Koh Phi Phi!!!! For those of you who don't know, this island is located in southern Thailand on the west coast. I know what you're thinking. "Will..........let me get this straight! Does that mean you're SKIPPING the full-moon party on Koh Pa Ngan? YOU? The biggest party in the area and you're not going? WHAT THE HELL!?!" Let me explain something to you. I'm tired, I'm broke, I helped invent Queen's Homecoming so 10 000 people really doesn't impress me all that much. AND I spent a week in Cancun Mexico so I've done the beach party thing before. Plus I found out that a good friend of mine who I haven't seen in over three years lives in Malaysia so that just seemed like a better option. Plus I will tell two stories in this blog that made me extremely scared to place myself at the mercy of the full-moon party.
Oh and as a bit of a side note!! Koh Phi Phi was one of the worst hit places during the Tsunami of 2004. The island is famous for scuba diving, (some say even better than Koh Tao,) and during my stay here a longboat tipped over and a bunch of tourists were killed, there was a tsunami warning, and a budget airline went down where 88 people were also killed. Thankfully I didn't know anyone on that plane but I'm starting to wonder if maybe God is trying to send me not-so-subtle hints that perhaps it's time I headed home? Either that, or these next two stories are a result of what I have dubbed........"The Koh Phi Phi Curse" (Editor's note: Sorry Mom, but some stories have to be told, I love you and will always be you're baby boy! xo)
The First Story:
On the boat ride over, Matt and I chatted up these two girls and I thought we were off to a pretty good start! When we arrived on the island, we got scammed into taking a longboat to, (ironically as it were,) Long Beach. There are three beaches on the south side of Koh Phi Phi and out of sheer suckerdom we were staying in the guesthouse that was farthest away from the main drag. Now, let me paint you a picture for you. It takes 45 minutes in broad daylight to walk from the first beach to our hostel. Uh oh. On the way, you have to crawl along slippery rocks that are continually being pounded by the surf. Oh no. In between the three beaches you have to hike through the jungle and over a complicated path that in some spots is so steep that there are rope railings. Will, are you kidding me? The path is not lit, and obstacles that dot the way include intricate root systems, dense brush, and mud that got worse and worse from the torrential rains began to pour around 4:00pm that day. This is actually getting kind of funny.......we'll call this alarm bell#1. To top it all off, I hadn't been out drinking in a little while, (alarm bell#2,) we were at a new island that was notorious for it's partying scene, (alarm bell#3,) I was trying to pick up this girl, (alarm bell#4,) I thought it was going well, hence I thought it was inevitable and that I was invisible that night! (alarm bell #5.) DING DING DING!!!!! WE HAVE A FULL BLOWN FIVE ALARM NELSON CATASTROPHE JUST WAITING TO HAPPEN!!!
(No I didn't set myself on fire that night, this is a fire show.) Right before we left our guesthouse I turned to Matt and said, "hey man.....do you think I should bring my flashlight?" His reply? "Naw, you'll be fine." Sometimes my friends and I are so dumb it's simply amazing! The two girls, Matt and I finally navigated out way to a bar on the main strip and met up with a few of our friends who were already on the island. And then we proceeded to drink.........hard. I'm sure I've mentioned buckets before but I think I'd better go into them in detail. "Buckets" as they are referred to are simply that. A child's sandcastle bucket filled with a mixture of ice, coke, syrupy redbull, and about 12oz's of whiskey. Between the redbull and the coke, you can't really taste any booze and you usually drink about three in an hour..........let me rephrase that...........I usually drink about three in an hour, before I realize my mistake and by then it's too late. I have never had a bucket night that has ended well.......ever!
Where was I? Oh right, so I'm drinking excessively, watching the fire show, chatting up this girl, playing drinking games, telling all my funny jokes, (well at least I find them funny, I think a girl actually called me feral at one point.....as in a feral cat? She wasn't really hot anyways so I didn't care all that much at the time.) But seriously, I was on!!! Everything was coming up Nelson! Then the booze started to hit. Then the booze started to hit harder. Then the booze ran over me like I'd just been hit head-on by a dump truck. I have no idea what happened but at around 10:30 I lifted up my head, looked around and realized that I was all by myself. Well.......almost by myself. Somehow I'd engaged this guy Jim in a conversation and he was going on about something that I couldn't understand. Plus I was so many sheets to the wind my vessel had capsized somewhere around 9:45. So what did I do? Did I call it a night? Did I admit defeat? NEVER!!! "Well screw everyone then!" I screamed. "If they don't want to party then I'll party by myself!!" I ran into Jim the next day and he said that when I finally stood up, (with his help,) and uttered my rallying battle cry it really sounded like a kid with down's syndrome quoting Plato. So I went to the bar and ordered another personal whiskey bucket. BOOM! I was done!!!
