Big shoes to fill

The morning after the buckets, beach swim and Burger King, 13 of us meet for breakfast on the beach, as the boys have organised a charter boat to take us from Koh Samui to some of the surrounding islands. Despite some hangovers masquerading as seasickness, we relish the beautiful weather, fresh air, stunning island scenery and ice cold beers. On Mae Koh island, we climb several hundred vertical ladder-steps to reach the lookout, and stop for a swim on the way back to the boat. The swim is cut short after an official from the island chases us, furiously yelling something in Thai. Numerous hand gestures and concerned looks later, he manages, “Ahh I can’t think of word. Ahh…shnakes? Shea shnakes!” Everyone makes it safely back over the barrier, and we all agree it’s a 10/10 day. Until the swells on the way home.

I nervously laugh the first few times the speed boat flies into the air and slams down again, knocking the wind out of us. The Thai boat driver doesn’t look at all concerned, but the ride back to Samui becomes less and less fun for the passengers (well, for me, anyway). When we hit another massive wave, I sustain my first battle-scar of the trip, in the form of a 20cmx20cm bruise in twenty shades of purple on my ribs as I fly off my seat and slam onto the floor of the boat. Nothing a Tiger or two can’t fix though. One for the ribs, one for me.

The next day is New Year’s Eve, and I meet up with Hanna for a traditional Thai breakfast of eggs Benedict and a flat white. We spend the majority of the day haggling for jewellery, and finalising fluoro outfits for the evening ahead – the Full Moon Party (even though it’s not technically a full moon tonight) on Koh Phangan. Tim arrives from Phuket in the afternoon, and we have pre-drinks in Emily and Chris’s room, followed by a moonlit dinner overlooking Koh Samui beach and posing for a host of photos capturing the 18 of us in the brightest hues of yellow, green, pink and orange. For another 20 Baht, we’re decorated in fluorescent paint to match the garish outfits, and board the boat bound for Phangan. A little Dutch courage (in the form of a Smirnoff strawpedo) is required for me to board another speed boat after the bruising incident of the previous day, but I brave the waters and the ride goes off without a hitch.

We meet up with Hanna and her friends and spend the evening at Cactus Bar – very reminiscent of our Otago days, with plenty of cheap drinks, broken glass, sticky floors, the latest Katy Perry and Lady Gaga tunes on repeat. There are a few minor hitches later in the evening, including a couple of hospitalisations; some friends of our party have their bucket spiked, and one of our crew falls on the cactus bushes adorning the entrance to the bar, requiring cactus needles to be extracted from her hands. The Koh Phangan Hospital is conveniently the only medical centre on the island and charges an arm and a leg (8000 Baht) for treatment, so there’ll be some sizable travel insurance claims when we all make it home – fortunately not on my part…yet.

I make an early-ish exit at 2am, thanks to Tim indulging in one too many buckets; he’s dangerously close to not making it back to Koh Samui, so I enlist the help of Anth and Gab to help me drag him back to the ferry terminal. We source a burger to sober him up, but he promptly regurgitates it as soon as we get it down him (ungrateful bastard). Miraculously, we make it back to Ark Bar in one piece, and after his initial resistance to come home early, Tim declares his love for all of us and repeatedly thanks us for the favour (not so ungrateful, after all). The early departure saves me from a hangover the next day, and all in all, it’s a super night –everything you’d expect (or not expect) from a Red Bull and vodka bucket-fuelled party on a small island with 20,000 fluorescent-clad backpackers.

As good fortune would have it, the remainder of our party safely make their way back to Koh Samui, with the last ones rolling in on the 7am speed boat and the 10am one-and-a-half-hour slow ferry – a truly painful experience, I’m told. We succumb to a Coffee Club brunch, bid farewell and go our separate ways for the next leg of the journey - most of the group are off to other areas of South East Asia, while Pete and I are making our way to India. This has so far been the greatest holiday I’ve ever been on, and we’re only up to day 6 of 59. The next 53 days have big shoes to fill.

