Prejudice against HIV Positive people are rooted in the same things as other prejudices – fear, which stems from lack of knowledge. HIV Positive people are often ostracised from communities and their social circles for various reason, amongst them the fear of the uninformed of somehow contracting the disease.

So let’s inform the uninformed and dispel the fear.

How do you get HIV?

HIV isn’t hiding behind a blind corner ready to pounce and infect you. No, HIV infection only occurs when HIV infected fluid somehow gets into your blood.

Blood, semen, vaginal secretions and breast milk are all good carriers of the virus. If any of these infected fluids enter your body (comes into contact with your blood), through the mouth, vagina, tip of the penis, anus or any breaks in the skin, HIV can be transmitted.

Any form of sex that includes coming into contact with semen (including the clear pre-cum), vaginal secretions and blood, can potentially transmit the virus, i.e. vaginal, anal and even oral sex (ulcers, lacerations, bleeding gums, etc.).

It is also possible to transmit HIV through sharing infected needles when doing drugs or DIY tattoos and body piercings, accidental needle pricks, blood transfusions and from a mother to a child during pregnancy, labour and also breast feeding.

HIV Positive people often don’t look sick, and the vast majority of those carrying the virus, are unaware that they do. Therefore, asking a stranger before sex whether or not they are HIV Positive does not constitute safer sex – protecting yourself with a condom does.

How you won’t get HIV

Saliva, sweat, tears, faeces and urine are not known to cause HIV infections, mainly because HIV in these substances do not appear in concentrations large enough to be harmful. You therefore are unlikely to get infected by casual contact with these bodily secretions.

Mutual masturbation using hands only, is a pretty safe form of sex, provided both partners have healthy, unbroken skin with no open wounds or fresh cuts and sores. Remember, semen and vaginal fluids transmit the disease, but it has to enter your body, which it can’t do through healthy skin.

You also can’t get HIV through kissing, hugging (important, because HIV Positive people needs hugs as much as the rest of us), shaking hands, massage, insect bites, sharing showers and toilets or living in the same house with an HIV Positive person.

If you always use a condom during the entire course of vaginal, anal or oral sex, and avoid general high risk activities, it will greatly reduce your risk of getting HIV and many other nasty sexually transmitted diseases.

Know the facts and pass it on

World AIDS Day is but 1 global opportunity to make a difference. You can help to slow or, who knows in the near future, even stop the spread of HIV by knowing the facts, implementing them in your own life to keep yourself safe, and sharing that knowledge with those around you.

Sources:
http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/hiv?page=basics-00-05
http://www.aidatlanta.org/education/faq.shtml
http://www.mnaidsproject.org/learn/transmission.htm

Anyway, far from this being a soppy sentimental post about what was and what may be, it’s really just a celebratory post.  What am I celebrating?  The end of a mamoth posting marathon of course.

These blog entries regarding trips that I take are lots of work - the trip to Thailand took me a full week to complete. I should have been able to do it daily really, because I had my computer with me.  But it was for work, so time not working was spent away from the computer. Luckily I had loads of photos to reference, so it was easy to recall.

Anyway, 7 days, 15 posts and over 100 photos later Tour D Tom Yum has been documented.  The typos and grammar mistakes will get fixed up as I read through them again in the coming days, but for now, I’m shattered.

Off to bed I go.

Sometimes we benefit from lesson we learned from previous bad experiences, even if it is only at the end of experiencing the same thing.

Let me take you back 10 years. I was in London on my working holiday when a friend and myself were feeling naughty and walked into a what a sign said is a ‘free’ peepshow in the back alleys of Soho in London’s West End. Turns out there was no show and it wasn’t free.

We were barely in the door when two Eastern European girls took us to a table each and sat us down in what was an otherwise empty venue. We ordered hideously overpriced drinks – so did the ladies – before we were asked to pay for our drinks, their drinks and the non-existent show before it all started. It was something like 300 quid.

We got up and wanted to leave, but were prevented from doing so by a big, menacing bloke blocking the door. I refused to pay, so first they threatened to call the cops, but when I said there were cops just outside the door on the road, they threatened to call some thugs instead. I kept on arguing that the prices weren’t stated anywhere.  I think my friend pissed his pants in fear.

Then the con-woman behind the counter, likely exasperated by all my arguing, ordered the con-man in front of the door to fetch the con-menu to show me where the prices were stated. Doing so he left the door unguarded. I wasted no time and grabbed my friend. The last the peep-show con saw of us was their curtain flapping in the breeze, as we ran out into the cold London night and all the way to Trafalgar square where, after we made sure no thugs had followed us, we had a good laugh about it.

Ten years later and 10,000km to the east

Today, this con is alive and well and living in Bangkok.

Following the outstanding trampling the Boks gave the Roses, Julia and myself was up for a bit of a night out. We thought we’d start by checking out Patpong to see how the original compares to Soi Cowboy. We were well prepared with Julia’s heavy research – which bars to avoid, which ones are more trusted and what to do when you get in trouble (which b.t.w. is don’t argue, get the receipt, find the tourist police). Based on our Soi Cowboy experience, we were feeling confident we’d be able avoid trouble.