I have no idea what happened for the next half an hour or so but at some point the bartender came up to me and suggested that perhaps it was time for me to leave. I don't know how drunk you have to be to get kicked out of a bar in Koh Phi Phi, (or anywhere in Thailand for that matter,) but apparently I had achieved this end. I finally figured out which direction my guesthouse was and I sauntered off. It was tough going. The rain was pouring so hard that the rocks were like big boulders of black ice and after a couple of steps I realized that seeing my feet leave the ground and sail over my head would be a common occurrence on this trip home. At one point I looked down and saw that I'd cut one of my ankles up and that my clothes were so dirty I looked like a fisherman turned hobo. The wind was also whipping the salt water up into my eyes and burning them to add to my displeasure. By some act of God I made it to the first beach and found three people that out of sheer pity gave me a giant beer to share with them on the beach. Thanks assholes, that's what I really needed at that point! After I assured them I knew where I was going, (which I didn't,) I meandered over to the second section of rocks for another assault on nature. After what felt like an eternity of walking and climbing I turned around and realized that it was pitch black and I had no idea where I was! I was cold, soar from falling, and wet from the rain and sea water. For some reason I remember taking a little rock and carving something on one of the boulders, maybe as a marker or perhaps I was making a tombstone, I don't know. I lay down and fell asleep.
I awoke what felt like a few hours later and I was not happy. I was cold, wet, and still ever so drunk. I remember thinking that I had to get off these rocks, pronto as they weren't really doing anything for me or my appearance. So I turned around and plunged into the jungle. After a few minutes my heart leaped as I saw a light! And not just a light, a cabin!!! I stumbled onto the porch and collapsed in a heap, content just to be out of the rain and I passed out again. My sleep was interrupted however, as around what I later figured to be about 6:00am, I bolted up right and projectile vomited all over the flower arrangement that adorned the area right in front of the porch. At this sudden burst of noise, the cabin door opened and out stepped this little haggard old Thai lady. I guess she didn't pick up at the bar either because she was NOT in a good mood. Either that or for some reason was not happy to see a hulking, dirty, vomiting tourist on her front porch as the sun was just beginning to rise and chased me off into the jungle. Great, I was now right back where I started.
I kept walking until I eventually found some sort of road. I continued to follow the road back to town where I surveyed my surroundings. Memories came flooding over me and I realized by my calculation that in my drunken stupor I'd overshot my guesthouse by about three and a half kilometers. I did the 45 minute trek back to our guest house where I screamed and yelled until Matt and the two girls came out. I was pissed, (literally and figuratively,) and I couldn't believe that they'd abandoned me at the bar!!! "What the hell are you yelling about!?!" screamed Matt. "We were at the bar until two in the morning, where the hell did you go?!?" I recounted my little camping trip and much to my annoyance all three of them thought this to be absolutely hilarious. I made a resolution when I woke up at 4:00pm that afternoon. No buckets for three days. And that my friends was the first story of the Koh Phi Phi Curse.
As soon as I woke up the next day I demanded that we move guesthouses. As far as I was concerned, Long Beach sucked and I'd rather amputate my now-infected left foot than go through that Japanese death march again. We found some hospitable accommodation and for the next few days Matt and I laid low and got our PADI scuba diving certification.
Unfortunately I couldn't bring a camera out on the boat as it's expressively forbidden when going for a certification but I will promise you that we had a blast, saw tons of sea life, (sharks, turtles, fish, etc.) and the instructors were phenomenal.
In the afternoons we hung out on the beach, got a tan, read a lot and just chilled out. It was great. Then on our last night, we decided to go out on a bit of a bender. I mean c'mon, we hadn't gone out in like four nights, our guesthouse was close by, what could possibly go wrong?
The Second Story:
Matt was roaming around the island taking in the scene and I was lying in my bed reading when there was a knock at the door. I opened it up and there was "Candypants" the girl from the first night and since it was both our last nights on the island she was wondering if I'd be up for going for a drink. Hot chick wants to drink with me? This one's kind of a no brainer. What I didn't know until I'd finished my forth beer is that Candypants wasn't ordering any alcohol. Fine, whatever. Eight beers later I find Matt, say goodbye to the girls and then Matt and I decide to go for dinner. We hit up one of the restaurants, ordered some food and looked around for some prey.......I mean.........someone fortunate enough to accompany us to a bar that night. We had a few more beers and eventually these three girls sat down at a table behind us. All we needed was a line. And I had one.
