KOALA-TY TIME IN 'STRAYA.

HEY AUSSIE BABES, WE'VE ARRIVED. We're in Fitzroy in Melbourne (or 'Melbz' to... no one) aka Shoreditch-in-the-sun. Obviously I mean the new Shoreditch that my middle-class routes and rents approve of, not the grimy Shoreditch of ten years ago, i.e you can't swing a breaded cat without hitting a hipster in flatforms and a ying-yang tee, cheers Tumblr. Despite the fact that Australian hipsters have stolen all of our music - hey Alt-J stop touring Australia, you got people who wanna see you back home ya know? - we're loving it, mainy because girls are allowed (in the unwritten 'Who is a Nobhead?' rules that follow us all everywhere and at all times) to wear caps here and aren't made to feel like wiggas or emos or chavs (widely accepted subcatagories of the prementioned 'Nobhead'). However I don't think we'll be taking our new Rip n Dip collection back to England. You kidz just aren't ready yet. Sexists. (Also because I have a niggling feeling that the reason people love to take our photos on nights out isn't to put them on their street style blogs but to put on Vice's Dos and Don'ts under a massive DO NOT, with the caption 'Don't Act Like A Rude Boy When Daddy's Got A Yacht may have been written about girls like you before the economic recession hit Europe, but now you just look like twats in a caps whilst Daddy's in jail for tax evasion and is trying desperately not to drop the White Company soap you sent him').

So much for tripping over sexy Aussies everywhere we go and spending our days swaggering along the beach in a line of tanned 'n' taught bikini clad babes (with us hiding our boozey paunches behind their pert arses), the people staying at our hostel could best be described as, um, characters. A well-meaning stripper, remniscent of Charlise Theron (in Monster) - ignore the rash, IGNORE THE RASH, and boil every plate/pan/cup/fork before use - has offered to put in a good word for us where she works. Alas it would appear, after paying for her podium, she makes minus money every night unless, she proudly tells us, she farts throughout her 'performance', in which case she is stinking rich (sorry, couldn't resist). She has made what she refers to as an 'Anti-police' film which involves her wearing a pig mask and peeling everything but the mask off. I would love to post it, and feel like I am doing all your wank-banks a diservice by not, but unfortunately YouTube have removed it, I'm guessing not on the grounds of it being unlawful but because of the impotence epidemic it would cause. Instead of waking with the larks as back in dear old Blighty, here we wake up with Flem; a boy who goes to work at 7am every day, having spent an hour loudly clearing his sinuses in the sink outside our room. He then trims his hair, hopefully that of his face, into the sink, making a sticky little nest for us to Clinique our faces out of later on. We need to find a house.

Sadly it is with these people we spent Christmas. Christmas Eve is spent at our five-times-a-week haunt Revolver, a club that is handily open 24 hourly from Thursday through Sunday, probs a dangerous idea given that someone was once found dead after two days in there, but fun nonetheless. Espesh after this exchange:

'I want to make my ex jealous'
'Well I want your Christmas jumper' (for it truly was a magnificent affair; thick and woolly and covered in snowmen)
'I'll give it to you if you kiss me'
'Done.'

Practically a nativity for the post-noughties (well what would you call this decade; the tenties?) generation; Christmas spirit summed up in a parable of loyalty, chastity, generosity and not realising someone has braces until after you've faux-passionately snogged 'em. Upon our return to the hostel a stoke of culinary genius had us eating - check this out -Mcdonald's chips and McNuggets dunked in KFC gravy. Later just as I was nodding off into a gravy-cocktail induced coma, I felt something on my feet. Fearing the stripper had come for a private performance of Santa Baby I jerked awake. 'FUCKIN' GO TO SLEEP, SANTA'S HERE' snapped the worse for wear BFF wearing her Christmas hat. 'CLOSE YOUR EYES, YOU WON'T GET YOUR FUCKIN' PRESENTS'. All is calm, all is bright...