While watching the game we inevitably met another South African. Against my better judgment we befriended him. He obviously fancied himself a bit of a bad-boy, so when we said good-bye and that we’re off to Patpong, he asked to join saying he knows the area well (apparently he lives here - in Bangkok - so he claimed to have street-cred).

I told him that the last guy who claimed to have street-cred based on the fact that he was resident in the city, gave us 100% crap advice. He assured me he was the man. The very inebriated man. The man who, in this tale of Deja Vu, would reprise the roll of my pants-wetting, friend from 10 years earlier.

Our first warning bells went off when he directed the taxi to Nana Plaza – nowhere near Patpong. More bells went off as we walked down the road and he was extremely rude, almost violently so, to the touts. Bad karma.

A bar on Patpong called Tattoo

We arrived at the bar, saw the touts who were saying “free show” and went upstairs. Inside there were other tourists, which put us at ease somewhat, but the girl writing something on the floor with a pen sticking out of her vagina was fat and her backup dancers were fully clothed, so we should have turned around and run from Tattoo that very instant.

Instead, erroneously secure in our companion’s supposed local knowledge, our guard was down.  We sat down for a drink right next to the stage. A menu was shown to us with every single item, from beer to coke, at THB100. Bargain, thought our dulled minds before we ordered a beer each, only a dull bell ringing somewhere far in the background.

A girl came up with a glass of what was probably Fanta Orange and asked us to buy her a drink. We said no, but she put the glass down anyway. On the stage the fat girl had started popping plastic caps of glass bottles, which were flying in our direction, so we moved back and sat away from the stage. A big ladyboy appeared and moved the Fanta Orange to our table.

A bar girl came up to the lone South African (because I’m with Julia they stay away from me) and offered him an array of services involving her undoubtedly naked body. He declined and she disappeared. The big ladyboy came back with a bill and demanded that we pay – I saw “lady drink” for THB300 on the menu before anything else, and declined to pay for it – so she scratched it out with the pen she had ready and was obviously expecting to use and tallied up the new total holding it back to me.

The Tiger Show in Tattoo turns ugly

It said something like THB 3,000. Three beers at THB100 each and THB900 for “the show”. To the dread of the other South African, Julia and the ladyboy, I laughed out loud purely because of the similarity of this con. I leaned forward in a taunting way, which, in retrospect I realise probably made things more difficult, and said “you know I’m going to go and call the tourist police”.

“Go call”, said the burly ladyboy angrily and defiantly, “I pay them much money, what I say they do”. Ignoring the good advice from Julia’s research I retorted in an over-confident way “we’ll finish our beers, I will pay you the THB300 for it, and we’re going to leave”. Her demeanour didn’t change, but she became visibly more menacing and said as she turned away “You speak to the manager over here”.

I might as well have been back in that Peep Show place in London 10 years earlier. We headed for the door, but it was blocked by a heavy and mean-looking woman.

The manager, aggressive and rude in an obviously attempt to maintain his intimidating edge, was outdoing my upset with his own. He was apparently outraged by my mere suggestion that his quality show could ever be free - this is after I said we came in because his touts told us it was free, nowhere did it say anything about paying for the show - certainly not THB900 each. The argument went in circles for several rounds.

The other South African with an Oscar-winning performance as my pants-wetting friend, tried to add to the argument, but he was horribly drunk and visibly shaken.

The man wasn’t listening - this was an aggressive con and intimidation was how they achieved their goal. He threatened to make a call and, holding up his mobile phone, said “if I call, there will be many, many men here”.  This was likely true.  I’ve read how that if you get into a fight with a local, friends will appear seemingly from the cracks of the walls.  But he didn’t call, much like the woman in London didn’t call her thugs either.

Reprieve

So keeping very calm and being very polite and respectful even, I kept on stating my case.  Eventually, after much more discussion, explanation and general stubbornness, it surfaced that I was South African.

By this time many suckers customers not only left silently, but none had come in – his con was costing him more money than he was going to make. So it all ended with him annoyed and screaming “just go, you don’t have money anyway!” (one South African Rand can buy only THB2). The door opened.

Unlike 10 years earlier we hurried not into the cold London air, but into the hot Bangkok night, into a taxi the hell away from Patpong. And I wasn’t laughing.

Tattoo bar on Patpong, like I can imagine most of the upstairs ping-pong / tiger bars in Patpong, is best avoided, because, did I discover after I Googled “patpong ping-pong scam”, you can find this kind of adventure in most of the upstairs bars in Patpong.

Stick to Soi Cowboy.

This is an explicit post. Prudes, turn back now.

Like it was in Phuket, beers in Bangkok are cheaper in the mini-markets in Bangkok too. I pick up a large Chang (I know I said I wouldn’t drink it anymore, but I forgot) for THB50 and Julia gets a Smirnoff Ice for something like THB 60.

