LONG BEACH
Have you ever found that two days on an idyllic tropical island filled with lovely people and white sand can easily stretch into two weeks? No, neither have I.
Dan and I were incommunicado, causing some people to think we were dead. I apologise. But in a way, we were. Many people consider lying on a tropical beach their ideal pasttime. But I prefer walking along it, feet splashing in the warm water. Or sitting in the shallow sea, head poking out, chatting with Germans. I became distinctly average at beach volleyball, but I was integral for morale.
DIVING
I went on a fun dive and ended up doing my PADI open water diving course. I saw two turtles (one of whom was eating something), a black tipped reef shark, rabbit fish, fox-faced rabbit fish, groupers (always fun after a gig), trefally, blue ringed angel fish (not to be confused with the Blue Angel), crocodile needlefish, nudi branch (every shop should have one), red breasted wrasses, cleaner wrasses (cleaner than the red breasted), butterfly fish, Batfish (underwater superhero), puffer fish, false clownfish (don't trust the fuckers), blowfish (the Bond villain), lizard fish, a Jenkins whip ray and some blue-spotted stingray.
And have you ever been on a night dive? Suffused with milky blackness all around. Torch beams striking out like light sabres. And the life that surfaces (or under-surfaces) during the night. Crabs, shrimps, sea snakes, squid. When we popped out of the water into the freshly dark night, the stars were the torches of divers in Space.
SPICE DIVERS
Though not wishing to discard our blood relations, Dan and I found a new family in our dive shop. Spice Divers had chillis hanging from the ceiling of its wide open wooden deck, so what choice did we have? Our instructors were as follows:
SUPER CINDY. Canadian. Agility 90%. Special Equipment: pink fins. Special moves: Underwater leaping swan kick from Karate Kid; fin stealing (I have personal experience); rapping about diving.
PAT THE GURU. Canadian. Alcohol tolerance: low. Friendliness to women: 90%. Special moves: very kindly letting me store stuff in the dive office and administering ear drops; sublime volleyball spiking skills.
The divemaster trainees became like siblings to us. Which would make Dan's relationship with one of them incest. Jap, Norbert, Rob, Jack and Celine - I salute your sweet memory.
LICK MY BALLS
We played a riproaring 5 hour gig in a bar restaurant called Lemongrass. It was supposed to be open mike but no-one else would play. The place was packed out till 4am with many people drinking many drinks.
A few days later they were having another open mike night. Dan and I turned up early, with guitar. The owner, a paranoid smackhead called Romi, came over the mike. 'If you fucking charge 3000 ringit (500 quid) to play then you go and play fucking Albert Hall London'. Dan and I regarded each other with wrinkled noses. Could that have been directed at us? But we don't charge anything. We approached him and he told us in not too many words that we couldn't play. We were outraged - we'd been inviting pretty girls all day! Apparently he'd received many complaints about us playing up a storm and showing everyone a great time. The conversation dwindled to an impasse. 'I'll tell you what I think,' said Dan. I turned slowly to look at him. He was staring at Romi. 'I think you should lick my balls.' Dan's face broadened into a wide grin and he held out his hand for the owner to shake. For some reason Romi refused. Next day all the locals on the island expressed disgust at Romi's behaviour and explained he was probably on a comedown.
Played in many other places and simply on the beach. A restaurant up high over the bay was run by possibly the coolest man in the world - a suave Indian American called Marvin. We jammed in his place with an Irish Malay singer Aminah, owner of a spectral voice.
PARTY
I have a habit of inviting everyone I meet to a specific place for the evening. In a place where no-one has specific plans, this can result in a spontaneous party. A non-spontaneous party occurred on Norwegian Independence Day, despite the fact that there were only 5 Norwegians on the island. No-one knew from whom Norway had become independent, including the Norwegians. The place pumped out shit music and had a shit fire. I was dragged off by our excellent dive buddies Jane and Charlotte and forced to drink a local vanilla spirit known as monkey juice. The monkey juice sent me into orbit like a spacesuited drunken chimp. Jane kept trying to make me drink more but I left and staggered along the beach. Despite being rugby tackled by her I managed to escape and shortly found myself playing a game naming exotic fruits without showing one's teeth. I ended up night swimming with a large tattooed Dutch man of the killer volleyball serve and a gorgeous eyed woman named Charlotte with an uncontrollable fear of wildlife.
THAILAND!
And finally we bid farewell to our Perhentian Paradise. We accidentally lost two Germans with whom we'd promised to travel to Ko Pha Ngan but found two new friends - Jess from Oxford and Bob from Edinburgh. Together we are Team Steve. Many cramped bus journies led us to Hat Yai where we had astounding Thai curry and watched the FA Cup Final in a touristy bar with a kick ass cover band. Dan and I wanted to seize the stage but we were rugby tackled by the bouncers and forced to drink litres of Sing beer and some whiskey. We ended up in another touristy bar with another kick ass cover band, dancing with a bunch of locals. One of them, a lovely young man whose name escapes me (not used to Thai names yet) kindly squeezed nine people into his Nissan and we all went to a club called the Blue Kiss where we were the only white people and Superstar was played every four songs. Celtic vs. Dumfermline, obviously a key interest for Thais, was showing on a big screen.
The next day after being folded up in the back of a bus for 6 hours, we found ourselves coasting to Ko Pha Ngan on an enormous ferry.
We lay on the deck with a pastel sunset on our left sinking into the knobbly islands of the Gulf. Opposite it it hung the full moon that announced our arrival to the island of the PARTTTYYY!
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