Scolopendra Gigantea Robusta

He traversed the Colombian Sierra Nevada mountain range to discover a Lost City, wearing nought but a broken pair of flip-flops. In Ecuador he courageously battled altitude sickness to climb to the refuge hut of the world’s highest active volcano. He defied gravity in northern Queensland, throwing himself off a fifty foot tower, with nothing but an elasticated rope to save him… and now, for his biggest adventure yet, in this episode of The Gap Yah Chronicles, Mark ‘Man vs. Wild’ Forrest comes face to face with a giant centipede in the jungle of northern Thailand, confronting the beast foot to claw in an epic adventure sure to thrill and amaze.

Before that however, I had my own demons to battle; the dreaded journey from Haad Yuan to Chiang Mai, complete with raging two-week hangover and sadness at the departure of our buddies. You’ll be relieved to discover that we made the journey in one piece, despite Forrest’s best efforts to lose me in the world’s worst-designed shopping mall in Bangkok. In a much-appreciated attempt to cheer me up, in the hiatus between the sleeper train to Bangkok and the night bus to Chiang Mai, Forrest valiantly agreed to a viewing of the latest (and last – sob!) Harry Potter film. Having failed in my mission to educate him in all things Potter during our travels (I admitted defeat after The Chamber of Secrets, unable to cope with his scornful criticism), Forrest’s favourite bit of the film was right at the beginning when there was a “trailer” for Thailand’s King and Queen, and everyone in the cinema stood up to pay their respects to the revered Royals. The film was a wonderful way to while away the time between transport, spending time with my good friends Harry, Ron and Hermione was the perfect antidote to the loss of the Robs.

The afternoon took a turn for the worse however when we tried to leave the shopping mall and head back to the train station. A brief altercation almost turned disastrous when Forrest strode off into the stalls selling Singha singlets leaving my stubby wotsit legs unable to keep up. After an hour of aimlessly wandering up and down escalators, weaving my way through the countless market stalls and feeling like a lost little girl fighting back tears, I conjured up all of my Hogwarts knowledge in an attempt to find Forrest and make it back to the train station on time for our bus. My summoning charm of ‘Accio Forrest!’ was fruitless, so I employed the courage of Gryffindor, the hard work of Hufflepuff, the wit of Ravenclaw and the cunning of Slytherin and made my way to the information booth to put out a tannoy announcement for my lost boyfriend. When I arrived there, I was kindly informed that I had failed to hear the three announcements already made by Forrest and that I should make my way to the third floor information desk where he was waiting to be reunited with his little Pothead (a hugely knowledgeable fan of all things Potter obvs.)

We arrived in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, after an interesting night bus journey, and consequently spent a couple of hours catching up on missed sleep. The afternoon was spent exploring the city, although if I’m honest it didn’t really live up to our expectations, with nothing really to capture our attention other than a delicious iced chocolate break. We ummed and ahhed over the various trekking and rafting options available to us, but we made the decision to carry on going further north and do our trips from there, in the hopes that we would find Pai more to our liking than the seemingly soulless Chiang Mai. I feel slightly bad that I am being so dismissive of Chiang Mai, as we have only been told amazing things about it, but the most exciting thing we did whilst there was to visit CrossFit Chiang Mai. A true garage-style CrossFit box, we were welcomed warmly by the expat community working out on the humid Sunday morning, and the WOD (Fran!) although it almost killed me was a rewarding experience for my partied-out body. For the next few days however I was in huge amounts of pain as my muscles reminded me that they had not been put to much use recently (lifting a vodka red bull doesn’t really count) and I began to dread my return to CrossFit Clitheroe as a useless lump of Gap Yah CrossFat.

Pai is a wonderfully kitsch sleepy hippy town, which despite being located in the mountains of northern Thailand, it has somehow managed to become a burgeoning haven for beautiful boutiques, delightful cafes, quirky bars and an eclectic mix of travellers. We spent an enchanting couple of days relaxing, the only downside being that I wanted to buy absolutely everything from every single shop, but our Gap Yah budget wouldn’t allow for this if we wanted to also experience the adventurous activities on offer. We also bumped in to Luis from Haad Yuan, and enjoyed evening cocktails with him and a lovely girl called Rhi on two occasions, a nice way to experience a different side to the peaceful daytime Pai. Before we got too absorbed in the tranquillity of the town and never moved on, we organised a two-day rafting trip followed by a one-day hill tribe trek, activities that we had delayed in Chiang Mai in order to do them in Pai. Ahh hindsight, what a wonderful thing you are… if only the woman in the tour shop in Chiang Mai had sold us the trips with a little more panache; if only, if only, if only…

Our two day rafting trip, down the rapids of Pai river, began on a beautiful sunny morning. Along with Forrest and I, our fellow rafters consisted of; a French couple and their beautiful adopted Vietnamese daughter, a 24-year-old Matthew, a lovely Canadian Natalia and our captain and his first mate, Chai and Neung. After a steady start testing the waters, we meandered our way down the river as Chai pointed out huge monitor lizards baking in the sun on the banks of the river. We pulled in to the side for a yummy lunch of chicken fried rice wrapped in banana leaves before setting off again, heading towards some more exciting rapids. A highlight of day one had to be jumping off the raft and letting the fast-flowing water of the river take us down stream as we lay on our backs admiring the stunning scenery. After a few more grade-4 rapids we arrived at our camp for the evening, delighted to see a small python curled up in a branch overhanging the water as we docked the raft.

A makeshift shower, popcorn and a lovely dinner later, the light had long since faded from the day and the Thai guides had already retired to their beds, we all sat around playing cards by candlelight. By this stage, we had been blessed with torrential rains – a promising sign that the river would be high and fast-flowing the following day, thus ensuring optimum rafting conditions. On the flipside of this, the pouring rain made the muddy trek to the hole-in-the-ground toilet an unpleasant prospect, and Forrest broke off from the card game (which had just taken a turn for the worse for him as we’d found out he’d “unknowingly” been cheating, hence why he was so far ahead points wise) to sneak off to the side of the little dining shack, about five metres away from us, for a pee. We heard a yelp come from Forrest’s direction, and I glanced over to see him hopping back towards us. “Great”, I thought, “his bloody flip flops have broken again”. My contempt (for Havaianas obviously, not Forrest) quickly turned to panic as I saw the stricken look on his face and spotted two streams of blood seeping from his foot. Our initial reaction, due to the rain, was that he had ripped a leech off, but he was insistent that he had been bitten by something, and by something with a very painful bite at that.

Natalia ran to wake Chai, as panic quickly spread across the camp; the unspoken terror that the two puncture marks that were oozing blood bore a very real resemblance to either the bite of a vampire, or that of a snake. I fought the urge to go off into the jungle alone, just in case there was a possibility that Edward Cullen was lurking there looking for his next victim, but it was clear that Forrest needed me where I was. Not that I was much use however, as I tried to calm him down as he screamed agonisingly into a damp towel. Chai tried to get him to describe the pain he was feeling, needing to know whether he could feel any sort of pain moving up his leg, but poor Forrest was in so much pain that he could only focus on the intense pain concentrated around the bite area and his foot. Not wanting to take any chances, Chai proceeded to draw out any poison, should there be any present, with a plastic suction needle device that only added to the agony Forrest was feeling. As Chai drew vial after vial of blood out of his foot, the rest of us waited around in a helpless stupor, each of us muttering reassurances. Neung had gone searching to see if he could see any sign of the nasty that had attacked Forrest, but there was no visible indication of anything still lurking about. Chai remained in a confused sense of hopefulness, telling us that the bites weren’t entirely synonymous with a snake bite; there would normally be four puncture marks and not two, a snake would have struck higher up his leg and Forrest would have definitely been able to feel the venom working its way up his leg, despite the tourniquets tied securely around his calf and thigh to stem the flow of blood. While Forrest was put under even more painful torture when one of the Thai guys pressed damp leaves onto the bite, a herbal anti-venom that sent fire flowing through Forrest’s foot, Chai looked up another possibility in his Thai-English dictionary: Scolopendra Gigantea Robusta, aka the giant centipede.

