KOH TOE.

Everyone gets toed on Koh Tao. Thinking I'd avoided it I spent my days prancing smugly around our cramped bungalow. How I rue these enchanted days. Now I sit here looking anywhere ANYWHERE - my ingrown bikini line, my bezzie's cracked heel, even at that saggy bit of vaginary skin in the fold between your arm and tit (no? Just me then) - but at my feet lest I vom/faint/end it all. My toenail, one of my previously sexiest I must say (left foot, middle; orgying about with his brothers between Thumb-Toe and Underage Baby-Toe, the slut), is now bent backwards back inside my foot. He's been flip-reversed, and not in that bare horny way Blazin' Squad sang about (c'mon baby work it for meee oh) but in the most heinous way possible. I got Koh Toed. Bad.

YEAH I KNOW, EWWWWW GROSSSSS ETC.

JUST BE GRATEFUL IT'S NOT A PICTURE OF THE TOE

Perhaps it is that I've outstayed my welcome, three days on this island has turned into three weeks (soz Ma, I am still alive). However it hasn't all been babes, booze, buckets and booboos, we've been productive... ly spending all our money on a new addiction. Diving. Tao is the cheapest place in the world to do it, as I repeat to the rents on my frequent emails begging for just a few more (hundred thousand) baht. Seems we have found something that'll stop us going out, the only thing; a trip to Buoyancy World (swear down, genuine place) 'Where all your wettest dreams come true.' (genuine slogan, maybe). In order to placate our alcohol dependency we have taken to night dives, an hour of diving at 6pm giving you the perfect buzz (when combined with three buckets) to kickstart the night out that follows. We were buzzing to see phosphorescence; a luminescent algae, only visible in pitch black water, that is activated by movement. Pre-night dive, a boy told us, in what we believed to be a revolting manner, that it was like playing God; reaching into the night sky and moving the stars around #cringe. Well he wasn't wrong.

I am aware my tongue will not do it justice so I'll hand over to Alex Garland, who was a year younger than my age of 24 when he wrote the first great backpacker novel. Sigh.


'Basically,' I said, folding my hands behind my head, 'it was like being in space. Floating with loads of stars and comets aroud you. One of the most amazing things was disturbing a shoal of fish...'
Jed readjusted the binoculars to suit him. 'I've seen phosphorescence before.'
'But not underwater.'
'No. Underwater sounds good.'
'Yeah. Really good...' I sighed.
                                                                                                                         THE BEACH. ALEX GARLAND, 1996.

We have a few more nicknames to add to the list; Obeyb (babe in an Obey cap), Blabe (black babe), Scubabe (scuba-diving babe), Roybot (looked like a robot, was called Roy). Scubabe taught us Schlaps; the greatest drinking game known to man. In a world where Ring Of Fire, Who's Ya Mum and Drink Along With Lohan (just always drink) exist, I don't say that lightly. That's right, we were just learning all over the place on Koh Tao. Diving? Learnt it. Kayacking? Learnt it. Schlaps? What can I say I'm a learner. Anyone's real name? Not a facking chance.

The game commences thus:

'What's the name of the game?'
'SCHLAPSSSSSSS!!!!!!!'
'What's the aim of the game?'
'TO GET FERKED ERPPPPPP!!!!!!!!' ('MOTHERFUCKERRR' optional, there are no rules in Schlaps, well there are... millions of them...)

Then there's a procession of body parts being slapped and various hand movements, which to this day I do not understand, until at some point a player (whilst flying over the Cuckoo's nest) has enough of the madness and screeches 'GET FERRRRKED ERPPPP' - can you tell Americans taught us this? - at someone. I believe the game was supposed to be called Slaps but one of the key players loved to scream 'SCHLAAAAAPPSSS' in the most ludicrous voice, which was all very lolz until it turned out he may have been deaf. That, or he had spent far too long under water.

ENOUGH TO MAKE EVEN ME ROMANTIC
... FOR MY BFF

In return for teaching us Schlaps I did everyone a favour and taught them The Egg Dance. Everywhere in Thailand smells like egg, that is taken as a given. On the beach everyone has to dance around the invisible egg that is in the sand, if someone steps on the yolk everywhere will honk of egg. This was the point when BFF thought I'd actually lost the plot, until she stepped on the yolk, vommed at the smell and realised I was correct. Even the foul stench couldn't ruin the above sunset. The impromptu acoustic performance, complete with keyboard, on the beach of Save Tonight by a kindly man name of Roman (shotgun my kids name), was almost enough to make me romantic. It's enough to make kings and vagabonds believe the very best... With the love and sexual tension mounting and Roman weaving his intoxicating music around us perhaps an orgy is in order...

