The weather was back and forth so we spent equal time on our laptops and at the beach. We also went into Sydney for a day. We met up with Nakita’s sister Petea on her lunch break and after she got off work. We had lunch and some chocolate at a very fancy chocolatier restaurant. I trained down to Mascot Station and got a shirt for Dad at the Harley-Davidson dealership down there. We had planned to meet at the Sydney Opera House but we apparently communicated wrong because I sat there for an hour after we were supposed to meet and then left and walked partway over the bridge and then back through The Rocks. I eventually ran into them at 6 p.m., we were supposed to meet at four, outside of the Circle Quay train station, where they thought we were supposed to meet. Peta came shortly after and we walked over to a restaurant in Darling harbour; which has a very posh club scene. We had a nice dinner. I had a lamb burger while Alex had a kangaroo steak. Afterwards we walked back through town and went up the Sydney version of the CN Tower and took in a great night time view of Sydney. The downtown core is nestled in quite a small rectangle. We also got a look over at King’s Cross, where we would be going the next night clubbing. Apparently it’s got a bad reputation for prostitution and drive-by shootings. The police presence there is quite heavy in response to this well-earned reputation. We then walked back to the station along George Street and then arrived back home sometime later that night. Sydney kind of reminds me of a cross between Vancouver and San Fransisco with a bit of San Diego thrown in… It’s very Westcoast.

The next night we took the train into Sydney, with a $4 bottle of wine each in hand to meet Suz from Bali & Ko Phangan at a nightclub in King’s Cross. We met her perfectly outside a club called Sugarmill after taking quite a bit of asking to find it; almost as much as it took to find a pay phone that was 20 feet away from us. It was good to see her. We hung out in the bar/club and had a few pitchers with her, her and her friends, one of which we called fat Cashmore. Afterwards we went to another club in King’s Cross, and then apparently another very posh one on George Street called the Ivy which we weren’t even supposed to be in due to our dress and that it was a private function; and which I have no recollection of going to. Peta was surprised that we went there because of how posh it is apparently. We ended up traking the 7 a.m. train back to Woy Woy and were picked up by Nakita. I don’t remember anything between leaving the second club and driving back to the house in Nakita’s car. Alex said I was fine until we were leaving the last club when I was falling all over the place from being so tired. Alex kept talking about how it was light out when we left the club and how we had never done that before. I think I have a small recollection of that first glimpse of sunlight. I caught a lot of flack from the family that morning for still being drunk while I was eating my breakfast before going to bed.

The next night we were supposed to go to a rubics cube party with Peta but we were in no condition to. I had slept until 5 p.m. that evening and was still out of it. On our last day we had a nice barbeque out in a park with some nice steaks and then proceeded on to the Reptile Park. There we saw all kinds of Aussie wildlife, including kangaroos, koalas, and crocodiles. It was a good day. We also met Nakita’s brother who had just returned home from Schoolies the day before rocking a fohawk that his family beaked him pretty bad for. I also got to tell the whole family what sizzurp is.

We endured our 30 hours of travelling with the patience we have created in ourselves from all the travelling we have done in the past couple years. The plane rides were a piece of cake; what with the food, alcohol, movies, blankets, and sleeping pills. Sydney to Beijing was 11 hours and Beijing to Vancouver was 10.5 hours. The nine hours in the Beijing airport, atleast the first half, was the worst. I hadn’t brought any clothes besides a t-shirt and shorts and was shaking I was so cold. We ended up taking refuge in the airport Pizza Hut for 4 hours because it was about 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the airport. Arriving home was strange; two days later it stills feels like a dream.