Chai’s discovery alleviated our worries that he’d been bitten by a venomous and lethal snake for about a minute and we all, including Forrest, began to relax. Then disaster struck once more and Forrest began being violently sick and succumbed to (luckily controllable) diarrhoea. Chai’s calm evaporated and gave the command that we were to move right away, as this was a sure sign that the poison was working its way through his body and that we were running out of time. Forrest had to get to a hospital immediately, too much time had already been wasted; he had five hours to receive the anti-venom if he was going to live and it had already been an hour and a half since the snake had bitten him. Confusion settled over the camp. Did Chai mean that a helicopter was going to be flown in to get him to safety? I naively asked how far away the nearest road was, and the answer of six or more hours was not to my liking. The only way out was down the river. Rafting the rapids during the day had been a fun and exciting adventure, but the prospect of tackling them at night was ridiculously daunting and the French couple understandably said that it was too dangerous for them to put their young daughter at risk. Chai explained that he needed four people to paddle while he steered the raft, evidently a shivering and delirious Forrest was going to be no help whatsoever, so all eyes turned to Matthew as the extra crew member. What a wimp he turned out to be, as he blunderingly made up excuse after excuse as to why he was not suitable for the role. The day was royally saved by Natalia who bravely, and without any encouragement or persuading, stepped up, leaving Matthew looking like a pathetic wimpering fool.

With Forrest safely positioned in the middle of the raft, Natalia and I took our positions at the back, safe in the knowledge that Chai was behind us and would grab us if we were in any danger of falling out while going down the rapids. Neung and Japu, who rather disconcertingly couldn’t actually swim, took up their positions at the front of the raft, and we set off in to the unknown, as Matthew stood on the bank of the river silent and embarrassed at his cowardice. Natalia and I only had to paddle when Chai instructed us to, which was only when we hit white water in order that we kept absolute control of the raft, but Neung, Japu and Chai didn't stop the entire time we were on the water. Going down the rapids in the pitch black was indescribably terrifying, but I always had absolute faith that Chai and the other Thai guys were in control (Chai later informed us that he was utterly terrified and thought that we were all going to die in the water). My concerns were for Natalia, who was taking a huge risk to help a brother in need, and obviously for Forrest, who was alternating between throwing up over the side of the raft, shivering and shaking and trying not to fall asleep. I tried to keep the spirit level of the raft up, chatting mindlessly with Natalia and prodding Forrest back into consciousness every time his head lolled, but as the hours dragged on and the rains persisted in making the journey even more difficult, the raft became a pretty sombre place to be.

My repetitive Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary’s paid off, and after three and a half hours on the water the horizon got lighter and Chai pointed out where we were headed. Once we were back on dry land, everything went very quickly; we were lucky enough to dock at the Park Ranger’s station, who swiftly summoned a vehicle to take us to hospital, which was an actual hospital with a glowing ER sign over the door… I have never been so happy and relieved in my whole life. We had made it to hospital safely, albeit very wet, Forrest was still alive and I was going to be able to live out my dream of pretending I was an extra in Grey’s Anatomy! I resisted the urge to run in screaming for McDreamy, for now that we were in the proximity of safety everyone seemed to be much calmer and composed, and Forrest didn’t seem to be struggling with the pain in his foot quite as much anymore as he hobbled into the emergency room to see a doctor. Of course there was still the niggling suspicion that he had been bitten by a snake and was about to keel over any second as the venom paralysed his body, a suspicion worryingly echoed by the young doctor on duty (neither McDreamy or McSteamy, more like McToothy) who was convinced it was indeed a snake bite. While a nurse took blood to send to the lab for testing, Natalia, the Thai guys and I waited patiently as Forrest overcame his fear of needles! As Forrest explained to the doctor what had happened, and how intense the pain in his foot had been, the doctor swiftly changed his mind about what had bitten him; apparently although a snake bite would hurt, the venom it secretes is powerful enough on its own that it doesn’t need to be so painful to the victim, and unless Forrest was just a wimp, the doctor was now convinced that it was a giant centipede that had attacked Forrest’s foot – a venomous bite but not powerful enough to cause death, just to cause immense and uncontrollable pain. When the blood work came back negative for snake venom, the relief we all felt was immeasurable. The only anomaly in the result was that an ordinary person’s white blood cell count should be below 10,000 and Forrest’s was soaring at 24,000 – an indication that his body was fighting some serious attack. The doctor prescribed strong painkillers, muscle relaxants, sleeping tablets and a course of antibiotics and sent us on our merry way.

By this stage it was after 3am, and the adrenalin that had fuelled us for the past few hours was wearing thin and exhaustion well and truly set in. We all got a lift to a nearby guesthouse where we would sleep off the remaining hours of the night, and then would be picked up and taken back to Pai in the morning. Our sleep was delayed slightly as we were overcome by paranoia and triple-checked the room for creepy crawlies after spending a good thirty minutes trying to capture a huge spider lurking near the bed; we didn’t plan on taking any chances with nature just yet. The painkillers and sleeping tablets worked instantaneously on Forrest who was lulled into a deep sleep, but my nightmare wasn’t yet over as I spent the night obsessively checking that Forrest was still alive, whether he had a fever and examining his foot for signs that it was going to fall off. I eventually fell asleep around 7:00am, just as Chai knocked on our door to inform us that our car was almost here to take us back to Pai.

The ordeal was over. Forrest was absolutely fine, just ridiculously exhausted as we all were, and the whole horrific incident could now be put behind us and filed in an exciting Gap Yah adventure. We will remain eternally grateful to Chai, Neung and Japu who faced adversity head on with courage and good humour, and especially to Natalia – the bravest, most wonderful girl who didn’t think twice about putting her own life at risk in order to help Forrest. We are forever in your debt.

We obviously didn’t go on our planned trek the following day, it being slightly too soon to venture back in to the wilderness after the trauma of the previous 24 hours, so we spent our time wisely; convalescing and applying for publishing jobs (carpe diem and all that!) before setting off on the next leg of our journey. We were finally leaving Thailand, and despite a pretty shaky ending we had had an absolutely fantastic time in this country of wonders, and taking the slow boat down the Mekong into Laos. Before the “incident” we had been debating whether to take the slow boat (2 days) or the speedboat (1 day) to Luang Prabang, but after reading the guidebook which advised against the speedboat as “crashes occur with an alarming frequency – make sure you are supplied with helmets and life jackets” we decided that this sounded FAR too risky and went for the safer and slower option. I was even considering asking for helmets and life jackets for the slow boat just to be on the safe side. The journey down the Mekong was an interesting experience, the sweaty and stuffy boat made bearable by the absolutely stunning scenery as we glided slowly down the river and Anthony Kiedis’ amazing autobiography ‘Scar Tissue’.

Our first stop in Laos was Luang Prabang, a beautiful World Heritage town nestled in a slim valley framed by lofty green mountains and cut by the swift Mekong and Khan rivers. Cobblestoned lanes dotted with ancient red-roofed temples, French-Indochinese architecture, ochre colonial houses and swaying palm trees evoking the feeling of tranquillity and grandeur. Luang Prabang was the perfect introduction to Laos, exuding traditional ethnicity and culture. And then we noticed the French. They were everywhere. Like I have said; every silver lining has a cloud. Our first night in Laos was spent sampling the finest Laotian cuisine (pizza and pina coladas) before heading to Luang Prabang’s most hip and happening night spot – the bowling alley. In an attempt to stop the beautiful Luang Prabang becoming a renowned night spot for drunken Gap Yah louts (like its neighbour Vang Vieng – more on that later) the bars and restaurants close down at 11pm and everyone heads to a nearby bowling alley for some good, clean, old-fashioned fun. I imagined that the bowling aley itself would serve as a makeshift nightclub with neon lighting and disco lights, using bowling as a rouse for the seedy underworld of Luang Prabang. I couldn’t have been more wrong as we entered a brightly-lit village hall filled with locals and backpackers alike, who much to my dismay all seemed to be taking the bowling extremely seriously indeed. We played a couple of games with some girls we had met earlier, with Forrest employing his usual bowling hop, skip, shuffle manoeuvre to come out the clear victor while I employed the close eyes and launch technique that saw me trailing at the bottom of the table as per. I can’t even blame the alcohol for my uselessness, I guess it is white-water rafting and not bowling where my sporting forte lies.

After the exertion of our first night in Luang Prabang we spent the rest of our time there chilling, enjoying trips to the beautiful waterfalls and temples, buying presents from the extensive colourful night markets, drinking with four nice Australians that we had met on the slow boat and sampling some delicious cuisine. The highlight of this being the meal we had in the night food market; a crooked little alley overflowing with food stalls selling barbequed fish, chicken and the famous Luang Prabang sausage (good enough to rival Cowman’s finest), all accompanied by an endless buffet selection of rice, noodles and vegetables, all eaten at one of the tiny tables crammed in to any available space.

