"Remember, you can always find East by staring directly at the sun."

The  coach left us at Surrethani, the little change over spot, yet again, I think this could be our 3rd time here. Our ferry is to Ko Samui and we're getting dropped to the port by a company whose driver is a lovely little Thai gent who looks to be absolutely off his head on glue. He's picking people up on the side of the road and dropping them to their houses. In one case, he actually got out of the motor (which was still running) and went into someones house for maybe 15 minutes and came out eating noodles. I'm surprised at myself for being surprised. 

We get to the ferry as it's pulling off and just about make it on.

It's not so packed on the top deck so we make our way up and hold on for the 2 hour or so trip. We'd spotted a beautiful Asian girl sitting by herself. I'm convinced she's Philippino, B thinks otherwise. I'm perplexed, so I shuffle my way over and ask the very general "excuse me, have you ever been to Samui before?" 

 Her reply of  "No, I live in Bangkok", may have proved me wrong and B right but more importantly it has also given me a reason to continue this conversation as she hasn't thrown water over me or moved to another seat like it usually pans out. I use the gift of Dublin shite talk to reel her in and by the end of the 2 hours, we'd exchanged details and were going to meet up at the full moon party, result.

After that me and B grab a jeepney styled tuk-tuk and decide on Lamai beach to dig our heels in. 

Ko Samui is a crazy place, in fact crazy doesn't sum it up. There's lots going on here, like a giant local community street party except replace friendly neighbours and BBQ's with strippers and Chang beer.

It's the 1st time we're struggling to find somewhere to stay - within budget, which to be honest was running low. 

Eventually we're pointed in the direction of a little hidden away secret by a stoned hippy. It's cheap, which is our only item we need to check off the list at this stage. 

The plan has been made to stay in Samui and grab a ferry over to the infamous Kho Phangnan for the Countdown party, stay for the chaotic beach invasion and bundle onto the ferry back the next morning. Then our stuff will be safe and we won't get ripped off on accommodation. Smart fuckers we are.

Until then we were going to enjoy the scenery around us (well I was) I have to say, despite the seediness about the place, I quite enjoyed as it was something different and had a bit of life to it, something we hadn't really had since Phi Phi.

Next door to where we were staying had an Irish bar, with mashed potatoes, Guinness and The Dubliners greatest hits playing in the background. Having that.

Soon enough it's turned into quite a modern styled bar with the stools taken away from the bar and a live band doing their best Evanescence covers.

B get's up to sing and get's quite a good reception as per usual. 

I sit there and drink more Guinness.

 Eventually, I get a bit fed up and rather than try a new bar, we've a big one tomorrow, have to be in the game for that one. The Dave fella has got in touch with me, he's in Samui but I can't reply to him. Bit of a shame, but what can ya do. Back to base to chill out and prepare myself for the New Years Eve countdown party. Epic.

I'll give you a clue how this ends for me;

Badly, in the best way possible.

Cheers folks.

"If you live in a glass house, don't be chucking stuff about."

This 2nd Khao Lak entry is literally just going to be about me fulfilling a life long dream, of about twenty minutes.....

B was staying in and I fancied a pint (you can't get pints over here, so a rum and coke would have to suffice), crossed the road and seen this heroic little gaff, sort of like a garage with a couple of bottles of spirits lying about with some plastic garden furniture, with a bloke and 2 girls sitting around smoking, with Drum and Bass in the background. I felt like I was in an episode of "Skins".

Anywho, Josh from England and Anja from Germany, with her German mate invite me to drink with them. It doesn't take me long to realize that there's a distinct lack of barmen about, I don't know if you'd even call people working here barmen, I reckon you just call them your mates, coz no one in their right mind would probably drink here if you weren't mates with the staff. 

Josh and Anja work here they tell me, they rent it for 3 months and then they're moving on to pastures greener. They seem to enjoy it. It's hardly a money making activity as I'm pretty sure in the hour I've been here Josh has drank away any profit I have given. It was late afternoon and I decided I'd go back and check in on hop'along who was not well at all. 

Got back, to the little wonderland for around 3 hours. It was boring here with not a lot going on. There's only so many trips to Mackers you can do, the little bedsit bar was calling me.....

20 minutes later I'm across the road, I walk into the bar and to my shock, it's bouncing! 

Well, there's 12 people there, but the bar can really, realistically only fit about 6.

Poor Josh is struggling to serve everyone, even telling people to "take their own beer" from the fridge and pay for it later. He is then hit with a request that brings tears to his eyes. 

"6 Margaritas please" 

He's unsure how to do them. 

This is where yours truly gets involved.

"Eh, I can make them" I suggest.....

