I woke up in the early afternoon the next (the same?) day. Head only a little sore, clothes full of sand, but overall feeling remarkably good considering I’d been drinking for 15 hours the night before. That’s not to say I wasn’t feeling worse for wear, but not nearly as badly as I expected.
I went back to the Schnitzel place for lunch and had some kind of spiritual experience - that glorious fried breaded chicken brought me back to life and I no longer felt like I’d drunk a small swimming pool of Thai whisky the previous night.
After eating I found a quiet spot on the beach and set up for a few hours with my ipod, book, and the ocean. I spent a few hours lying in the sun and jumping in for a swim every half hour or so to cool off. The sunshine and saltwater eased my hangover even more.
At some point in the late afternoon the Scandinavian guys I’d spent so much time with the night before - who I assumed I would never see again - strolled by. They were heading to the bar up on the cliff where we’d had our first drinks the previous night, and invited me up. No brainer. I’d given up on meeting up with Kye on Koh Pha Ngan so these guys were all I had, and I was keen to hear what they had got up to during the party after we split up.
Nothing too fascinating, as it turned out. They stayed on that end of the beach, tried their luck with a few girls, and went home a few hours before sunset. A good night, but no wild stories to share.
We watched the sunset over the beach from our high vantage point, before making our way back down to the beach, grabbing a table at one of the beach bars and churning our way through endless rounds of Chang beers.
The beach was nowhere near as crazy as the night before, but there were still a lot of people who hadn’t left the island immediately after the Full Moon Party, keen to kick on for a second night. We soon got chatting and dancing with a group of Indonesian girls, and it was these few hours that has left imprinted on my brain two songs - “Don’t You Worry Child” by Swedish House Mafia and “Levels” by Avici. I can’t listen to either without being taken back to that exact moment in time. EDM isn’t my favourite genre, but I adore those two songs and the nostalgia they induce in me.
Somewhere in between our 15th round of Changs and dancing on top of a wooden picnic table to One Direction (seriously), I lost my friends for a second night in a row. Fortunately on this occasion it was because I’d met a gorgeous Thai girl who lived on the island, and after dancing together for a few songs, we went for a walk down the beach together.
Conversation was a bit of a struggle as her English was limited, but we managed enough to establish well enough what each of our intentions were. Rather than walking back to her friends at the bar, she led me to the massage shop a few blocks away that her family ran and lived above.
The language barrier was of course still there, but it wasn’t much of a hurdle at this point as conversation wasn’t really the priority for either of us. She unlocked the building and led me into a room full of massage tables. We walked over to one, and you can probably fill in the blanks from there.
We were there for an hour or two until one of her roommates came home and laughed at us right as I was putting my shirt back on ready to head home, and I walked back to the hostel to get some sleep before the sun came up for the first night in a while.
After not getting anywhere the night before at one of the biggest parties in the world, it was a big relief to have had better fortunes the following night. Travelling and meeting new people had been great for me for getting over the breakup, but hooking up with another girl was the final hurdle on that front.
I saw her on the beach the next afternoon and her friends giggled and pointed me out without a hint of subtlety as we walked past each other. We made some nice awkward eye contact and her and her friends continued on their way.
That next night I didn’t manage to bump into anyone I knew. I had a couple of quiet beers on the beach with dinner after another afternoon of lazing around on the sand, and booked a boat to get off the island and head over to Krabi on the mainland in the morning. I planned to take it easy for a few days.
I remember almost nothing of that (ironically by far the most sober) last night on Koh Pha Ngan, but I knew I was ready to give my body a bit of a rest.
The ferry from Koh Pha Ngan was much quicker than the one in the other direction, and I’m not sure there was a single passenger on board that wasn’t carrying a cumulative hangover from the previous few nights.
With most of us soaking up some sun on the upper deck, we stopped at Koh Samui for some to get off/on, and soon made it to Surat Thani back on the mainland. Soon enough to make me realise once more how fucking stupid it was that we spent a whole night floating over from there to the island on arrival.
When we arrived I had an hour or so before my bus left for Krabi, so I wandered a few streets and grabbed some fresh fruit and fried chicken from some street vendors, being pointed and giggled at by a few school kids along the way.
Exhausted from walking in the sun after several nights of partying, I made my way back onto the bus a good half an hour or so before it was actually due to leave to sit down in the air conditioning, eat my street snacks, and read a bit of my book before we hit the bumpy road.
The deeper I got into ‘The Beach’, the more I kind of wished I hadn’t seen the movie before reading the book. The whole concept was still a really romantic one to read about and become immersed in while travelling through the Thai islands, but I really didn’t enjoy the weird story arc where the main character started experiencing hallucinations. Maybe the meaning behind it went over my head a little, but I just wanted to read about the travel and adventure.
Once the bus set off I gazed out of the window at the familiar landscape alongside the highway as it slowly got dark outside. Already knackered before, the darkness only made me feel sleepier.
I was really excited to get to Krabi as it would be the first place along the journey that I had been to once before, and brought back some amazing memories of my first trip to Thailand.
The bus station was essentially a small shelter large enough to cover one or two buses, a couple of motorbikes, and a little ‘tourist office’ where the owners tried their hardest to get you into accommodation that would pocket them a commission.
I ignored their first attempts, absolutely dying for a pee and practically swatting them aside and running once I’d spotted the toilet. Once that was out the way though I apologised, smiled and welcomed their offers of overpriced rooms in some of the crappiest guesthouses in Krabi - too late, too tired and too far from the main part of town to care enough to go for a walk and look for myself instead.
I was shown some very obviously out of date photos of the cheapest guesthouse they had to offer, and hopped into a tuk tuk for the short ride there.
The guesthouse wasn’t too terrible - at least the receptionist there when I arrived was super friendly and helpful. In fact she was almost apologetic about the somewhat dilapidated state of my room, probably stung by a few previous bus arrivals who’d complained upon realising the photo they were shown at the station was likely taken about 20 years ago.
The shower (which I so desperately needed, still carrying some sand from a last lie down on the beach before leaving Koh Pha Ngan) barely released it’s water at much more than a trickle, and the bathroom itself was a bit more grimy than I’d prefer. Still, I’d only committed to a night and the bed seemed comfortable enough, so I really wasn’t bothered.
I had just about enough energy to go out to eat, so had a quick scour of a map and made my way to the Gecko Cabane restaurant, craving the glass noodle dish I’d had there a couple of years earlier. It wasn’t quite as good as I remembered it, but still damn good.
As soon as I finished I strolled back to the guesthouse and collapsed into bed. Time for a long sleep before moving on again in the morning.