Drunk me > hungover me

It was a long and tiring journey across the boarder – be warned when they say it’s cheaper to change buses they don’t tell you that it is because you have to walk about an hour with all your luggage!! Okay it may not have been an hour but at 5:30 in the morning with 4 bags it sure felt like a lifetime! But it didn’t stop there – I still had to get from Bangkok down to Surathani and then over to Koh Phangan.. Luckily I’d found a fancy Bangkok hotel to allow me to store luggage and nap by the pool in between night buses.   
 Finally I got to Koh Phangan and headed straight to my bed! Luckily my roomie was hungover as hell and still in bed too! Once we’d both recovered from our opposite nights adventures we headed out to take a look around the island and grab some food. Despite booking into a 20-bed dorm there was only two of us in a 4-bed but we managed to get a good group together for dinner as my roomie had a few friends on the island and I’d bumped into a few friends I’d made on the bus down here. On the night before full moon pretty much the whole island heads over to the Jungle party – literally in the jungle! It may have just been a big ploy to get 700 baht off each and every one of us but it was a good night. Set out in festival style with the addition of the infamous Thai cocktail buckets, drunk me came out to play – and brought her (lack of) gymnastic skills to the table when asked what my party trick was. Luckily I can still do the splits although it’s never without a few scratches and very sore legs for a couple days! 

    
 I slept the majority of the next day too – still catching up on the missed sleep from two back to back night buses! I woke up with enough time to fit in a massage before heading down to the beach for a rather unimpressive sunset!  

 After dinner we all headed back to our respective hostels to get kitted out in our full moon fluorescents before meeting back up to get painted and tipsy on our way down to the beach. 

    
    
 I’ll admit I was slightly confused as to how the full moon party was going to be different to the beach parties I saw over on Phi Phi in November until I got down to the beach – although you wouldn’t realise it was a beach as you could barely even see the sand through the thousands of people around us! What we didn’t realise that as we were getting painted up during our pre-drinks the swarms of people heading past us were crowding together on the beach! It didn’t seem like a mass of people as they all came through in dribs and drabs but once all collected on the beach – just wow! Luckily the crowds began to drift off fairly quickly though!

    
   
Every bar blared their drink offers over the music of the next bar for as far as you could see! It wasn’t long before our large group got split but somehow in the masses of people my friends from the bus still managed to find me for a dance on the stage – no matter where in the world I am I will find a bar or stage to dance on! 

Drunk me even managed to have enough food on the way home to not be so hungover in the morning as well as pack and leave out water and ibuprofen for hungover me. I’m starting to learn in my old age it would seem!

Stupidly I’d only booked the two nights on Phangan and head to be up at 10 to check out and head over to Koh Samui but thankfully is booked a very large and luxurious bed to drown myself in for the next two nights before making my way onto Koh Tao!

The sad farewells

Out final night in Darwin together was a memorable one…. Or rather non memorable with thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol and free champagne on offer!

We dined and partied at Monsoons, just a few minutes from our hostel and had a very eventful night and a few sad farewells!

It has been a fantastic trip with fantastic people who will all be missed dearly

Friday has been a hangover day with a few of the people leftover from my trip before my flight to Cairns at 8pm for the next part of my adventure!

Party island no more

Beachcomber was sold to us as the party island – the place to be! However with a maximum of 25 staying the night, 10 of who in our group it was difficult to believe. Luckily I am a strong believer of it being the people that make the night, not the place…. Not that we could complain about our surroundings!!
All in all we had a fantastic night of drinks (too many) and dancing! I was even lucky enough to find myself a stalker for the night……

Medellin by night

Medellin is a beautiful, buzzing city however it doesn’t seem to cater to every night if the week. It was a huge shame we were here on a Tuesday night rather than a weekend night as I don’t really feel I truly experienced a night out Medellin style. However there were still a few strange experiences…

Every building that is even slightly high rise has a beautiful view of the very large city! Our hotel did not disappoint!

Into Parque lleras for some more drinks and you can certainly tell Medellin hosts far more tourists than Ibague (not that that’s hard), not only from seeing them around but also seeing a wider variety of bars (Irish bar – always a tourist sign! And even a Hooters).
There was a sky high pool-bar with a beautiful view of the city at night that we were lucky enough to be let in quickly to have a nose around, unfortunately pictures didn’t come out well though so the memory cannot be saved.

The locals are buzzing about the “shot bar” we must visit and I’m expecting an average bar that just specialises in shots however Colombians clearly do this differently! It was more like a fast food take away that instead served shots. You ordered, drank and ordered again or left the serving area. There was a small middle area/patio which turned into a make-shift dance floor as people had progressively more shots and a great atmosphere surrounding us. They served almost any type of shots and in almost any form (Russian roulette was popular but you could even drink them from a plastic boob!!). It was a very strange place but I’m quite surprised we don’t have anything like this in England!

I forgot to mention their VERY odd branding of the two old ladies with Afros!

The Disco Bus

On my way home yesterday at around 7pm (not that late right?) we drove past what can only be described as the Colombian version of a disco bus. Music, disco lights, dancing, it had all the usual things. Although one new addition was a shrine to Jesus on the rear… Very strange!

Unfortunately it zoomed off so fast I didn’t get a photo.

Colombian Clubbing

There is only one place to be on a Saturday night and that is a nightclub – whether you have food poisoning or not!!

And yes that does mean I was fortunate enough to catch a case of the food poisoning but I did soldier through, however this did mean I wasn’t drinking so was lucky enough to take in this whole experience stone cold sober.

Where to start.

I’m told the club we went to was an ‘upmarket’ club as there was an 8,000 peso entrance charge which is apparently larger than usual. I was also told I would need ID but no one could reassure me whether they would accept a UK drivers license or not. I waited for what felt like hours as the security guard peered over my ID which a torch and a bizarre expression, praying to god he would firstly not ask me any questions (no Español remember) and secondly, actually let me in!

Success! We’re through the door – after someone pushing infront of us, Colombians apparently don’t queue and the majority of women attending this club clearly thought they were something that they definitely were not (Queen of Sheba maybe?).

We find a table and sit to wait for a few more friends, once the whole party has arrived they order drinks – which come by the bottle and they only seem to buy Aguardiente (apparently a weak version of sambucca) so spend the night only drinking shots. Despite this the night still seemed to end rather responsibly – definitely the reason why Colombians buy by the bottle and English do not!!!

The dancing was, well, odd. There was no official dancefloor, people just danced by their table which is far too awkward a situation for my English self, sober or not – that is a big no in England unless your table is on the dancefloor (rare).

The actual dancing was also very different, but expected – this is Latin America and I have seen the films!
Salsa! And all other sorts, all very good, the strange part for me is how much the men actually move!! In England it is not usual for a man to do more than say two moves (head bop or side step) but no it all came out in this club!! I still haven’t decided whether it made them more attractive or oozed the gay vibe (not that they were gay!!). I’m leaning towards the latter if I’m honest.

There was an array of English and Spanish music. My favourite English song converted into Spanish – not so favourite when you can’t sing along and Shaggy – Mr. Boombastic came on which received a whole host of cheers and woops (was I back at a high school disco?!). Towards the end of the night a song came on which I was sure I recognised but couldn’t place and since I have come to realise that I genuinely think it was a remix of a song from the Disney film Aristocats !!! How strange!

The toilets only proved my earlier point that Colombians do not queue, apparently you pick a cubicle and wait for that one – if you pick a dud that’s your own fault!

All in all it was a good night however I think the highlight was getting to perve on the sexy barman/waiter/security man – I wonder if he had any other talents…

Unfortunately these pictures do not really prove any of my earlier points.