Where there's a grill, there's a way

We land in Bangkok and have a couple of hours to spare, so we head down to the railway platform hoping we can get somewhere near the centre of town in the limited time we have. Barney reveals he still has some Fruit Bursts and passes the bag around the team. Delighted, we get a much-needed sugar hit and discuss the merits of citrus over berry while we wait for the train, before a Bangkok Railways official joins us on the platform. Barn, supposing the guard might also like a Fruit Burst, generously offers the bag forth. The guard is less than impressed, and furrows his already-stern brow even further, and then barks something in Thai, pointing to the ‘No Food’ sign we’d obviously missed. The uniformed official turns and salutes the oncoming train, while we hide the remaining evidence of any other food, and jump on the 160km/h express, which takes us nowhere near the centre of town, but instead to Phaya Thai Station, in a run-down part of Bangkok. We sample the street food delights on offer, choosing Pad Thai, chocolate crepes, and grilled bananas. After seeing the woman at the stall behind us re-fill an old water bottle from the tap and place it back in her fridge, we wash our lunch down with bottles of Pepsi that look legitimately sealed.

We head back to the airport and we’re bussed out into the middle of the runway to board our flight to Koh Samui on Bangkok Airways, the “Best Domestic Airline in Asia – 6 years running”, according to their in-flight magazine, promotional ads, name badges, head rests, plastic cups, and cutlery. The Party Plane, as we christen it, is highly decorated with multi-coloured swirls and stripes – very Austin Powers – and we’re treated to our first free in-flight meal and entertainment in the form of a Quebec version of You’re on Candid Camera. The cheap laughs satisfy, and team morale is at an all-time high as we arrive at Ark Bar, our resort for the next four days. We spend the first night on the beach drinking cocktails, swimming, dining and then trying our first buckets – some (read: mine) much more potent than the rest. The next day, we hit the shops and the well-travelled of the bunch teach me the art of haggling, my first success being a fluorescent, leopard-print bikini – a steal at 450 Baht.

George and Joan arrive from Koh Tao in time for a group lunch of more Pad Thai (when in Rome) and we plan the rest of the day’s activities. Some of us girls opt for a very indulgent two-and-a-half-hour massage and foot scrub session, while the boys head to the Thai boxing matches on that night. We’re marched upstairs out the back of Most Massage’s premises, lined up on mattresses in a neat row, and each appointed a masseuse. We’re then stripped off in a semi-dignified manner, towelled up, and our feet are scrubbed to within an inch of their lives. The oil massage follows, and for the most part, it’s very relaxing. Until I lift my head and see a small Thai lady mounting Harriet on the floor next to me. Heaving with laughter and with tears rolling down my cheeks, I have to bury my face in my pillow and spend the rest of the massage suppressing fits of hysteria, and reassuring my little Thai lady that I’m okay. We’re rolled over, oiled and rubbed some more, and some of the other girls unwittingly find themselves getting free boob massages (and in one case a free buttocks massage) that were not on the original order.

When the Thai masseuses hear that the boys in our group are at the boxing, they ask if we mean ‘ladyboy boxing’ and tell us about Thailand’s champion ladyboy boxer, Nong Tum - definitely worth a google. Thoroughly relaxed and laughed out, we find an alleyway of bars with two-for-one cocktail buckets and meet up with Hanna, Kate and Christie and their Swiss travelling buddies. We witness some excruciating-looking breakdancing fails (think: face meets concrete), and the night ends with another beach swim. The tide rolls in and takes with it George’s dress and almost her jandals. But, like the true intrepid traveller George has become over the past six weeks in India and Thailand, she doesn’t let this faze her. For a replacement dress, she makes do with a guy’s singlet left behind on the beach, and then heads to Burger King, regardless, for some flame-grilled beef goodness. I commend her resilience in the face of loss, and realise that where there’s a grill, there’s a way.