It’s 11pm already, but after the Subway sandwiches we had shortly after checking in to Maxim’s Inn, we didn’t really feel like dinner.  So obviously now we’re a bit peckish. With beers in hand we walk down the crowded sidewalks around Sukhumvit looking at all the t-shirts, shorts, shoes, watches, bags, you name it and food, packed in so tightly that there’s really only room enough for a single file of people to walk past.  Where do people stop when they actually want to buy something?

Julia walks past something she’s craved ever since we got to Thailand: pigs-in-a-blanket.  These little cholesterol bombs are annoyingly delicious pork sausages wrapped in annoyingly moreish bacon.

I quietly damn my cholesterol gene to hell as we sit down and order a few pigs-in-a-blankets and a selection of other nibbles from the vendor’s colourful cart.  These types of food often go well with beer, and we’re happy that we have some.

Once upon a time in the west…

With our stomachs full and not sleepy at all, we discover that we’re just around the corner from Soi Cowboy. Soi Cowboy is what I imagine Patpong was a long long time ago – it’s a short street full of what they call a go go bars. A go go bars is a meat market – it works much like the little stalls you’ll see on the sidewalk – people exhibit their wares, you choose what you want and pay accordingly. Only the ‘wares’ in Soi Cowboy are female bodies. Having read much about this, we’re a little curious.

There are, of course, many debates, feminist and otherwise, around such practices and supporting it, but we choose to ignore those tonight as we head around the corner to Soi Cowboy. My memories now of Soi Cowboy, for some reason, are in shades of black and white – I’m not sure why this is, because I remember it being a very colourful place with loads of neon signs everywhere, with men and women hanging outside their establishments with an assortment of funny ha ha and funny peculiar signs.

There are no upstairs entrances in Soi Cowboy that I saw, unlike we read Patpong has, so all the bars front the road, which is probably about 100m long. We did some research about what to expect and where to go and after walking the length of the road once and doubling back, we find ourselves in front of Susie Wong’s, one of the safe places we read about. They have a small veranda fronting the road, so we sit down for a drink – Small Chang for THB100 and a Bacardi Orange for THB 150 – quite reasonable.

After people watching for a while Julia gets curious and decides to peek inside. Then she urgently asks the doorman if we can go in with our drinks and after confirming that we can, she hurries over and tells me “come, you have to see this.” I settle our bill (different prices inside) and we go in.

And now for the explicit part

The club is not huge, but it’s a lot bigger than the little broom-cupboard we went to in Patong. Seating, about 3 rows deep, encircles an elongated, oval stage. At present there are 4 rather sexy girls in pairs on stage, all butt naked, with one of each of the pairs on their knees between the spread legs of the other, their tongues playing their parts in this lesbian show.

I’m not sure where to look. The movements are slow and sensual and I think a song by Celine Dion was playing. The room, currently lit by black-light only, is pretty full with a mix of mostly single men with bar girls, a few couples, and a group of foreign girls, all transfixed on stage where one of each of the pairs is lapping up the womanhood of the other.

As the music finishes, so do the show, and nonchalantly the girls pick up the pieces of clothing, which they undoubtedly took of slowly and sensually before we came in, and exit the stage into a dark corner of the club. Some neon lights come on, but the lighting stays dim. Then about 14 girls spill out from some area towards the back of the club and as they make their way onto the stage they whip off their tops.

Some more upbeat music comes on and they start to dance, each holding on to a pole. Some of them look like they’re having fun, but most seem to be staring into space – all of them are young and fairly pretty. Each has a number pinned to the lower part of their skirts, like the top-less segment in a Miss World contest. The idea here being to whisper the number of the desired girl to your hostess, who will then bring them over and have them entertain you in any way you may want to pay for.

Julia and I sip on our drinks and discuss the surreal nature of it all – the venue, the spectators, the girls, us sitting there together. The topless girls stay on stage for about 4 songs and then grab theirs tops, putting it back on as they disappear off the stage back into the back of the club. At the same time another set of girls come on, but after getting into place at their chosen positions next to the poles, they disrobe completely and start dancing nude.

Long Gun - Cocked and ready to shoot

They stay on for 3 songs before being replaced by the only-topless girls again. With our drinks finished Julia and I decide to go check out another club. Back on the Soi Cowboy we head to the end of the road, dodging people selling bags of veggies for THB20 to feed their elephant with and end up in front of Long Gun. This is another of the safe venues we read about and as there’s no outside area to have a drink at, we head straight in.

Long Gun is heaving – the music is loud, the venue, with a very similar layout to the Susie Wong’s is packed and on stage there are 3 good-looking girls, full clothed at this stage, dancing. They’re all wearing black outfits with boots that come up to their thighs. The crowd consists of more group of people – groups of men, mixed groups of men and women and even a few groups of woman only.