Five hours later, we'd gone skinny dipping with our dive instructors and had our bags stolen, bye iPhone, see ya camera, laterz every photo from two months of travelling. We thought this was the end of two months of no worries, our punishment for the banishment of hangovers on this enchanted island, we thought depression had hit. Until, as we sat weeping on the balcony of our beach bungalow (probs doesn't sound too bad), a man walked past hand in hand with his dog as it walked, no strutted, along on its back legs - thanks God, if you're out there, that cheered us right up.

The skinny dipping FIASCO put us reet off boys, plus the men on this island seemed to be far more interested in dating dogs... and then there was that man and his pet... OHHHHHH. So we got low with the fertility plants dotted around the beach bars. We know how to treat our dates, propping them up on a bar stool with a cigarette. Think our brief bout of depression pushed our mental state over the edge.

TAKES A STRONGER (WO)MAN THAN I TO RESIST THAT

SMILE AND THAT SEXY PLANT

It's not ideal when you haven't spoken to your rents for a few days - *cough* weeks - and your home bezzie (I'm aware not cool enough to pull off 'home boi', I do have a jot of self-perception) writes on your Facebook wall WHERE YOUR FAM CAN SEE IT the following (censored) quote, 'I can't believe our FaceTime cut out, I need to know how someone ends up getting lucky in a creche.' I need to clarify this was not with a child. I would also like to clarify that this was not my behaviour, nor was it the beaviour of my nearest and dearest... for once.

My nearest and dearest, however, were spending all of their time at Seven Eleven, seems the best way to pull on this island is to sit outside the shop with a beer, all day long. Calling it a Seven Eleven Party doesn't make it any less pervy. So busy was one of my faves at Seven Eleven that she forgot to tell me that one of her 'party' guests knew ZAYN MALIK (my no.3 man of all time, after Elton John and Harry Styles). Of all the nonsense she spouts this she forgets to tell me. We've created a game (I use the term 'game' very loosely) called Pull My String where we name the catchphrases everyone would say if they were a novelty doll and their string was pulled. If my string was pulled, it was unanimously agreed, my doll would boomingly rah 'Hiiiii I'm Harry like Harry Potter, let's hug'. Which is going to be so much COOLER for the rest of my life with the addition of this:

YOU'RE A REAL WIZARD HARRY

I truly am.

GETTING THE PHANGAN OF IT.

The parties leading up to the Full Moon Party are arguably better than the night itself. First night on Phangan was the infamous Coral Bungalows Pool Party, perhaps best renamed as Clamydia Orgy or STI Soup (though not as marketable, quite). In the warmth of the murky water the crowds of revellers seemed to have forgotten that just because this doesn't look like Blackpool with its WKD-vom covered teens, babies half hanging out under their miniskirts, doesn't mean the STIs aren't just as rife. Obvz none of this stopped us jumping in fully clothed; hey we're in paradise, how ill could we get?

Next in the Full Moon build up came the Jungle Experience, a 'rave' (thanks for teaching me this word Annie Mac) for a few thousand people under the jungle canopy, though sadly my darling bezzie Ciabattz was too ill - *cough* pool party - to accompany us... We replaced her with Wez, a friendly lad AND FATHER from London who at best could be described as spontaneous, at worse psychopathic. Clam-Eyes reappeared, the beneficiary of one of our favourite nicknames from Phi-Phi, he was cursed blessed with such name as he was a crustration, complete with beard, sneakily peeping out of its shell. Can't say he was exactly excited to see us, a crabby clam is no fun.

It seemed like a great idea to head to the beach after this gathering (not quite sure what constitutes a 'rave' but I'm pretty sure I've never been to one and that they perhaps only existed in the 90s, or in Human Traffic; soz Annie it's Friday and everyone's behaving). The last we saw of Wez (until later, oh the best was yet to come) was him being dragged along by a tuk-tuk screaming at us that he was 'going to Eden'. Orright Wez. At the beach the BFF and I spent our taxi money on a bucket of rum, then sat and wept on the beach about not having enough money to get home, luckily we had our bucket to help us get through this; what came first the chicken or the egg? After a swim we hopped in a tuk-tuk, arriving back to find Wez surrounded by comatose Swedes, 'I've never done Valium before so we all snorted twelve.' Good job guys. After slapping the Swedes silly, nipple twisting and soaking them with beer to check they weren't dead, we took ourselves off to bed, leaving Wez unguarded and free to burst in on Ciabattz. Having wrestled with 'the face that keeps staring at me from your backpack', arguing with the man he could see in the corner and screaming at Ciabattz for having green hair (she didn't) he passed out. Cheers Wez, wherever you are now, hopefully alive, we still owe you for that tuk-tuk.