I approached their table and even though I was swaying a little I leaned in and said, "excuse me ladies, my friend over there is drinking a bottle of water, and we couldn't help but notice that all of you are made up of around 85% water, so we were wondering if we could join you and drink some more water?"................you're not going to believe this...........it worked!!! They bought it and all laughed and invited us to join them! The night progressed as nights usually do, we all ordered rounds and rounds of drinks, I focused my attention on one particular lass and we traded stories about stocks and bonds. (Sex and booze stories.) Things were going great! Finally one of the girls, (I forget who,) suggested that we move to a more livelier location. We all agreed and headed down to a bar called Apache that had music and a dance floor.
We started horsing around, dancing, yelling, laughing and then we all met up at this one table to order more drinks. "Hey!" one of the girls yelled. "It's two-for-one buckets," do you guys want to get some?" Oh no. "Um..........I don't think so, you see I think I'm getting kind of drunk so maybe I should just stick to beer for awhile!" Did I actually just say that? "Oh c'mon," she said, "don't be such a pussy!" (You know in the movie "Back to the Future" when Buck calls Marty a chicken and he completely overreacts? That's what happens when someone calls me a pussy, especially if my manhood is called into question over the consumption of alcohol.) So we ordered some buckets. And some more buckets. We were all getting really drunk when the girls screamed because some god awful top ten song that they just loved started up and they dragged us onto the dance floor. As we were approaching the dance floor I leaned over to Matt and asked him for a piece of gum. This ladies and gentleman, is what sports announcers refer to as the TSN turning point!
All the girls wanted a piece of gum too and then the group of us hit the dance floor. All those buckets and beer started to hit me really hard and the euphoric feeling of the hunt filled with me with such a sense of lust that I really wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Without thinking, I walked up to my particular interest that evening and started to grind with her from behind. She was pretty into it so I thought I'd turn the flirt level up a notch. I leaned in and nuzzled her neck ever so softly. What I completely forgot is that I still had a piece of gum in my mouth and when I opened my mouth to kiss her gently the gum dropped out into her hair............................ ooooooohhhhhh, the quarterback drops the ball!!!! Let's see if he can recover?!? I quickly turned her around and looked into her eyes as I pretended to try out a new sexy dance move that involved me stroking the back of her head, all the while feeling around for the gum. Feeling around.........feeling around.........almost.........almost............got it! I gently tried to extract the gum but I wasn't' having much success. This called for drastic action! I figured, (in my drunken stupidity,) that the only way to get it out was one good hard yank, just like a band aid right? I leaned her forward and then as the music was reaching it's climax I pulled..........hard. "AWWWWUUGH!!!!!!!" she screamed! Thinking quickly I retorted, "Oh my god I'm so sorry your hair got caught in my bracelet!" This seemed to satisfy her and after we joked about it we went back to dancing. At this point I realized just how screwed I really was. There were five of us, everyone was chewing gum except me, and one of us, had gum in her hair. I'm not Sherlock Homes or anything but even a three year old could figure this one out. Fuck!
I left "gummed-up-the-works" and danced over to my buddy Matt. "Dude!" I yelled. I think I'm in trouble!" Matt looked at me curiously, "why, what's wrong?" I explained the situation. Matt looked at me like I was crazy, gum in your hair sucked but it couldn't be that bad. He promptly turned and danced over towards the girl and slowly gyrated towards her back side. All of a sudden his searching eyes focused on something and he stopped dancing. His eyes went as big as dinner plates and his hands went up to his mouth that was probably making one of those, "wooaaaaaa," noises. He didn't dance back, he marched back briskly like a soldier going into battle, looked right at me and yelled over the noise, "What the fuck did you do?" It's smeared all over the back of her head!!!!" "What are you talking about?" I yelled back. "It's just in one spot!"