All the seats away from the stage is full, so we’re ushered to sit right next to the stage, cranking our necks up to see. The strip show is spectacular, the women using the poles with acrobatic agility, hoisting themselves up, flipping over and ‘walking’ on the roof. The heels of their boots are heavy, and as they fall down from the roof and land, doing the splits, the heels slams loudly on the stage floor. The crowd is captivated.

After a while of dancing they slowly start to disrobe, with each item of clothing doing more tricks, people sticking money into their underwear and boots. Eventually, apart from the boots, they are naked and continue doing the somersaults and the splits. At one point one woman holds on to the poles, does a somersault with her booted legs stretched out and lands with one heel each on Julia and my shoulders. She drags her legs off slowly as she hoist herself back up the poles, forcing us forward.

After they’re done, to huge applause from the crowd, they exit the stage and are replaced by 3 or 4 other girls who proceed to dance. The club cleared a little bit so we move towards the back, just in time to see the girls pull unbelievably long cords of coloured flowers from their nether regions. A Tiger Show, we think as we look at each other, but with much better looking people than Patong. The show continues with shooting darts to pop balloons and a smoking cigarettes, before they too are replaced with dancing girls.

Having experienced what we wanted we head out back into the relatively cool air of Soi Cowboy and make our way home. The merchandise stalls that littered the sidewalks before has now been replaced by food stalls and informal bars. They are packed with people drinking for relatively cheaper and eating delicious looking food. Julia convinces me to stop for a meat-ball soup and a Thai salad.

The soup was great, flavoursome, fresh and spicy. The salad was decent too, although it was the hottest thing I would eat this holiday – the first thing to literally burn straight through me. There was also a crab claw in the salad, which we didn’t eat, but I’m always suspicious of seafood – so the ‘burning straight through’ might have had something to do with that.

Having learned our lesson from Phi Phi, our night ended with loads of water.

We left Phi Phi two days ago and spent 2 more nights in Patong, me working, Julia shopping, eating Tom Yum at almost every conceivable meal and spending our nights at Rock In Dice Bar in Soi Dragon playing games.

For our very first massage in Thailand we also went to a clearly decent place.  Oh how I wished we went for a dirty massage, because our therapists clearly knew nothing about decent massages.  I walked  out feeling worse than when I went in and Julia also noticed a previously unnoticed crick in her back.  We also ventured to Karon and Kata beach last night though, completely different to Patong, to play putt-putt on a course like the set of Jurassic Park. It featured a variety of dinosaurs, a volcano with smoke effects and wicked lighting, water falls and streams, all in a tropical jungle setting.

But it was also speed putt-putt, because the course was exceptionally crammed with punters with no time to lose before the people behind you were breathing down your neck. In the end, we both sucked, but it was a nice little distraction.

Racing back to Phuket International Airport

This morning, with plenty of time to spare, we arranged an airport transfer with one of these guys standing next to the road with the Taxi sign, but after he said, for the umpteenth time, “just two more minutes”, we realised that his brother-in-law or cousin or whoever he phoned, wasn’t going to make it to Patong from his far flung village, so we took our stuff and headed for the main road.

Eventually we found an informal, Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) taxi which offered to take us to the airport for THB300. The taxis that use petrol refused to go below THB600.

At Phuket International checking in for our Air Asia flight was quick and seamless. At the boarding gate however, chaos ruled. There were no lines as such and the Air Asia ground staff didn’t bother creating any kind of order either. Everybody just squeezed in from all directions and we ended up towards the middle-back of the bundle.

Air Asia non-Assigned Seat Air-rage

We made it to plane with two seats left in the emergency exit row and an elderly-looking gent sitting, by himself, on the isle. Julia and I know this tactic well. He’s sitting on the isle hoping nobody will want to squeeze past to sit by the window so that he can save the space for his friend. Unfortunately, or in this instance, fortunately, Air Asia is a free-seating airline.

Pay attention people, this means you’re not allow to block a space for somebody if somebody else wants the seat. Of course, kind gentle souls that most of us travelers are, nobody actually ever argues when somebody blocks a seat, because who wants to risk loosing such an argument in front of an audience (and make an enemy in doing so)?

I do.

So as we walk up to these two, prime, empty seats, I eye it. The gent sees me eyeing it, and he cranks his neck to see behind me in the hope that his friend is somewhere behind us. But I walked fast, dragging Julia almost running behind me, so we’re well ahead of the next wave. I stop at the row and load our carry-ons into the overhead compartment before motioning for Julia to scoot in so that I can sit in the middle.

“Excuse me, sir”, I say politely to the rather elderly gent so that he can move his legs a bit. Without looking up he growls back in a heavy European, already on the defensive, “This seat is reserved for my friend”. The Air Asia stewardess is standing just to my right, so I feel empowered.

“I’m sorry, sir”, I say in a sickly calm, air-steward-like tone of voice, body language indicating that I’m waiting a little while longer for him to move before I climb over him, “Air Asia doesn’t reserve seats, we would like to sit there”.

