie was on his gap year before going to Durham University to study French and Spanish (I therefore called him 'Booky-wooky', or 'College-boy' or 'Reader' - but only when he wasn't listening).

He had already spent six months in South America including three months doing volunteer work. He'd told me that he was glad when that part was over, not because it was tiring, but it meant that his mate would go home and he could travel the way he 'wanted to'.

After getting to know Ollie, if he wasn't scaling mountains with his teeth, digging wells for the forgotten tribes of West Boolahdoolahwoolah with his bare hands and only eating what he could kill with his penis, he wasn't travelling. There's a blog worth reading. Lesson learned. (Lie more.)

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

So back to the exciting world of diving. Shit...

Anyways, so this gang was to be my company over the next three or four days, and completing the quintet was our Dutch dive instructor Steffi. Steffi, by all accounts, was a legend and was just about patient enough to see all of us through to completing the course. Sort of.

The first day consisted of watching an appallingly lusty video and, horror of horrors, we were set homework! The second day we were to get kitted out and hit the swimming pool where we'd practice all of the 'safety' skills and other girly stuff that apparently we'd need underwater, I don't know I wasn't really paying much attention. I was much more interested in winning all of the swimming races and being the best at everything. As the pictures will testify...

Tenacity personified

I realised that I haven't been competitive about something (apart from 'Where's Hilary Duff') for a good four months or so, and it was raging inside of me like some kind of really scary clown that wanted to be the best at stuff for some nondescript reason or another.

'Maz,' I was thinking, 'I like you already, you're an intelligent lad and your Championship football knowledge is second to none, but just because you're struggling to do ten lengths don't think I won't pull you down and drown you to win.'

This was not really an exaggeration. Plus Maz was indeed struggling. Outside of the water he had seemed like a perfectly able-bodied individual but suddenly, in it, he resembled a cat in a bag.

Shortly before Maz choked. Literally choked.

After he had been pulled out and he had coughed up most of the water, he told us that his wetsuit was too tight and he couldn't breathe. This was at first met with derision and laughter, but on closer inspection it did appear that he had been given a suit that would have been better suited to a six-year-old anorexic midget-girl. So, after much cajoling when he couldn't tread water for ten minutes, I believe he had it changed.

(I also found out later that he had been suffering from chronic diarrhoea for a few days, and I imagine that most of his physical exertion was probably going on not allowing an evacuation from one place, that would force an evacuation of the pool.)

Look at how deep we went!

The next day we were up bright and early and out on a proper boat on the proper water to do some proper diving.

I will try not to bore you with any meandering details, but suffice to say diving is something you should definitely try once. Like danger wanking. It's not for everyone, but it's worth a shot in the dark.

The following day, we were up at 5.45 to do a morning dive. We had been assured that we would almost definitely see sharks, but judging by Steffi and the school's underwater cameraman Paul's excitement perhaps we were actually quite lucky to see them! But, see them we did - a black tip reef shark and, what Steffi and Paul got so excited about, a 2.5 m (according to Paul - I reckon about 1.5 - 2m) bull shark. They were beautiful. It was one of the most serene moments of my life.

One other story of note is that for one of the skills that you have to be able to do to get qualified is being able to take your mask off, replace it, and clear it of water. To make this slightly more interesting Steffi took a pair of sunglasses down with her, and as you take off your mask, you replace them with the sunglasses and do a wee boogie.

We were given about half an hour's warning that this was going to happen, and, naturally, I put a lot of thought into it. Not only was this competition but it was also going to be recorded on video.

I had it. No one would do this, completely original and it'll blow them out of the water. Figuratively.

The Maca-fucking-rena.

So, when Maz went first, completing outdoing himself with a perfect David Brent dance, I thought I at least had an original dance to do. Then out of the corner of my eye I see Tom practising the, no, wait - you bastard - the Macarena! What!?

I'd spent twenty minutes on the boat in complete silence trying to remember it. I kept getting it mixed up with Saturday Night, the Three Amigos and Giggsy and Sharpey's goal routine a la 1995.

But I'd had it down. Now Bastard Tom was going to steal my idea. I had approximately twenty seconds to think of something. I was so full of rage that I couldn't enjoy Tom's performance, which, to be fair, was well above amateur.

Steffi gave the signal that Tom had finished, it was me next. I did the only thing I knew how to - I channelled my anger - I became: 'THE ANGRY ROBOT'. So angry in fact that my oxygen tank came free from its straps and cracked me on the base of the spine, making me choke on a mixture of rubbery air and salt water.

But it was beautiful. I don’t think I've ever been at one with the music more. And there wasn't even any music.

I can do the Robot at 2.8 atmospheres, and that's something you can never take away from me.

Never.

