Chaweng

The next day we checked out of our secluded resort with every intention of making our way over to Ko Pha Ngan to meet some more friends from home. Kris (a former housemate and friend from university) and his girlfriend, Ellie, are those great kind of friends who you don’t live near but, when your in their neck of the woods (or vice-versa), you know you can call each other up, meet up and carry on exactly where you left off six months before. I’d last seen them at Kris’s birthday barbeque in Tooting in August, when we’d made plans to meet in Thailand after discovering we’d be in the same place at the same time. However, before we went across the water, we wanted to meet up with Joe one last time before he headed off to Saigon for New Year. We ambled in to Chaweng and found it suspiciously like Haad Rin’s back alleys…it was looking pleasant enough in the bright, morning sunlight but I knew that nightfall and neon would change all that. We found Joe’s resort, dumped our bags and sat in the beach-front restaurant for a spot of brunch, whilst admiring the local scenery ;-). While the Samui Marina Cottages (where Dave and I had stayed) had an almost deserted stretch of white sand, Chaweng beach was crammed with bikini-clad babes and (more disturbingly!) speedo-clad spivs. I don’t object to ‘budgie-smugglers’ if you’re a serious swimmer and doing a few laps…but why wear them to the beach…and then roll the back up to get your cheeks an even tan?! However, there was enough eye-candy to make these stomach-churning sights nothing but a minor inconvenience and we got it into our heads that we needed to purchase Lilos and spend some time checking out the beach. About this time, we got a message from Kris that he and Ellie were planning on crashing at the first hotel they could find on Samui, to recover from their long journey. Before we knew it, Dave and I had agreed to stop at Joe’s place and have one last night out on the town with him. Jonny and Suki sent us a message to say they were having a quiet night – who can blame them, a married couple on an exotic island…you wouldn’t want to be out with the rowdy lads every night! So the three musketeers saddled up and rode forth…
We strolled into town and bought our lilos, a half-dozen longnecks (big bottles of beer) and a waterproof camera before making our first foray onto the beach. We were soon balanced precariously astride the inflatables, beers in hand and soaking up the rays. As we drifted down the beach on the current, we found ourselves opposite a bar pumping out some fat, funky house and instantly made up our minds where we’d be starting the evening’s entertainments, a little later on. We swam out to a sandbar (just for the hell of it!), paddled around, got drunk, laughed at Dave losing his Oakleys and generally had a very pleasant and relaxing afternoon…apart from Dave, who was a little gutted about losing his sunnies at the first available opportunity! ;-)
We went back to our funky house bar after the sun had gone down and spent a couple of hours shooting pool, draining cocktails and generally getting ourselves in the right state of mind to go down the resort’s infamous main drag. We even got to set off some enormous fireworks and were soon well in the mood to party.
As we walked into town, the streets were a melee of extremely good-looking girls in revealing outfits and western men wandering around in packs with predatory looks in their eyes. Some of the girls were already with their ‘boyfriends’, others were merely enticing bait to lure guys to drink in their particular bar but the vast majority were out-and-out hookers looking for an easy mark. Joe had promised us that Green Mangoes had been the place to hang out on his last visit and, certainly, when we’d parked ourselves at the bar we stopped getting hassled by the girls. However, the music policy soon began to grate (more R&B!) and we eventually upped sticks and left for pastures new.
I amused myself and the boys (and just about everybody else!) by trying my hand at one of fairground games dotting the pavements between the bars. The object of the game was to climb up a rope ladder on a pivot to reach a wad of money stuck to the board at the top. Needless to say, it was well beyond my inebriated abilities and I got nothing from it apart from some rope burns on my hand, a lighter wallet and a good deal of frustration! We eventually found a bar playing half-decent music, which just happened to be staffed by one of the best-looking girls any of us had ever seen. Cherry was beautiful, funny and extremely sexy…and possibly a little too good to be true. I managed to get her phone number, which I spent the next week thinking about calling. In the end, the combination of trekking back to Samui and not being quite sure what expectations might be held (particularly of the financial or marital kind!) was enough to put me off from calling her and I eventually (reluctantly) threw the scrap of paper away. Fortunately, despite his drunkenness, Dave managed to snap a photo of the lovely lady, which I will have to remember her by…;-) This inspirational photography was about the last coherent thing Dave managed to do and it wasn’t long before I was having to support him on the short stagger home. Back at the ranch, Dave had had a message through from Kris and Ellie, saying they were heading to Green Mangoes so, leaving Dave to catch some sleep before my snoring began, I headed back into town still feeling in the mood to party. I walked warily into the bar, fearing another assault of nasty music, only to find – much to my delight! – that they were playing PVD’s mix of Binary Finary’s ‘1998’. I hadn’t heard a full-on trance tune on a sound system for nearly three months and I forgot any notions of trying to find Kris and Ellie in the crowded club. I planted myself in the middle of the dancefloor with a likely-looking bunch of heavyweight Saffers and went for it with a manic grin plastered across my crazy face. I figured if the guys were there, they’d spot me in no time…and I just wanted to enjoy the moment. Unfortunately, the moment didn’t last long as it was coming up to kicking out time. I emerged in my usual perspiring state, found Joe ensconced with an attractive girl from London and staggered off to bed, feeling light-headed and considerably the worse for wear.