Steeves

We eventually made it down to Surfer’s and were accosted by a number of hostel-pushers as we got off the bus; albeit in a very lazy manner. We took a bus to one but it turned out to be much more expensive than the one we ultimately chose for $22 per night: Main Beach Backpackers. We got lucky there by getting one of the six-bed dorms. The people we talked to who stayed in the sixteen-bed dorms hated it and got little or no sleep. The hostel was nice and had free wi-fi. The people there were mostly great as well. Flow, a guy who worked and lived at the hostel, apparently was the source of much drama. We met up with Tom from Surfer’s once again and had some drinks with him a few nights. In the two weeks we were there we probably had 8 boxes of goon. On separate nights we each had a bit too much and weren’t allow into the bar. We got lucky most times with the people we ended up rooming with in our dorm; lots of people from all over the world. Most nights we would drink out on the patio of the hostel on one of three long picnic tables with whoever was out there. We hung out a bunch with a couple girls from Ottawa. We also hung out a couple times with a British guy who was a Russel Brand look alike as a profession. He looked and acted the part very well. We spent a lot of nights at Cheeky Monkey’s which was bumpin’ every night. Cocomangas was brutal. Beaches was good the one night we went. The only thing wrong with the town was that we were there during Schoolies, so it was packed with 18 year olds who had just finished high school. But we usually got lucky and had a crew from the hostel to go out to the bar with.

The beach there is amazing. It rained a lot but we did get a few great days out there. I spent a few days walking it trying to get in some kind of exercise. I never made it to the lighthouse, as much as people always talked about how they were going there all the time. We met a guy there who looked exactly like Jin from Lost and surfed eight hours a day. He lived to surf and snowboard and would follow the seasons around the world. One day we had a good soccer game going on the beach with a crew from the hostel.

We ate a lot of the same food just like in Surfer’s. When the two weeks was up we were ready to head down to Nakita’s for some good food and shelter.

Steeves

A short train ride landed us in Surfer’s and we made out way across town to our pre-booked hostel, Cheers Backpackers. It’s a nice enough place, especially on the first night when we were the only ones in our four-bed dorm, but the fact that they don’t let you bring your own alcohol in is annoying. We only ended up getting caught once though; the manager seemed to be the only one who really cared. We did end up rooming with a couple random guys, including one who was a proffesional poker player, and complained frequently about how bad the dealers were in Surfer’s.

Surfer’s Paradise is relatively small in square mileage, but is full of massive residential towers, including the tallest one in the Southern Hemisphere. The first couple of days it felt strange walking around the city in just shorts until we realized everyone else was. We kept expecting to see men in suits going to work in a nearby office tower, but they were all just residential ones filled with vacationers like us. It’s long expanse of beach is gorgeous, but the water was about 15 degrees colder than in Bali. I would never have thought of Australia as being cold ever, but as they were still in their Spring at the time I guess it’s reasonable. The Coles was great there to. We started on our regular diet of toast, eggs, and peanut butter in the morning followed by pasta meals later in the day pretty quick and stuck to it. Eating all Coles brand items helped with the budget as well.

We met a few good people at the hostel and went out a couple nights with them, including a young German guy who had just finished high school, Tom, a Brit, and a 33 year-old Swedish bartender who traveled frequently and lived and acted like he was still 25. Our first night out we were shocked that everyone was wearing jeans, dress shirts, shoes, and heels, and that we weren’t going to get in the bar with shorts and flip flops on. Also having to pay cover wasn’t too fun either. The goon kept us happy though at $10 for 4.5 litres of 12% wine; even though it tasted so awful.

On the one Saturday we were there we did a pub crawl with all the hostels in town. We got loaded up on a bus and ushered around to a few different clubs on Orchard Avenue. I had a good time at several different bars, but it was so disorganized that I got lost a bunch of times, and Alex actually got left at the first bar and just went home after we realized everyone had left but him.

In all Surfer’s was fun, but we missed Asia. People were more stationary in there travelling here; getting jobs and such. We missed having new people and new destinations every few days. We kind of missed the ghetto feel of everything as well. One thing in Surfer’s that did make me laugh was this meat head who annoyed everyone at the hostel. It was funny to see him in the morning eating his eggs and rice immediately after arriving home from his daily gym session. I don’t think he ever really had anything to say besides the simple single lines from popular techno songs like ‘Barbara Streisand’. Alas we would make our way further south down the coast to the backpacker haven of Byron Bay.

