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.