Koh Pha Ngan (pron. pang yang)

It's impossible to get a room on this island in the week before a Full Moon Party, but directly after one it empties out considerably. We were running way over budget and so decided that we would try slumming it for a week or two to try and save some cash so went back to Hat Rin, the home of the party, and moved into a shithole, 93 steps up the side of a cliff, for 200 baht per night (about 3 quid). Fortunately, there wasn't much to do here except for laying around watching DVD's and eating.

We did go out on the lash one night and staggered home in the early hours to discover Martin, 23 from Croydon, limping around outside our bungalow in a right old state. He had apparantly climbed the steps and, thinking he lived further along, had tried to climb over a barbed wire fence at the cliffs edge, cutting his feet open in the process. Kerri and I calmly explained that he probably didn't live over there, as the only thing past the fence was certain death, and so reluctantly agreed to let us help him back down the the beach.

"So where DO you live?" I innocently enquired. Martin gazed out to sea for a moment, then instantly burst into tears, sobbing that he didn't know.
"Well when did you last see your mates?" says I, completely unprepared for the response. In a split second, tears had been replaced by raw, uncontrolable rage.
"I'M GONNA SMASH THEIR FUCKING FACES IN" he screamed.

And so on we went for nearly half an hour – tears, rage, tears, rage – until I for one was ready to ditch him, but Keri, the good Christian that she is, would have none of it and so we led him to the taxi rank.

Anyway, alls well that ends well and eventually (after another half hour with a very confused taxi driver) a more useful word than those above came forth from his mouth.
"PIRATES!" he suddenly yelled. Kerri and I looked at each other believing him to have finally lost his marbles, but to our surprise the taxi driver nodded and carted him off to God only knows where.

"What a bloody eijit." pronounced Kerri on our way home. "Must be something to do with his name!" Which I personally thought was a little unfair (Kerri says sorry Veg!).

So the time came to move on round the island, as Kerri had a friend whose brother was getting married in Ban Khai. Unfortunately I contracted some kind of tropical disease and was too feeble and feverish to attend (no, I really was), but she assures me it was a lovely day.

We stayed in a bungalow that was so close to the sea that at high tide the waves came up under the supporting stilts and broke directly under where we slept. The place was run by a builder from Ealing and at times the three of us were probably the only people within half a mile! Ban Khai has a population smaller than the Three Tuns on a Saturday night so the combination of cheap beer, good food and satelite TV meant that we rarely ventured away from our place – in fact, we had to run a tab as it took 4 days before we could be bothered to walk to the cash point!

When we finally managed this mission we stopped for a beer at what we soon realized was a girlie bar. The owner, a petite Thai woman in her mid 30's and a total nutcase, served us our drinks and challenged me to a game of Connect 4 – with one additional rule. If she won, she was to give me a lipstick-laden kiss on my face and it had to remain there until I had walked home.

Well, as St. Bernadette's School Connect 4 Champion 1985/86 I didn't think that this would be a problem – how wrong I was! I lost 6 straight games, much to the hilarity of the entire staff. In fact, the owner herself was laughing so much that at one point she could hardly breathe! Those Thai's – what a great sense of humour, this hilarious joke also seemed to amuse Kerri, several people on mopeds, a bus load of tourists and an entire building site of tough looking Thai blokes.

Anyway, back at the ranch Kerri had finished her Rolf Harris Animal Hospital bit with a stray kitten we found and dubbed Richard Parker and so we decided that a rolling stone gathers no moss...