Steeves

We left for Australia leaving Suzanne, Ben, and Chris behind and headed to the airport. After a long walk down the road talking to dozens of cabbies we finally got a ride there for 25,000. We hit a roadblock when we tried to check in though. We didn’t know it but we needed a tourist visa to get into Australia. Fortunately the people at the airport were really nice and let us use a computer and printer in the back of the airport to print off our visas; which took about five minutes. We eventually made our way through check in and through to the bus shuttle to the airplane across the tarmac. As we were getting on the bus a drunk Aussie guy was getting off to use the washroom but ended up getting in an argument with airport officials and didn’t get on the plane afterwards. We did though, and so made our way down to Brisbane.

Steeves

We arrived on Gili T at about 10:30 and were immediately accosted on the beach by guesthouse propietors. We almost decided on one but but ended up walking down the one main road to find our own. After a few looks we stopped at Rudy’s, a nightclub that had guestrooms in the back for 100,000, although every price everywhere is always negotiable. They were decently sized and clean but extremely drab. Also there was no wifi, but apparently wifi had just come to the island one month before and was to be found at four places on the island. We did little that day but eat, I don’t think we even went to the beach. That night was Friday night though, which was the big night of the week at the Irish bar on Gili T; apparently Gili T is the smallest island in the world to have an Irish bar on it. It was a good night as always.

The next day, not being satisfied with our room or it’s price, we found a new guesthouse a few streets back of the waterfront in the village for 70,000 a night. The manager would get extremely mad at us on the day we left because we would tell Suzanne, who also randomly ended up staying there, that we were paying 70,000 while she was paying 80,000; she wasn’t too upset though, it’s all in the game there. In the next few days we would met up with the British couples from before, Suzanne, and two Canadian girls, Claire and Katie. These people made up the best crew of the entire trip for us. We hung out at the beach and drank together multiple nights. We were planning on going snorkelling with Chris and Ben one day but had to postpone due to me getting a fever the night before; easily the worst night of the trip. We ended up going a couple days later fortunately. We saw some cool fish and turtles around the three main islands of Gili.

I did hike up the hill in the middle of the island one day and watch a bit of the sunrise from the Western, and mostly unpopulated, side of the island. Other than that not much happened. There was a night market with some great food we ate a bunch, and a good all day restaurant beside it as well that we ate at most days. There was not boiling water to be had on the island so my noodle diet stopped for a bit. I got talking a bit to a guy from California who told me that most of the locals made their own rice wine and would sell you a 1.5 litre bottle for 50,000, a very good price. We ended up having some a couple times and found it palatable.

Although we heard a lot about it we didn’t have much Arak, the locally produced alcohol. Apparently a few years back tourists were constantly dieing from the high levels of ethanol in the alcohol, from the high levels of gasoline being put into it. Fortunately though the government stepped in and executed the people making the alcohol and now it is much safer.

One of the coolest things I saw was the beginning of the Sunday afternoon, night/morning in Gili, English Premier League games one night. All the British guys we were with told us that on Sundays in England everybody is at the pub and completely wasted all day on Sundays. That Sunday night from midnight to 6 a.m. they were playing all of the usual games; which brought out every English guy on the island. Apparently by the end of the night is was getting pretty rowdy ( I only stayed for the first half of the first game). That night was our last on the Island and we were forced to say farewell to all the Brits save for Chris and Ben; whom we would see back in Kuta.

Steeves

We set out looking for cabs and almost headed out in one but jumped out after it started feeling a bit too shady. We took cover in the closing Starbucks outside the airport to browse our lonely planets and the internet. We met some guys inside who had missed their flight out. When the Starbucks closed we expected to get kicked out, but actually were invited in to hang out by the workers who had just finished their shift. They gave us some food that was leftover from the day, and even a beer each after they went out and got some and were drinking it in the Starbucks. The boss was even smoking at a table with a blatant ‘no smoking’ sign on it. We ended up staying until 2:30, which was too late because by then all of the cabs had packed up and left for the night. We had heard that we should only be spending 20,000 to get to Kuta, so we balked at offers of 50,000 from some random guys with cars on the road. We started out walking to Kuta for a few hundred meters before a passing cab agreed to take us for 30,000. We were especially lucky because it turned out that we were walking in the wrong direction anyway.

