Drinking

April 15, 2014

Pissed in Phangan

christinelouise Asia, Lists, NovaTOURient, Personal, Travel Talk 2014, 22 things, Asia, Bucket List, Drinking, Drugs, Full Moon Party, koh phangan, Lists, local celebrations, songkran, thailand

It’s raining when we get off the ferry. How convenient, since there’s a big water fight today. It’s Songkran, or the Thai New Year, and it is celebrated by getting everyone soaked. Luckily, we booked the last seats on an overpriced ferry just to be there so early, that no one will be up waiting with a watergun until we’re safe indoors.

At 9.30 we’re in our hostel, Om Ganesh. To our surprise, everyone from Patong Backpacker Hostel is there! Dom, Alex, James, Binula, the sisters, so on. We all put on our swimsuits and coverups, and around noon, it starts.

This is better than Holi. In fact, it’s the most fun I’ve had in ages. The streets are filled with people, pretty much stopping traffic. The little kids dump buckets of ice water on you. Backpackers gather in big hordes with colorful squirt guns and aggressively attack anyone who passes by. People on the back of the open taxis have no choice but to take what’s coming at them, while the car is slowly driving through the streets. We try not to attack people with backpacks or cameras, though. Everyone else is going to get soaked.

We have a quick lunch while it starts to rain again. I have mango sticky rice, Sara her sweet and sour chicken, which is the only thing she eats these days, and James is just tagging along. We pick up where we left off, and this time, we are drinking buckets.

With Dom, Binula and James

As the sun sets, we dry off and start the party. There is a Jungle Party, but we decide the entrance fee is too expensive, so we end up dancing on the beach for what seems like ages. As everyone else goes to bed, James, Bobby from the hostel and I head to a pool party, that is completely empty, but James throw me in the pool – with clothes on! – and we just hang in there for a while. Tired, we go back to eat before crashing. We are home at what feels like 5, but is actually 1 or 2. Oops.

The next day is the day of the Full Moon Party. Sara and I spend most of the day waiting for food. We order at two restaurants, but the waiter at the first one forgets to give Sara’s order to the kitchen, and doesn’t bother to tell me that he has cancelled mine, because they’re out of pasta. We go to place number two, which has the slowest cooks ever. For dinner, a group of us just end up buying street food. We finally sit outside the hostel with our free bucket (I accidentally drop mine and get a guy’s coupon for a bucket, aw) and free paint. Sara and I are the very first to grab a brush and get to it. We come up with some good designs, the dots I used to do at The Palace, flowers, and handprints on my bum. Hours later, everyone has almost the same design. As I always do what I call the Mandatory butt picture, I ask Sara if she minds doing painted handprints on my butt. Not wanting to get paint on the palms of her hands, she asks to me talk to the girl next to her instead. Her name is Kirstin, and she’s travelling with her friend John, aka. The Virgin. I haven’t really spoken to her at this point, but I casually ask her if she wants to help me out with that. She says yes very enthusiastically, and I immediately know that this is true love.

Bobby painting SaraKirstin painting James
IDK, some guy with a massive bucket

John aka. The Virgin, Kirstin, Binula, James, Sara and me
With Aylin

It’s a hot night, and the paint is coming off quickly, as we’re sweating a lot. Around 9 or 10 we do a few touch-ups and then head to the beach. That means Kirstin has to touch my butt multiple times.

At the very end of the beach, you find Mushroom Bar. Here, our new Canadian friends Kirstin and John share a shroom shake with me. Nothing happens, do a few hours later we share another one. Again, nothing happens. I don’t drink all night, but suddenly I feel drunk. I guess the shrooms are kicking in. Eventually, I lose everyone and I am on the beach by myself, partying. I get home at around 2.30, but I don’t remember much after that.

Number 20 on my list of 22 things to do: Do a drug – check!

Today, I’ve walked around in just the top from last night. I haven’t bothered to brush my teeth or put on underwear. My laziness has resulted in a party with Alex in reception, while everyone else is on the beach. We just listen to Disney songs, The Pokémon adn Thomas Train theme and Ylvis while going crazy, singing and dancing in the door to the hostel, frigtening other people.

We’re supposed to leave tomorrow. I have a feeling we wont after all.

April 11, 2014

Ping, pong, Patong

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Drinking, patong, phuket, ping pong show, thailand

“You go to the cinema every day“, the receptionist jokes as we head out for another movie. It’s our second day in a row. We haven’t done any sightseeing or real exploring for some time; it’s exhausting and just temple after temple after beach after fort. Our days are empty and boring, so we go to see Noah in 3D starring Russell Crowe. What a piece of shit that is.