I danced back over towards her and looked closely. Oh shit. You remember my brilliant plan to just haul the piece out of her hair in one fell swoop? In the failed removal attempt, I'd stretched the gum into one long strand that was now intricately wrapped around several locks of hair. I ran back to Matt. "Dude.....what do we do? Should we just bolt?" (This by the way is what any sensible person would do, but as I have clearly demonstrated I am anything but a sensible person.) Matt's voice of reason kicked in. "Of course we run........ you think going to stick around for this?!? Let's just go!" I don't know why I didn't listen. Maybe because part of me was starting to find this whole situation rather amusing. Maybe because part of me, (the wasted part,) thought I still had a chance to recover and get some ass that night. "No I can fix this!" I yelled back. All of a sudden Matt started to smile and then he began to laugh. He knows me well enough by now that he can see when I'm about to crash and burn and he knows that hilarity usually ensues.
Quickly I formulated a plan. "Give me your packet of gum." I took a piece of Matt's gum out of the package and popped it into my mouth. Then I went up and ordered another bucket. Matt and I then went over to the group of dancing girls. "Hey, I've got an idea!" I yelled over the music to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Head. "Let's have a chug off, just you and me!" She was up for it so we started drinking, only I had about three chugs before I stopped and just pretended to keep chugging, thus I delibrately made her drink all the rest of the bucket. This is like having 7 drinks in the span of about 30 seconds. I looked over at Matt who was beside himself and still didn't know where I was going with this. I waited about five minutes for the alchol to kick in before I walked over and started dancing with her again. Then I dropped the bomb.
"Hey what's this in your hair?" I shouted above the noise. She stopped dancing, felt around and a look of disgust crossed her face. Her friends came over and took a look. One of them pipes up, "it looks like gum!" (Thanks for helping derail my runaway train toots!) This called for drastic action."No....I don't think it's gum," I said while looking up at the roof of the bar. "I think it's ceiling wax!" (At this point Matt was trying so hard to keep from bursting out laughing that he was having convulsions.) The girls tried unsuccesfully to remove the gum from her hair for a few minutes before someone said, "hey......this really is gum, it smells like mint!" Busted!.......or am I? "Well don't look at me," I said indingalty, "my piece is right here!" And I innocently popped open my mouth to reveal to all that I did indeed still had my piece of gum They tried again for a few minutes to remove the gum but to no avail. It really was awful. The oringal piece had split into about eight sections that were all streaked down a few inches to her neck. She sort of looked like some weird version of a fucked up rastafarian with snowwhite dreadocks. Finally, (I think to lighten the mood,) one of the girls jokingly suggested that since it was gum we should try chewing it out.
I don't know why I did what I did. To this day when I look back, it still baffles me that I would do something so weird and depraved. It went against all forms of common sense, self-preservation, and public convention. Even all the alcohol I'd consumed that night isn't an excuse for this one. But I did it anyway. I picked up a wad of her hair covered with gum and plopped it into my mouth and began to chew away. Her friends just froze. Matt's face was a mix of sheer terror and bewilderment. Luckily by this point, (largly due to the bucket chugging,) the playdough porcupine was so drunk that she didn't react at first. And I just kept chewing, mashing more and more of her hair into the gum. Finally after about ten seconds, during which time everyone was compeltey silent, I removed her hair from my mouth and stated, "well..........that's not working.......but it's definatley gum and not ceiling wax........it tastes like gum." No one moved. No one spoke. Everyone was so shocked they just stood there staring at me. Slowly, as if a dawning comrehension was thrown over our little circle like a blanket , the girls all looked at one another and then at me. While they couldn't prove it, I think they started to suspect that I had something to do with the gum in their friends hair.
Eventually one of the girls finally piped up and said something. "I guess we could try burning it out, I've got a buitaine lighter." Oh boy. She grabbed her friends hair, pulled a large chunk out and set fire to the back of her head. It burned away pretty qickly and then for some reason they all turned and faced me. Here was this girl who was so bewildered she wasn't even upset, standing with her friends, (one of which is holding a clump of gum-hair the size of a baby's fist.) Even with that piece of gum gone there's still gum matted in about a half dozen other places, these girls are pretty sure I'm the cause of all this and now the whole bar reeks like burnt hair. The situation had turned tense. They stood there and stared. I stood there and stared back. No one was giving in. After what seemed like an eternity I finally thought of something to say. I looked right into the eyes of the girl who by this point was doing a pretty good impression of Cameron Diaz's character in "There's Something About Mary."
"Hey...........that's a good look for you!" Matt imidately grabbed the back of my shirt and hauled me across the dance floor. We tore down the steps, out onto the beach and ran up the path towards our gueshouse laughing hysterically and trying to breathe while we wipped the tears from our eyes. I can't believe that chick still hasn't called me for a second date.
