An hour later Becca and our friend Jemma went to check into a hotel while I stayed to keep an eye on our second beer tower and chatted up the table full of men behind us. Turns out one of them was from Oakland, California and had come to Bangkok 3 weeks before and never left Khao San!How absolutely pointless right? Luckily, though this man was a complete waste of time, he happened to be sitting with about 5 lads from various countries no where near America. One in particular was Welsh.
Unfortunately, my memory of the rest of this day is a bit hazy. I'm sure Becca would be able to give a more detailed report on the events that followed or how I came to end up on the island of Koh Samui the next morning (which is a 12 hour bus and 2 hour boat trip from Bangkok). What I do remember is a lot more drinking, swimming in a pool, the Welshman telling me to come to the Full Moon party with him and his two friends, and waking up sitting on his lap because apparently the bus didn't have any more seats available. When we got to the port there was a discussion of why I had bought a ticket to the wrong island. I guess I missed the part where they told me we were spending two days on Koh Samui first. No worries, that could be fun right?
Turns out I walked into amateur hour. One of these guys got drunk at the lady boy bar, started running in circles at full speed, ran right into a cement bench, broke it completely in half and then proceeded to throw up all over himself. We started calling him Forrest Gump because the minute he had a drink in him he just kept running. The other guy just complained about how backwards and dirty everything was, and when he got drunk he would scream for us to find him a hooker. I'm pretty sure I saw him making out with a lady boy at some point, though he was adamant it was a girl. Don't get me wrong they were all really nice, but had it not been for my week of drunken romance with Wales I would have bailed when we got off the boat.
After a couple days we ended up on Koh Pha Ngan for the Full Moon party. The first night we were there I wandered off on my own and inevitably found myself chatting up 5 Irishmen. Big shocker I know! Once again I don't remember how exactly the conversation went, but something about going to Bali with them was brought up, and then 2 days later I'm booking Becca and I flights from Burma to Bali. Turns out I'm very easily persuaded.
One week of constant drinking, very little sleep, and even less food, done and I'm on my way back to Bangkok to meet Becca and sleep on the floor in the airport. The next morning we flew to Burma. [Side Note: This hangover comes in a close 2nd behind that time in Bangkok when we were trying to get to the Vietnam Consulate and I threw up all over the door of the cab. I could barely keep both eyes open at immigration.] After Burma we had to go back to Bangkok for a few days and I ended up running into 2 of the Irish guys. We never actually met up with them in Bali, but regardless it ended up being the highlight of our 8 months in SE Asia, and had those dirty fuckers on the bus to Bangkok not robbed me we may never have seen it.
Love, Paige
