Week 9 – Thailand (Part 4)

Koh Lanta – Koh Yao Noi – Phuket

Currently sitting in this beautiful little hostel near Phuket airport with a crooked neck after my head massage last night. I’m leaving in a couple of hours to get my flight to Singapore, and I cannot tell you how excited I am to be in a city. I can’t wait to walk through busy streets and be amongst people that have no interest in talking to anyone as everyone goes about their life. Is this strange? Perhaps. I’m not so excited to spend £6 on a coffee, but as we know, a takeaway coffee is priceless in my opinion. So, week 9.

After spending my final night in my little hut, I set off the next morning to a lovely hostel called Aha (still in Koh Lanta). As expected, I was feeling a little nervous as I always am when I’m getting ready to go and be around lots of people again, but the hostel was absolutely beautiful, very chill vibes, free tea and coffee, curtains and the chicest bathroom, my jam. Within about 5 minutes of being at the hostel, I’d met a lovely girl in the bathrooms and we decided to go to the beach together. As seems to be the theme of my trip so far, she was 18, so I spent a lovely afternoon chit chatting to her about things 18 year olds like, Snapchat and WKD I think? She was honestly very sweet, but I was kind of getting the vibe she wasn’t for me when we were talking about dating and I’d said in passing I was queer, and her response was “Oh, you swing both ways? Ugh, jealous! That must make your life so much easier.” My initial thought was who the hell says ‘swing both ways’ anymore?! Very circa 2005. She’d met some friends on her travels, so we all ended up going for dinner together that evening, and to be frank I just was not feeling the vibe. It felt a little cliquey and the conversation was just dead, I did have a crush on one of the girls there though, she was Scottish, 6ft and quite frankly outrageous. But anyway, nill pwa because the vibes were pooey. One of the girls that joined us was someone I’d met by chance through this REALLY incredible LGBTQ+ Whatsapp group for backpackers (which is one of the most amazing ideas ever and people are building friendships all over the world) and we went for a cocktail after dinner together. She was super lovely, 18 (AGAIN!!!) and kind of pouring her heart out to me which was quite moving actually. I have no idea if I’m being judgemental, or if it’s completely fair that I just don’t feel very connected to people that age sometimes, it doesn’t take away from how lovely the moments are, but I think I was just missing conversing with people nearer my age. Also, her cocktail was blue  

Later that evening, I was struck by homesickness big time, and had a good cry to Dad and Sam on facetime. Sometimes you just need a sob. Sam and I were crying laughing at the retelling of the Nomads hostel story (gofuckyourself), some light relief in my sad moment! It’s not that I want to come home, it’s just it can get a little lonely doing this all on your own. It’s just me in my head, and as we know, that can get pretty intense sometimes. I’m quite enjoying being brutally honest about this experience though, like it’s absolutely magical, but also lonely at points, and I definitely find it challenging. 

The next morning, feeling a little lighter, I had my free breakfast at the hostel (what a treat) and decided to spend the day on my own at Bamboo beach (my favourite spot on the island). There’s this one beach shack on the entire beach, and I sat there eating some freshly bbq’d chicken, practising some real gratitude for this stunning moment. In my melodramatic moment of loneliness the night before, I’d decided to download Rob Delaney’s ‘A Heart That Works’ on my Kindle, which is about him losing his four year old son to Cancer. I spent the majority of the day absolutely sobbing under my sunglasses, moved to my core by this book. I recommend it. How he managed to mix humour with a level of grief I cannot even fathom, is beyond me, but he did and I spent a good five hours moving between crying, laughing and snotting. I’d never even heard of Rob Delaney, but I am now a fan. 

That evening, I was planning on continuing my solo vibe but the 42 year old guy from LA I mentioned in my previous post had asked if I wanted to go for dinner. Continuing my easy, breezy and flexible vibe, I decided to say yes. Partly because he seemed like a nice chap, but also because the place he’d suggested had an amazing wine list and I was desperately craving a glass of Merlot. We were having some really lovely conversations, everything from family, relationships, monogamy, mental health, the whole spectrum. We’d got on to the topic of morals/values/beliefs, and whether you can separate a friendship from someone’s beliefs if they are fundamentally different to yours. I explained that I wasn’t sure I could, that I think there would be certain things I’d want to agree (somewhat) with a friend on. Maybe this makes me a self-righteous idiot, but how could I be friends with someone who genuinely thought trans people were trying to eradicate women’s rights? Or didn’t think racism was that bad? I don’t know if I could separate that. Anyway, back to my dinner. As we were discussing this, he then tells me he’d experienced friends turning their back on him as a result of his career choice a while back. I asked what he did, wait for it…. HE USED TO RUN A PORN COMPANY CALLED ORGASM.COM (no idea if this website still works??? Wink wink) I was shooketh. He kept referring to it as an ‘adult entertainment company’. Mum if you’re reading this, I know you’d have wanted me to punch him in the face and run for the hills. When he first told me this, my first reaction was EW, and I think I do still feel like that about parts of it, but we’d spent the next hour going back and forth about the porn industry, sex work, consent, and it was actually incredibly interesting. Not the evening I’d anticipated, but I’m glad I said yes to dinner. 