Before the movie, we go to an australian restaurant and get day drunk. I have a burger. I’m insanely full. But then, we walk by all those little shops that have smoothies and milkshakes, and they have the oreoshake that I’ve been craving for a while. In my belly it goes, and I think my belly’s gonna pop. Then we’re at the cinema: popcorn time! I have no self restraint.

The cinema is located in a busy shopping mall, and everywhere you look, a white, fat and old man will be holding hands with a young thai girl – or boy. Most of them seem to go to the cinema for a day date. One especially fat guy, basically an apple on legs, sits next to Sara with a really young local boy. I don’t know whether to find it funny or sad.

After the shitty movie, we head back to complain to everyone in the common room about it. Sara is feeling sick, and goes bed early, while the crowd on the floor thins out. Suddenly, we are three people left, and we agree to see a ping pong show – without animals this time. We meet my roommate Jennifer and her friend Nadia on the way, and they join us. We have a few buckets around different bars before going to a decent stripclub. The ping pong show has the lady pulling out razors, whistling with a flute, throwing darts at balloons that I’m holding, and smoking cigarettes. After that, the strippers pull me on stage, and the guys join me. We just do a bad dance and laugh our asses off, before I head to bed; it’s an early day the next day.

With James and Mama

I got one that says “shittest cunt”

With Jennifer, our roommate, and James

April 7, 2014

A tough hike and a few Jägerbombs

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Drinking, koh phi phi, thailand

Since my days after a night out usually consist of me in a fetal position on the cold, hard bathroom floor, hugging the toilet and occassionally crying for my mom, who isn’t there, I take it relatively easy on our first night in Phi Phi. Relatively. Sara and Tori don’t.

We have breakfast around noon, several naps and no drinks at all the next day. Sara and I don’t want to stay at Flower Bungalows anymore, so while she is hungover and I dizzy from the blazing heat and excessive sweating, we go to virtually every hostel, hotel and guest house, trying to get a good deal. We see many nice ones, but most are around 1800 baht per night, which is out of our budget. We eventually decide on Tara Inn at 700 baht, and move there the following day.

I love having a proper bathroom, a nice bed, and a place to put all our shit. All my clothes are at the very bottom of my backpack, so I have to get everything out of there all the time, and I can’t be bothered to repack unless we’re leaving, so four months worth of crap is spread out on the floor at all times.

We basically just drop our stuff at the room and decide it’s time to actually see something while here. Tori wants to take us to this beach that is supposed to be half an hour away and much nicer, but she ends up showing us the wrong way to the wrong beach. I’ll tell you why we don’t mind in a bit.

It’s around 40 degrees, and the humidity is the worst I’ve ever tried. You can’t possibly keep yourself hydrated, as the sweat is running down your back and your face at an impossible pace. We walk a bit out of town, Tori and I barefoot, up some incredibly steep hills, that seem to go on forever. At one point, we see a nature trail with signs pointing to the viewpoint and beach, so we go that way. The trail is obviously just dirt, pebbles, dried, sharp leaves, and twigs. It’s uncomfortable, painful even, to walk on.

After about an hour of walking, we find a trail down to Rantee beach. It is steep, extremely painful and hard to climb down from, and we all get separated from each other because of our individual paces and pain tolerances. We end up at the beach, around 2 hours after we’ve left Tonsai pier, our feet red, black and ultra-sensitive from the trails and burning concrete we’ve walked on. Tori’s never seen this beach before, but she promises it’s way more beautiful than the one she intended to take us to. It’s a fairly small beach, not even a kilometer long, and only a few people are around. The sand is white and the water green going on blue, and very clear. We immediatly drop everything and jump in the ocean.

We stay here for an hour, maybe more, before we are bored of lying in the sun, turning red. 200 bahts later, we are on a longtail taxiboat back to Tonsai. I am so happy to see our shower, which only has cold water, but that’s alright with me. We have a great dinner at Papaya, where the waiter is so sweet, my heart melts when I think of him. I also have my first Pad Thai!

After dinner, we go back to get ready, supposed to meet Tori at 9 at Reggae Bar. She doesn’t show, but her friends, Brooks and Pak do, so we hang out with them, a guy from Switzerland, and two from London.
After a quick drink at Banana Bar, we head to the beach, and I meet Spencer, a guy I worked with last year at The Pink Palace! What a small world.

I am at one bucket, two Jägerbombs, and one beer before I switch to water, because I feel more sick than drunk. Thai Jägermeister is basically amphetamine, I hear.

