This story starts in Thailand, where I was with 18 old friends from San Francisco, Dublin, Germany, Mexico and Japan. Most of us got there the same day, apart from me and a good friend Cathal, who spent an extra three days in Bangkok before we left for Ko Tao - the idyllic island you get to from the mainland Port harbor of Surat thani. In Bangkok we stayed in the same hotel as 150 US diplomats and delegates who were planning to go to Vietnam, which had just opened to the West after the end of hardline Communism. They had the task of trying to demand the release of 2000 American GIs still held in captivity in the year 1999.
A few days were spent in the hotel bar and other bars, especially in Pat Pong of course - where you can sit down and eat a meal, feed elephants and watch a girl shoot badminton shuttlecocks from her vagina (as well as unwittingly dancing with a lady boy!). I have to say it was a great night and I’ll always remember that night for learning how to pronounce, or at least explain to other people how to pronounce, Cathals name. When told the name a drunk guy simply said - oh you mean like alcohol without the “al”. This was a revelation to Cathal, and he’s used it ever since.
We also learned why chocolate is brick hard in such tropical weather. Heat restraining preservatives did that to them and likewise beer had the chemical equivalents of dishwasher fluid. One of the delegates showed us how to separate it from the beer before you drink it. You get a big glass of water - preferably bigger than the bottle of beer, and then you super quickly pour the bottle into the glass of water, If you do this quickly, and i mean bruce lee quick, you lose no beer from the glass – and you will see the dishwasher fluid separate itself at snail pace from the beer at the bottom of the glass.
If you put a video camera close up to the separation and imagined a dancing girl in it you would have a good opening scene to a Bond movie. We left the next day by train to Surat Thani, the food on the train was the best anywhere in the world as far as I am concerned. Then a speed boat to Ko Samui, relaxed for a day then the slow boat to Ko Tao, I had very little luggage as I like to travel light, just one large water-proof briefcase which had flippers goggles and a snorkel with a portable water purification kit and various other small needed items.
When we got there and spotted our friends on the beach, I quickly changed into swimming shorts, donned snorkeling gear, swam out with briefcase then swam back into where my friends were just so i could say the atlantic was a bitch, the indian ocean was smooth having a waterproof cased phone in hand Bond couldn’t have done it better.
Even with that separation our hangovers were pretty bad when we got to the Island and found the friends who had gotten there first partying hard to beat the band on second rate drugs and third class booze, which came in silver Champagne buckets. You ordered them by asking for a bucket which had alcohol of such low quality it almost defied belief.
Poor country - moonshine in the USA, Pooshin in Ireland, Fenni in India and Samsong Whisky in Thailand. To say you were liverish after a night of that crap would be a massive understatement. Hangovers were cuntishly brutal which made your own farts fucking unbearable and someone else’s unforgivable Bucket farts we called them - a scent to behold! I shit you not - we drank way too much, which can leave you blind for a few days. I have seen this happen. You got use to it with a good swim in the sea, food to die for and a few hours rest before we did it all over again. God those nights were messy. And expensive! If only steemit was around - the few extra bucks would have made me stay much longer………………part 2 and coming soon