A pretty pretty pretty good day

The next morning, Hel, Jeroen, Martina and I bid a fond farewell to Will, Powerbeach and temporarily Koh Phangan, to complete our journey to Koh Tao.

Whilst Martina buried her seasick head into the side of his leg, Jeroen lovingly ignored her and ate his own weight in Ritz crackers, keeping a keen eye on the bartering that Helen and I were doing with the reps from the various diving resorts and schools. 

Dagley, in her element, drew a makeshift matrix diagram and, mathematically dumbfounding everyone around her, played each of them off against each other.

My own charm even got us not one but two packs of mini Oreos.

Helen confirmed that although my priorities weren't exactly right, I had made a vast improvement on my haggling skills post India. (I don't really like them anyway. I like the inside bit but I'm not too keen on the biscuits. They're a mixture of bourbons and custard creams but for people who think that they are above bourbons and custard creams, which they're not. Tarts.)

With a shortlist of three, we outlined exactly what we needed. A four day Open Water course, a two day Advanced Open Water and free accommodation throughout. 

We were surprised that two of the three men could do this easily, and the third probably could as well but she was a woman and she had wandered off at the vital moment - probably to knit something, look at a kitten or have a period - which was a shame because the two men had been outrageously sexist about her and I would have wanted to have gone with her out of sisterly solidarity.

Somewhere in the midst of overrated biscuits and sexism we had lost Jeroen and Martina, but we were pretty sure they knew where we planned to go, and as far as we knew they weren't diving so they'd probably got a better deal somewhere else.

So, armed with a deal so good Noel Edmonds would re-enact that bungee jump to get his hands on it, we jumped off the boat and into the car of a man called Pee. Which for some reason he didn't even find funny.

We drove past where we think Becca Lando Calrissian worked for a short period last year, and briefly thought of home. Then we remembered we were on Koh Tao. You can fling 'home' into a paper piss parcel. Whatever that means.

Bailing out of Pee's Jeep like a couple of first-time post-office robbers after a botched getaway, we entered the dive school bit of the resort and were immediately greeted by a generic sneering German (a lot more on these later) diving instructor who wouldn't have looked out of place playing a bit part as an SS soldier in 'Allo 'Allo. 

He apathetically handed us over to the capable hands of the Thai lady that obviously did all the work around the hotel, and we were shown to a room that had bah-badabahbah-bah-bah-bah BAH! Air bloody Conditioning! We had struck cold. That bad boy was not being turned off all week.

At this moment our lawyers would like us to point out that we had absolutely, categorically, nothing to do with the frequent blackouts that the resort suffered from. Nor the fire.

On top of the room, the cold air, the toilet with a seat that wasn't only just there but it didn't slide off when you sat on it, I also got a free 'fun dive' that I could take once I'd passed my PADI thing AND - most wonderfully of all - we didn't have to pay straight away. This meant that I could finally take off, and all importantly, wash the complete-bastard-but-actually-life-saving money belt that had essentially grafted itself to my waist over the last eight weeks. 

Eu-fucking-reka.

Re-emerging into the midday sun, who should we see but the Flying Dutchhumans checking in. We thought the day could not get any better. But we were wrong. The Green Curry we had that night was pretty nice too.

Blogsh, Frogsh and a distinct lack of Clogsh

When we left Phuket at the more than reasonable hour of nine in the morning, we were unsurprised that once again the hottest day of the week would be the one that would spend the vast proportion of the day inside some sort of vehicle or another. 

Hanging on for dear life in our Jeep, we sped along towards the coach station. Clambering into the comfortable if snug coach that would transport us to the ferry dock, my face slipped off into someone's noodles. Metaphorically. (I was sweating.)

This coach would transport us to the ferry dock, but it would not transport us to the ferry dock in time to catch our ferry. We were forty minutes late, in fact. It was an achievement as we could only have been about 45 minutes away when we started. 

Miserable as Original Sin, we attempted to collect ourselves in the canteen. After a few minutes attempting to decipher the (admittedly rather simple) payment system whereby we needed to buy coupons for food from a camouflaged OAP in the corner, we sat down to the single most disgusting plate of noodles we had ever seen, smelled or tasted.

Soldiering on convinced that this was a test sent by some ungodly god - to be fair to them, the food wouldn't really be any different than at a Happy Little McChef on the A425 - we finished up and began to think about where we would stay on Koh Tao, where I planned to learn how to scuba dive and Helen planned to get advanced at it.

We thought we had about an hour and a half to kill, but for one reason or another my spidey senses were tingling. I couldn't relax, even though I had a vanilla Cornetto in my hand. 

I had visions that we were on the wrong side of the port, or even at the wrong port entirely. 

(I should probably tell you now that since we have been away I have changed from a relatively laid back young individual to a paranoid wreck. As far as I am concerned people want to steal our identities and eat us. Or eat us and steal our identities; either way.)

