I'M BACK!

I still have more to write about my holidays, but I will get back to that. I have been back teaching for 3 days, it is really nice to be settled back at home and into the routine of teaching. I do miss travelling, but by the end, I just wanted to come back to the house and not have to worry about where we were staying or about how expensive the meals are.

The teaching has started excellently, I have all new classes now and it is great to meet my new students. However, I do miss some of my old classes, which Dave now has the pleasure of teaching.

There is a huge storm going on at the moment and the thunder is astonishingly loud, with lightning slicing up the nights sky with long streaks of blinding light. The rain is like nothing I have ever seen before. it makes normal rain seem like a light spray. The power keeps cutting out in our house, every time the lightning strikes close by.

I stood out in the rain and felt a sudden urge to be a part of it, so I put on my trainers and ran. I didn't run for long, just a few quick laps around the school. It was incredible, the huge raindrops crashing into my skin making it fell like running through a tennis training centre, with a hundred people aiming at me. The crashes of thunder sent shudders down my spine and made my heart race, so I ran faster, and continued until I was almost sprinting, my eyes sore from squinting and my chest tight. I stopped to take it all in, the BANG a huge fork of lightning crashed to the ground about 100 metres in front of me. There was so much to take in at once, it was overwhelming, the sound of thunder, the rain colliding with the metal roofing of the shelters around the school an even toads complaining about the weather. I stood there in awe of the world, at how everything can change so quickly. Not long before it had been swelteringly hot, to the point you wouldn't want to move, or couldn't due to being stuck to the chair by sweat. Mmmmm, lovely.

Now, the storm is moving away and my heartbeat has returned to its normal pace. Bring on the next 3 months.

I'm ready!

Koh Samui

After the craziness of the party island, we headed to Koh Samui to relax for a few days. Even though it is more commercialised than the other islands, it had a much nicer feel than Koh Phangan. We were all so tired, the first night was pretty uneventful, with an early night in a sweltering room.

The next day took was not so great, I woke up feeling great, but as soon as I went down for breakfast, I became dizzy and delirious, I couldn't talk properly, or even stand up straight. It was the beginning of a long and horrible day. I won't go into details, but I spent the rest of the day in bed, or curled around the toilet with the shower running over my head.

My migraine eased off at night and I managed to keep down some food, and then started to feel much better, but still I had an early night, hoping that the next day would be an improvement.

It was much better when I woke, we all went to the beach and relaxed in the sea. Jane and I rented a jet ski for half an hour and it was incredible! It was so powerful and the sea was a little choppy, so we were just bouncing across the waves, Jane was holding on so tight she had bruises. It was quite expensive, but was well worth it. One of the most exhilarating experiences of my life, it came close to bungy jumping. I would recommend it to anyone.

This was Boput Beach on Koh Samui

We returned to our accommodation and after about an hour, Tom seemed to have turned into quite a deep shade of red, which was entertaining for everyone else but him.

That night we met up with Charlie and his friends for a few drinks. It ended up being a nice night, nobody got particularly drunk and we just had a laugh. This was pretty much the end of our time on Koh Samui, so the next morning, we packed up and headed up to Bangkok to meet David's family.

Full Moon Party!

We stayed on Koh Phangan for only 3 nights, but two of them were two of the craziest nights of my life! The first night, there was the jungle party, which was a warm up party for the full moon party. It was a lovely venue, hidden away in the trees, with nice stages and a variety of music. I met up with Charlie an some of his mates from home; Sleeve, Alex and Raf. They were nice guys and we had a really good time. Me, Charlie and Vicky even managed to get into the VIP area, I am not quite sure how, but I think Vicky was pretending to be really upset that we were not allowed in, then the bouncer let us in.
It was an amazing party, and I took it a bit easier than I might have done otherwise, if it wasn't for the Full Moon Party the next day.

I woke up mid afternoon the next day and got some food, I was so tired and could not comprehend going out again. I had to man up and do it, how could I not go to one of the worlds biggest parties?

I went for a swim in the pool, and felt much better. The sea was not so pleasant, it was a bit to warm and felt a bit slimy. I think I would have preferred to swim in Morecambe bay than in that sea.

We started drinking at about 9pm, with a taxi booked at 12.30. We didn't want to drink to much beforehand as most of us were eager to make it till at least sunrise. We had forgotten to buy some UV paint, so we had to go round asking people for some. We ended up just borrowing a few different colours from the guy next door. I had seen a few people had bought full moon party vests, but I went one step further and made my own and cut the words into my vest.

Getting ready to party!

 After putting all of our paints on and drinking quite a bit, we hopped into the taxi and made our way to the beach, singing at the top of our voices all the way.

We got to the beach and it was phenomenal, 2km of beach, 30, 000 people and a lot of different bars, as well as many stands selling alcohol. I found Charlie and his friends and we went off, going to different bars, drinking and dancing all night long. There were a few times when we lost someone and spent a while looking for them. David was hilarious, I only saw him a couple of times, but when I did, he was totally off his head.

It was a lot of fun and a few of us made it till about 9 o'clock, sunrise was nice, as we were all still rather drunk, just sat on the sand looking out over the horizon. However, the sun revealed the damage that had been done to the beach, and the people occupying it, it looked as if a bomb had gone off in a flip flop factory. There were hundreds of flip flops, and that was just in the area we were in, and there were a fair few people passed out in the sand. There were a couple of us and we were a little bored, so we started by burying the unconscious, not deeply, just enough to keep them warm. And when they had all arisen, we played flip flop frisbee, which ended up into a flip flop fight, where we were just throwing flip flops a each other. There were quite a few people who joined in, so when you threw one, you would ge

t another in the back of the head. When we finished, we helped a bit by putting a load of singular flip flops in the large pile surrounding the bin.

And that was the end of it, we finished by getting a bus back to Charlie's accommodation and going for a nice swim to sober up, before returning to my accommodation to sleep off the hangover.