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.