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Friday 30th December
Oh, I forgot to mention, the second ‘masseuse’ I saw the other day has come over a bit Glenn Close. Every time I walk past the place she cries out ‘Peter, Peter’ and then, when I say I don’t want a massage, she tries to physically drag me into her parlour.

And now she’s seen me with Maneesh, she's started hassling him too. And last night she saw me on the back of the girl's moped, so I'm looking forward to running into her again and having her attack me with a kitchen knife.

It's simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. Like someone boiling your bunny rabbit slippers.

This morning was another leisurely morning with a bit of a swim and another rather daring five minutes in the sun with just factor 271 protection between me and a fatal burning.

Brilliant cultural observation – at the club last night, instead of having ice in the urinals as you might find in the UK, they had a load of quartered limes. At least they looked like limes. I didn't really fancy tasting them to find out.

Joke of the day: The club we went to was definitely something of a locals hang out... you couldn’t get in without a Thai. (ba dum dum, tschsss)

Saturday 31st December – New Year's Eve
Today was a great day, starting with a nice long swim then a laze in the sun whilst someone cut, toned and polished my toenails. Truthfully, I don't love people touching my feet, but on this occasion is was outbalanced by my love of people obeying my every whim and grovelling around on the ground in front of me. I'd make a brilliant emperor I think.

This afternoon we finally got to do the slidey canopy wirey thing (not, I believe, it's proper name, but I'll explain what it was in a minute.)

Actually we were supposed to do this yesterday but the people came to pick us up and had the wrong room number, so we never got called. So we rescheduled it for today at 3.

So you can imagine our surprise when we get a call from reception at 10am this morning telling us they were here to pick us up. Hmm.

So we rescheduled again for 3. But a check with the booking person (called Oi, which I found hilarious because I am childish) revealed they were actually coming at 2.30.

They came at 3.

But they came, and that's the main thing. The first part of the adventure was the pickup truck ride into the jungle as our driver, replete with Jamaica-style beanie hat, toked happily away on a spliff, much to the delight of the family who were going to be sharing the experience with us.

One arse numbing, heart-pounding drive later we were being put into harnesses which basically attached to wires that were slung between high trees in the jungle. We then jumped off the platforms and slid with a zzzzzzzzzz down the wire to the next platform, screaming in a blend of fun and fear all the way. (See, slidey canopy wirey thing, like I said)

Actually it was an amazing way to see the jungle and also possibly the only way to get from a to b on this island without being offered a massage or a tailor made suit on the way. I may travel everywhere by wire in future.

On the way back (Bob Marley driving again) it chucked down with rain. Obviously, being English, I know a thing or two about rain, and this was warm and lovely rain, so much better than our freezy, drippy British variety. It also had the decency to stop after half an hour or so, unlike the endless weeks of drizzle we can enjoy back home.

So I guess what I'm saying is even the rain is nice. Rather worryingly, this may mean I'm developing a positive outlook, which would be a disaster for this blog. Don't worry though, I'm fighting the urge.

Tonight is New Year's Eve and the hotel is kindly lavishing entertainment upon us. I say kindly, but of course I mean they hit us with a bill for a ‘mandatory’ entertainment ticket as soon as they knew we’d be in the hotel for this night.

Still, a New Year beckons and I can put 2005 out back with the empty bottles and discarded Penthouse magazines, which I must say I'm very much looking forward to.

So coming soon... the big New Year's hotel experience PLUS at no extra charge, an additional element to the night out as we are also supposed to be meeting those two Thai girls again later on.

I’ll keep you posted:

After the affair
It all started in the hotel. A lovely buffet was provided and a stage was erected for entertainment.

You know how those old ladies used to sit at the base of the guillotine and knit as they watched people die?

Well now I know how they feel, as I sat and watched a range of dance, musical and, on one notable occasion, magic acts die on their arse.

This wasn’t because it was a bad audience though, don’t worry. It was because the acts were universally rubbish.

Like hotel entertainment the world over, it was an insipid display of half-arsed, half-rehearsed acts, most of whom were clearly members of staff who had been press ganged into performing on threat of losing their new year’s bonus.

Actually, the magician merits special mention. The ‘highlight’ of his act involved him eating about a pound of rice paper (taking his sweet time about it too, I might add). He then pulled ‘it’ all out of his mouth in the form of a long, long string. Frankly, it would have been more entertaining if he’d have just puked up the paper he’d eaten all over the stage.

Shortly after him, we left and went to meet the girls in the next town. We went to the same club as before, and sat and drank and danced, like you do. Throughout the evening though, people over on the beach were putting up these small hot air balloon things. They were like two-foot high bags with a little kerosene lamp or something hanging underneath.

As they filled with hot air, they took off and floated through the sky, glowing a gentle orange. It was lovely. At one point there must have been a hundred of the things, like low, fat stars (that's stars that are both fat and low in the sky, not the healthy alternative to regular stars).

And best of all, as the lamps got higher and higher and looked smaller and smaller, eventually you could not tell which were lamps and which were stars. It was as if that was where the stars came from.

Then, at midnight, the sky was filled with fireworks and everyone drank to the New Year.

Then, at ten past midnight, someone in our club remembered that they had a ‘happy new year’ firework left in the garage, which they hastily set up and lit, so we all toasted to the new year again and a grand time was had by all.