“But my friend is going to sit there”, he growls again, seriously cranking his neck to see down the isle, willing his friend to appear there so that he can say ha, there he is. But he isn’t. “I’m sorry, sir, but I need the leg space”, which is true.

Julia jabs me in the ribs and says in my ear “just leave it, let’s find another seat”, but the elderly gent is getting up and moves to the side so that we can get in. “From the states are you?”, he hisses through his teeth. This pisses me off, because it’s racist and ignorant. Obviously he’s referring to “rude Americans”, a stereo-type attached to some Americans who don’t know any better. So because he couldn’t place my accent he automatically assumes I’m American.

“I’m not, actually” I say back politely as I let Julia go in first and sit in the middle. The man sits down. He fidgets and remains red in the face for the rest of the flight, clearly uncomfortable. Possibly the longest flight of his life. The rest of the flight is uneventful.

After collecting our bags in Bangkok, we dodged the touts at the arrivals exit and headed upstairs to the departure lounge. Tip: we snagged a taxi dropping somebody off to take us to Bangkok for THB300 including tolls. It’s also an NGV taxi, we notice.

Eventually, in Sukhumvit, about 2 blocks from our hotel, we abandoned the taxi as it was stuck and traffic and had moved all of 50m in 30 minutes. At first Maxim’s Inn looked a bit dodgy as all along Soi 7 there are girlie bars with loads of girlies hanging about outside pestering other men rather aggressively. Luckily Julia, acting as my talisman in this sort of situation, protects me from girlie hell yet again.

The hotel itself isn’t bad, so we settle in, I rig the wireless connection (free with the hotel) and settle down for some work and rest before heading out again later on.

There are no pictures from the day today, because we missed most of it.

I managed to drag myself out of bed at about 10am for some work and attempted to wake Julia from the dead at about 11am to succeed only briefly. She was feeling rough, but I managed to persuade her to go and have something to eat with me.

We went back to Cosmic and ordered a pizza and two banana milkshakes. Julia sat down, but at the sight and smell of food wanted to vomiting. In her defense, she staved it off for a bit, but when she started to gag I advised her to run for the hills – she did, disappeared into our room and was never seen again.

I was left to finish a pizza and two banana milkshakes by myself, probably saving me from hang-over hell. I went back to the room to check on the passed-out-again Julia and went back to D’ Books for a day of work. Only around 5pm did Julia attempt to surface again, and tenderly so.

We decided she needed a lot of food and once again had the all-you-can-eat BBQ buffet at Matt’s Joint and let it settle with a long walk on the beach. Phi Phi seemed to be back to normal – parties where starting up, but it didn’t have the same air of urgency about it. We settled on a spot on the beach with some chairs and relatively cheap drinks and sipped on beer and Bacardi.

As the crowds gathered and the night warmed up, a few local people appeared on the beach and entertained us with a fire-show. Julia and I realised that we didn’t keep a bucket from the night before, something we (and possibly thousands before us) thought would make a good souvenir. So we decided to order another bucket for the sake of it. We got a nice bucket with a cheap mixer consisting of Sangsom – the local poison, which I believe they call rum.

Tried as we did, sipping it for a while, it didn’t make the hideous drink any more palatable, so after we left the venue we dumped the nearly full bucket down the drain. In light of the stories of major hangovers due to this shit, it was probably the best move ever.

With Julia’s headache warn off and the euphoria from the night before still lingering in our veins, we made a big mistake – we tried to recreate it. We were back at the Tiger Bar and with buckets in hand we quickly made friends. We even bumped into the Scottish girls from the night before and swapped and compared memories and stories. But it was clear from the start that it would never even come near to touching the likes of the night before.

It ended up being quiet late actually, and after a night of sedate conversation and but one bucket o’ vodka, the night wound up for us at the very respectable time of 2.30am. After a late-night bite we headed back home and to bed, but not before taking in copious amounts of water.

Today was all work and no play, for me at least. My office was Phi Phi’s D’ Books, a quaint little book store with all sorts of new and second hand books in many languages other than English. They do well decent lattes and excellent frapps, but best of all – they have free wi-fi!

It’s also on one of the main little alleys of Phi Phi, so there’s loads of traffic going past there, mainly people going to and from the beach and all the associated ogle opportunities that come with it. None of which I appreciated, of course, because I had my nose down writing my little heart out.

Anyway, Julia befriended a beagle called Sumo and a lot of coo’ing ensued – so much so that she spent a good portion of her day reading next to me in the hopes of seeing the little dog. The dog, of course, has no short supply of affection and goes where he pleases.

After a long day in the shaded area of the shop, where I’m sure I nevertheless got sunburned, we made our way down to the beach a little too late for the sunset. We rented a kayak anyway and paddled like madmen to the mouth of the lagoon hoping to see the last of the rays dip into the ocean. The catch is that once you get to the mouth of the lagoon, you’re in near-open seas, but you’re still blocked from seeing the sunset by the far point of Phi Phi.