Part of our reasoning for taking things easy in Luang Prabang was that it was difficult to do anything but in such a lovely little place, but also due to the fact that the next place on our itinerary was notorious party town Vang Vieng. We’d been warned about the dubious state of the road winding through the mountains to Vang Vieng and decided against a night bus, the giant centipede having set my previously non-existent health and safety radar well and truly in motion, so set off early in the morning instead. In hindsight, a very wise decision as our journey time was tripled due to a landslide on the road. We heard horror stories about trucks being stuck for four days, as the Laotian army attempted to clear the debris from the road, but luck was on our side and we were ushered gently through after a mere five hours. As we drove past the landslide and the havoc it had wreaked, we were once again reminded at Mother Earth’s power and her ability to not only create the breath-taking scenery around us but her ability to take it away as well. After a very long, hot and exhausting day we finally arrived in Vang Vieng to be greeted with an interesting manual in our hotel room detailing the dangers of opium – a product widely available in Vang Vieng – and listing horror stories of the deaths that had occurred due to its consumption and because of tubing too. Uh oh, health and safety radar now spinning uncontrollably.

Unlike Luang Prabang, which radiated culture, I instantly got a bad feeling from Vang Vieng, which radiated Gap Yah. You may be surprised to hear that culture and Gap Yah aren’t always synonymous; as my now trusty hotel manual wisely pointed out “along the main road you will find many internet cafes and restaurants, playing Friends on a constant loop, selling western food and home comforts. Interestingly these are often the busiest places in town, a fascinating depiction of the modern-day traveller”. Slightly patronising I’ll grant you, but from the get-go to me, Vang Vieng stunk of Full Moon Party and I wasn’t entirely convinced that I was going to like it here. Having quickly realised that Vang Vieng wasn’t the epicentre of Lao culture, we decided to appreciate it for what it did have to offer, namely tubing down the river in large tractor inner-tubes whilst consuming vast quantities of cheap liquor. HEALTH AND SAFETY ALERT! I had pre-warned Forrest that we would not be taking our chances on the rope swings nor the ‘slide of death’, and it was with great trepidation that I set out that day, unwilling to take any unnecessary risks or indeed have any fun. We were fortunate enough to meet up with two lovely couples, one Italian (who had been with us for the landslide journey) and one Spanish, who were slightly older, more cultured and mature than the average Vang Vieng wanker, and consequently the day wasn’t a complete disaster. We had been under the illusion that the day was going to be spent gently going down the river, stopping off every now and again for a drink, a bite to eat and to admire the stunning mountain scenery, however in reality we were only in the water for about a minute in total, and that was spent worrying about not catching the ropes thrown out to us by the bars. The actual tubing itself was massively overhyped, with more time spent out of the water being deafened by god-awful music (one bar even managed to murder Katy Perry, something I didn’t think possible) in the little riverside bars, desperately ignoring our fellow tubers as they mud-wrestled drunk on cheap whisky, whilst the six of us attempted to have an intelligent conversation about life aspirations and travelling in three different languages. I’m aware that I sound like a snob and maybe if I had been younger/drunker/stupider then we would have found it more enjoyable, but the experience was not something that I wished to repeat despite having a pleasant day overall (definitely due to the company we were in than the tubing).

At the risk of sounding like we have become prematurely old and boring, I would like to explain that we did have a fun time in Vang Vieng, spending that evening in a chilled little bar over the river with our new friends, it’s just that I’m not sure we fully treasured the tubing experience the way the majority of our fellow Gap Yahers seem to. The number of ‘tubing in the Vang Vieng’ vest topsworn with pride all over South East Asia is testimony to that fact, and I’m sure with enough whisky even I could have been found going down the death slide on my head. Even less fun than the tubing however was our last night in Vang Vieng, when despite all my efforts to stray from anything remotely dangerous or risky for our last few weeks away, I seemed to be suffering from the early symptoms of Dengue Fever and spent the night convinced I was dying and our Gap Yah adventure was coming to an abrupt end. I recovered from this bone-breaking illness in time for our bus to Vientiane, where we spent one pleasant evening eating buffalo hide and riverweed chilli dip while we were serenaded by a talented and beautiful Lao duet, singing such Laotian classics as Rod Stewart and Ronan Keating.

Our time in Laos had been short and sweet, and although we had had a pleasant six days there and experienced new and exciting aspects to our travels, I couldn’t help but think that we had barely touched on the surface of the real Laos. I felt that we had been lucky enough to experience some of the beauty of the country, with the slow boat down the Mekong being a particular highlight, but there just seemed that Laos had so much more to offer that we were unable to experience due to time restrictions. One cannot grasp the true depth of this poverty-stricken, old-fashioned country whilst watching Friends in an internet café, and with more time I would love to explore more of the country, visiting the much-less visited south where people still lead traditional rural lifestyles not much changed over the centuries. But alas, our Gap Yah adventure was swiftly coming to an end and with only one country left on the agenda it was time to head to Vietnam for one final South East Asian fling…

Forrest's Final Thought...

Jungle Survival Techniques

As I have once again defeated nature and its repeated attempts to bring me down, I thought I’d share with you my Bear Grylls-esque tips for surviving the treacherous tropical jungles of South East Asia.

1. Pay attention to previous finals thoughts.

Footwear, footwear, footwear!! As many of you GYC faithful will already know, this is not the first time my choice of footwear has let me down on this trip. After the fiasco of the Lost City trek in Colombia, after which my final thought consisted of mocking and deriding my ridiculous choice of footwear, what on earth possessed me to venture deep into the jungle with nothing but a pair of Haviannas I’m not sure. All I can say is this, the next time I step into the jungle, I, as should you, am going to wear hiking shoes reinforced with tungsten carbide, possibly the strongest material known to man.

2. Take a torch; a torch that works.

The head torches that Bea and I have been carrying with us for 7 months are quite simply pathetic for a whole host of reasons. The main ones beings that they don’t provide enough light to read a piece of a paper 5 inches in front of your face (trust me, I tried this and failed miserably), and that they are filled with 7 month-old batteries that wouldn’t have enough power to light up a fire-fly . Having said that, I was actually using Natalia’s mag lite when I got bitten, which, in keeping with the “take a torch; a torch that works” theme had the useful attribute of randomly turning itself off for about three or four seconds every so often. Henceforth, when in the remote, dark dark jungle “take a torch; a torch that works”.

3. Use the toilets provided.

It’s the age old one; if you have rubbish, use the bins provided, if you need to throw up, use the sick bag provided… if you really need to go, use the toilets provided! Now, I’m not trying to make out that the toilet in the middle of jungle was Kimberley Clark’s finest, however in hindsight I do think that it makes much more sense to “go” in a glorified hole in ground than the dense undergrowth of the jungle. Don’t quote me on this one but I’m willing to bet that Giant Centipedes aren’t the biggest fans of getting urinated on.

4. If you do get bitten, try to:

a, stay calm

b, see what if what was that bit you (this is essential if anti-venom is needed)

c, not be in middle of the jungle, with the only escape route being life threatening river rapids

Hmmm, well, let’s see how I did there, ah yes, yes, I did absolutely none of those things.

5. Be surrounded by heroes, just for one day.

Joking aside, I honestly can’t put into words the gratitude I feel for people who helped me that night. If it was a snake bite, as initially expected, I would owe my life to the courageous Chai, the noble Neung, the jitter-free Japu, the notable Natalia, and of course, the beautiful and brave Beatrice.

How To Be A Woman (Laad Yuan)

How To Be A Woman

(On a LADS Holiday In Laad Yuan, Koh Phangan)

1913: Suffragette throws herself under the King’s Horse.

1970: Feminists storm Miss World.

2011: Caitlin Moran rewrites The Female Eunuch from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller.

There’s never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven’t been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain…

While my idol Caitlin Moran addresses the most pressing questions of our time in her book How To Be A Woman (“Why are we supposed to get Brazillians? Should you ever get Botox? Do men secretly hate us? What should you call your vagina? Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you’re going to have a baby?”), I have had my own issues (plus all of the above!) to contend with. “Part memoir, part rant”, my take on Moran’s book addresses the eternal dilemma of ‘how to be a woman’ whilst on a LADS holiday in Koh Phangan, Thailand.

NB: Please note that throughout this blog post there will be certain words capitalised. Whilst any males reading this will assume that these words have been capitalised to indicate their greatness, the females of the species will realise that their emphasis has less to do with greatness and more to do with absolute ridicule that they are used as badges of pride by LADS.

Chapter One: Avoid Bangkok & Haad Rin (particularly on Full Moon)

While Forrest and I were having a ridiculously chilled out time at Lazy Beach, Cambodia, three English LADS began their cultural and spiritual journey in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok. Rob Watson, Rick Heys and Stuart Burrell (the latter having previously spent a week in Bangkok on a different holiday) spent four LAIRY days in Bangkok, and when later questioned about what had taken place, their answer was an unequivocal “what happens in Bangkok, stays in Bangkok”. I dread to think what escapades they got up to, but have a feeling that it would make The Hangover 2 look like chicken feed. I am eternally grateful that their arrival overlapped with the end of Edwina and Rick’s holiday, as being a woman on a LADS holiday in Bangkok would surely have meant the end of my Gap Yah adventure, returning back to the UK as a broken shell of a woman, traumatised by the events that had unfolded.

