In memory of the holiday gaieties...

In the space of 10 days the following occasions have transpired: Christmas, Birthday, New Years Eve and Full moon party. Now I don’t want to appear ungrateful but I seem to have large periods in my life where very little happens and if I could have stretched these events out to say one in every fortnight or even once a month, my internal events distribution calendar would no doubt be better balanced.

In brief, Christmas started with beer and turkey and ultimately ended with beer and turkey in the wee hours of the 26th. Having a roast dinner in Thailand is a little odd culturally but entirely tasty and homely nonetheless. After lunch and a few additional bevies we then attended a party at some random persons luxury house (I’m not even sure of how or who invited me) where I spent most of the night fending off a very camp, not to mention very stubborn, British chap. It was then off to Chaweng for more dancing and drinking.

Whilst not quite being conscious right through to my birthday I do firmly believe that I was drunk for the entire period. More drinks with Pan and Marcelle (and friends (and friends of friends (and friends of friends of friends))) in Chaweng the night of my birthday to celebrate. Marcelle also kindly baked me a cake and, whilst delicious, was so dense I was surprised other items in the fridge didn’t start orbiting it. In addition to her baking extravagansa she also took me to a lovely little French restaurant called ‘The Mangrove’ on the 28th to celebrate my being 28 following which we then went out to Mint Bar in Chaweng to see 'Evil 9'.

New Years was much of the same starting at a quite lunch with Denis and Marcelle before moving on to drinks on the balcony overlooking Northern Samui coastline for some pre-party drinks – it was initially to watch the sunset, but we missed this by a number of hours, then onto Tony and Marie’s brand new luxury house (which happened to be in the same complex as the house I’d spend Christmas at) for a BBQ and drinking. Marcelle and I excused ourselves early to dash down to the Ark Bar to meet up with Pan and entourage to see in the New Year.

Whilst a touch blurry this shot does give a reasonably good indication of the environement. Please keep in mind it was drunk and I was dark before judging my photographic skills:

And this rare volcanic event also happened to coincide with the drinking in of the New Year.


After a few days recovery it was over to Ko Phangan for a Full Moon party on the 3rd. Full Moon parties basically consist, in my experience, of a shit-load of tourist getting shit-faced on a shit beach before passing out and shitting themselves. It does hold a certain attraction however and this time, perhaps having subconsciously decided I didn’t get drunk enough last time, was on a mission to erase all memory of the night. Unfortunately for me now (but very fortunately for me at the time) Marcelle did retain some level of sobriety and, apparently, carried me back to the speed boat destined for Ko Samui at 5AM all the while placating the growing number of random people I was hurling insults at.

Full Moon Party Statistics

• Number attended = 2


• Number of people insulted whilst drunk = Many


• Number of mobile phones destroyed in sea water whilst jostling with crowd in waist deep water to get on speed boat = 2


• Number of thongs lost (cumulative) = 4 (well, 3 and one sacrificed to the sea gods as his partner had been separated whilst getting onto boat)


• Number of Buckets* single handedly (estimate) consumed = 4

* A bucket, for those who don’t know, is the alcoholic beverage of choice at a FMP and come in a variety of flavours, my favourite being the 250mL vodka, red bull and can of coke variety. These liquids are all mixed up into a little bucket (like you make sand castles with) and between 4 and 50 straws are inserted. All this is yours for the princely sum of 250 baht or about $9AUD.