The next day, I was off to Ko Yao Noi, a tiny island slightly further west and known for its incredible views and chilled out vibe. It was this or Phi Phi, and after all the horror stories I’d heard about Phi Phi (expensive, food poisoning, ‘a shit Ibiza’) I thought Ko Yao seemed like the right pick. I was on the boat by 1pm, ready for my 3 hour journey to the next island. It dawned on me pretty quickly that I was quite literally the only single person on the boat, everyone else was in a couple, so I sat at the back kissing my hand. About an hour into the journey, the engine started to make a choking noise, and the driver was running up and down the aisle looking slightly panicked. Everybody on the boat was very confused, each of us looking at eachother like 🙂 We were off again, the engine intermittently bouncing up and down, clearly hanging on for dear life. Suddenly, the boat stopped in the middle of the ocean next to another boat, and we all had to clamber out with our stuff and climb onto the other one. Incredibly surreal. We still had another hour left of the journey, and I’d managed to bag a seat out the front of the boat and I distinctly remember how beautiful the final leg of this journey was. It was cloudy, but I was blown away by the views. Not quite the smooth sailing I’d expected, but you quickly get used to things turning out differently, and it’s kind of nice feeling less stressed about where you need to get to and when. They call it Thai time for a reason. There was only one hostel on the island called Connexions, with 9.3 star reviews!! The rooms were full of 3 bunks, so they slept 6, and had no curtains and were fairly close together. Haven’t quite got used to being a foot away from a sleeping stranger with no privacy. I like to just ram my gel earplugs in so far that I can only hear myself breathe and that way it feels like no one else can hear me. I’ve also been hanging my sarong on the side of the bunk, so if there’s someone cute on either side then I can maintain the mystery, and if there’s cuties on both side, well then I have to make a choice don’t I?! I’m just soooooo lucky I look really cute when I sleep?! I feel so sorry for ugly sleepers, I can’t really relate. 

In my room was the most lovely guy called Matthijs (pronounced Mattheus you IDIOTS) who was 21 and from the Netherlands. We ended up going for dinner together around the corner and then for a couple of beers. After having spent nearly three days with him, it’s safe to say he was a truly beautiful soul. We spent our first evening getting to know each other, he was a fascinating guy, incredibly curious which I’ve got to say is maybe my favourite trait in a person. He’s only 21 (he feels older) but is quite clear about the fact that he wants children, and the reason he wants a good career and to make decent money is for his future kids. He was telling me how excited he is to be a Dad and how his friends are all taking bets on him being the first to have sprogs. It was fascinating, completely unrelatable but lush. I imagine he will be a great Dad. We also bumped into another couple of girls in our hostel that evening, who we also ended up spending the next couple of days with. We formed a cute little group, more on that.

The next day I took my scooter I’d rented from the hostel and scooted over to Island Yoga for a 10am session with an amazing instructor called Marcello. Just before the session, I overheard a woman next to me say to her friend “In one of my past lives I was a pagan woman.” Make of that what you will. The session was amazing, different to anything I’d experienced before. Marcello was one of the most passionate yoga instructors I’ve ever come across and at one point he was making us massage our feet, slap them and say loudly “THANK YOU FEET!!!” In fairness, our feet do go through alot. So as you’re reading this, say a little thank you to your trotters you ungrateful pricks!!!! There were only three of us in the class, which I low-key love because I get more attention 🙂 After that, I spent the afternoon scooting around the island, which you can do in under an hour, and it was quite literally paradise. I stopped for lunch, and then a dip, and then went to Long Beach at the top of the island. I received a text from Matthijs saying that he’d bumped into a local while helping him push his bike up a hill (we all decided this was a marketing stunt), and we’d all been invited to his house to cook dinner with him and watch the sunset. Why not?! A great way to experience the island. So, I hurried home to shower and recruited another member of our little group, Fred, 18 (obviously) from Leeds. It’s safe to say this has been one of the most random nights of my trip so far, if not the most. So, we turned up at about 5:30pm to this guy’s house (Mark was his name) and he plonked us on the beach with a couple of beers. Because of the tides on Ko Yao, it was more like a marsh, which actually added to how beautiful it was. Mark had said for 600 baht each he would go to the food market, get some fresh fish/meat and when he comes back we could all cook together. He also said something about a steam room, but I didn’t really register that properly at the time. We all agreed and were seriously intrigued to see how this evening was going to pan out. The five of us spent a couple of hours watching the sun go down, all getting to know each other which was lovely. Mark came back a couple of hours later and ushered us all into the outside kitchen where we were going to be assigned tasks, and he was going to set up the steam room for us. I think this may have been the point where I was wondering if this was now a crime scene, partly because Mark was either incredibly high, or drunk. A lovely chap, just absolutely trashed. He also killed a gekko on Fred’s shoe, which left residual blood on his birkenstock. I wont ever forget Fred’s face as he looked at me with sheer panic, clearly also thinking this might be the place of his death.