Whilst the LADS lived it up in Bangkok (I ask you not to dwell on the goings-on here for your own sanity), Forrest and I began our journey back to Thailand – a flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok, a night train to Surat Thani and eventually a boat across to Koh Phangan. By this stage, the LADS had arrived on Koh Phangan and had already spent a night discovering the culture the island had to offer, namely buckets of booze and lots of young English and Thai girls looking for a good time. We arrived on the island on the day of Full Moon after an arduous crammed boat ride full of mainly English LOUTS heading across for drunken revelry on Haad Rin beach. I was already finding being a woman tough as I desperately tried to ignore the LADS, and much to my dismay LADETTES, buying beers on the boat and embarrassing our fair nation.

Having not booked any accommodation in advance, and after being informed on arrival that there was no room at the inn anywhere on the island, we were hoping to meet up with the LADS and crash on their floor. Obviously this was a less than ideal outcome, but even sharing a room with smelly LADS was preferable to taking my chances on the beach after a Full Moon Party. We located their hotel, the aptly named Full Moon Hill Resort, and were delighted to see that Rob West had somehow managed to arrive in one piece and was chilling by the pool reading. Westy had wisely chosen to opt out of the Bangkok leg of the holiday (he claims this was more to do with money, but I have a feeling that he would have been unable to keep up with the LADCAPADES) and so had arrived on his own the previous evening to find the rest of the LADS out on the town. For a small fee we persuaded the hotel to let us squeeze into the LADS’ two rooms for the next two nights, and also managed to successfully rouse Watson (although Stu and Rick weren’t to surface for another few hours at least). In one final attempt to retain the last threads of femininity and womanhood that I was sure were going to be stripped from me over the course of the two weeks, I left the LADS drinking beers by the pool and went into town for bikini waxing and a mani-pedi.

That evening was Full Moon, an experience I had been looking forward to with equal measures of dread and curiosity. The night was off to a pleasant start, as we met up with Teddy for drinks in The Treehouse – possibly the only bar in Haad Rin not packed to the rafters with idiots in glow paint. I introduced the LADS to the delights of the Pina Colada as we caught up on happenings since we’d been away and prophesised on what was to come over the course of the next couple of weeks. All the while the sun was setting behind the curve of the bay, and any worries I had been harbouring about being a lone female on a LADS holiday faded away along with the daylight. The peaceful serenity of The Treehouse was not to last too long however, as we made our way down to Haad Rin beach to experience the Full Moon Party.

Now whether we had simply caught the Party at the wrong time of year (after all it was situated right after English schools had broken up and exams were over) or whether each month, regardless of its position in the year the same monstrosity occurs, but from the get go I hated everything imaginable about the Full Moon Party. I had been unwilling to dress up in the Full Moon “uniform” of neon bikini, neon miniskirt and day-glo penis’ scrawled over my naked body, meaning that I felt ridiculously old and overdressed in my backless, black dress proclaiming in sequins “LIFE IS FANTASTIC”, when in reality in that particular moment in time, surrounded by girls drinking buckets of lethal booze and rolling about in the sand, this couldn’t have been further from the truth. As far as I could tell, there were no women on Haad Rin beach that night, only drunken teenage girls making spectacles of themselves. Actually, forgive me for I have forgotten about the Japanese families that made their way through the throngs of bodies, taking pictures of the scenes of horror unfolding before their eyes – ones to show the grandkids I’m sure. We really did try to have a good time, but the situation got even more precarious when we were unable to find anywhere remotely decent to sit and have a drink; somewhere that conversation wasn’t impossible due to techno-trance being blared out at unspeakably loud volumes. I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to put up with my own six English LADS for the foreseeable future but in no way was I willing to be surrounded by the rest of England at its LAIRIEST, most OBNOXIOUS worst. After about an hour and a half of this torture, Forrest, Watson, Westy and I jumped ship and headed off on a longtail to the next beach around the island – our home for the next two weeks, Haad Yuan. I cannot describe how indescribably happy I was as the boat sped away leaving behind the blaring trance, glaring lights and neon paint covered beach behind, and how this amplified ten-fold when we arrived on the beautiful little haven that is Haad Yuan. I was immediately happy here, and couldn’t wait to get back to Haad Rin, pack up our bags and get the hell outta dodge.

On a similar vein, once stationed in Haad Yuan, having the time of your life, forego all further expeditions to Haad Rin that aren’t entirely necessary (ATM runs, hospital visits, shopping). On Rick and Stu’s last night on Koh Phangan the LADS all went back to Haad Rin for a LADS night out, but I wisely chose to decline their generous offer of my inclusion, forsaking pool parties and buckets for an evening with Harry Potter and some peanut M&Ms in bed! Now we were in heaven on Haad Yuan, being a woman thus far was going swimmingly and I wasn’t willing to risk this, especially not with LADS on the prowl. Upon hearing the stories of the night the next day, I was particularly pleased at my decision as I don’t think I would have much enjoyed the drunken attempt to steal a longtail, infuriating the locals and possibly destroying what sanity I had managed to hold on to thus far.

Case in point

Chapter Two: Eat worms.

While in the past late mornings/early afternoons would often mean a vicious battle of trying to get Forrest out of bed due to his nocturnal activities and day time sleeping, during our Gap Yah Forrest and I have managed to come up with a routine that suits us. I quickly realised that I am not at all bothered if Forrest wants to sleep the day away, as long as there is a beach and a book for me, and here I could happily while a way the entire day waiting for him to surface, sans argument over what a waste the day had been. And in all fairness, Forrest had become much more inclined to getting up while there was still daylight since we had been away, however I could foresee this new-found ‘morning-person’ persona fading rapidly into the background with the introduction of LADISH late nights.

Being the only girl on a LADS holiday was sure to have its trials and tribulations, however I didn’t intend for my routine to be affected by their laziness. It became clear from Day One at Full Moon Hill Resort that in order to secure a good place in one of the two double beds, that were now allocated to sleep six people rather than four thanks to our arrival, I would have to sneak off to bed before the LADS, thus ensuring a good night’s sleep in a bed rather than on the cold, hard floor. A perfect plan executed wonderfully, as both nights in Haad Rin were spent snoringly.

I don’t want to give the impression that I was constantly a wet blanket and skulking off to bed early, unable to handle the LADS impressive ability to stay up into the early hours of the morning – there were the nights/mornings that I outlasted most of them, but that wasn't due to the ridiculous LADDISH BRAVADO that encouraged each other to stay up later than their bodies could handle, it was simply because I was having a lovely time. Being a woman means understanding the importance of sleep, both physically and mentally, something that the LADS couldn’t quite grasp. It also meant that I was able to get up early, catch some rays, spend some quality time reminding myself how to be a woman and still have the energy to look after the LADS as they struggled through their tired, traumatised daily comedowns. One particular night when this strategy worked to my advantage was at the first Guy's Bar; I had had a wonderful evening, but as the sun rose my willingness to pretend that I was enjoying the music even remotely faded and I sneaked off in a longtail back to Haad Yuan. I watched the beautiful sunrise over the beach, then slept for a respectable amount of time as is to be expected of a normal person's routine. Having had my recommended 5 hours, I emerged from the bungalow feeling chipper and bright-eyed and ready to rejoin the LADS who were looking slightly worse for wear up at Eden Garden. Needless to say I was the life and soul of a very soul-less party upon my return (although Forrest chose this moment to retire to the bungalow for some unknown reason?), and my sleeping strategy paid off as I even managed to earn a compliment (however backhanded) from Watson!

Why would you stay in bed?

Chapter Three: Wendybird.

Much to my disgust, being the only girl on a LADS holiday meant that somehow I found myself allocated to the role of “Mother” to the LADS. Much as Wendy Darling becomes “mother” to the Lost Boys in J.M. Barrie's classic Peter Pan, my caring, maternal, sensitive nature was rapidly taken advantage of as I became the sounding board for the LADS woes throughout the holiday. If I heard the phrase “don’t you look after them all well” one more time, I thought I might scream. The irony was, as the only girl, surely they should have been looking after me - especially as my father had rather misguidedly placed his trust in this task to Watson?! This is a role that I would normally shun at home, with the addition of even just one extra female to distract my attention from the LADS, I couldn’t care less about what trouble they get themselves in to. However, on Haad Yuan, aware that there were couples honeymooning, families with buckets and spades and normal people going about their daily lives, I found that these reckless and irresponsible LADS needed a firm hand occasionally in order to keep them out of the Bangkok Hilton.