Crescent moon? Nope... Half moon? Nah. Man in the moon? No, wait it can't be, shit it really is... woah it's a full moon. We got our UV on, aztec sleeves, warrior paint, every bodypart wanted to be neon; if you can't beat them - and why would you want to beat them? - JOIN THEM BABY. Hop in a tuk-tuk and off we go. After a month of Steve Aoki and Armand van Helden remixes of every song you've ever liked ever (and even more that you don't), here was drum and bass finally. Spent a few hours getting my stomp on with Angel Gabriel, one of the now-recovered Swedes. This cherub face had eyes bluer than the ocean that surrounded us and hair like pissed-in cotton wool. We wanted to put him in a nativity. Later I wrote my (overly complicated) name in the sand for a boy called Julio and he remembered it and we are now looking forward to our future together as the best of (Facebook) friends.

 THESE ARE NOT MY FRIENDS

Image courtesy of Google

As the hype promised it would, the Full Moon Party provided us with the best moment of travelling so far; no not the music or dancing in the sea at sunrise, not an acid-filled Wez burying in the sand with the millions of frogs he believed he was surrounded by, not even my angel faced boy, but my BFF being beaten about the face with the shit-covered stick the proprietor of the horrible loos used to clean her kingdom. Perhaps when this woman tells you the loos are closed don't piss on the building. Though to be fair, BFF had a point when she screeched, whilst pulling up her knickers and staggering away, 'NOT ON MY FACE YOU FUCKING BITCH.' Anywhere else lady, but don't hate on the money maker.

RYAN (leader of the PiCs)

Post Full-Moon (time on Phangan exists in a Pre-FM/Post-FM format) there were forced nights out whilst trying to avoid bouts of torrential rain and torrential diarrhea. Herds of Aussies - or dancing Penises in Caps - were all we enountered, as they were loving the rain glistening off their hard (gross), shaved abs. One of the PiCs (Penis-in-Caps, keep up), Ryan told us his fave surfer friend dude man had just been attacked by a shark in Perth and only half his bod had been recovered. Gnarly bro. Can't wait for surfing.

OH SHIT WE'VE BEEN KOH-LANTAED

was our reaction to being shipped to Samui; even watching a few rounds of Whales in the Wind on the boat couldn't cheer us up (think J.Lo in her wind machine in On The Floor, but replace the wind machine with the inability to balance up on deck and swap sexy Lopez with swollen American tourists - don't judge me, this was back when I was skinny enough to to be a bitch). A massive life comedown had hit the size of Andy Dufresne's on his first night in Shawshank. Except we weren't after redemption, rather we were ravenous. After eating nothing but the ice in our Sangsom buckets for a week there was no time to wash off Phi-Phi, we headed to the nearest 5* resort for some munch. We ate all we could eat at the all you can eat (say it ten times) and after this return to the magnificent food of our glorious middle-class upbringings, we ate Maccies every night... and yes it was just as good (better).

BEACH REPUBLIC, KOH SAMUI

Lord, I've made Samui sound dull, only because when I wrote about it I was sat smug as Mayor McCheese (surely the smuggest of the McDonalds characters, and definitely the one who wants to make me fat) on Koh Tao my new favourite place on the planet with a chocolate milk from Seven Eleven. More on this heaven on earth, full of greased up, fire-dancing adonises, later.

Ungrateful as ever for the honeymoon-worthy beaches and scenery, we realised there were places to go out on Samui; head to Green Mango y'all if you're ever on this island. Word of warning, it's dark in this club, so make sure the boy you're snogging has all his skin before you dive in for a smooch. When he steps into the light, in all his house-fire third degree sunburnt glory, after hours of rubbing up against him to Swedish House Mafia, your face (AND HIS) isn't going to be picture.

Samui; all very Magaluf without the Shag (thank the Lord).