Driving into Kuta we saw a lot more Western businesses than we were used to in the rest of Asia, mostly due to Kuta being a surfing mecca. We got dropped off at the end of Poppies II and set out looking for a place to stay. We didn’t have much luck for the first while, but ended up running into two girls from Vancouver who walked us over to where they were staying on Poppies I. We checked in for two nights at Arena Hotel for 180,000 per night; not a bad deal for a last resort. The room and hotel were actually the nicest we’ve probably stayed in on our entire trip; we even had cable T.V., as well as a pool we never used.

The next day we browsed around our immediate surroundings. Our hotel was situated on the long alleyway that connects Poppies I and II. Poppies I is a small single lane road bursting with small shops selling all manner of counterfeit goods. It also has a number of convenience stores, but no 7-11. The Mcdonalds at the end of the road was great as it had free wi-fi and 25 cent ice cream cones. We ate our first meal at Sultan Kebab, a food court with ten identical little stands aggressively selling all types of Asian food. I think that they’re all owned by the same person though, as every 10 seconds one person or another would come up to the boss in the middle of the court for change. Nobody has change for any note over $2.

We made our way to the beach shortly after, where we would spend most of our days. The beach is amazing. The sand and the water are perfect. The plentiful waves were always packed full of surfers. We ran into Ross and Kirsty from Singapore after only a few minutes on the first day. They were also with a few friends of theirs from back home who had come to Bali for a couple weeks. That day we were given passes for a club called Sky Garden that night which advertised unlimited Heineken from 9-12 for $6.

It happened to be Halloween that night so we improvised costumes out of markers from a Circle K. I was David Bowie and Alex was Zorro. The British girls were pirates. We hit Sky Garden with a group of 9 and got a table upstairs playing drinking games for a couple hours. Then 11 p.m. hit and we went upstairs where girls were getting free drinks. It was a mad rush at the bar for the entire hour with many girls coming out with drinks spilled all over them. Eventually the free drinks ended though so we made out way back to Arena Hotel.

The next day we moved slightly down the road to a cheaper, 120,000 per night, accommodation. Walking down Poppies I that day I ran into Chris and Ben, two of the British guys that Suzanne had brought with her to the Full Moon party from Ko Samui. They became elated at the unlimited Heineken idea and we made plans to go out that night. Unfortunately we got a little mixed up on the meeting place, but eventually saw them at the bar later that night. Also that night they had free tapas at 11 p.m. to go along with free drinks for guys and girls at the same time. The bar that night was a free-for-all. While standing in the mob Alex had two girls trying to squeeze by him so he stuck out his elbows to block their path. It was a fun night nonetheless.

We had been thinking a bit about going to the Gili Islands so when Chris and Ben told us they were going two days later we made plans to jump on the same boat. We didn’t drink the night before, as we were getting picked up at 6 a.m. We did however go back to the bar at 11 p.m. that night for free tapas.

Steeves

We landed there, 28 hours after we left, with two young British couples that we had spent most of the trip with: Ross and Kirsty and Julian and Mandy. We had heard from Shawn, who had been there only a few weeks before, that the cheapest hostels were in Little India, so we took the very efficient metro over there with the Brits. After a short walk on one of the cramped streets of Little India, which to me seemed like a much cleaner version of what India must be like, we found The Prince of Wales, which had six beds available at $18 each including breakfast. Even though the hostel was one big room, it was partitioned into small eight-bed sections with low walls so that the six of us had our own space for the first few days.