I AIN'T SAYIN' SHE A GOLD DIGGER

Christmas day was lovely, spent BBQing food and our bods in the sun at Ciabattz's uncle's playing with her baby cousin. Totes inappropz us being around both child and adult age groups after our adventures in Asia; still insisting we're the former and refusing to admit that at 24 we might actually be the latter, it was difficult to tone down our chat. Espesh with the child around which there's to be no mention of McD's or Santa; she went straight for my Maccies phone case - a girl after my own heart. Her anti-corporation parents were horrified that her first word, and here I tell no word of a lie, was Apple. That's reasonable enough you think, but note the capital A; she was looking at the Mac icon when she said it. When Ciabattz's uncle put on Kraftwerk she went mental in exactly the same way that is very familiar to any of us who've ever been to Creamfields or Global. She was... um... ecstatic... to say the least. The evening was spent sipping mulled wine (out of a disinfected mug) dreaming of my Christmas in front of the fire at home with the fam, guzzling champagne and buried under prezzies galore. Alas I am travelling the world. #Firstworldproblems.

New Year's Eve arrives, getting over the fact that we shoulda been in Sydney but had spanked every penny in Thailand and were now stuck, we went to a party in a nearby park, DJ in the bandstand, people dancing about everywhere; what to wear? I went for a ballgown (bought with me on my mother's suggestion of useful packing for Asia 'Just throw it on over a bikini after the beach sweetheart, and you're good to go' - I have no idea where she thought I was staying for 3 pounds a night) and neon orange beanie in an 'Amanda Bynes getting pulled over for driving erratically, fresh after being refused entry to Elton's Oscars afterparty, and the police finding her stash in her car' type look. It being NYE it's difficult to recall whether this went down well, and where my beanie went. The last place I remember it (and me) being is on the end of my new giant and very fancy stick I'd found and was using as a Firebolt 2013; the finest broom money can buy to you muggles (ok I added the '2013' cos it sounds rad). I was, in one of my classier moments, waggling my Firebolt at boy I wanted to kiss... Happy new year babies; start the year as you mean to go on an' all that. These Aussie boys clearly didn't want to spend 2013 with Amanda in her community service outfit. Oh well, as my mother would say reassuringly, but less and less convincingly, 'THEIR LOSS'*.

*If we were in the playground, and perhaps deep down we all are (deep), this is where I'd ram my tongue through my bottom lip as forcefully as I could whilst making that hugely satisfyng but horribly obnoxious 'DUHHHH' grunt. Come. At. Me. Boys.

SINGAPORE-LING BEHAVIOUR.

We landed in Kuala Lumpur at 11pm and ran straight to Nando's OH MY GOD IT WAS THE SAME MMMMMMMM THE SAME PAIN IN YOUR MOUTH THAT HURTS SO GOOD. That night, having peri-ed our bellies, we headed to Reggae Mansion; a hostel we couldn't afford to stay in but we could afford to drink in. We got our priorities straight baby. There were loadsa people there; some good, some not so. The first appearance of our megababe megafaves T&M was made briefly this evening, and our new friend Willow - quickly and wittily renamed as Grandma Willow - was a lovely chap. In some kinda dramatic Aussie mating ritual he poured hot coals from the shisha on his head, then ripped his tee off (which I promptly threw over off the rooftop, not realising that today 18 year old's see that as a signal to start the striptease) and started humping me and kissing my neck. Lucky me. Oh to be 18 again...

HIGH ROLLIN' AND HORSING AROUND (HAAA) AT MARINA BAY SANDS

Next stop Singapore, where we found the glorious T&M again. In the cleanest city in the world where you get the death penalty for crossing the road at the wrong time and all the clubs close early we decided a Seven Eleven bar crawl was the only way to entertain ourselves. After this proved exhausting - who wants to WALK to get more alcohol? - T&M in their stylish way decided 'fuck it we're going to stay at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and you kids are coming with us'.

