Ko Samui, Thailand

Before I arrived here I asked someone what it was like; "Tenerife in Thailand" was the answer. "Oh bollocks" was the resposnse.

Im being unfair. Tenerife, like every country has beautiful and ugly places. I however, have frequented the uglier parts of Tenerife all too many times. Specifically, Playa de las Americas and all the tourist hell that goes with it.

On a personal, and more reflective note, I feel that Im not your classic backpacker. Im too used to having familiar surroundings. As a result I tend to bend towards the more touristy and westernised areas of all the places Ive been to so far. Ive heard tales from friends whove trekked up mountains in the Himalayas staying in log cabins with only the floor to lie on and getting halucinations from altitude sickness. The only sickness Im getting is from drinking too much imported british alcohol. Maybe as this is my first time travelling, Im still sticking to what I know and not venturing too far out of familiarity. Ive been telling myself I will come travlelling again later in life but do it properly. I dunno. Im beating myself up about this whole point and Id be interested to hear from any of you lot whove been travelling and have experienced similar thoughts.

I stayed in the tourist nightmare of central Chaweng (Shhhheeeewing, Waynes World fans). A little appartment wedged between the beach and the main road with all the shops on. This road had pretty much everything on it from Burger Kings and Pizza Huts, to Seven 11s and Pharmacies, to ENDLESS lines of Indian tailors and all the rest of the shops sellling fake clothes, DVDs, music CDs and anything else you can imagine that can be forged. If you're foolish enough to walk it during the day you will

A. Sweat a lot as the heat seems to nuzzle in there,
B. Smell sewage or exauhst fumes 90% of the time and
C. Get harranged and hassled to buy every kind of shit that you dont need from every shop.

So, you lie on the beach to escape. But no. Every 2 minutes (and it really is literally every 2 minutes) you'll get the beach touts selling you more crap from wooden elephants to sunglasses and wristbands. Even if you're lying there WEARING sunglasses, the silly bastards with only sunglasses to sell will still ask you if you want to buy some fricking sunglasses! I only get tempted by the guys selling lollypops but god help you if you look interested in buying things as all the other touts will see you're a spender and home in on you. There is a reason for all this mad selling of course. The place is full of British and European tourists. They have tried to adapt western culture and re-sell it to us in a, what I found, quite sad and desperate way. And by British tourist I mostly mean tatooed up chavs. And by European tourist I mean lots of beautiful Swiss girls (for me, one of Ko Samuis more re-deeming features ;) ). Im sure you all read about the poor girl from Cardiff that got raped and murdered here on Boxing day. Yup thats where I was staying. A nice place then. I am being harsh on Ko Samui as I stayed in the worst part. There are more beautiful parts, but unfortunatelty I didnt haul my ass to see any of them.

Enough waffle! What did I get up to in Ko Samui I can all hear you say. The unfortunate answer, and probably the reason behind my opening paragraphs is, not a lot. The truth is I got trapped in a heavy drinking funk. The nightlife is lively so it was yet again a case of, get up (if possible), eat (if possible), then drink (somehow always possible). You might start to notice some pattern to my blog entries of late. So its only tales of drunken shenanigans again Im afraid.

The highlight being this one: After a heavy night which finnished roughly at 3am for me (I dont really remember going home) I was awoken at 7am by Holmesy (him again), eyes rolling, very excited, beckoning me to the beach. I, very be-grudginly, followed and met his new 'friends'. We basically started drinking again and dancing to dance music blaring out of one of the beach bars. By 12pm Id had it and needed kip, Holmsey decided to stay on (where had he got all this energy from....hmmm ;) ). I was awoken again, this time at 7pm, by Sparkys voice outside shouting "Homlsey! What number do you live at!?!?". I jumped out to wave him in my direction to find a completely anihilated Homlesy incable of anything being carried up the road by Sparky and Docker. They dragged him up to where me and him were staying where he proceded to collapse onto the toilet, smashing it to pieces, and make water piss everywhere. You can imagine the scene of a completelty blotto pal, lying on broken ceramics in a bathroom with water churning onto his head as rather amusing. So playing mum, I picked him up (he first managed to piss all over the bathroom floor) and chuck him on his bed and get the hotel staff to stop the flooding.

I left as soon as it was fixed.

So, I was out, again, on my own contemplating how to spend another night. After roughly 4 weeks of going out and drinking pretty much every night you can imagine I was starting to get slightly bored. But hey. I decided to sit on the beach, get a bucket, and let fate deal me some cards. And what a deal! I was chilling for a few minutes when this couple asked if they could sit on the seats by me. We got chatting and got on really well. Then it turned out I was about to have yet another celebrity (ish) moment. The guy from the couple was a film director! He'd done music videos for Missy Elliot, he directed that Citreon advert (the one with the transformer car dancing) and had just finished on a short film that he wrote starring Gary Oldman and David Soul (who he added was an absolute pain the arse to work with!). So there we go. We proceded to go out to an AWESOME nightclub on the beach and dance the night, and early morning, away to Brandon Block. A great time, and a great couple. We exchanged numbers and will no doubt meet again.

Thats it really for Ko Samui. Felt obliged to do a blog entry but I could just have easily not have bothered. I'm now on Ko Tao. A small remote island north of Ko Pha Ngan. Ive finally found paradise. This place is so chilled, not that touristy and just what I need. Its probably why Ive looked on Ko Samui so badly. Right! Ive been up all night and its now 2pm and Im about to hire a moped. Uh-oh.......