I was looking forward to some real sleep after all the bus rides, especially after 11 hours of freezing cold on the sleeper bus with extreme air conditioning, but some wanted to go tour the city so we headed out. Singapore is a truly ultra-modern city. The skyscrapers are amazing and the city is both clean and efficient. The only thing that I didn’t like was that I had to wear a shirt and sweat all day. We had dinner, or tea as the British call it, at a food court in Chinatown. It was the back home food court Chinese food that we had been looking for all over Asia. I had some ramen noodle soup which was delicious. At about 7:30 it became dark and the city around the marina light up. There are about a dozen light art installations around the marina which are cool, but the buildings themselves are all light up different colours creating an amazing nighttime skyline. After enough browsing we hopped back on the metro and headed back to the hostel in Little India.

The next day we found a restaurant across the street called Apu’s. For $4 we got a massive spread of chicken, potatoes and vegetables, all in different sauces, rice, and a crisp kind of bread for scooping. We found that we were the only people in the restaurant using cutlery not getting our hands covered in sauce. That day we found that the hostel had wicked fast wi-fi, so coupled with us being tired from the past two days we spent all day in bed streaming video on the internet.

The next day Alex and I did the South Ridge Walk; a beautiful walk through raised and non-raised paths through some of the last pieces of forest in Singapore. We started too far north unfortunately though and had to bus to the far edge of Kent Park. We walked through several parks and over several small mountains on the continuous path. The view of Singapore is wicked, and the path itself is gorgeous. On the way home we stopped in Chinatown and found a massive food market just outside the metro stop. We had duck. It was delicious.

The day after we walked along Orchard Avenue, basically the Singapore equivalent of Rodeo Drive, and took in the architecture and early Christmas decorations. On our final full day I walked through Singapore by myself and took in the massive skyscrapers and the downtown core. I loved it. I think it’s what Vancouver is going to look like in the near future. I also ended up walking all the way home for the first time. The three tower building with the boat on top will probably never be popular enough to build in the West though.

On our final day we were flying out to Bali at 9:30. Other than leaving for the airport we left the room one other time to get food in Chinatown. After eating several times at Apu’s we had to stop. The plates were just too filling and would sit in our stomachs like rocks. The Brits had all left for Bali previously and we were looking forward to seeing them again. Ross introduced me to dubstep which is wicked. The dubstep scene in Manchester is massive apparently. He also told me about Project Warehouse, which is a multi-level car park where world-famous dj’s perform, even though the venue only holds a couple thousand people. The Singapore airport is just as big and new as the one in Beijing. It’s like another massive soccer stadium.

Steeves

We were supposed to arrive at about 7 a.m., but instead arrived in the dark at 5 a.m. After some haggling, and walking, we got a tuk-tuk to take us to Hat Rin for 150 baht. The road there was full of curves and hills, and it was obvious why there are so many accidents there every year. We kept preparing or an accident, but made it safely into town shortly after. Unfortunately nothing was really open, and we had no idea where anything was. The driver took us to a couple places, including the popular Drop In Resort, but they were all too expensive for us. Eventually he just dropped us off at the 7-11 outside of the small town when he was able to pick up another fare. Luckily the first place we found was the Thai Dee Garden Resort, a small set of bungalows just outside of town with wifi and rooms for 300 baht. We were satisfied enough to call it home for the next week or so.

The first two days there were a complete write-off. We hadn’t had free wifi in so long that we took full advantage of it; after those two days though we stopped spending time on our computers during the day. We also found that 7-11 was a blessing, as the town had basically no cheap street food. We got into the habit of eating cups of noodles for most meals, which I balanced out with hard-boiled eggs and fruit juice, both from 7-11; by the end though I was joining Alex for regular meals in the town.

Ko Phangan is kind of like a small Kho Phi Phi. It has a dense, but much smaller, core of shops and hotels. It has a much nicer beach though, with perfect water and sand, and the party is always on the beach. Unfortunately for us though the party didn’t start right away. There was an election in Thailand on the 18^th, so from the 16^th to the 18^th no one was allowed to sell liquor, which closed down all the bars. The half-moon party in the jungle of Ban Thai was post-poned until the 19^th, only four days before the Full Moon. The entrance fee for that was 500 baht though, not including the 450 baht for transportation there and back, so we just stayed on the beach.