We spent the start of the best day of our lives day at the infinity pool in the sky, floating above all the peasants below and chomping on truffle oil chips. This, dahling, is backpacking. That night we got our fancy on and went to the rooftop club next to the pool. Obvz we were invited straight into Models Corner in the V.I.P section (well when I say 'invited'; my friend snogged the face off the kind Singaporean door man). Here the first man ever on the cover of Singapore Elle, handily English but inconveniently arrogant, brought over round after round of Moët and, at our classy request, B52s and Jägerbombs... safe to say we lowered the tone considerably, lucky the doorman was on side. We raced on luggage trolleys through the ostentatious lobby back to T&M's suite where the models blow-dried and styled our hair and we all dressed as unicorns and had pillow fights bouncing on the bed (just like all the best uniporn begins) 'til sleep came and dawn (Nando's) arrived.

HEY THERE NARCISSUS

 

Thanks Singapore, you were insane. Now we must stop slumming it, get me to the Aussies.

SO HANOI-ING.

Twenty-eight hours on a bus from Laos to the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi. We're all crammed in; I've got Wolverene toes snuggled one side and K-Fed circa 2007 to 2010, aka the eating-Britney's money years, the other side. Stop touching me I'm not a Big Mac. At my feet I have a woman either being violently sick or spitting a cascade of flem into her fabric bag she handily has with her for this purpose. Perhaps she is going to make something out of it later; soup anyone? What the Pho...

TRANQUIL

We get refugeed off the bus at the Laos-Vietnam border, also the convienient location of Moth Universe. Either walk through this amusement park of nightmares, 'Where we have an Ostrich(sized moth) that can fly!' or stand amongst the never-ending games of Hock & Spit that the Vietnamese love to play. I choose sliding about in spit, I will always choose sliding about in spit as MOTHS WILL FLY IN MY EARS AND I WILL HAVE TO RIP MY FACE OFF TO GET THEM OUT. This exact horror happened to my Uncle in South Africa. Well it didn't, but it could have. Get me the fuck back on that bus. I miss Wolverene and K-Fat.

Turns out Hanoi's nightlife, if you can find it, is a delight to indulge in. We found ourselves sneaking down an alley, through someone's garden and up a tiny staircase to a club called... umm... Fray? Fresh? Farce? Fuck knows. They let us play exactly the songs we wanted, until the police took offence to Cragga's enhancement massacre of The Marvelettes 'Please Mr. Postman' and closed it down. As we were sneaking away down a side street a giant wooden door opens in a wall and a young, rather dolled up, Vietnamese woman ushers us me and the two guys I was with into what we presumed was her home. There were questionable panting and grunting noises coming from upstairs, either someone is playing tennis up there or..

'Guys are we in a whorehouse?' This Pretty Woman rushed about getting us drinks, and, in a testement to the Vietnamese people's hospitality, she then made us soup (looks like we really were in a BROTHel pahahahahaa ha). Tila Tequila (the only slutty Vietnamese person I could think of) later ushered us back out to the street with full bellies and fuzzy minds and the evening was spent whizzing about on strangers' mopeds, helmet and care free, looking for somewhere, anywhere, that was open and/or would sell us alcohol. Our knights on white mopeds long since having abandoned us, we ended up wandering the streets desolate until we discovered (hidden under my jumper, tucked in my shorts) a bottle of delicious snake wine. If you've ever been to Bangkok you will have inhaled that unique smell permeating from every gutter, around every corner and down every alley; that smell of egg and sewage mixed with something undefinable.. perhaps Pad-Thai. Well that smell is exactly how this wine tastes. I'm not sure if it was the taste, the strength of the preservative or the snake juice but something in that bottle made BFF lose her mind more than any amount of alcohol has in her entire life. She got her Dollface on (our name for her glassy eyed, 'no one's home' alter-ego) and kept running into the road; Jungians would say that in her terror she had reverted to a childlike state, I'd say she was being a dick. We got her to cafe that was just opening for brekkie and as soon as ice cream touch her lips she was placated, that was until she spotted Ciabattz's croissant, thought it was the snake and The Fear returned. Everyone headed home yet I, typically distracted by pretty boys, ended up lost alone for four hours in the most chaotic city I've ever set foot in. Hanoi-ing, particularly being totally spesh when it comes to crossing roads and high on Baileys. After fours hours of wretched weeping despair, three wise women guided me home, where the baby BFF, after too much holy wine, was waiting swaddled in a duvet and ready to be worshipped.