My “mothering” was for the most part listened and adhered to, and often gratefully appreciated. Watson became reliant of my silent company as we chilled in Big Blue – him sleeping away the previous night’s excess, and me keeping a watchful eye over him, batting away the pesky flies as I contentedly read Marian Keyes until the LADS regained their composure enough to be sane company once more. I never actively sought out this role, but by the end of the holiday even Forrest and Westy were coming to me, for some much-needed female companionship, desperate to escape from the requirements of being a LAD (loud, obnoxious, rude, ignorant, lairy to name but a few) for some gentle nurturing and womanly life-lessons. Well, let me rephrase that slightly; when I say Westy came to me, I mean he threw himself across wherever I was sitting regardless of whether I was mid-conversation or with a drink in hand, craving my unrelenting female compassion.

My patience as “Mother” was tested daily, but I managed to persevere with as much tolerance and imperturbability as I could possibly muster, without losing my grasp on sanity and womanhood. One particular day however, when the night before had turned in to morning after, and we had moved from Eden down on to the beach (probably not the wisest decision), my patience was put to the ultimate test. Forrest had given up and gone to bed hours earlier, unable to keep up with the LADDISH behaviour required of him, but I persevered not wanting to sleep through the beautiful sunshine. The LADS believed that they were on what they would refer to as excellent form, a true example of shining LADHOOD, and perhaps they were. Except that I would call it idiotic and immature. The straw that broke the camel’s back however, was when Westy, Chris and Watson climbed up huge boulder of a rock at the end of the beach, with giant crucifix’s and staffs and proceeded to sing football chats. Unable to endure the embarrassment, combined with a worry there was going to be a very serious accident (of course it involved Rob “The Liabiity” West falling in to a bed of rusty nails) I took myself off to the sanctuary of our bungalow where sleep evaded all elements of Motherhood, and I was able to escape the nightmare unfolding on the beach. Poor Esther valiantly stepped up and accepted the role, and looked after the LADS to the best of her ability. Despite ferrying them buckets of gin and tonic, or perhaps because of this, she was unable to stop them from eating sand.

Wendy Darling & her Lost Boys

Chapter Four: The Killer and the Mole

Being a woman on a LADS holiday had another certain advantage. I was able to use my feminine wiles to play the innocent during long, argumentative games of accusations and distrust. Introduced to us by Stu, The Killer and The Mole is a basically a more complex game of Wink Murder. Two people are selected at random using cards and designated the Killer, Mole or Innocent. The aim of the game is for the Killer and the Mole to work together to successfully kill off the Innocents (by encouraging a majority vote), whilst the Mole distracts attention from the Killer, and the Innocents (who have to constantly proclaim their innocence) try to guess the Killer. Does that make any sense at all?

My first tactic as the only girl in the group was to play the role of ‘dumb blonde’ and pretend that I didn’t understand the game. Of course, I got it straight away but let the boys think that I didn’t. When they finally cottoned on to the fact that I was doing rather well, my strategy changed and I became the ‘quiet girl in the corner’. The strategy was simple; sit back and let the boys destroy each other, regardless of whether I was Killer, Mole or Innocent.

We played game after game, and each round got noisier and noisier as accusations were thrown around at random. Although playing this game was one of the highlights of the holiday, I couldn’t quite let go of my need to control the LADS in order that other people may also enjoy their holiday. I had to constantly shush the shouting for it wasn’t particularly synonymous with the calm and pleasant atmosphere that the Treehouse usually permeated.

Forrest points the finger at Stu

Chapter Five: Sport

Obviously an omnipresent disadvantage of being the only girl in LAAD YUAN was the relentless talking about sport (and the Simpsons, but that’s a different story). I have become quite accustomed to this however, so am able to ignore it at will. Similarly if there is sport on the television, I have an uncanny ability to pretend I’m rewatching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in my head.

One thing I wasn’t able to ignore quite so easily however was when the LADS attempted to play any form of sport on the beach in front of me. Usually a tactic to impress girls (a tactic tried but miserably failed) the LADS proved themselves to be completely and utterly useless at volleyball, football, frisbee, bat & ball and even swimming. It was a great source of entertainment for me, and I would imagine every other girl on the beach.

Chapter Six: Form a Sorority

Despite having an amazing time thus far, I desperately craved the companionship of another female. I lost count of the times when I wished that Jenny was with us, she would have been in heaven on Haad Yuan, and I would have been able to ignore the LADS and concentrate solely on having fun. Being surrounded by males, albeit funny, nice and cool males (not you Watson) put serious dents in my femininity. Not that I wanted to talk about lipgloss and periods, but just one girl would have been nice. It took a few days, but eventually we had formed a nice little coven consisting of the brilliantly disdainful Esther, magnificent Maayan, the lovely lovely Israelis, the gorgeous Rona, Teddy’s Australians and Crazy Apple from Stone Bar to name but a few (inevitably though there were the Mean Girls disgracing the solidarity of sisterhood...bitches, you know who you are). Of course, the LADS were always there, wanting to be involved in the clearly more fun and entertaining GANTER (not a word I write willingly) going on.

The girls were great and a much needed relief for me in particular, but it really is the LADS that definitely deserve a mention; if only for the wonderful way in which they accepted me as a honorary LAD; Watson, Westy, Rick, Stu, Teddy, Chris, Ash, Luis, Jason, Sebastian, Uri, Scottish LADS (now they really were the epitome of LADS), Sandor and Crazy Tony from Stone Bar... you were all acceptably LAIRY.

Happy to be in the company of other girls!

Chapter Seven: Music

Everyone knows that I’m not the hugest fan of dance music, much preferring the more girly pop a la Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and the Spice Girls. I struggled through the nights at Eden and Guy’s Bar, chair-dancing my way through till morning, while the LADS bopped away to the mindless beeping and droning on the dance floor. I managed to enjoy one short-lived dance on one of the nights to Depeche Mode "All I ever wanted, all I ever needed....", but then realised I was missing my girls and sat back down. On the subject of Guy’s Bar – could there be a bar named anything more appropriate for a LADS holiday, and less applicable name for a young girl struggling to fit in to this LAIRY OBNOXIOUS world?

While we were away I was devastated to hear that one of the Great Talents of our time, Amy Winehouse had died; a great blow to music and womanhood. But her death did prove to have one shining advantage; it allowed Eden Garden to play a wonderful array of Back To Black songs as a tribute to her, combined with the songs of another tragic loss, Aliyah. I relished the opportunity to have a dance to some actual music, a great night to be a woman in LAAD YUAN.

They tried to make us go to rehab...

Chapter Eight: Comfort Eat

When suffering from a bout of far too much LAD, seek solace in food. Not great advice I’ll admit, however the tuna melt, mash potato with cheese and beans and cordon bleu all provide the perfect antidote. The comfort found in food isn’t limited to Western food however, although it does tend to go down a little easier after a big night, for there was many a time when I controlled my hormones following a big batch of LADNESS with pineapple rice, pad thai and the ultimate chicken and pumpkin massaman curry at Bamboo Hut.

Westy however managed to survive off one plain omelette a day. Needless to say, he managed to leave Thailand without a tan, without sampling any of the renowned Thai cuisine but with A LOT of scars.

Chapter Nine: Scar Tissue

The closing line in Alex Garland’s The Beach, after their Nivarna has come to an awfully abrupt and horrific end is this: “I carry a lot of scars. I like how that sounds. I carry A LOT of scars”.

My advice to any woman crazy enough to go on a LADS holiday is to ensure that you take a well-stocked first aid kit. Lethal rocks and wobbly wooden walkways over said lethal rocks do not mix well with drunken LAIRY LOUTS and I had to get out the iodine on an hourly basis. I always knew that my in depth knowledge of Grey's Anatomy and ER would come in handy! Forrest managed to put his leg through one of the walkways, and cut his foot open. Watson became convinced a spider had laid eggs in his foot, and cut his foot open. Even I wasn’t impermeable to Haad Yuan’s lethal terrain, not that anyone took notice when I almost sliced my big toe off. Westy was of course in a league completely of his own though; I have already mentioned falling in to a bed of nails, but by the end of the holiday he was covered pretty much head to toe with cuts, scrapes, gashes, burns and bruises that had quickly become infected despite my best medical care. Any spare inch of skin that wasn’t bleeding was home to a mosquito bite. I made him promise to have Dr. Vicky West give him a medical when he returned to the UK (if he managed to make it that far that is). It wasn’t exactly a comfort to know that we were in the company of two medical students either; confirmed on the night that Ash came out from behind the bar at Peace & Love wearing an old war helmet and ski goggles, looking like a Vietnam Vet on acid, pretending to rev a chainsaw screaming “I’m Doctor Ash. Let’s get started!”.