It was actually a lovely moment for all of us in the kitchen, chopping and peeling. My first task was to peel about fifty cloves of garlic, and peel I did!!! The next hour consisted of Mark frantically giving us different tasks, while running back and forth between the steam room and the kitchen. Fred was hacking away at the lemongrass, Matthijs was doing something with a coconut. Eventually he came back and told us to take our clothes off because the room was ready. Sophie and Ameera decided they didn’t want to go in, and I was about two seconds away from deciding the same, but had a last minute change of heart. Mark said it was a detox, and I am always up for that. Next thing I know, myself, Matthijs and Fred (who I’d known for about 5 minutes) were sat in this tiny little room in hardly any clothes (me in some kind of of floral robe I’d been given), dripping with sweat and breathing in what smelt like Vicks vapor rub. An absolutely bonkers but amazing moment. We all kept laughing at how surreal the whole thing was. We were in there for about ten minutes when we’d decided to call it a day and joined the others. Just as we stepped outside, Mark shouted “5 minutes and then round 2!!!”. Back in we went, and out we came, sodden. After we’d dried off, we were back on it with the cooking. I was given another task of frying the prawns, which I will say I absolutely nailed. Although, you can’t really go wrong with that can you? Anyway, after another hour or so, at about 10pm, we all sat down for a family style meal. It was absolutely delicious. We had fried beef, chicken and lemongrass curry, sweet chilli prawn curry, cabbage and steamed rice. After a wonderfully bizarre evening, we said our goodbyes and all got on our bikes ready to drive back to the hostel. Well actually to 7/11 first, because I needed a chocolate bar. We were just about to set off, and low and behold, the lights on my scooter didn’t work. I was a little bit flappy at this point, because the roads weren’t well lit and I’d seen how bad the potholes were. Mark came out about 30 seconds later with a headlamp and decided the only way to solve the issue was to drive home with this massive light on my head and return it tomorrow. I am actually laughing writing this because I cannot even how imagine how ridiculous I must have looked with this huge headlamp on. Matthijs said I looked like a lighthouse. So we scooted home, me lighting up the path for the others, and we made it back in one piece.

The next day I had booked myself a little bungalow for my final night on Ko Yao. Fred and Matthijs escorted me to my new digs, Fred with my backpack and me on the back of Matthijs’s bike, and then the three of us spent the afternoon on the beach playing cards, more specifically playing Pablo. I spent a couple of hours back in the bungalow before scooting back out to meet the others at 7/11 to pick up some beers and then finding a spot to watch the sunset. Fred led the way and found the most beautiful spot at the bottom of a pier, and I will go as far as to say that I’ve never seen a sunset like this. The pictures below don’t do it justice, but even they are pretty special. We all drank our Changs and looked out over the most stunning horizon. We found a spot at the other end of the pier for dinner, I had grilled fish with garlic which was delicious. A lovely evening, finished off with a sweet treat from 7/11. I said goodbye to everyone since I was leaving in the morning to Phuket. I’d absolutely loved having a little group of us, and even after 2 or 3 days, I think we’d all felt fairly comfortable with eachother. I guess that is the nature of this, it’s all quite transitory. The next day I hopped on a 1pm boat back to Phuket, and was at the hostel I’ve been writing this from by 2pm. I spent the afternoon just mooching, I took myself for lunch, facetimed Alice and felt incredibly emotional seeing her gorgey face, and then set off for dinner. I decided to take myself for a hot pot vibe for dinner. I picked pork, and they bring you out a mini bbq thing and then you cook your own meat, and cook the veg and noodles in the soup around it. I am describing this absolutely terribly, but the picture will make sense. Not sure how I keep doing this, but this restaraunt was bloody expensive in comparison to the others surrounding it, but hey, I get free breakfast at this hostel so I feel like that balances it out. I know you’ve all missed me talking about massages, and I actually haven’t had one in two weeks (boo hoo) so I treated myself to a 30 minute head massage after dinner. Fucking unreal. My neck doesn’t actuallty feel great today, but anyway, this is shit chat now isnt’ it? 

So, this week has been full of tears (good and bad), lots of scooting, unbelievable views, steam rooms and 18 year olds. A total hodge podge. I am off to Singapore for 5 days, I’m going to walk until my heart’s content and then I’ll be back in Thailand next week where I need to decide if I am going to the Full Moon Party or not. I can’t imagine it’s my vibe since I don’t love massive groups and this is 30,000 people on a beach in neon paint, drinking out of buckets and getting robbed. But, in the spirit of saying yes, perhaps I should give it a go. I’ll keep you posted. I’ve clearly got a thing for sad stories at the moment because I’ve just downloaded Sam Neill’s (Dr Allen Grant, Jurassic Park, total fucking legend) autobiography to read as he’s currently battling Cancer. I plan to read the entire thing while listening to the Jurassic Park soundtrack on the plane, and probably crying. I just find it so fascinating hearing how other people have chosen to live their lives, I think I find it reassuring, I’m not really sure. Anyway, my taxi will be here shortly, the airport is only a fifteen minute walk away but it’s 35 fucking degrees and I’ve got leggings on. You get it.

Until next time,

Lily xx