SNAKE WINE???!! SCORE(PION)



We booked a tour up to Halong Bay in North Vietnam and were buzzin for it, thinking we'd booked the infamous Castaway Tour; two nights deserted and drinking on our own private island. Instead it was bed by 10 O'Clock and How to Roll a Spring Roll, also known as How to Lose Your Food to the Staff When They Take it Away to Cook it. We did get to visit a cave which was cool, kinda like being in a Ryan McGinley photograph, except with hundreds of people also crammed into it, running about, screaming and kicking at bits of it.

GUESS WHICH ONE'S RYAN'S...

After awaking from the haze of Vietnam we realised we no longer had time to go to Cambodia. #Oops we've missed out a whole country. Guess I read The Killing Fields for nothing. Oh well another few nights out and any information retained from the book will be long gone, washed away on a tide of tequila... Massacre? What massacre?

OF CABBAGES AND KINGS.

Vang Vieng in Laos's reputation precedes it. Rumours circulate of a land where restaurants play F•R•I•E•N•D•S 24/7, shrumours of mushroom shakes handed to you in every bar, where comatose teenagers float down the Nam Song river. That was the Laos of three months ago. We arrived in a ghost town, every bar closing at 1 AM. We had to make our own fun (not being slags), convieniently the rooftop of our hostel was strewn with mattresses which was perfect for (not slagging but) rooftop parties. Three nights in they were pumping; if we were in Clueless, which I always imagine I am, Cher would have described it as 'slammin'. We were truly the toast of the town...of forty people. Until five fifty year old, giant woolly jumper clad, Laotion (yeah that's right) men turned up. My train of thought went thus, 'Ok that's cool, we're expanding, our clientel are maturing... Snazzy jumpers, boy they must think this weather's cold for Loas... Why are they taking them off? The party atmosphere must be warming them up... Oh mother of Christ there's guns under those garms, and not the sexy kind you take to the 'gun show', the kind red necks take to an actual gun show and hunt animals a lot bigger and stronger than humans with, FUCKKKKK'. Awkward when you've spent the evening inviting everyone to your 'slammin' roof top party' then everyone gets arrested. Particularly awkward when a man orders the lad sat next to you to stand up with a gun and you do. Seven million kip (£600) fine or a year and a half in jail? Um...

Shame how tubing had been closed down by the Government; every single bar is boarded up or burnt down. Awfully depressing. There's no sign of the mudslide of mudpie dreams or the zipwire of death (three people had died so far that year on it - Oi spoil sports, if you're starting to drown STOP POPPING AMPHETAMINES). Now all anyone does is just float lazily down the river in a ring; laaaaaaaame. Seems we were unfashionably three months late to the party. Someone else who was late for the party was the current reigning King of Popworld, Harry Styles. Or a boy with his exact face, and The Hair. Ooooh suddenly floating down the river looks like the best time ever, yayyyyy fake tubing.

AUGUST 2012

NOVEMBER 2012

That evening, I found BFF at the bar chatting to the most beautiful boy the world has ever seen, his carved-out-of-diamond-by-an-angel face topped off by a mint-green snapback. Gotta love a boy in a cap, it hides all manner of horrors. Orright, I know when I'm not wanted, I'm off to find Harry Styles. Later that night I burst into our room (it had quickly become our room; the girl who'd been in there when we rocked up having changed rooms after one evening with us. Rude) to see BFF and Mint Cap awkwardly sitting miles apart, 'Oh shit I'll be outta your way' I race outta the room, shutting the door. A fraction of a second later and the BFF wrenches open the door whisper-yelling my name.

