Thailand - Beaches and Buckets

I survived the trip! Now i just need a holiday to recover from my holiday.

It took me the last week back at home to get my head back into life, so now i am back and ready to sew and create again.

I will do three posts on my trip Beaches and Buckets - a general story of my trip. Flowers - some beautiful flower photos i took and Patterns - just some designs and colours that i loved. So here is the first.....

Beaches and Buckets

My husband and I flew out of Brisbane at Midnight, by 10am the next day we were sitting on Chaweng Beach, on the East Side of Koh Samui, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. One of the only places in the world you can by alcohol in a bucket and sit on the beach and drink it. (what else do you need in a holiday destination?).

Deb and Brian - Buckets!

There was a group of 9 people with us, all there to party. I took them to my favourite place to drink at night, The Ark Bar. We got a buckets and then had random people come over and offer to place animals on our shoulders and heads and take photos, including Marmaset Monkeys, Snakes, Eagles and Iguanas. As usual, after a few drinks i'm up for anything, so here is me with some random animals. At one point the monkey man wanted to go and have a ciggi, so just left the monkey on my lap for 10 minutes, so soft and cute, they deserve to be in the wild but they are usually sold as a baby and raised by the owner so atleast you know the money your pay is helping to looked after it.
We had a week on Koh Samui, lots of drinking and swimming and relaxing. We hired 2 jeeps for a day and cruised around the island, visiting Grandmother and Grandfather Rocks.... That are rocks shaped as genitles... great for photos.
The Butterfly Garden.

Butterfly Garden

Samui Bird and Tiger Zoo, then a Big Budda, Multi Arm Budda and Golden Budda. We had lots of big nights while on Koh Samui, We also went and shot some guns... One night we just hung out at a small bar on an off street and it was just us and the "Bar Girls" we had an awesome time, Pole Dancing, Singing Rage Against the Machine, playing connect 4 and Jenga.
A Bit of pole Dancing...

We also saw a bit of Muay Thai (Thai Kickboxing), we knew we were in for a show when in the 1st fight, one figther threw up right infront of us, the 2nd fighter - broke his ribs and 3rd fighter broke his nose nose. In the last fight we got to see an Aussie guy knock out the "Bangkok Ringmaster" (sounds dubious) in the 2nd round. Overall it was a awesome fight night, a must do when in Thailand.
Then it was off to Koh Phangan, a smaller island above Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand, renowned for the biggest beach party in the world, The Full Moon Party, the main destination of the holiday.

Me and Mr T

Koh Phangan
Haad Rin Nok Beach

We had accomodation right on the Full Moon Party Beach, Haad Rin Nok, the Sunrise Beach, on the South tip of the island. We had a few days before the main event, so we got in some Scuba Diving and Snorkeling at Sail Rock, one of the best diving sites in the Gulf of Thailand. My husband (Mr T), and I had our diving licence so we Scuba Dived, and then rest did snorkeling. We had 2 great dives, on the second dive our guide surprise me by getting me to swim through a cave and up into "The Chimney" a hole that runs up inside the rock, I actually am not legally qualified to do that but hey, he thought I could so invited me and it was one of the best things I did on the trip, looking up into a tubular rock formation with light at the top and fishes everywhere, it was spectacular. I didn't take my underwater camera so below is a photo from a dive site showing what it looked like.

The Chimney, Sail Rock

Then the next night it was time for the full moon party,

Of Course They Do!

fire twirling, visitng a special mountain that made a certain drink out of a certain fungus... and lots of dancing, until sunrise. We had one night in Bangkok before we flew home, Bangkok is so busy and smelly after being on an Island for 2 weeks! I had been there before so i just made sure i went and saw my first Ping Pong show and that was it!

So there was my holiday!