I’ve been dreading having to use that headline since I came travelling, but I’m afraid to say there’s not many better words to sum up being pick-pocketed whilst out on the lash. We got to Ko Phagnan on Friday early afternoon, and immediately found it a nightmare finding somewhere to stay. We knew it wouldn’t be easy, but figured as we’d arrived a few days before the full moon party we’d trump the majority of people. On reflection, I imagine we weren’t the only one’s to have that idea. Danny rode me around on the bike he’d rented out so we could try and find somewhere without lugging our backpacks around all day, and it took us over half an hour but I found somewhere in the end, actually really conveniently located just a couple of minutes from Haad Rin beach - or full moon beach.
That night a load of us went out for a meal and then down to the beach where everything is livliest, and got straight on the bucket concoctions that are in plentiful supply. Basically you get a small bottle of vodka/bacardi/sangsom/malibu etc and either a couple of cans of coke or fruit juice or red bull given to you in a plastic bucket with umpteen straws poking out. The alcohol is hard to detect and you get hammered pretty quickly. And hammered we most certainly were, my memory is very sketchy up until the point where I randomly checked my pockets, and realised I had a bulge one side and not the other. Shit. My wallet and my phone. Where are they? At this point I’d lost contact with my friends, I’ve no idea when or how we got seperated, but I instantly started searching around frantically trying to find them, but it was so dark and hopeless I decided the first thing I needed to do was cancel my cards (ironically, I usually have my cards in a money belt hidden under my clothes, along with my passport, but the guesthouse I’m staying at requested my passport to keep for the duration of my stay, so I didn’t see much use for it being fairly empty. What a mistake.)
I had absolutely no money and even the lady at my guesthouse wouldn’t let me borrow the phone for 2 minutes, even though I was staying there as a guest and promised to pay her back when I found my friends. I was drunk and very angry. At last I found a sweet and sympathetic girl from Sweden who let me borrow her mobile phone, and I called my parents who have all my details and numbers to call in these situations. They cancelled my cards for me. I went back to my room, got my mini torch and heading back down to the beach to search around. I knew it had been stolen rather than me leaving it somewhere, but I thought the culprit was likely to take the cash and throw the wallet away. The phone was as good as gone, which is a bastard, because it had all the numbers and email addresses I’d accumulated in the last 6 or 7 weeks. Luckily I backed up my phonebook before coming away so when I get back home I can load them from my PC, but until then I’ve got no idea what peoples numbers are, so if you know me please email me.
Anyway, the search light idea was to no avail, but it was slightly amusing seeing all the druggies paranoid as I walked past looking around with a torch. There’s supposedly plain clothes cops everywhere but it doesn’t seem to have had much effect on the amount of robbery going on. My friend Luke had his watch nicked when he nipped in the sea, and my other friend Berlinda’s camera went missing. The next morning I got a taxi to the police station 10km away, where I wrote a report and they basically just sign it so you can show it to your insurance company when making a claim. Judging from the other reports that were sitting on the desk for anyone’s perusal, I got off quite lightly. There was a stack of papers, all dated the 11th, from people who’d lost everything - money, passport, ipod, camera, the lot. I think I had the Baht equivalent of 25 pounds in my wallet at the time which isn’t so bad. It’s just the cards that are the problem, Nationwide have to send me a replacement to my home address, which takes a week, then my parents will have to forward that on to me in Thailand. But I only planned to be here for another week and a half so this will undoubtably mess up my plans. Hopefully there’s a way of getting packages from the UK to Thailand quickly, otherwise I may be forced to go straight through to Singapore, missing Malaysia out completely (I fly to Australia from Singapore on Mar 29.) We’ll see.
I feel better about it today, it won’t get me down for too long, and I won’t let it dampen my spirit. These things happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Other than that, I really like it here. The beach is great during the day, packed with hundreds of people all under 25 years old (don’t recall seeing anyone over 30 since I arrived..) and the female - male ratio is very reasonable indeed. I’ll write more about it later, I’m off now to watch the Bahrain Grand Prix at a British pub, and perhaps cheer myself up with a hearty pie and chips or something.
That’s real bad luck mate. at least you’re looking on the positive side. Deans recognised that you’d been to the full moon party from your photos. It must be legendary!