The first couple night after the election were pretty low-key; things didn’t start to get too crowded until a few days before the full moon, which was on the 23^rd. There was always an abundance of things to see and do on the beach though, which all included fire. They had the usual local fire dancers, which really are amazing, but they also had a couple things for the tourists. They had fire limbo, fire skipping rope, and a hoop for people to jump through that was also on fire. It was pretty entertaining to watch drunk people try and do the skipping rope especially, as almost all of them ended up getting hit by it. We even saw one guy light on fire which was awesome.

One of the nights we went down the road to Coral Bungalows, which had nightly pool parties, including free transport there which consisted of constant tuk-tuks driving up and down the road picking people up. It wasn’t too busy but we had a great time with a few Irish girls we met. The Aussies there were off the wall and were constantly grabbing random girls and throwing them in the pool.

A couple nights before the full moon our friends Jon and Claar from Sihanoukville arrived and got bungalows at Thai Dee which was wicked. One of the best things about South East Asia is that you inevitably bump into people that you’ve seen before. Claar also came with her friend Suzanne whom she had met at The Rock in Kho Phi Phi and was from White Rock. There was another bungalow with five people in it who had all met on the ride in. One guy, Larant, had just graduated from UConn. He was sweet and reminded me a lot of Asher Roth. Everyone in that bungalow was constantly drinking day and night. Including the full moon we drank five nights in a row, which was more than enough. We also met a couple of Dutch girls a couple nights before the full moon as well, so we had a good crew going into it.

A couple of nights before the full moon Suzanne had left to go to Ko Samui to see a British  named Chris that she had met a few weeks before in Vietnam. We almost didn’t think she was going to come back for the full moon, but at ten that night she rolled in with Chris and ten other British guys. They were all good guys that we ended up having a great time with.

When we got down to the beach we saw a number of newly erected structures. There was a massive raised dance floor that we spent a lot of time on, as well as a huge iron bar structure that had the words ‘Full Moon’ blazing on fire. People were climbing all over this thing, many to the top which was about 40 feet high; I went about halfway up myself. Part way through the night while Alex was climbing up a girl fell from the top all the way to the bottom. After that the structure just emptied of people.

The night was a blur for me. I remember jumping off the stage to talk to the two Dutch girls, which Alex somehow found on the other side of the beach, but after that I just remember Jon waking me up at 4 in the morning from this fenced off sleeping area in the middle of the beach. I walked around with him for a few minutes before losing him and heading back to the sleeping area. He ended up picking me up again at 7 a.m. and we went back to the bungalows.

Standing on the stage it was amazing to see the mass of people along the beach. There were around 8,000-10,000 people there that night. In peak season it grows to about 30,000. Even with only a third of that there were parts of the beach that were so packed full of dancing people that you couldn’t even move. It will probably be the biggest party I go to until I someday make my way to Oktoberfest or Mardi Gras.

 Steeves

We did happen to be in Krabi for an annual vegetarian festival that runs nine days. It was insane to actually see it. Apparently the people take drugs or starve themselves and get all hyped up and stab massive sticks through their cheek and walk around town with them through their mouths. It was something else.

On the last day we took a bus to Sihanoukville, which is the port town for getting to islands in the Samui Archipelago. We got there too late for the regular ferry boats but were able to hitch a ride on a transport ship that takes nightly trips to Ko Phangan. We had some time in Sihanoukville so we strolled through a massive street market and got some dinner and snacks. We also had Swensen’s ice cream. At eight we boarded the ship and made our way to the top floor which consisted of two massive rows of matresses with rock hard pillows which we didn’t use. It was actually not a bad way to travel. It costs 400 baht but it saved us a night of accomodation so it wasn’t too bad of a deal. At five the next morning we would dock in Ko Phangan.