My scars will take longer to heal than most.

Performing emergency foot surgery!

Chapter Ten: Get trashed

If all of my feminine wisdom and advice fails, and you are unable to cope with the extreme pressure of How to Be a Woman on a LADS holiday in LAAD YUAN, then I am able to part with one more piece of advice. A piece of entirely hypothetical advice.

If everything you have tried to do in order to maintain your womanhood during the torturous two weeks then you may wish to divulge in the many mind and mood altering substances widely available on Haad Yuan. I found the frozen margarita buckets to be a wonderful source of pure-inebriated bliss despite the LADS antics around me, but those with a weaker tolerance may wish for something stronger. I recommend that you visit Stone Bar and ask for the Happy Menu.

Stone Bar...the best bar in the world!

Chris' Contribution...

I don't believe that this wonderful concoction needs any introduction, other than it was created, written, directed, performed and produced by Classic FMs drivetime presenter's medical student son. An excellent portrayal of a hedonistic two weeks on LAAD Yuan. The lyrics really do speak for themselves...

Cambodian Rummy

I feel that I must yet again begin this GYC entry with an apology; both for the lackadaisical manner in which our Gap Yah adventures are delivered to you, and also for what I can assure you is going to be the most abhorrent entry in terms of vocabulary, grammar, humour and general swellness (see!) thus far. The reason for this is certainly not attributed to a lack of stimuli provided by Edwina and Rick’s Cambodian visit, but more due to the fact that two weeks partying in Koh Phangan with the LADS has most certainly fried my brain. If my poor brain can cope with this difficult task, let me take you back to the last time you heard from us…

Having bid an emotional adieu to the Cross family after a fantastic ten days on Koh Samui, Forrest and I were dragged kicking and screaming away from the luxury of Six Senses and brought back down to reality with a harsh bump as we wandered around Bophut looking for accommodation more in our price range. We managed to negotiate a wonderful deal with the Carpe Diem staff (whom we had been drinking with a couple of nights previously) and therefore managed to soften our landing with air-conditioning and a pool – not bad going for two poor Gap Yahers! We took a couple of days chillaxing whilst we figured out our next steps; should we extend our Thai visas by a further seven days and check out Koh Phangan or should we bite the bullet and cross over into Cambodia? Our hotel’s name provided us with the very answer and encouragement we needed, and we ‘seized the day’ and began the long trek up towards Bangkok and over the border into Cambodia. Our exciting expedition gave us a new nightly form of transport in replacement of the ubiquitous night bus, this time in the form of a sleeper train, which brought back fond memories of the sleeper trains we took down to the south of France for our wonderful Cross/Melton/Williams summer holidays. Only this time scraggy Enid Blyton paperbacks had been replaced by my shiny new Kindle, and I was lulled to sleep with the aid of over-the-counter sleeping aids rather than my rabbit blankie that was a constant companion when I was seven.

Bangkok’s train station is understandably a travelling hub for many a Gap Yaher, and therefore organising the jump into Cambodia was a process swiftly and efficiently organised and we were ushered into a minivan before we could even say a final ‘Kawp Khun Ka’ to Thailand. The crossing itself was relatively painless, seemingly due to a little harmless bribery, but I was remarkably glad that we had chosen to go as part of an ‘organised’ border crossing as the border was awash with suspicious looking characters and child pickpockets; it was already clear to see that despite the glitzy casinos lining the streets at the border that Cambodia is desperately poor, thus making the scam artists, prostitutes and children begging and stealing a necessity of life rather than the underground seediness of an otherwise affluent country. Cambodian visas obtained, we were then shepherded onto another bus which would take us to Phnom Penh. We arrived late at night, checked in to a hotel and checked out again just as the day was breaking, we were heading to the coast, on a reconnaissance mission for when we would be joined by Edwina and Rick in the following weeks. I hadn’t been aware that there would be such a huge gulf of difference between Thailand and Cambodia in terms of poverty, strife and depravity, I tended to think of the South East Asian countries of being much of a muchness, and lthough we had of course seen glimpses of the ‘third world’ previously during our travels across both South America and South East Asia, my first impressions of Cambodia were that of a country that had been through the wars (both literally and figuratively) and were still battling their way out of the other side. My knowledge of Cambodian history was scarce, or if I am being honest non-existent, but this was to be remedied on our return to Phnom Penh…for now that’s enough of the heavy stuff – onwards to Sihanoukville for beautiful beaches, cocktails and scuba!

Beautiful beaches, cocktails and RAIN. Lots and lots of rain. Our first three days in Sihanoukville consisted of avoiding the downpours by educating Forrest on the wonders of Harry Potter, perfecting puddle jumping in-between restaurants and ordering jacket potatoes on room service. I think we were probably having sympathy symptoms for Louis, who I imagine was probably doing a similar sort of thing in his new home at Blackpool! Our final day in Sihanoukville however made up for the previously rainy and depressing days, as we headed out on a beautifully sunny scuba diving day trip. We were accompanied by two American girls who were working in Phnom Penh for NGO’s, one of whom immediately endeared herself to everyone else on board by declaring herself to be an evangelist and equating the desperately poor fishing village we passed through to get on to the boat to “the stories in the bible with Jesus and the fishermen”. Despite differing religious opinions it was interesting to chat to the girls about Phnom Penh and get some advice about where to take Edwina (although this advice seemed to mainly consist of places to eat!) and Forrest also found time for a heavy debate about the rife corruption in Cambodia and the benefit of NGO’s in third world countries whilst our scuba gear was being set up for us.



It is a well-known fact that it is a dangerous thing to shout ‘DOLPHIN!’ when on a boat as breaking waves are often mistaken for dorsal fins, thus causing the rest of the passenger’s endless disappointment and shame to be brought upon your sea-faring self. As I chatted I thought that I possibly glanced something out of the corner of my eye, but it wasn’t until I was 100% sure that I sounded the cry, and sure enough we had been joined by a pod of dolphins that played around the boat for twenty minutes of pure unadulterated viewing pleasure. My excitement at seeing dolphins is unparalleled, once a keen Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society member and marine biologist wannabe, and my joy was shared with everyone else on board as we watched them swim around and under the boat and leap out of the water with great elegance. All that was missing was Elijah Wood and my dream of being in the movie Flipper could have been realised. Now even more desperate to get in the water, it was painstakingly torturous to have to wait for one of the American girls to go through her safety briefing and skills, as it was clear from the word go that she took to scuba diving like a dolphin would take to riding a bicycle, but we eventually went down and although we didn’t see the dolphins under the water we were joined by a huge tuna who followed us for the entire time we were down. After a delicious lunch on the boat, we went down for our second dive and although the visibility wasn’t great we were able to practise our buoyancy skills under the water and practise using our arms less and therefore using less oxygen and energy. We didn’t see much but we did see lots of bizarre looking Squirrel Fish and Forrest also saw a sting ray as it quickly darted under some coral. Another amazing diving experience, this time as fully fledged scuba divers, was a wonderful conclusion to a somewhat miserable rainy few days, and left us feeling optimistic and excited for the arrival of Edwina the following day!



We arrived back in Phnom Penh in the evening of the next day, after an exhausting and tiresome tuktuk – bus - tuktuk adventure that had two wonderful conclusions; one being that we got to check into a HOTEL rather than a hostel/guesthouse/shack, and the second being that Forrest got to see his mummy! Now seasoned and organised Gap Yahers we arranged for the hotel to take us to meet Edwina at the airport, and although it was of course wonderful to see her, I couldn’t help but notice with jealous bitterness that her tan was already about five times more golden brown than mine, and I realised I was going to have to crack out some serious oil if I was going to be able to compete with her in the tanning stakes. It was great catching up, and Edwina and Forrest also managed to catch the last few minutes of the men’s Wimbledon final back in the hotel, before we all retired for the evening for some much deserved shut eye after our respective transit purgatories (Edwina’s London – Manchester – Dubai – Bangkok – Phnom Penh itinerary barely rivalling our exhausting trip back from the beach).

