Day 61- Chasing Whiskey With Laughing Gas; Always A Good Idea

Sadly, I must admit that I am not the brightest firefly in the sky.  With that in mind, after finishing breakfast Colleen and I decided that we had to rent a moped for transportation around the island.  Despite our crash and flat tire experiences the previous week in Chumphon, we were not yet jaded on the idea of motorized two-wheel transportation.  For the bargain basement price of $27 for four days, our hotel lent us a brand new motorbike that had only 700 kilometers on it and not a single scratch.  All I had to do was sign a waiver with ridiculously high fees if I damaged the bike and turn my passport over to them as a form of deposit.  I'm sure nothing was going to happen to the bike; after all I'm an amazing driver.

With my pockets one passport lighter, Colleen and I were now free to travel the island of Koh Phangan on our motorbike.  There was only one problem: Colleen is terrified of going up and down large hills.  And there are a shit ton of hills on the island.  After deciding to walk down the first hill immediately outside our resort, she quickly realized that it might be better to try and face her fears of hills as opposed to walking up and down steep gradients in the sweltering heat.  A few hills later, she started feeling a little more comfortable, and eventually the two of us were putting around the island like a couple of reject Hell's Angels. 

Our first stop of the day was Phaeng Waterfall.  Located in the middle of the island, we had heard there was about a 40 minute hike up a fairly steep incline through some gnarly bush trails, but once at the top we would be rewarded with some terrific views.  By the time we reached the summit top of the hill, Colleen and I were both dripping in sweat and cursing ourselves for deciding to go hiking.  I must give an extra shout out to Colleen who completed the trip wearing flip-flops.  Bravo.  It was definitely worth it though, as we were rewarded with some magnificent panoramic  views of the island from the top of the trail. 

Looks like it's going to be a fun hike in flip flops.

 

 



Got my hiking shorts on...



 

After refueling with Gatorade, we saddled back up on our bike and headed over to a nearby archery place.  Despite the place being empty and there being staff sitting around doing nothing, we were told that we could not partake in our "Hunger Games" impressions as we were not part of a tour group.  Add to this that the archery place also had some elephants chained up (riding elephants is big tourist business in Thailand) that looked miserable as shit and it was overall a crappy experience. 

PEOPLE, SERIOUSLY, DO NOT SUPPORT THESE TYPES OF BUSINESSES. SAD TO SEE.

 

Since we had actually woken up at a decent time, we had a whole day to do stuff, which was a pretty rare occurrence for us!  After the archery fail, we biked on down to the southern part of the island and decided to check out Haad Rin, the beach that is home to the world-famous Full Moon Party.  Sadly, we would not be able to attend the monthly party as our timetable did not lineup.  Seeing as how there was no party to be seen for a week or so there was not a whole lot going on.  Just beaches, bars, hostels, tourists, and other boring shit.  Never one to sit on a beach and catch a tan, I needed a little more action in my life, so we decided to check out the gun range that was just down the road.  If you can't fire a bow and arrow, might as well do the next best thing and fire off a round out of a 9MM.  Upon entering the shooting range, it was clear this wasn't the classy operation that the Gun Range I had previously been to in Las Vegas was.  This place had more of a "dingy warehouse with spent needles and cheap hookers" kind of feel.  After a quick discussion, Colleen and I decided that we would just fire off one round of ten bullets, five each.  We were given a quick tutorial, although most of it was lost in translation as the gun master and I spoke different languages.  Eventually I stepped up to the plate and BANG I fired towards the target.  Only problem was that my shot was nowhere the target.  Recoil is a motherfucker.  After firing off a few more shots, it was time for Colleen to step up.  Well, it was supposed to be.  Now, she was scared.  Let me quickly point out that Colleen grew up firing guns as she participated in biathlon in cadets as a kid.  Me, I had only ever fired a gun once before and like this time it was in a shooting range.  So, I ended up popping off the last few shots, and when it was all said and done, I had hit the rather large target sheet a grand total of zero times!  Guess, I'm going to have to keep serving bacon and eggs for a living.  With my tail between my legs, the wifey and I headed back to the resort, but not before stopping off at some pizza joint that appeared to be run by the Russian Mafia.  Yes, the Russian Mob has a solid foothold in Thailand.

No idea what he is saying. Just nodding along.

