Nude, lewd and a shrivelled dude
The journey from Bangkok to Koh Samui was a bit of an epic. We got to Bangkok train station in good time, only to find that our train didn't exist. Due to the flooding, a large section of the track was underwater and we'd have to get a bus to a station that was accessible to something other than submarine. That turned out to be three very long hours away. When we finally got to it, the train
was depressingly tatty but we were still excited to see our private cabin with its large bench seat that folded out to become bunk beds - it was like being in a Bond film! Except that 007 probably didn't have an apalling prison-issue meal and a sleepless night on a paving slab of a mattress. At 5am we were woken by a surly guard, wearing just his vest and pants, and told to get off at the next station. The rest of the morning was spent in the back of a pick-up truck, on another bus, 
a slow boat that stank of petrol and one more pick-up truck taxi. The whole journey had taken 20 hours and was physically, mentally and emotionally draining. We prayed that Koh Samui would be nice and calm and relaxing...
We'd pre-booked a guesthouse that sounded nice and friendly but were dismayed
to find it was in the heart of Chaweng, the island's party capital, and nestled among such traditional Thai establishments as The Rose & Crown, Down Under's, Rasta's Reggae Bar and O'Reilly's Irish Pub. The reason we were on Koh Samui was to hook up with a couple of Claire's friends who were on holiday and, once we met them, the four of us got on scooters and headed out of town to visit some of the 
island's sights. First stop was a mummified monk. This poor old chap died in 1973 and for some reason failed to decompose. So his family and devotees decided that what they should do is dress his shrivelled corpse in orange robes, put a pair of Ray Bans on him and display him in a glass box at a roadside pagoda. I'm sure it's what he would have wanted.
Next
on our island tour was the Hin-Ta and Hin-Yai (grandfather and grandmother) rock fo
rmations which are famous locally for one simple reason - the one called 'grandfather' looks like a big phallus. This offers up myriad possibilities for amusing photographs, an opportunity we certainly weren't going to turn down.
Back in Chaweng, we decided to embrace the sophisticated, cerebral and cultural nightlife on offer... and ended up at a Miss Wet T-Shirt competition. The place was, unsurprisingly, packed to capacity with lairy blokes, mostly wearing vests, cheering, chanting and holding up a forest of camera phones
. On stage, the girls appeared to be mostly hired-in strippers but there were a few 'normal' tourist girls and it was these that received the biggest cheers and provided the most entertainment. One French girl got completely drunk, then took it upon herself to remove all her clothing and then tried to interfere with the other girls during their bit. An Aussie girl was getting a lot of cheers of support which did nothing to calm her quite obviously unhappy boyfriend who was telling everyone to "shut up and leave her alone". Then a German girl got into a proper fight with a Thai girl that involved lots of hair-pulling, some ripped knickers and a couple of punches being thrown. The voting for this debacle was done by the crowd (you got one vote for every drink you bought) and it was quite obvious from the cheering who the popular ones were - the dru
nk French girl, the feisty German and the carefree Australian. So when the top three big money prizes all went to local Thai girls (the 'winner' was the one who'd fought with the German and there were suspicions she might not have even been a girl) there was a near riot, followed by a mass walkout. The poor compere had to be escorted away by security!
A
sli
ghtly calmer, and certainly more glamourous, n
ight was had at a local cabaret club where some very convincing ladyboys danced
and mimed to some big diva anthems. There seemed to be three types of ladyboy in the show: the ones who took it very seriously but looked fabulous; the ones who had had too much facial plastic surgery and looked like a cross between LaToya Jackson and The Joker; and the deliberately tongue-in-cheek acts with over-the-top make-up and suspicious
looking bulges in the wrong places. It was a great night and very entertaining. After the show we got to meet the stars and try on their amazing head-dresses. They even made me look fabulous!
was depressingly tatty but we were still excited to see our private cabin with its large bench seat that folded out to become bunk beds - it was like being in a Bond film! Except that 007 probably didn't have an apalling prison-issue meal and a sleepless night on a paving slab of a mattress. At 5am we were woken by a surly guard, wearing just his vest and pants, and told to get off at the next station. The rest of the morning was spent in the back of a pick-up truck, on another bus, 
a slow boat that stank of petrol and one more pick-up truck taxi. The whole journey had taken 20 hours and was physically, mentally and emotionally draining. We prayed that Koh Samui would be nice and calm and relaxing...We'd pre-booked a guesthouse that sounded nice and friendly but were dismayed
to find it was in the heart of Chaweng, the island's party capital, and nestled among such traditional Thai establishments as The Rose & Crown, Down Under's, Rasta's Reggae Bar and O'Reilly's Irish Pub. The reason we were on Koh Samui was to hook up with a couple of Claire's friends who were on holiday and, once we met them, the four of us got on scooters and headed out of town to visit some of the 
island's sights. First stop was a mummified monk. This poor old chap died in 1973 and for some reason failed to decompose. So his family and devotees decided that what they should do is dress his shrivelled corpse in orange robes, put a pair of Ray Bans on him and display him in a glass box at a roadside pagoda. I'm sure it's what he would have wanted. Next
on our island tour was the Hin-Ta and Hin-Yai (grandfather and grandmother) rock fo
rmations which are famous locally for one simple reason - the one called 'grandfather' looks like a big phallus. This offers up myriad possibilities for amusing photographs, an opportunity we certainly weren't going to turn down.Back in Chaweng, we decided to embrace the sophisticated, cerebral and cultural nightlife on offer... and ended up at a Miss Wet T-Shirt competition. The place was, unsurprisingly, packed to capacity with lairy blokes, mostly wearing vests, cheering, chanting and holding up a forest of camera phones
. On stage, the girls appeared to be mostly hired-in strippers but there were a few 'normal' tourist girls and it was these that received the biggest cheers and provided the most entertainment. One French girl got completely drunk, then took it upon herself to remove all her clothing and then tried to interfere with the other girls during their bit. An Aussie girl was getting a lot of cheers of support which did nothing to calm her quite obviously unhappy boyfriend who was telling everyone to "shut up and leave her alone". Then a German girl got into a proper fight with a Thai girl that involved lots of hair-pulling, some ripped knickers and a couple of punches being thrown. The voting for this debacle was done by the crowd (you got one vote for every drink you bought) and it was quite obvious from the cheering who the popular ones were - the dru
nk French girl, the feisty German and the carefree Australian. So when the top three big money prizes all went to local Thai girls (the 'winner' was the one who'd fought with the German and there were suspicions she might not have even been a girl) there was a near riot, followed by a mass walkout. The poor compere had to be escorted away by security!A
sli
ghtly calmer, and certainly more glamourous, n
ight was had at a local cabaret club where some very convincing ladyboys danced
and mimed to some big diva anthems. There seemed to be three types of ladyboy in the show: the ones who took it very seriously but looked fabulous; the ones who had had too much facial plastic surgery and looked like a cross between LaToya Jackson and The Joker; and the deliberately tongue-in-cheek acts with over-the-top make-up and suspicious
looking bulges in the wrong places. It was a great night and very entertaining. After the show we got to meet the stars and try on their amazing head-dresses. They even made me look fabulous!
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