After a somewhat disappointing breakfast at the hotel, we set about exploring Phnom Penh. First stop on our tour was the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S21) as it was located just around the corner from our hotel. As I have already mentioned, my knowledge of Cambodian history was pretty much non-existent, so what followed came as somewhat of a shock. For those of you as ignorant as I, I will provide you with a brief description of S21 as per my Rough Guide, less my own description should fail to correctly explain the atrocities that took place there;

As the Khmer Rouge were starting their reign of terror, Toul Svay Prey Secondary School, in a quiet Phnom Penh neighbourhood…was transformed into a primitive prison and interrogation centre. Corrugated iron and barbed wire were installed around the perimeter, and classrooms were divided into individual cells, or housed rows of prisoners secured by shackles. From 1975 to 1979, an estimated twenty thousand victims were imprisoned in Security Prison 21. Teachers, students, doctors, monks and peasants suspected of anti-revolutionary behaviour were brought here, often with their spouses and children. They were subjected to horrific tortures, and then killed or taken to extermination camps outside the city.

The prison is now a museum and a monument to the thousands of Cambodians who suffered at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. It’s been left almost exactly as it was found by the liberating Vietnamese forces – the fourteen victims found hideously disfigured in the individual cells have been buried in the school playground. It’s a thoroughly depressing sight, and it’s not until you see the pictures of the victims, blood stains on the walls and instruments of torture that you get any idea of the scale of suffering endured by the Cambodian people.

Welcome to Cambodia Edwina! Needless to say her holiday wasn’t off to the best start as our guide took us into the first room and the combination of the stifling heat and the implications of the above (I am not going to go into any further detail) made her feel rather faint and she escaped to the shade of a frangiapani tree outside. I wasn’t far behind as it all got a bit too much for me to handle, but Forrest stuck with it and at the end of the extremely difficult tour learnt that our guide had herself been a victim of the regime; both her parents had been killed and she had been forced to work in the paddy fields. One of the most difficult aspects of the S21 visit for me was the juxtaposition between the high school and the prison, a comparison so unthinkably different that even sitting quietly in the shade in the school playground/graveyard was emotionally trying. A difficult morning indeed, but an essential element of any trip to Cambodia; without this understanding of the suffering at the hands of the Khmer Rouge I don’t believe you would be fully able to appreciate the true beauty, resilience and strength of Cambodia and the Cambodian people.

After regaining our composure back in the air-conditioned lobby of the hotel, we then took a tuktuk to Central Market where, as is always the case with South East Asian markets, the sights, smells and sounds of the stalls were overwhelmingly powerful and interesting. As we wound our way round the maze of glistening jewellery stalls, smelly durian stands and fly-ridden fish baskets, I found the item that I had been searching for my entire life…bottom enhancing underwear for that perfect J-Lo posterior! No longer was my tiny flat bottom going to be the bane of my life, these knickers were the perfect solution (…and then she woke up and it was all a dream.) A well-deserved cocktail was the next item on the menu (I went for the adventurous pineapple and chilli daiquiri – not a wise decision) before we checked out the little bit boring National Museum. Not wanting to overload on Buddha images before Angkor Wat, we didn’t spend very much time here, but it was a pleasant way to while away an hour before lunch. A beautiful lunch of traditional Cambodian cuisine in a tranquil courtyard, however none of us felt brave enough to sample the crispy fried tarantulas on offer!



We spent the rest of the afternoon marvelling at the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, although I mainly spent the time sweating and feeling faint as I had been forced to cover up in some heavy orange linen fisherman pants. They claim that this is for religious and cultural reasons but I have a feeling that they just found my wotsit legs to be deeply offensive. After wandering aimlessly alongside the river in search of the delightful sunset riverboat cruises that I had read about, we eventually found a man with a sign advertising what we believed to be an organised tour. In reality, we boarded his own pretty shabby houseboat and he took us on an unguided trip down the river and back again in half an hour. The sunset was hidden by the storm clouds rolling in, and the views weren’t much to behold, but it was interesting to watch his two young children playing and going about their chores, oblivious to the fact that they were providing us with great entertainment. We just about managed to escape the rain as we sought shelter with cocktails at the Foreign Correspondents Club, before heading back to the hotel to change for a pleasant dinner at Frizz.



Edwina got her first taste of Gap Yah travel the following morning on the bus up to Siem Reap, with a “road” so covered in potholes that the bus journey was an experience in itself. We checked in to our beautiful hotel and spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool. That evening we continued with Edwina’s cocktail marathon on the very Cambodian-sounding Pub Street. Somehow Edwina has managed to get through life without ever sampling the wonders of mixing alcohol with delicious arrays of juices, fruits and mixers (this may be a slight exaggeration, I think she has probably sampled a cocktail or two in the past, but you know…artistic license and all that) Obviously I was horrified to discover this and Edwina valiantly accepted the challenge to try as many different cocktails as possible during her GapCambodianYah, and Pub Street served up a tantalising Tequila Sunrise for her. Forrest went for the slightly more clichéd option of the ‘Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider’ cocktail, “apparently” the drink that she drank when she was in Cambodia filming/buying children.



We felt that another relaxing pool day was in order to build up our strength before we began the arduous task of exploring the stunning temples of Angkor, so the next day was spent lounging about in the sun, reading, blogging, swimming and generally doing sweet eff ay. Of course we did manage to rouse ourselves enough from our relaxed reverie to go out for dinner, where we were serenaded by a chorus of croaking frogs whilst we ate. On Thursday it was time for Beatrice Croft to come out to play, although very disappointingly I had been unable to get together Lara’s entire outfit so just had to pretend very hard. We were picked up by our tuktuk driver Mr. Phee, with whom we had managed to organise his services for the day for a very reasonable “phee”, in the morning and he took us to Ta Prohm, otherwise known as the Jungle Temple. Unlike most of the other temples of Angkor, Ta Prohm was never cleared and restored but simply left to the jungle, appearing roughly today as it did to the Europeans who rediscovered the ruins in the nineteenth century. Roots and trunks intermingle with the stones and seem almost part of the structure, creating an almost surreal magical atmosphere. Somewhat spoiled however by the crane and builders working right in the middle of the temple, restoring it to look as though it had not been restored. It really was breathtaking to explore the ruins, but of course the most fun part of all was pretending (in my head of course, don’t want Edwina to think I’m a nutter) that I was Lara Croft. My mission: to avoid Japanese tour groups at all costs whilst simultaneously trying to keep my power levels up despite losing water at a rapid perspiration rate. Level one complete.



The next stop on Mr Phee’s tour of Angkor was Preah Khan, chosen especially by Forrest (who had been given the painstaking task of organising the itinerary for Angkor) due to the fact that the guide book promised that it would be quiet, in the shade and less popular with Japanese tourists than some of it’s more grand temple counterparts. Although it pains me greatly to say it, Forrest had chosen well as we practically had the temple to ourselves, although consequently therefore were easy prey for the guard-cum-guide who came out of nowhere and gave us a guided tour that we were unable to escape from had we wanted to. He did provide us with some valuable insight into the beautiful little temple though, so we were happy to give him a small “donation” at the end of the tour although we weren’t like those “very kind tourists that sometimes are very kind and give $5 or $10”. I think we gave $3. By this time we were templed-out and we weren’t too delighted to find that our loyal Mr Phee wasn’t waiting for us at the other side of the temple as arranged, thus creating a painstaking wait in the sun for him to eventually arrive and take us back to the hotel for a serene afternoon by the pool. Without wanting to sound like a broken record, we again went to Pub Street for a beautiful dinner, where Forrest and I ate a platter of Cambodian dishes wrapped in pretty little banana leaves. Delicious.

After hours of agonising over the guide books, Forrest had decided that there was no way that we were going to be sheep and follow the crowds of tourists, so when Mr Phee picked us up at 4am he was slightly confused when we told him that no, we didn’t want to go and watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat, instead we wanted to go to Phnom Bakheng. The temple world-renowned for its stunning SUNSETS. Poor Phee was still confused when Forrest insisted that that is where we wanted to be that he even tried to explain that the temple wasn’t open yet, but just at that moment a small minibus of Japanese tourists turned up. Never before have I been so happy to see a Japanese tour group, as we had rather stupidly neglected to bring torches so their guide and his flashlight was a welcome addition to our early morning expedition indeed. Although the sunrise wasn’t particularly spectacular, nor were the views over the temples anything to shout home about, being pretty much the only people up there as the day broke was rather mystical and special.



After a quick breakfast, it was time to explore the big one, Angkor Wat itself. We had decided to get a guide to take us around for this magnificent temple; however the guide spent more time telling us about fake guides in and around Angkor than actually telling us about the temple, but he did come in useful in translating Forrest’s fortune, as told by a decrepit looking monk. Basically he was told that he was going to have a wonderful and prosperous life, mainly due to the inclusion of a short dwarf-like girl who would improve his quality of living ten-fold. The Japanese tourists became somewhat of an issue, but I amused myself by attempting to get in to their photos at every given opportunity as Forrest actually became a Japanese tourist and viewed Angkor Wat through his Lumix rather than through his eyes. Having said that rather scathingly, his photographic persistence did pay off as he succeeded in getting a pretty wonderful shot. Before we lost interest completely in the temple, I enthralled Edwina and Forrest with my own guided tour of the Bas Reliefs lining the walls around the temple as we played our own version of “Where’s Wally?”, trying to find the various images of Shiva, Vishnu and co. in the faded stonework.