0 for 10 when it came to hitting the targets. I should give up on life.

Poser.

Constipated? Nah, I shot my foot off.

Back at the quiet surrounds of our resort and Haad Salad Beach that evening,  Miss McParland and I enjoyed dinner at another of the beachside restaurants before heading back to our room to start getting ready for our real mission that day.  You see, while we may have been missing the Full Moon Party the following week, the ever-enduring entrepreneurs of Koh Phangan had created the "Half Moon Party", which takes place a week before the big dance.  Instead of being on the beach, it was set in the more central jungle part of the island and had grown to be the second biggest monthly party on the island.  With that in mind, Colleen and I did a bit of pre-drinking in our room (cause that's what lame couples do) before heading out around 11:30pm to find a cab.  The only problem was that it was 11:30pm and we weren't exactly in the party zone spot of the island.  Starting to feel a little anxious that we might not be able to arrange a ride, we headed down to the beach and tried to see if we could find any signs of human life.  Thankfully we stumbled upon a group of about ten dudes from France who were just about to be heading out the party.  It truly was a blessing from the party Gods.  With that in mind, we all piled in to the back of a small taxi cab pickup truck and were on our way to the party!  Upon discovering that we were Canadian, the heavily intoxicated Frenchmen decided they needed to sing every Canadian song they could think of.  Surely, there is nothing finer than a bunch of drunk French dudes singing Bryan Adams and Celine Dion while you rumble down a jungle road in the bed of some Thai dudes pickup truck.  After their stunning vocal performance, they insisted that I now had to sing them some French songs, and sadly they only ones I knew were from Grade 4 French Class and were aptly titled, "Louie La Grenouille" and "Violette A Bicyclette".  It truly was a sad state of affairs.  In the end, they let Colleen and I off the hook by coercing us into singing a duet of the Canadian national anthem, to which I am most certain we did not do our country proud.

Last photographic evidence before that Half Moon Party. Things just got sloppy from here.

Thankfully, our karaoke session came to a close and we eventually arrived our destination; the Half Moon Party.  Located in the middle of the island, it appeared as though we had just stepped into the movie "Jumanji".  Either that or we were at just at some gigantic jungle rave.  It was probably the latter.  Within seconds of stepping out of our ride, we were hounded by dudes who only knew one word of English "MDMA".  Now, I am not pro or anti-drugs, but I am definitely anti-drugs in foreign countries with a reputation for police corruption and drug snitches.  Sorry drug dealers of Koh Phangan, I would only be getting wasted on alcohol tonight!  After paying our 500 baht ($17 Canadian) entrance fee, Colleen and I proceeded to take advantage of our one free drink and scope out the scene.  There were thousands of people everywhere, many of them covered or working on getting covered in body paint.  I am most certain that drugs and alcohol had nothing to do with this.  After hitting up the porta-potties, our next stop was the bar.  Anyone familiar with Thailand knows that many of its big parties are famous for their "bucket" drinks.  Basically, you get a little sand castle making bucket that is filled with a mickey of either Thai whisky, gin or vodka and is topped off with three cans of Thai Red Bull.  In short, they get you obliterated.  Seeing as how we had been drinking before arriving, after one bucket each, Colleen and I were both feeling quite fine.  Yes, fine.  Yup, that shit is gotta be working if my white as is dancing.  Somewhere along the way (started getting foggy) we decided that it would be a good idea to buy a few balloons that were filled with "laughing gas".  As I recall, we logged a solid shift at the "laughing gas bar" huffing back balloons filled with nitrous.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  Around this time, things got really blurry for me and Colleen filled in the rest of the details.  As follows:

- On a trip to the porta-potties for some reason Colleen and I went in together and upon emerging from the shitter, I announced to the large crowd outside the bathroom that my girlfriend and I were in fact, not having sex in the bathroom.

- Later on in the evening, while I was thirsty, I hocked Colleen off on some random chick to dance while I went and stole beers.  Yes, I was stealing beers in a third world country.

- We got a cab home around 4:00am and I KO'ed in the cab super hard.  Apparently, the cabbie did not know where our resort was and was she was starting to lose her shit.  She threatened to dump us off on the side of the road, before she somehow after much searching and yelling at us (we couldn't understand shit anyways) found our resort.

And that's how I won my nomination for boyfriend of the year.

~Brentski~