The Birthday Bash

Filthy streets. Potholes. Stagnant water. Music blaring from bars every 10 meters. Old foreign men with young thai ladies on their arms. Whores grabbing you every 5 meters. Bright lights. Flashing neon signs. Trendy upmarket restaurants. Huge discos. Girly bars on every street. Armani. Gucci. Boss. All copies at the tailors mind you. Witnessing motorbike accidents. Backpackers galore. Families with young kids. Drunk people everywhere. 5 star resorts. Low down bungalows. Used syringes on the beach.
Welcome to Chaweng beach, Koh Samui. Half way round the world from England. 50km from Koh Tao, but almost half a world away.
What a culture shock. Ok, so I was in Thailand anyway, but after almost 3 weeks on the quiet paradise of Sairee beach on Koh Tao, Chaweng beach on Samui is possibly the biggest sh*thole I have ever witnessed. It's hard to believe that this was once a paradise island.

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Although the setting sucked, the company more than made up for it. Kosh and I were picked up at Mae Haad, the boat port on Koh Tao, by the birthday crew on our own chartered dive boat. It was kind of sad to say goodbye to all the people at Ban's, but I'll be seeing most of them again in the summer when I get back to finish my Divemaster course. Unfortunately, most of the Divemaster trainees I will probably not see again as they'll have finished and left by then. Ling, Chris (aka Dodgy), Ed, Adam, Lucy, Martin (aka MJ), Chris' sister and her boyfriend, Eric and Mara were all aboard the boat when it picked us up. I was fantastic seeing all my friends again! Cue a couple of dives around Koh Tao and a 2 hour ride back to Koh Samui where Kosh and I checked into the Matlang resort at the north end of Chaweng beach. Adam and Lucy were staying there too, and the rest were staying at a 5 star hotel (a 'Boutique' one mind you) just next door. Everything here is 'Boutique'. Even the domestic airline, Air Bangkok, is labelled 'Boutique'. What the hell is it supposed to mean?! If they have 'Boutique' before the name, it means they can charge you twice as more?
We had a fab time eating out, although at a high end Italian, or Brazilian steak house, or trendy seafood restaurant. Not a huge amount of drinking mind you, I think hitting the 30 year old mark has affected Ling and Chris! Although one great night at a bar called Rice with some shooters redeemed them. I think the DJed fell in love with us, as we were the only group dancing and whooping along in an otherwise empty bar.
The day after the first day of diving we spent relaxing. Most people went their own ways to do their own thing. I spent over an hour in the Samui Hospital getting my final JE vaccination. Then met up with Kosh at the beach side bar at Matlang resort for a couple of beers.
The second day we headed to Sail Rock, off the north of Koh Phangan, for a dive, followed by a second one in a beautiful bay on Phangan. Cue plenty of pranks, pushin each other off the boat, including the boat boys who were a great laugh! On the third and final day, we headed to the An Thong National Marine Park to the west of Phangan for some good dives. More hijinks in between dives! Beer drinking on the way back afterwards. Made a rocket out of a plastic water bottle with a hole cut in the bottom. Attached it to the air cylinders for the scuba gear and switched it on to shoot the bottle the length of the boat!
Ling, Kosh and I decided to leave the day beforehand back to Bangkok (seems so much nicer after Chaweng! And you thought Bangkok was mad!!) so Ling and Kosh could do some shopping at Chatuchak market before Ling flew back to Hong Kong on Sunday. We went to Bed Supperclub again to meet up with Mel, Kriss and a bunch of friends of theirs for a leaving party (Juliana, a friend of Mel's).
Kosh stayed on a couple of extra days, and we went to see Mel and Kriss' new pad which they'll start doing up in a few months when they get it. Had a walk round the area they will live in and had some soup noodles down a back street and checked out a temple nearby.Monday, I finally flew to Delhi, India.
So here I am finally, in India. Won't do an update for Delhi now as I haven't done all the photos yet or given you the lowdown on the birthday week. Been here for two days so far. It's pretty insane! I'm off to Agra day after tomorrow, so I'll probably do an update tomorrow evening before I head off to give you all the gossip on Delhi!