I have a great time just talking to people and dancing, even though I’m not my usual sloppy self. I walk around for a bit with Pak, and we end up walking the streets, where we meet up with Lotion, the guy in the picture above. He’s always hanging around by Reggae Bar, and now he’s sitting by the ATM next to the bar with a group of friends. We join them and start harassing people walking by, yelling things like “BLACK TAR HEROIN! CHEAP PRICES! COME GET YOUR BLACK TAR HEROIN RIGHT HERE!”

We then sit down at a tattoo shop and have a breezer with the Thai guys working there, but they start getting a bit creepy, so we leave. Like, they think I am the owners girlfriend and he’s showing guys that talk to me his gun kind of creepy.

At around 5 in the morning, I want to go home with a burger instead of a guy, so I buy one at one of the stands by the beach and I eat it on the bed while talking to Sara, who’s been asleep for a few hours. It’s the best burger of my life. Maybe because it’s 5 in the morning, but it really is amazing.

March 7, 2014

Goan at it in Goa – part I

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Airports, Asia, beach, bonfire, Bucket List, Drinking, Flying, Goa, India, jungle hostel, vagator

Check out at hostel in Delhi. Go to Delhi Airport. Fly to Goa. Share a cab to Vagator Beach with some fellow backpackers. Get lost on our way to the hostel. Find hostel, which is full of young people, just staring at your red sweaty face. Drop new expensive camera and therefore break it. Look for new chargers for computer online, and fail. Get mad. Have a fight. Go to bed. Discover a gecko in the room. Name him Fredo. That pretty much sums up our day. Needless to say, it has sucked.

Dat cute charge tho

This should be a sign that you’re heading in the wrong direction, and into a poor neighbourhood. We were sooo sure this was the way to the hostel.

I obviously cannot get over this whole cow thing

We wake up the next day with an entirely different attutide, though – it must have been because we’ve had an amazing nights sleep. Our hostel, The Jungle Hostel, is very tiny and modest, but it’s full of young people, who sit barefoot on pillows in the common area with a beer in hand all day and night long. It’s just so cozy.

The main hang-out area, with pillows and sitting hammocks

Sitting hammock and 50 rupee Kingfisher beer? This is the life

Breakfast is included, so we start off the day by going into the kitchen and grab some toast with jam and butter, and some mini bananas. The mission for today is to look for a charger for the computer in Mapusa (pronounced Mapsa). We get a taxi to the city center, which is also by the entrance of a big street market. While checking out the market, a young local woman follows us around. She seems very nice, and pretends to think Sara has Indian roots. What it all comes down to is that she wants us to check out her shop. I end up buying some toe rings and a scarf, which is way too expensive. We continue our mission to find the charger by visiting dodgy shop after office that sells electronics after dodgy shop, with no luck. Someone suggests we go to Panaji, so we get on a Tuk Tuk. After almost finding the right charger, we decide to go to lunch at a very local place, as in no one here understands english. We have to just point at random dishes and hope for the best. We end up being fairly satisfied with our choices, except we really need to get used to how spicy the food is everywhere.

There is some garlic naan, fried rice with vegetables and some sort of spinach puree with paneer up in here.

We finally conclude that our mission is impossible, and give up on the whole charger treasure hunt. Back at the hostel in Vagator, we start talking to a few German girls, and even go shopping at the little stalls on the streets with one of them, Gül. I need to get me some India pants! Gül is an amazing negotiator, and thanks to her, we save a lot of rupees on our purchases. We walk back to the hostel together, and I suggest to her and her friend that we get some seafood and then have a bonfire on the beach (see my bucket list). All 6 of us have dinner and drinks at Tin Tin (yes, that cartoon guy), which is a really nice restaurant.

Gül, Saskia, Selina and Angi

After dinner, we all head for the beach along with our roomate, Jonas, and 12 beers, rosé wine and marshmallows! We pick up some wood and branches on our way, to the amusement of some locals. An old Indian lady starts grabbing branches and hands them to us and I could just die. She’s so cute.

We find a spot on the beach that is as far away from the restaurants as possible. Saskia and Jonas are skilled fire-makers, so we leave it to them to start this thing. A group of people join us, and we all sit and enjoy the big, warm fire with our beers, rosé wine and roasted marshmallows. Even though we have a lot of wood, we constantly have to split up in groups to go look for more in the grassier areas, bringing our flashlights. As the fire is dying, the wood group comes back and lets us know that a lifeguard saw the fire from his tower (what is he doing there in the middle of the night?), and apparently what we’re doing isn’t exactly legal. So we let the flames die, and we head back to the hostel.