NOTE TO READERS: A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL

After we tired of dancing, it was just me, Maneesh and the girls left, so it was looking like a moped home. Having drunk enough for an elephant’s stag party myself, I got on the back with Kate.

A few yards on, I decided it best to ask.

"Are you drunk?"
"A little."

That was not the answer I was looking for. Still, a lift’s a lift, right.

Then things got a bit weird.

Halfway back to town, she pulls the moped over to the side of the road and pulls out a little notebook and a card, which she presents to me as a New Year’s gift.

Now this may sound weird, but I hate it when people do nice things like this for me. Mostly because I like being a miserable horrible bastard and stuff like that makes it very hard to be uncharitable, which is something I normally enjoy enormously. Also, it gives me the horrible feeling that I’m supposed to reciprocate by doing something unlikely, such as keeping in touch. And that’s just not going to happen.

Anyway, I thank her, get embarrassed and then we head back to the town.

Once there, I escorted her back to her apartment (just to get her home safely, you understand).

And then things got really weird.

On the porch of her flat, she says she wants me to come in and stay the night. I try to explain that the whole point of hanging out with them was that we thought it was not that kind of thing and ready myself to leave.

Then she starts telling me a story, which I’m still not clear about, involving her heart condition, her stopping taking her medication and a subsequent blackout whilst riding on a moped with two friends. I’m not entirely sure what happened to her passengers, but I surely understand now why she wanted me to drive back the other night.

One of the reasons I wasn’t sure about the story, incidentally, was that she was weeping like Halle Berry on Oscar night throughout.

So, I explain to her my view of what will occur if I were to stay...

"Here’s what's going to happen," I said, "I’ll give you my email address. Then you'll write to me and I won't write back, I’m telling you now that's how it's going to be.”

She then tells me she doesn't care about that as all she wants is, as she put it, a moment. “It’s nothing sexual,” she says.

I’m going to leave it there and not finish this story, in order to keep the STD gambling syndicate in suspense. Also, I don’t kiss and tell. Or not kiss and tell. Or something. I’m just going to keep you guessing ok?

Annoying eh?

Oh, oh, oh. I nearly forgot. I heard a great saying the other day. Apparently, monks here wander about with a bowl for charitable donations, which are often food. So at lunchtime, when they are allowed to eat, they have a huge bowl of grub that they tuck into. This is a lot as they are only allowed to eat once a day, or something like that anyway (can’t guarantee the accuracy of these details I'm afraid, but the broad gist is correct).

Other people feed on a selection of dishes, taking a bit of each one onto their plate. Then they eat that before selecting a bit of another dish.

A bunch of us were at dinner and us Westerners were doing the single plate buffet technique, piling a bit of each dish on our plates until we had quite a pile of food in front of us. A Thai girl who was with us took one look at this and started laughing, saying, “You eat like a monk.”

I thought that was cool.

New year's day
Up and about nice and early today despite last night's what could only be described as 'skinful'.

So first priority of today was to get our First Pharmacy tee shirts. What's that? I hear you wondering. Well, basically the Thai equivalent of Superdrug is giving away a free branded tee shirt if you spend enough in the store.

At first we thought this was idiotic. Who would wear a tee shirt from a fucking chemist?

But then we had an idea... First Pharmacy night.

When we get to Hong Kong, Maneesh and I are going to head to a swanky club which is famous for being where all the models go to show off in their finery. We're going to go dressed in matching Superdrug tops. The question is whether it's possible to be so uncool you've come out through the other side into cool again. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, incidentally, it’s not really a surprise that you should get a tee shirt from the chemist. Diversification is king on Koh Samui and there is no shop that does not offer you some other, bizarre product outside of their key range.

The DVD store, for example, was also selling shoes. And breast firming cream. No other beauty products mind, just breast firming cream.

On the plus side, my breasts are now nice and perky.

Anyway, after the chemist it was off to the airport. And what an airport. Free juice and snacks, the Internet, TV, newspapers and all in a tropical thatched building that looks like a set from Magnum PI.

And on the plane, we sat next to a lovely young Vietnamese girl called Binh

“Like Laden,” she said.
“Oh, surely you can think of something nicer than that to use,” we reply, “like, er, dustbin.”

Nice work boys, really charming.

Anyway, Binh is both nice and interesting (she was actually a Vietnamese boat person in 1978, amazing) and the banter flows free and flirty

At one point, we asked “Did you see anyone on the plane you like. We'll hook you up, no problem.”

“No,” she answers

Which was why we were rather surprised when, on landing, she introduced us to her boyfriend who had been on the plane the whole time. So, to recap, we asked her if there was anyone on the plane she liked and she said no, even though her own boyfriend was there. What's that all about?

Some people eh?

Anyway, I’m at the hotel (actually it's a golf course, oddly. Maneesh’s friend Derek Driver is a golf pro somewhere in the North of Thailand so he sorted us out) and about to get ready for the proverbial One Night In Bankok.

I understand it makes a hard man humble. I think Muay Thai proved conclusively that I am not a hard man, so fuck knows what it’s going to do to me.

Wish me luck.

posted by Peter The Great @ 7:10 AM