Leaving Helen with her Classic Magnum, I went in search of some answers to quell my engorged worry orb. 

Answers I did not get - but I did meet a salesman called, without a hint of irony, Chat. 

Chat worked for one of the many hotels and resorts that were on Koh Phangan. He reassured me that not only were we waiting in the right place, but we wouldn't have to wait much longer. He'd even escort us onto the ferry and travel over with us. 'Travel over with us and steal our organs to sell on the black market?' I asked. No, it turned out. He just wanted to sell us a hotel deal. A deal with a hotel with a name so fantastic that I shudder even when I think it.

THE POWERBEACH RESORT.

I, for one, was sold. When I thought of POWERBEACH I thought of some kind of aquatic lair where superheroes went to train and fight evil crabs with lasers for knees. 

Helen was slightly less easy to conquer, but Chat's chat combined with some nifty photographs (which frankly could have been the first ones he pulled off Google when he searched for 'pool', 'nice beach' and 'reasonably dank hotel room') soon saw her come round. I would be Super Chris within the day, I could see it.

Pleased that we no longer had to fret about where we would be resting our pretty little heads that evening, we turned our attention to the two people who had sat down behind us in the canteen. 'Whatever you do,' warned Super Chris, 'Do not get the veggie noodles.'

This impressive opener was met by a retort so Dutch sounding I got high off the fumes of their accents. (Without being too stereotypical.) 

'I think maybe we shtick to the iysh creamsh, like you yesh?' How we laughed.

These two flying Dutchpeople, although we didn't know it yet, were the more than lovely Martina and the less than pronounceable Jeroen. Asking if they had any idea of where they were going to stay that night I showed them the POWERBEACH leaflet that Chat had left with us. 

They were suitably impressed by the pictures, and I was suitably impressed by how impressed Jeroen was that we would be staying somewhere with the word POWER in the name. I could already tell that we were going to be the rubbish backpackers answer to the Fantastic Four.

I still don't think we had introduced ourselves by the time we boarded the ferry and sat down. On the television was women's football, Brazil and, I think, Germany. A Thai man walked past me, tapped me on the shoulder and laughing quasi-hysterically pointed and guffawed: 'They are girls!'

'Yes. Yes they are, aren't they' came my uncharacteristically Partridge response. What could have only been moments later I nodded off for a bit with Helen face down in Robert Fisk and Jeroen and Martina having gone upstairs to 'Shmoke shum shigarettes.'

I awoke to find a very different scene entirely. 

What had been a blisteringly hot sunny day had now turned into a complete bastard of a storm. We were being thrown all over our little ferry, and above I could distinctly hear the noise of an axe on wood. 

'Hel, Heeeel, pssst HEL. Helen, they're chopping up the Dutch people. Chat's had the Dutch people and we're next.' I spat out.

'Shut the fuck up' said Helen, with her eyes. I've always admired her ability to do that.

Luckily, just moments later Martina let me know that they were not being finely diced by Thailand's answer to Delboy by - and bearing in mind we'd only met half an hour before - flicking me really hard on the top of the head.

'They are cutting up frogsh!' She said excitedly.

'Sorry?' I winced with all the energy of a hypoglycaemic sloth.

'They are cutting up frogsh that are sho big. You musht come and look and make pic-chersh.'

With a more than disapproving look from Helen I wrestled upstairs with my camera. I never intended to, nor did I, get any pictures of this makeshift amphibian slaughterhouse that had been constructed on the poop deck, rather I was going to take some of the storm. 

I did have second thoughts though, not to take pictures of the chopping and the slicing and the dicing, but of the live frogs in the bucket. Frogs the size of dogs. The two Thai chaps cutting them up - that, no word of a lie, actually resembled Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver - laughed at me when all I could muster was a meagre, 'Look at the size of those fucking frogs...'.

After shum shigarettes, we returned below deck to Helen and her Goliathan book (which incidentally she is now on page 346 of around 1400). 

We reconvened with Chat and booked our rooms at the MEGA-SUPERDUPER POWER-AWESOME BEACH RESORT. Martina was delighted that at this resort they had western-style toilets, as, she shared with us, she always pissed all over herself in the other ones - 'Like shprinkler!' 

Helen automatically liked this girl.

Once there, settled in and more than happy, we sidled over to our free pool table, where Jeroen and Martina had already made a friend. This was useful as it finally meant that they would introduce themselves. Their friend had the - considering our superhero surroundings - fantastically comic book alias name of William Watson. 

Will had been on Koh Phangan for a while and we had the normal getting to know you conversations, albeit over some cracking omelettes.

After a couple of rounds of pool and at least one iced lemon tea, we ventured down to the tiny shack that was at the back of the resort on the beach. 