So as the wind picked up speed we turned around, happy for the exercise but not up for the mission of getting back if we went any further. On the paddle back to the beach it was well apparent that Phi Phi had come to life and that tonight it was party payback time on Phi Phi island. Several pubs slash clubs on the beach already had their lights and music going and soon the throngs of party-starved tourists on Phi Phi would be lifting their elbows en force.

The previous three days had been a quiet time to pay respects to the royal family who lost a member some months ago and whose cremation ceremony had taken place. But tonight would be large.

It seemed busier than usual so Julia and I acquired our first drink on the cheap from one of the mini-markets and sipped it as we searched for a place to eat. After yet another long walk along Tonsai beach we finally chose a spot and settled down. We had more beer. I can’t remember much about the seafood dinner now except that the chicken was good.

Earlier on we bumped into the videographer from our dive trip and asked her where was good to party. “Tiger Bar”, she shouted over her shoulder as she peddled off on her bike. So after dinner that’s where we headed and it was located conveniently close to our hotel.

The first thing we got was a vodka bucket. It’s a three-quarter glass of vodka over ice with about 2 small bottles of Red Bull and at THB 200 they were buy one get one free. Turns out they are better friend makers than the friend disc…

At first Julia and I sat on the side watching the throngs of singles do their thing. Mingle, drink, flirt, etc. etc. The vodka budget along with the beers we had earlier on started kicking in and I leaned over to two random guys who had just arrived and said “hey, try this”. They each had a sip and the one said “that’s brilliant, I’m getting some too” and he went off to return with one each for him and his friend.

Rob and Frank, Dutch boys, where the first of many friends the bucket would reel in. We bantered a bit and chatted, they in Dutch, myself in Afrikaans and Julia in ecstasy at hearing all the foreign languages. Frank eventually would keel over after his second bucket.

As the bucket emptied and we acquired more, we met Kirstie and Laura, two fine Scottish lases. Not sure how we befriended the, but I’m pretty sure either Julia or myself offered the some of our buckets. Possibly using the same MO wel ment Israeli called Edan, a Fin called Felton (we think) and a French girl named Emily. We also bumped into the 2 Korean boys Han and Jung again. In one way or another, the vodka bucket was instrumental in meeting them all.

Needless to say that after our third vodka bucket, Julia and my memories start to blur and fade a little bit and we can’t quite agree on all the details. What is clear is that our posse ended up on the beach where Julia and myself acquired a 4th vodka bucket. I cleverly used this friendship tool to acquire more friends, most of who I wouldn’t have remembered if it wasn’t for the fact that I snapped pictures of them all.

Eventually our party petered out and in the wee hours of the morning I once again became aware of my surroundings. Myself, Julia and Jung was trying to get Jung back to the place where he lived, but we where hopelessly lost and Jung had lost his key. We stumbled around the island until we started walking uphill and I realised we were nowhere near where we should be. I asked some random person where we were and she said we were near the look-out point, which is a very far walk from anywhere.

Sober up fast we made our way back to the centre of the village and miraculously bumped into Han, who gave Jung his key. As we stumbled around near our hotel room, Julia excused herself from the search party and Jung and I continued alone. Eventually he had gathered enough of his senses to locate his room, and with him safely inside I made my way back to mine.

Julia was already in the land of slumber and I joined her shortly after. If it wasn’t for the camera, much of the memories of this night would only have come back to us perhaps weeks from now.

Luckily we had a 3Gb SD Card full of photographic memories from this, possibly one of the biggest party nights ever on Phi Phi.

Ah Sunday, day of rest. A day of rest and pizza. Well, apart from the couple of hours of work I got in before Julia got up it was a day of rest, but it was started with pizza. And today I did something I haven’t done since I was like 8 years old: I spent the entire day on the beach doing absolutely nothing. Phi Phi’s Loh Dalum beach, to be exact.

And if you’re going to be spending a day of doing absolutely nothing on a beach, what better beach to do it on than on Phi Phi island? It’s not The Beach, but it might as well have been. Idyllic: A strip of soft white sand outlining the bay awash with beautiful, gleaming bodies, clear turquoise waters softly lapping at the sand, gently rocking the moored long-tail boats as it does. Green, tree-covered cliffs rising above the lagoon and dropping down sharply at the mouth in the distance underneath a clear, deep blue sky. Why do people ever leave Phi Phi island?

Of course, my bliss was spent under the shade of a rather big umbrella (for which we paid THB100 for the day) holding what was left of my tube of SPF 50 very close by, reapplying very often. Other people’s beautiful, gleaming bodies soon turned into red lobsters – not so sexy.

Anyway, we chilled, we people watched, we went in the water, had banana shakes, I reapplied my SPF 50 and we repeated the cycle. Several times. At one point we ventured out into the sun to throw around our Ultimate disc like the experts we are, not like the beach bums tossing around those toy frisbees, barely making it fly.