'Yeah? I'm leaving you be buddy, don't you worry'
'Noooooo please come back in'
'What? Why?!'
'He STINKS of cabbage'
'HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA you serious? But he's a megababe.'
(BFF practically crying) 'I knowwww, PLEASE PLEASE come back in'
'Soz fave, I got Harry Styles serenading me, laters.'

Seems after hours of him pouring out his life story, safely from the other side of the room, she eventually got Cabbage Patch Rid of him. What a waste.

CHIANG ME CHIANG MAI.

We slept our way up through northern Thailand to Chiang Mai on the sleeper trains. These trains hold the glorious, and highly underated, Dinner Set B. Promise me, swear on the Lord Elton John's life, that if you ever find yourself on one of these trains grasping the menu in your sweaty mitts, you will order Dinner Set B; so good they didn't name it twice, they tattooed the name on them forever.

 

AND YOU THOUGHT I WAS JOKING.

- OBVZ I GOT MINE ON MY ARM AS HARRY STYLES HAS HIS 'A' FOR HIS MUM ANNE THERE AND I KNOW

THAT, WHEN WE MEET,  ME BEING ABLE TO SAY 'BE THE A TO MY B' WILL MEAN WE'LL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

 

You're thinking 'Are they honestly that stupid?' when what you should be asking yourself is 'Shit, just how delicious was it?' For that question, my friend, I have no words that will do the answer justice. We travelled via Bangkok, where my ex-boyf in a drunken stupor put my size seven flip-flops on, leaving his, and abandoned me in to the mercy of the 40°C  tarmac of the Koh San Road with only fucking Hagrid's flippers to wear. Fuck knows how he didn't notice. Having no shoes, something has Chainged Mai foot something awful and it's now more swollen than my imbecillic lightingbolt finger tattoo new wand. Surviving a car smashing into our tuk-tuk ("AVADA KADAVRAAA") we stayed at an elephant park, chosen because of the mind-blowing pineapple one Trip Advisor review said it served.

 COURTESY OF (THE CRAZIES ON) TRIPADVISOR

 

For supper we ate truly the best pineapple we ever did taste, and as night fell we played Mystery Meat (known locally as Eating Fur, but I thought to the squalid Western mind this may sound like a different game) and Singing Around a Campfire. These are the songs that the elephant trainers, or Mahoots, knew, and the courses they accompanied:

 

Rice, sugar and coconut                       I Don't Want to Miss a Thing - Aerosmith
cooked in bamboo                             
 

Seeds                                                    Wonderwall - Oasis
 

Buffelo skin (fur)                                 When You Say Nothing At All - the Ronan Keating version
                                                                            

 

Ronan was the only one we all knew all the words to (soz Manchester, three years under your rainy sky hasn't taught me the second verse to Wonderwall 'BACK BEAT the word was on the street...???' No? Fuck knows). Well done Sir Keating (surely), doesn't matter if you're breaking up marriages, you are uniting nations; it's amazing how you can speak right to my heart, without saying a word you can light up the dark... Our last day in this wondrous country was spend with the Nellys. Honestly the best pineapple I've ever eaten for breaky, with the guliable BFF enjoying her first elephant egg omelette, then we went to feed the elephants (not their own eggs, that would be cruel) and ride and bathe them. Shout out to Grandma Golden Moon, surely the noblest elephant of them all.

PINEAPPRECIATION.

After some more marvelous pineapple we had a cup of tea with this AMAZING new food called coffee creamer which means you DON'T NEED MILK, seriously you just don't need it. Plus it's delicious, Jamie Oliver should be telling the world about this stuff. Mmmmmmm. Time for one more round of that heavenly pineapple and we'll be on our way. Thank you, goodnight and God bless Thailand.

Kob khun ka.

 

 



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.