We arrived in Koh Tao, which is infamous for its diving, by ferry and checked into our hostel. Ironically our hostel was the most expensive so far and by far the worst. We were sharing an 8 person dorm for the first time and were anxious to find future who our roommates would be.Fortunately for Heidi and I, all of our roommates for the first 2 nights were girls and roughly our age. 3 of them were English and were teaching for a year near Bangkok. They all loved Koh Tao and had been back many times during the school holidays. My opinion of the small island, however, was very different. It had its perks, we went snorkelling on the last day and saw some amazing fish. I have always loved swimming and snorkelling and so spending 5 or so hours in the water was very enjoyable. We saw some parrot fish which were massive and really looked like they had beaks. There were some smaller blue fish that kept swimming towards my body and biting the scab off my burn on my leg which was both disgusting and painful. Nathan bought a snorkel and mask so that he can use it through travelling and Matt and I hired one each so all 3 of us swam underwater together, pointing out hermit crabs and colourful looking fish to each other. The beach was called Tanotu and really was beautiful but it was the only beach that I liked on the island. The main beach was very small and very dirty and although the others liked spending time there, I didn't. We went to a pub called Lotus Bar which had live music from and Australian dude who sang unique covers of songs that we knew. The bar quickly turned from a relaxed bar where we sat on cushions drinking beer and listening to music to a chaotic club filled with fire dancers and loud music. It was a brilliant night and for over an hour we watched 4 Thai guys aged between 18 and 24 playing with fire using sticks, yo yo type things and a spiral instrument that they took into the sea and span round to make a massive Catherine Wheel effect. I really fancied one of them but he looked young, he had plenty of tattoos and wore a bowler hat and converse and I harassed him a couple of times during the night. He said his name was Bill! It was a really good night and we met a couple of people as well the 3 girls from the hostel who were very drunk and were throwing each other in the sea.
I think that by the time we got to this island I was missing city life and just wanted to be around proper buildings and concrete!!! I was happy to leave the island after 3 days and we travelled on the ferry to Phangan where the Full Moon party was! Ironically (again) the hostel we stayed in on this island practically promised to be a dive but in fact it was one of the best hostels that we stayed in. It was very cheap and we stayed in a 22 person dorm! We made friends immediately with a group of 5 guys from England who were travelling for 3 weeks in Thailand and then 3 weeks in Vietnam. They were proper lads, discussing girls every minute and preparing to get wasted at the party but they were very nice. We also met 2 Australian girls who live in Brisbane who gave us some tips for when we get there. We arrived in the morning of the Full Moon party and casually got to know where everything was in the day to reserve our energy for the evening. The party would start at dusk and finish at dawn. We all bought some tshirts from a market by our hostel to wear for the night out and spent the start of the evening playing games with our new friends and painting ourselves with fluorescent paint. Use alcohol in Thailand tastes so disgusting and I was sick drinking beer so hadn't really drank anything by the time it got to 2am, which was a good thing considering what happened next. We took in the sights of many tourists dancing crazily and swimming in the sea, enjoyed the music and new people that we were meeting and watched (from afar) the fire dancers who were not as good as the ones from Koh Tao as this one lady kept setting innocent bystanders on fire!
Anyway, we spotted what looked like an exciting slide that started on top of a building and ended on the beach with a very small beanbag breaking the fall. We climbed up to the top of the slide and Matt went down first, bouncing off the beanbag onto the rock-hard sand and was in agony. He proceeded to catch Heidi and me as we reached the end of the slide as he later told us that he didn't want us to ever feel the same pain as he did. Hero ;) The next couple of hours consisted of a trip to 2 doctors practices, a lot of crying a pain from Matt's end, Matt passing out from the medication and then coming round acting very drunk due to the drip the doctor had given him. I then had to look after him for a few hours as we walked back to the hostel and went to bed because he was so hyper and upset about missing the rest of the party! He work up at 8am and started singing to me, despite the fact that we were in a 22 bed dorm. It was like looking after a child but it was just so funny. Of course it was also a massive relief to be told by the doctor that he had not broken anything and would be fine soon, as the first few hours after it had happened were filled with worry.
When we got back to the hostel we saw the English guys from our dorm and they had been minesweeping (drinking abandoned drinks) that had been left on the beach and 2 of them had been spiked pretty badly. Matt's hyperactivity did not help their attempt to calm down and come down but that just made me laugh even more - oops!
We spent the next day relaxing on the island, I bought some more shorts and got 2 pairs for just less than £7, not bad! We walked along a very rickety bridge on the beach and sat down on a large rock overlooking the sea and all 4 of us just chatted for hours. The next morning we woke up at 5.15am and got a taxi, ferry, and a few buses to Malaysia and arrived at about 9pm. We met a very Essex guy called Russel who had been travelling through India and then Thailand for the past 3 months and is now travelling through Malaysia. We've kind of adopted him now as he's staying in our 10 bed dorm here in Penang as luckily there was a bed spare. He had injured himself at the Full Moon party too, by stupidly jumping over the limbo stick that was on fire and burning the whole of the inside of his thigh. We're walking round like a bunch of old men now with Matt hobbling and Russel limping! When we arrived in Malaysia we had no Malaysian money so all 5 of us had to exchange our baht into ringgit. Russel and I were saying how we'd only just got the hang of baht so we're likely to pay extortionate amounts for things and think it's really cheap! The money here is more like at home, with 5 ringgit being near a pound rather than 50 baht being near a pound!
Malaysia is so different to Thailand and I'm absolutely loving it. The main roads look like English motorways and there is quite a lot greenery and a few parks. It seems that Penang has elements of Thailand, still some street food, although mainly at night, and some of the housing is the same. However, it's a lot cleaner, there are more police, there are also more concrete/built up areas and it resembles more of a city. We saw a difference in the hostel here in Malaysia to the Thai hostels straight away as it is cleaner and has plants and water features in it. It looks like the pictures of Chinese gardens that I have seen and definitely has that feel about it. Here the food is a mixture of Indian, Chinese and Thai and we bought some samosas and onion bargies from a street stall today and they were delicious. Because there is a lot of Indian food though, some of the street stalls look disgusting. We passed one today which was serving goats stomach curry and the meat looked like tyre. We found a delicious Mandarin Chinese cafe that serves a fresh version of a McDonald's breakfast with sausage, egg and cheese in a bagel so I was very happy! We spent the day walking around, looking at some street art that Penang is known for, playing with the American football in the park and visiting a mosque.
Later this week we are planning on taking the bus to Kuala Lumpur and seeing my friend Hannah from university and our friend Josh who we met in Samui. Can't wait :)
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