Putting some early nineties Indy rock on we opened up a well earned beer and sat back to watch the stars come out. After this beautiful sight I went up to get my round in and saw something less than beautiful. I saw what can only be described as the head and upper torso of a Thai barman engaged in solo fornication.

Scampering back to the table, in stitches, but stitches that will scar for life, I told the gang what I had just witnessed. Helen laughed, Martina was pretty mortified and Jeroen wash shmoking sho probably didn't hear, but Will offered the idea that he was, 'probably just having a bong'.

'I don't know if that's what you used to call it back home Will, but from where I was standing he was rolling a fatty.' I wish I'd said.

Koh Koh Hops

It's been at least a week since the last long blogslog, and we have been to a fair few places and done a fair few things. These spurts of energy and activity were also intermittently speared by hours of doing absolutely sod all. I personally liked the times in between the two.

I left you hanging on my every word in Krabi after our reasonably long bus journey and having just got ourselves into a tastefully decorated little hostel. Having spent a lot of time in 'real people's' houses where I'd has to behave myself, my balls were about ready to explode. And when I saw the nice comfy bed that I could try and trick Helen on they almost did.

Unfortunately for me, the room was also very well lit. So well lit that the curtains 'covering' the sizeable windows of the room were about a third the size of them and anyway completely see through. I would have to be at my most devious, or Helen would have to be at her most asleep, for this to work. (KIDDING! Sort of.)

Part one of the plan was to take her down to another hostel which was just down the road from the 'Good Dream' where I wrote the last blooog. I knew for a fact that they were showing Michael Moore's 'Sicko' that evening, and if I could get enough green thai curry, left-wing propaganda and anti-American gusto inside of her I might, just might...

Unfortunately the fat socialist could only convince Helen that she was officially a xenophobe.

Krabi was not without its highlights however. Brian, the American bloke that ran the hostel, provided me with yet more evidence that football is actually quite popular in the states despite what American's who are shit at it say. 

We went on a little boat with a chap through the mangroves (sort of) to some caves (sort of) and then back again (sort of). This was a lot more interesting than it sounds (sort of). 
We also met a charming couple who had been away travelling for about a year entitled Ed and Nicky. They entertained us and shat us up in equal measure. Entertained us with their anti-Zionist rants (Daggers was in bits) - shat us up with the fact they'd spent a million pounds in five months in South America. 

Ed also made us feel pretty darn cool and entertaining ourselves by saying: 'Hopefully we'll bump into each other again on the way round. And I genuinely mean that, rather than the way we say it to every other wanker we meet.' I shared his sentiments and went home for a cold shower.

Next up was the island of Koh Phi Phi. This was a bit of a write off as it was mostly full of young Brits getting slashed twenty-five hours a day. But, like Ghandi said, 'If you can't beat them, join them in funnelling Thai Whiskey'.

Thus, we went to a Thai Boxing night, where I amazed both Helen and myself by not getting drunk and taking about how 'I used to do that' and 'I was pretty good yeah, but you know, football and that, sniff...'.

Helen made her 'first step into a lager world', as Ben Kenobi sort of said, by having a really big pint of Chang beer.

That night the Heavens opened and pissed on our sunny chips. This was actually terrifying as the noise of the rain on our tin roof and the thousands of other tin roofs around us sounded like the sea. This is obviously not something that you want to hear in Koh Phi Phi. This bout of rain stopped play but increased the times we have seen Old School on a Dodgy Versatile Disc one-fold.

We also accidentally made best friends with an Irish couple who'd had a few shandies. This was until the lad said that his email was bonothesecond@hotmali.com. Helen proceeded to call Bono a 'cunt' and for a minute it looked like it was all going to end in a bloody puddle of Sangsom. Disaster was however averted by pointing one way, shouting 'It's the Pope!' and running off in the opposite direction. Dares moore ta Oireland dan dis...

We got the water-train to Phuket (pronounced Pooget - in my book funnier than Fuckit) where we went to the beach. I played in the massive waves like some kind of special child whilst Helen read a Robert Fisk book that she had long-term borrowed (i.e. half-inched) from the hostel we were staying in. It weighs 1.8 kgs. It lives in her bag. Her bag lives on my shoulder.

I got sunburned like some kind of English prick who plays in the waves all day and thinks factor 15 sun-cream is some kind of magic forcefield and we also had a Magnum. This was probably my favourite moment of the last nine weeks.

We then went to Koh Phangan for a one night stopover to avoid the overnight ferry from Hell and are now in Koh Tao.

To be continued when the Thai man lets me back in his shop...

Will Chris go scuba diving? Will Helen finish her book? Will we have something other than red or green thai curry for dinner?

Tune in soon, same blog time, same blog channel!