Before I know it I'm working in a bar, again, not the kind of bar you or me are used to and it's certainly no Dublin-esque pub, but it was fun and I was decent enough at doing it, no one got spiked and glass smashing was at a minimum.

The bar made a loss but let's look on the bright side of things. 

The building was still standing, even if it's occupants were not.

Josh reveals he can't pay me for my efforts. I tell him I'm like a modern day superhero and I require no payment. I'm just about to fly off into the distance (run across the road to my guesthouse) when he introduces a bottle of Rum, we shut up the bar and get the ice out..... this could get interesting... we just need the lovely Anja back....

5 hours later, Keyless, I'm climbing over a rather large spiked gate praying to the large Mantus in the sky that I don't get impaled. Takes a good ten minutes to maneuver myself over the iron structure when out of nowhere comes the little 5 foot nothing Thai woman who owns the place and she simply pushes the gate open.... after all the dramatic situations I had found myself in over the past 3 months and to be honest, 25 years of life, that would have been an embarrassing death.... You've got to laugh.

Ko Samui is the destination next. A few days there with a new years eve countdown party in between, after that we're unsure what to do, but as you learn with traveling, it's better to make no plans as things just fall into place and with all the people I was meeting, it was hard to imagine life without knowing them. 

That was a bit soft, next up is Lamai beach, outdoor strippers and my first Guinness for 3 months. 

G'luck.

"If you can't fix it with duck tape you haven't used enough "

December 24th, 2011, it's been almost 3 months traveling. Living in the most extreme circumstances. Getting eaten alive by insects, being attacked by bats, single beds that felt so much like concrete that the floor was more comfortable, showering with cold water in buckets and being constantly sticky with sweat either from lack of air-con or else just there being no showering facilities at all.

So, arriving up to a 5 star hotel in the recently refurbished coastal town of Khao Lak, was something we were just not ready for.

Greeted by a sexy Mrs Clause with champagne for us, our bags were taken to our room by the staff. Everyone was in uniform and the place was absolutely huge. It was a lot to take in. The main attractions here was the power shower, tv, dvd player, dressing gowns AND slippers and a mini bar. Comfortable beds, room service, nice view. What more could you ask for?

A free Christmas Eve dinner/buffet/show? Wear your best clothes? Sure why not, this was awesome. Luxury I sure was not used to. It was well special, what made it really special was the fact that I had worked every Christmas day for the past 5 years (me being the gent that I am, I always volunteered to work it to give people with kids the time off, okay everyone, a collective 'awwwwwwwwwwww')

The buffet was laid out impeccably, everything you could imagine was there (except me mothers mash) and presentation was A1. Amazing food, gorgeous girls, a cracking show going on with dancers and singers, even Santa made an appearance and me good mate B. Twas marvellous.

After we went out done some sort of candle/kite wish thing, I don't remember what I wished for, probably Shels to get to next seasons final and to beat Rovers along the way?

Merry Christmas Dan.....


Christmas day, well well well. B got me a tuk-tuk model. It's my 2nd one now, I've a collection started.

My one gripe I have with this day, is as a whole, it's boring and repetitive, in that every year you have the same routine. Get up, open presents, go to relatives, come home, eat dinner, drink, bed. Snore.

Well, this year, it was the following; Get up, hot shower in a shower bigger than my bedroom back home, sun cream up, go to the beach (located outside our front door) and proceed to lie there whilst gorgeous Thai girls make us cocktails and us being us, we order hamburgers for lunch. Easily the best Christmas day I ever had.

Obviously it was a bit weird not having the familia around, so both myself and B got in touch with the folk back home to let them know how we were getting on. The only thing I can recall is my two younger brothers being quite "tired and emotional" having had a hefty one the night before, glad it wasn't me for once.


For our Christmas dinner, we had lobster! I'd never had it before, there was other stuff there too, but that was the main event, easily. We got a bottle of wine and B went on to show me proper table manners and how to woo the women by being a "gentleman". I'd be putting it to the test over the next couple of weeks.

It was a real nice Christmas day topped off by playing Jenga and connect 4 with a load of Thai people. Ringing room Service and charging it to our account was mega, until the final bill came. 4 days in this hotel we had clocked up the shocking amount of 20,000 baht. 500 Euro in real money. We put it down to just another experience for us as we surely wouldn't be doing anything like this again for a while anyway. Money was looking down south and we still had a full moon/countdown party on Kho Phangnan and the whole of January before we arrived in Australia for February.

B, again was feeling rough so instead of heading to Ko Samui straight away, we had to hold up the fort in Khao Lak, although it was back to reality in a small dingy little cave like room and Mackers was on the menu....


Ahhhhhh, normal service has resumed.......