Yeah so, Haad Rin. Home of the ‘Legendary’ PART-AAAY!! Full Moon Party, Half Moon Party, Black Moon Party, Oh Look the Moon is Out Party. As Vicky and her friend Tina were staying on Sunrise beach in a plush bungalow and my days of rolling with the very generous 5* were now over, I did the decent thing and thought I’d hostel. To hostel is a verb, right? Looking online I could only really see about 5 hostels near where they were so I plucked for ‘Luna C’ (first sign Jules- first sign- as in; it would be lunacy for any normal person to stay here) I just skipped in, cheerfully wondering where Luna A and B were. Ok so the ‘bar area’ downstairs was a bit skanky but this was all part of the experience so I went upstairs with a seemingly mute Thai lady to look at the dorm. Nice and cool (AC) bottom bunk (good) curtains around bunk. ‘Okay- lovely, many thanks, I’ll stay 2 nights please… yes, here’s my 300bahts’ I looked around after I had given my money and immediately regretted my decision. No loo roll, most disgusting, ant-filled, dirty, cold shower pit hell-hole bathroom I have ever seen, and I’ve been to Gillingham. ‘It’s okay Jules’ I said to myself it’s got air con and it’s got free wifi so it can’t be that bad. I went downstairs to confidently ‘chill’ with anyone who might be there. The owner staggered in, clearly wasted. He looked like a sun damaged leather sofa with gold teeth. His open shirt and sticky out belly button (I’m always suspicious) were nice touches. He hailed from Saaaaaf Landan and the mute was obviously his wife. He got some tomato juice out of the fridge and I though ‘ey ey- things are looking up!’ and ordered a Bloody Mary. We chatted small talk while he spat bits of celery on the floor and slurred “anyfink you won luv, just ask me- but if I’m avin a kip- ask er’ and with that he pointed at the mute and slumped onto a cushion on the floor.

A local stroll, I thought, get my bearings. Okay- beach…. Oh, right here on my left next to, oh look, what a nice beach bar- ‘DROP IN BAR- BEST FUCKING BUCKETS AT BEACH’ Oh my, how funny they wrote the F word in 4ft high letters on their actual building. What fellows!! Ooh, I do like their 10 tower speakers at each side of the bar- I wonder if they’ll be playing any dance music? I do hope they keep it down at night though ho ho ho fucking HO…
Sweet Jesus’ Mary Chain. This bar, about 5 meters from my bed, was at the centre of the beach and kicked out hard, hard, hard house/trance/techno from 6pm to, well first night 9am and second night 7am which, I thought was not really much of an improvement to be totally frank. It was like a nightmare in musical form. Most of you know that I like some pretty dirty heavy electro but it’s changed me- for now. I’ve been listening to Katie Melua on loop over since.

root of all evil.

Yeah so what’s all this ‘bucket business’ I hear you crying into your Pret sandwiches. Buckets are basically a way for the Thai people to get their own back on Westerners. Basically they are trying to drown us. They set out millions of buckets with bottles of cheap-ass vodka, whiskey, gin etc and mixers on stalls that line the beach (see pictures below. Inspired names) They then shake a little bottle at you of some sort of syrup and wink at you and shake some in. When you ask what that was, they wink again and say something Thai like ‘Like Redbull-same same but different’ and hand you the bucket. In go your 82 straws and off you slop back to the mat, your new friends, and the firedancers. That’s when you stop remembering things. Vicky, Tina and I shared 2 (maybe 3 although none of us can actually remember the 3rd) and we were quadra-spazzed. There are a lot of blanks but Vicky ended up in the sea with Tina trying to rescue her, I got followed ‘home’ by an Israeli convinced I was Dawn Porter and I had one size 8 white flip flop and one size 3 brown one on.

Classy Class Class.

So, back in my bass-bin style dorm, 1.00am, the tunes pumped as did the head whilst my fellow hostellers jumped from bunk to bunk in time with the music. Why they were not on the beach I don’t know. They were drinking buckets though.
I took advantage of the time difference and the wifi facilities by chatting to nice people from home and drunkenly uploading flickr pics in the wee hours and reminded myself that this was all part of the rollercoaster ride. Then I did a 3 hour relay from my bed to the horrible Trainspotting style toilet to throw my buckety guts up.

The next morning, after grabbing 1 hour’s sleep and feeling altogether demented I dragged myself to meet Vicky and Tina as we were booked on a tour of the island by longtail boat. We plucked for ‘Snoop Dogg’ and his touring vessel.

Snoop Dogg and his shnizzle vizzle (vessel in cool speak)

The trip was to go all round the island stopping at bays for snorkelling, lunch etc. There were a young English couple and a Swedish couple, alright but not really my bag. Snoop Dogg was laid back and stoned. Every bay we went to he rolled joints for people to smoke but everyone declined, including me. Till the last bay when I caved and then chatted absolute rubbish to people who didn’t really like me anyway. We went to a waterfall and did some snorkeling although the weather meant it was a bit churned up.

When I got back to the hostel of horror, I met a lovely girl called Courtney from Canada but lives in London. We stayed one more night in the banging hell hole then found another better place and shared a room. She literally saved me.

Bloody Mary Scoring System: Luna C: 8/10 Actually very good- nice tomato juice, brilliantly spiced by a drunk, right amount of ice, celery(bonus) lemon and lime. Slightly dirty glass though.

Facebook me!