The friendship disc hadn’t been flying long between Julia and myself when a couple asked us where we got the disc, and we said we brought our own, but virtually every shop sells the toy frisbees – we invited them for a game though, but the friendship disc wasn’t warm enough yet. He disappeared for a while and later reappeared with his own shiny new, green, plastic frisbee.

No too long after, 2 Korean boys stopped on the beach and longingly looked at the disc. We waved for them to come in and they couldn’t resist. Han and Jung joined us and over the next couple of hours we taught them how to throw a forehand and a backhand and, dare we say, by the end of it they were pretty good.

Of course, the friendship disc attracted other people – there was Daniel from Germany and Vince from Canada, a league player. It was good. After we were all burned to a crisp (except SPF 50′fied me), we dispersed. I invited Hung and Jung back for the afternoon when the tide would be out and we would have a level area to see if we could get a game going – then Julia and I returned to the shelter of our rented umbrella and the comforting smell of SPF 50.

We spent the rest of the afternoon people watching and banana shake drinking, occasionally going back in the water for a cool down.

As the sun went down Han appeared again and we had a bit of fun on dry, flat land, but we couldn’t get enough interest for a full on game. We said our goodbyes and Julia and I headed back for a rinse before we had a pizza dinner at a restaurant called Cosmic – we actually have to pass along the back of this restaurant where their kitchen is to get to our room, so we’ve been seeing the food they do and have craved it for a while. It was well worth it.
The third quiet night on Phi Phi winded up with yet another walk along Tonsai beach searching for some or other party, but we found nothing and settled for the comfort of banana shakes.

We’re looking forward to tomorrow night when this “quiet time” is over and parties will once again thump on Phi Phi. But tonight, it’s yet another early night.

Our day today started fairly early as we had signed ourselves up for a 2-dive day with Phi Phi Scuba, which was recommended to us by Dive The World. Bright yellow outfit somewhere in the centre of Phi Phi town (Phi Phi Scuba, not Dive The World) - you can’t miss it really.

We had met our dive guide for the day, Chris from Denmark, and we was going to show us the sights of Phi Phi’s underwater world. Because of the great snorkeling on the previous evening’s sun set cruise, we had great expectations.

We set off on the yellow Phi Phi Scuba and headed away from Phi Phi Don in the direction of Phi Phi Leh, the cluster of islands where The Beach was filmed. Our first dive site was to be Bida Nok. “Heavy on air?” Chris asked as he was going through the signals. I am heavy on air, very, in fact, lucky if I last 40 minutes.

So we went in, along with a substantial amount of other divers on our boat, at 8:31. The water temperature was a toasty 29.6*C and we had around 10m of visibility. The fish population weren’t as dense as I had expected, but there was loads of variety on very colourful coral reefs, outcrops and rounding, much unlike what I, Mr. Inexperienced, have seen before.

Next to Julia with her keen eyes and knowledge, we quickly spotted a few scorpion fish and lion fish. We also saw a free-swimming moray eel and that was about the highlight of the dive. Technically though, both Julia and myself had perfect dives. Julia felt very confident and had no buoyancy issues. I lasted a whopping 57min and had no trouble with buoyancy either – I was very excited about that.

We were hoping to see some leopard sharks or at least something big on this dive, so we were a little disappointed that we didn’t, but it was a great dive nevertheless. We aimed our positive thoughts at a turtle for myself and a manta ray for Julia on our next dive, with a bit of a prayer for a whale shark if we had any luck left.

While having lunch, we headed for our next dive site at Malong or Maya Bay, at the mouth of the lagoon that washes The Beach and next entered the water at about 11am. The water temperature was the same and we had slightly more visibility this time. The coral-scape was fantastic, with loads of big boulders, canyons and even a swim-through, my first ever. The coral, considering the amount of divers on this site, was in pretty good condition and the variety of fish amazing.

We again saw some interesting fish and smaller critters, but nothing big. It was about 10 minutes towards the end of our dive when I had lost hope of seeing anything interesting when Chris signaled something. I couldn’t make out what he was trying to tell me, but I swam forward from where I was at the back of our group of 4. And there, as I rose over the coral ridge, was a turtle! I followed him at a distance for the next five minutes, watching him lazily pick at the coral and munching at things, blissfully unaware of the divers ogling him or the noise of the boat engines overhead.

Chris eventually called me away as we had reached the end of the dive, but I was super stoked. Excellent dive because of that turtle – may he live long and prosper.

The rest of our day was fairly laid back. I got a few hours of work in and a nap. We decided to go down to the beach for the sunset (although technically you can’t see the sun set from the beach). It was relatively quiet with few people around.

A member of the royal family had passed away several month earlier and the custom involves embalming the body and keeping it for a set period before the cremation. As it happened, the cremation was taking place over this weekend, and for 3 days bars would be closed and no loud music would be played – hence the quietness on the island – but it was almost blissful.

