BACK TO THE ISLAND – 19th December 2010 – 3rd January 2010

We had booked the night bus/ferry back to Koh Phangan for 6pm that evening and spent the day trying to shop but failed miserably. When all else fails what do you do? Have a beer and sit and watch the world go by….we ended up having several and meeting a guy who we’d first befriended in Laos and we’d been bumping into pretty frequently all the way down…..come to think of it he did appear to be almost skulking in an alleyway when I spotted him!!!

We caught our bus and proceeded to have the best craic on a night bus ever! Had a really cool group (down the back, of course!) and so the many pit stops were used to replenish the stock of beers. It was a pretty crazy journey taking about 18 hours but we finally made it back to Koh Phangan and our resort of luxury for Christmas – Sarikantang. Our friend Lesley was on her way back home from London to Australia and stopped along the way so she was sitting with cocktail at the ready for our arrival by the pool. A couple of pretty messy but fun filled nights ensued with us almost thankful of her departure cos then we could GET SOME REST!!!

Christmas was surreal but lovely – I had the proper roast dinner in an English pub but Liam opted for PASTA! I obviously had the obligatory Coghlan Christmas brekkie of scrambled eggs and a cup of tea, which was great and Liam had cornflakes….you would never have guessed we were in Thailand! Went out that night for the Christmas party dressed up in all sorts of Santa clobber – the beach was packed (or so we thought, NY was still to come, yikes!). Took it pretty easy after that hanging out with a lovely couple from the epic journey that were staying on the island too. Really glad we splashed out on our room cos it was LUSH!

Had an obligatory ‘gala’ dinner at the resort new years eve then the party of all parties….Full Moon New Year’s Eve Party 2009!!! Talk about mega packed and yes we did lose each other but were reunited in the early hours but I had lost my bag (with our second camera of the travels!). Hence there are no photos of that night….which is probably just as well. We were supposed to check out on the 3^rd of Jan but after 3 days of partying (which included wicked jungle party non accessible by car & mad trip in back of pick up out of there….our ears popped we were up so high and the vertical ascents and descents had Aileen holding onto the back of the truck for dear life!) we thought it best to take one more night before we set off.