Koh Samet - A Survival Story

One of the most anticipated tour weekends was upon us with expectations of grandeur beyond your average weekend. We all began our travel, some considerably longer than others. Be it by plane, train, bus or van we arrived on Koh Samet. Wait wait......some of us decided to have a night out in Bangkok before the early morning of travel to the Island. With no hostel booked we soon got on it along Koh San road. As I walked down, I realised just how crazy it was and how necessary it is to drink while on the road or you'd go mental!

Just like the very first night of tour I got a tower of beer with Paul. We hit it hard.......scenes missing and it ended up with everyone getting kicked out of the hostel to the screams of an angry Thai women! Straight to the bus station, still drunk, get the bus with Danny and whenever you tend to do anything with Danny you can expect it to be entertaining!

Checked into Chillis, had some food and met a few of the others and began what would be a common trend for the week.......DRINKING! I've been rambling on with this one so lets bullet:

•Banner - Jack & Danny had got a large banner made saying lads on tour with pictures of those in Koh Samet. It looked great and is now in a bar hopefully up on the wall and not in the bin!

•Breakfast - A spontaneous committee meeting with Danny that ended up taking two hours and involving a breakfast which included 3-4 beers before 11am!

•Harsh - Nik being cruelly left to sleep on the beach by a co-tour member and waking up heavily covered in bites.

•Regrettable Underwear - unfortunately I didn't have time to fully change before the night kicked off, with the sea there and the urge for some group swimming hard to resist we went in....sadly not anticipating the possibility of swimming I had a very poor choice of ball stranglers on! To quote "it looked like a child thong", "it was like watching two of the most unsexiest people emerge from the sea". They have been destroyed.

•Breakfast  - Nik, Danny and myself went on a ramble and once again had beers with breakfast. Doing this sets the tone for a day because if you stop you will crash!

•A good thing - tour members stopping a sexual assault by decking the aggressor.

•KSS - the majority of tour getting violently sick and having diarrhea, this is actually crazy, I got sick about 13 times in between 4-9 on Tuesday morning, Max was so bad he had to go to a hospital, three others also went to hospital, I received a call from one tour member distraught from being on the toilet pot for most of the day and I have reports that many others who thought they were safe have been inflicted with whats now being dubbed as KSS - Koh Samet Syndrome. It is most likely a bad case of food poisoning that will be over in 12-24 hours once you do the right things.

•Return Trip - I got home at 10pm after leaving the island at about 10.30am on the back of a lot of vomiting and barely any sleep. Others had a much worse experience having to travel through the night and arrive home in the early hours and more or less go straight to school. Some never made it to school, some didn't leave the Island that day!!

•Others - losing two sun creams one of which I bought there and only used once, not getting to jet ski, eating two of the exact same dinners, accidentally drinking sea water and having to vomit it up, note to self don't drink beer in the sea, tour member falling down the steps at the port, remembering more of nights out than normal which was a definite bonus on this trip, and a few short heated conversations which need not happen again.

In short it was another extremely funny weekend with mountains of banter, some good stories, a touch of drama and the realisation that you can push your body to far on tour!!

Pad/Visa/Job

Finally this week I got the green light to move from my isolated hotel room off a highway with no WiFi or phone signal to a two story house in a gated complex with CCTV, phone signal and free WiFi.The new pad has great party potential, its just a pity my town is not the easiest to get to!! I have also got a little balcony and 5 English TV channels, one of which is the Golf Channel.
So on Thursday I get a call to say I have to go to Korat on Friday provided the documents which were sent in the post arrive for me. They didn't until that morning, thankfully! This was short notice and I had mid-terms planned for Friday, the students won't be happy.

I headed off first thing Saturday on a 2hr bus journey to Korat, 15min motorbike taxi to labour office, got work permit, 15min tuk tuk to the mall, McDonalds, 30min motorbike taxi to immigration office, 2 hours of waiting until I'm seen and told I am missing some document, I ring the school on her request, no joy and than I ring my consultant who talked to the official. The official pulls out the immigration manual to discover she was wrong and granted me the visa extension. Oh and the taxi driver was waiting the whole time as there is no taxi's at the immigration office to bring you back. He flew back to the mall with me bracing for impact numerous times. I tipped him 100 baht for waiting and for driving pretty well. 6k day.

Made the last bus by 10mins were a man from my town began to try and teach me Thai, at one point he noticed a cut I had and started rubbing cream on it! Like when I have both earphones in its a good sign I'm not up for conversation, maybe if I only had one in it would be good manners and a possible conversation may happen but not two. I need to find his restaurant as he wants to drink whiskey with me!

After all that I was pretty wrecked but than two things happened. I got two packages from home that had got delayed with crisps, chocolate, a book and some clothes I had asked for, delighted. It gets better while on the balcony having a beer I check my email, boom, I have secured a three week job as Assistant Trainer on a paradise island with accommodation included!
I had to celebrate a little so I went to the best place in town and ordered...... the garlic pig colon!! Dear oh dear Linnane! A few beers, a talk with the owners, a dedicated song to me, an interested waitress and home I went!!

Sunday was very relaxed, bit of exercise, nice chat and coffee with Teacher Helen, haircut which had to be explained with accompanying pictures, lesson planning, book, film and sleep. Ok OK another balcony beer!!

Its been a hectic week with moving accommodation, mid-terms and the visa run but it ended very well with a job, a good pad, boxes from home and a visa extension!! #happy

Teaching the Police!!

Friday afternoon and I was well on my way to kicking off the weekend in Khon Kaen when I was informed I would be teaching the local Police some key English phrases in about an hour! There goes my last bus!

We got to the station not knowing anything really and entered a small conference style room with about 8-10 people, that quickly swelled to 20-25 armed police officers! A little daunting at first but 30 seconds later it was like a duck to water! Did some greetings and than common police commands like, "stop", "hands up, do you have any weapons" and "you are under arrest". My particular favorite was "drugs". They weren't getting it so out comes the wallet and credit card for my demonstration of chopping the drugs and snorting it! Whether they were impressed or not I don't know but they definitely got it!! We had some banter and surprisingly got paid with the experience worthy of a missed bus.

I did make it to KK and the less said about that weekend the better; watch as payment, man demanding 300 baht, two hotel rooms, amazing pizza, one bottle of rum and one shot glass please,  Blues, Rad, U-bar, blackouts, double big Mac, MK, cut elbow, banter #tour #dangerous