After a bit of a frolic on the beach it was dinner time and as we had had Thai food non-stop since we got here, we thought it time for a bit of a meaty dinner and there’s no meatier dinner than the eat-as-much-as-you-can buffet at Matt’s Joint. The sign out front says: “Girls: THB 265, Ladyboys: THB 280, Boys: THB 295, Kids & Rabbit: THB150”. Not a bad deal.

Our next hour and a bit consisted of pork chops, pork sausages, prawn skewers, chicken fillet, smoked salmon, 4 different kinds of pasta salads, a green salad, potato salad (and jacket potatoes for all-you-can-eat novices), corn on the cob and fresh bread. What a spread! But try as I might, I only managed a plate and a half and to my detriment was stuffed after. Julia also managed significantly less that what she aimed for – but it was money well spent.

We walked around the island looking for signs of life, but alas, found none. We ended up at a beauty salon where Julia had a manipedi and I had a foot massage, before we headed back with 2 DVDs and beers and ended the evening in our room – relatively early thanks to a fairly active day.

Arrived on Phi Phi today and more of what has come to be known as D-myths have been debunked.  I have to say though, the full moon could have something to do with it.

An acquaintance of mine said we should book before we go to Phi Phi because it’s high season and everything will be full. D-myth.  We ignored his advice - mainly because pre-booked accommodation were all THB1,500 plus per night, somewhat beyond our budget.

A short walk from the pier (ignore the numerous touts who are not as aggressive as in Patong) revealed several accommodation options for between THB750 and THB1000 (after negotiations).  We were up for a bit of comfort but not too much walking, so we settled on H.C. Andersen’s.

Somebody told us that it could be due to the full moon and many holiday makers having moved to Koh Panghan, otherwise it might have been a lot harder to find something decent at a good price. There are loads of options though.

The lady who assisted us at H.C. Andersen’s was really friendly and honest, so we settled in.  Everything is clean is neat. Our bed’s mattress has some odd indentations and the air-con takes a while to chill, but it has free wi-fi, the mini-bar’s prices is almost as good as the mini-mart, so we’re happy.

We booked a sunset cruise which is a bit of a tour of mainly Phi Phi Leh, which is the island where The Beach was filmed. Before the cruise we arranged a diving excursion with Gop from Phi Phi Island Divers - service was great and the facilities seem top notch - seeing my glasses, she even offered me prescription dive goggles!

We had a quick nap before the cruise.  Our first stop on the cruise was at Monkey Beach, which, unsurprisingly, is a beach where you can see monkeys.  They are not as relaxed or as arrogant as the monkeys we found at the Enchanted Monkey Forrest in Bali, but they certainly liked, and was used to, being fed.  As is the thing with monkeys, the excitement wore off quickly.

Our next stop was on Phi Phi Leh itself, and we paused for a bit of kayaking and snorkeling.  The quality of the corel and the variety of the fish I saw bodes well for our diving excursion tomorrow - can’t wait.

Next we headed towards the cave-like entrance to The Beach where we encountered numerous other boats aiming to do the same thing.  It wasn’t too crowded though.  After we scampered ashore and through the cave we walked along a forest path for some 5 minutes before we reached the site of the film - it is as beautiful as is depicted in the film and is still relatively unspoiled.

And what else would you do if you find yourself on an idyllic, major-motion-picture-perfect beach? You play a bit of Ultimate frisbee of course!  Well, we tossed it around at least - no games though

Just before sunset we got back on the boat, which had in the meantime pulled into the main bay.  As the sun set we had a simple fried rice dinner and started heading back as the last rays of the days dissolved in the increasingly darkening water.

Back on Phi Phi we were reminded that this weekend is going to be a dry one on Phi Phi.  A member of Thailand’s Royal Family passed away on this day last year (I think) and there will be 3 days of observing the anniversary - this means all the bars on Phi Phi will be closed! Bummer.

Good news is restaurants are still open and they too serve alcohol.  There are also numerous convenience stores dotted across the island, which sells beer at THB50 for a big bottle of Chang.  Cans start at around THB50 and stuff like Smirnoff Ice and Bacardi Breezers are around THB80 - they do vary. Strangely enough, the only 711 on the island won’t be selling alcohol until Monday.

We explored the island a little this evening walking around the narrow street devoid of street-lights, but lit up by the many stores fringing the paths.  As all the bars were closed, many restaurants were full with people drinking, but there was a distinctly somber mood about.  We covered a good part of the island but found nothing party-like - except perhaps at the Hash Bar, which was packed with people watching The Beach on a big screen.

It would have been an early night had it not been for the DVD we bought and watched in our room - which like the one in Patong is equipped with a TV and DVD set.  We also got the wi-fi Internet access going, which had been off earlier on in the evening.  Phi Phi is virtually blanket covered by some or other wi-fi network - it seems every shop has a network, which is either encrypted or requires a log on of some sort.

Tomorrow we have to get up early for our diving excursion, so off to bed I go.