Steeves

After a rest we headed out around town for some cheap eats. We came up empty-handed as the island is very lacking in street food. The only time I found any was on our second last night near the markets by the pier. We did find pad thai with chicken for 60 baht though at a small nondescript restaurant on the small road to the beach. It was delicious. That night we went out to the beach bars, Slinky and Apache, and had a great time. We couldn’t believe that there were massive, packed dance floors right on the beach. It’s like some kind of hedonism. We had our usual whisky-coke-red bull buckets and woke up the next day feeling as you would expect.

The next day we made our only trip to the beach. Even though the weather wasn’t great we would have gone more if the beach was better. The beach is alright, I mean it’s got great sand and warm water, but you have to walk for ten minutes through sand flats just to get to water that’s about knee height. It’s pretty lame. It’s odd though because every night it seemed the tide would come right up onto the beach. The water actually came all the way up to the dance floor and Slinky one night. That afternoon on our walk home I noticed a sign for a job at slinky. It went and talked to the manager, a European girl, who told me to come back at eight that night to see if she needed people.

That night we did go back and got ourselves jobs handing out flyers from 8-10 and then hanging out in the bar until 2. We got 400 baht per night and 3 free buckets, which we thought was the greatest thing we could hope for. We were actually getting paid to do what we would have been doing anyway. We also got to meet a lot of people simply from having to talk to people all night. We eventually got the best job, we thought, during the night in which we had to stand at the entrance way and try to get people to come in by handing out free shots. It was great because we did shots ourselves every time other people did them.  We also had to dance on stages at the start of the night a couple times which was alright.

We had a good crew of people working with us: Candace from Ottawa, South Africa, Iceland, Fiona, two Finnish girls, and a few others whose names and nationalities I can’t remember. We also got to know the other people handing out flyers for other bars pretty good to, as we all had to stand at the same spots, usually ‘DVD Corner’, where there was a shop that sold counterfeit DVD’s. There were also the Thai bartenders and a couple random Thai guys who did what we did. At first I thought they would also be really serious about their job, but some of them seemed to care less than us. One guy actually got in trouble for giving a huge group of guys and I three of the free shots each. The wannabe other boss, some girl who had been there like eight months, told him to calm down. Actually a lot of the girls working there were staying for up to a year at a time. They kind of acted like they were locals but were social people to begin with so they were alright. The dive instructors, all Westerners, were the worst. They thought they ran the island because they had been there for a year and sat around all day in their dive shops. We just laughed at them.

The best part about working though was that we could allow ourselves to eat whatever we want, instead of what happened to be the cheapest. We had pizza a lot and it was always good. It cost double what chicken fried rice did but we didn’t care, to us it was all free.

The whole time was a blur. We were on the island for nine nights and worked everyone other than the first and the sixth, when Alex cut his foot open and couldn’t walk and I felt like dieing worse than ever. The days were short, and even though I felt horrible during them I became happy in the routine of eating crackers and soup all day, which we got from the Food Mart downstairs, watching movies, getting pizza for dinner and then leaving for work at eight. No matter how bad I felt at 7:30 the instant coffee I had right before we left, and then the first drink when we started working, made me feel 100%. We did go snorkelling and sight-seeing on the seventh day though and saw Maya Bay, where The Beach was filmed. We also met up a couple times with this guy Adrian, whom we had met on the booze cruise in Nha Trang.

The whole time was a blast. The one thing we wanted to do the entire time but couldn’t, because we were working, though was Mai Tai Box at Reggae Bar. There they have a ring setup in the middle of the bar where anyone can fight each other. On our last night of work though we finally said screw it and we left the bar and fought each other. We usually ended up getting lost in the crowd talking to people and not working by eleven anyway so it wasn’t a big deal. The fight was fun but we got tired fast and ended in the middle of the second round after I thought my arm was broken. It was fine though.

We eventually had to leave, on a ten a.m. boat after I had gotten home at five a.m., unfortunately to renew our Thai visas, but I felt that our time there was well spent. We met a lot of wicked people, both Westerners and locals, and had a blast the entire time. Unfortunately, other than on the snorkel trip, we took no pictures, but the memories I have will never fade.

Steeves