One final temple on the itinerary was preceded by an unplanned stop for Forrest to play with some monkeys by the side of the road. Not content with simply taking photographs from afar, Forrest re-enacted Sir David’s Attenborough’s crowning moment with the gorillas as he became one with the monkeys, feeding them fruit and letting them clamber all over him. Edwina and I waited patiently for him in the tuktuk whilst he rolled about in the grass with his predecessors. Angkor Thom was my second favourite temple after the Jungle Temple, with the 216 faces carved out of stone smiling down on me. They seemed to be saying “you were an excellent Lara Croft Bea, much better than that other woman. The one who stole poor Jennifer’s husband”, and I couldn’t agree more. But even Beatrice Croft needs to take a break from tomb raiding every now and again, and we headed back to the hotel to our beautiful pool. That evening we met up with Rachael and Tommy at the Mexican restaurant, who were now in Cambodia teaching at a school in Siem Reap. Edwina’s cocktail marathon continued with margaritas, and when Rachael discovered that Edwina had never done a shot before, it wasn’t long until tequila slammers had been placed in front of us all and Edwina was being given a lesson in salt, tequila, lime…when in Mexico…!



Our educating Edwina in the delights of alcohol of course comes with the dark side of the booze, the pain and suffering the morning after. Edwina and Forrest however seemed to be remarkably fine, whilst I was dying inside (both literally and figuratively – I didn’t leave the hotel room all day). Looking back I think it must have been something I’d eaten. The food in some of these Gap Yah countries can play havoc with ones insides. It couldn’t just have been a 24 hour hangover surely?! Whilst I suffered in silence, Forrest and Edwina spent the day by the pool before going to the floating village in the evening, which turned out to be a slight farce and a scam and luckily it didn’t appear that I’d missed much on our last night in Siem Reap.

Travelling back down to Phnom Penh, to pick up Rick from the airport, was again an adventure, only witnessing one motorbike collision so therefore an outright success! Slightly worried about Rick’s ability to adjust to the decrepit Gap Yah lifestyle, his usual vacation jaunts being to the glitzy streets of Las Vegas to party with 50 Cent and Flloyd Mayweather, we had organised a driver to take us down to Sihanoukville. Not quite the chauffeur-driven stretch hummers that Rick is accustomed to but still a darn sight more appealing than a six hour bus ride on top of his already horrifically long travel itinerary. It was wonderful to greet Rick at the airport, although as with the jealousy of Edwina’s tan upon her arrival, I was horrified to find Rick looking thin without even trying to get dysentery by eating at shabby dirty roadside stands. I planned to fatten him up significantly while he was in Cambodia. We arrived at the coast in good time, and wasted no time at all getting ready and meeting in the bar for pre-dinner drinks. I had been looking forward to having someone of a similarly low intellect to myself arriving so that I would have someone to bitch, gossip and moan with whilst the cleverclogs’ discussed the less important things in life like the economy, politics and world events. So you can imagine my dismay when I got to the bar to find the three of them enthralled in some silly sporting event watching cars zoom around a ring or something. It transpires though that Rick was only biding his time until his gossip buddy was there though as I deftly deferred his attention away from Silverstone and to gossip from home. Once the car thing was over we headed down to Serendipity Beach for an enchanting seafood barbeque right next to the breaking waves, where it was a joy to watch Forrest reunited with his mummy and brother. The tomb-raiders amongst us were exhausted after being on holiday for a week already, so much to Rick’s dismay the evening ended far far too early for his liking. I had a sneaky suspicion that for Rick it wasn’t yet over, and after a quick briefing over the perils of Cambodian “taxi-girls”, and reminded him that unlike in Vegas prostitution wasn’t legal here, we went to bed and left him to his own devices, eager to explore Danish culture. Did I say Danish? Sorry I meant Cambodian.



After we eventually roused the Forrest boys we headed to the boat that would take us to Koh Rong Saloem, a tropical island off the coast of Cambodia. The boat ride only took a couple of hours but poor Rick managed to play the English man perfectly, burning terribly on one arm and shoulder before even arriving at his holiday destination. Oh how Forrest laughed at his tan-less brother as he soaked up the sun glistening off his golden brown body. The boat docked at the opposite side of the island to where we were staying as the water there was much calmer, and we had to wade to the shore through warm tropical waters to the white gleaming sand was waiting for us. A ten-minute walk through the jungle brought us to our home for the next five days, the wonderful Lazy Beach. English and Cambodian owned, Lazy Beach consists of nothing more than a handful of wooden bungalows lining the beach and a restaurant/bar/chill out area... with nothing to do but relax and enjoy each other’s company and our beautiful surroundings, Lazy Beach couldn’t have been more aptly named.



Five blissfully chilled days all merged in to one long game of Canadian Rummy. Our little quartet was also punctuated with the other few guests staying at Lazy Beach, and late evenings after Edwina had retired were spent propping up the bar with Lyndsey, Travis and Kate. It is difficult to find fault with paradise, but as I have said before there is normally something that provides that little niggle, without which everything would perfect. With Ayers Rock it was the plague of flies, with Lazy Beach it was Rick. No only joking, after not seeing him for so long, even Rick’s presence was less of an annoyance than the litter that washed up daily on the beach, spoiling the raw natural beauty of the island. I of course managed to cope, afterall finding a five foot three (ok ok, five foot two) space of beach isn’t too difficult, but for the tall Forrest/Labey contingency it proved to be more of an issue. Actually I think it was more of an environmental issue, but more about that in Edwina’s Epilogue to come…



I could quite easily spend a lot of time making you all jealous, writing about how we executed our time at Lazy Beach with the perfect relaxed nothingness, but it’s not that important that you know that every day we woke whenever we felt like it, strolled to breakfast along the beautiful beach, read, played games, swam to our heart’s content, ate the freshest seafood known to man daily, sampled some fine Khymer cuisine, drank copious amounts of cocktails (Edwina had done extremely well in her challenge!), watched huge geckos and frogs go about their business (quite literally in the case of the frogs – see photos for more details!) and generally lived the dream. I imagine the only snag of our time there was my constant outstanding performances in Canadian Rummy, despite being the only one in the game that couldn’t count their own cards. Rick “I play poker in Vegas with the big boys” Forrest seemed to be happy playing second fiddle to my winning streak, whilst his brother’s mind has quite obviously been frazzled after six months of travelling, losing one game with an outstanding score of over 500.



It wasn’t easy leaving Lazy Beach (especially with the hangover that was banging around in my head), and it was made even more so knowing that we would be saying farewell to Edwina and Rick the following day. The drive back up to Phnom Penh was much less chatty than the drive down, but our last evening was spent both being charitable and eating good food – at the NGO restaurant Friends, which provides training, work and hope for local Cambodians, as well as serving up yummy grub. One last game of Canadian Rummy was on the cards (!) before bed, as Edwina and Rick weren’t the only ones leaving the next day – we had an early morning flight to catch, back to Thailand for our LADS holiday on Koh Phangan. Forrest, Rick and I presented Edwina with a Cambodian cookbook to thank her for her wonderful generosity and a fantastic holiday, so although we were sad to say goodbye we were already looking forward to our next holiday in Jersey where we expect to be served the BEST fish amok, pineapple and chilli daiquiris and of course, the infamous crispy fried tarantulas.



Forrest's Fankyou…
Once again, I would like to say a big big big fankyou to mother Forrest (or is it mother Labey these days?!) and Rick for providing two wondrous two weeks of temple hopping, city dwelling and laid-back beach life. And finally, I would like to add a small correction to the text above; Bea, F1 cars do not drive around a ring, you’re getting confused with Nascar racing my dear.

Edwina's Epilogue...

What a fantastic time we had in Cambodia, so nice to have a family holiday with Mark (aka Forrest), Bea and Richard. Peter (my husband) sensibly decided to stay at home in Jersey, being outnumbered by three Forrests meant he was unlikely to get a look in!

Cambodia turned out to be a huge surprise to me, much more sophisticated than I ever imagined, with excellent hotels at a fraction of what you pay in the UK, great food and so much more.

Phnom Penh was a lovely city, however the Torture Museum proved a little too much for me, I know it’s an important part of their history and we need to know about the horrors of Pol Pot, but I’m old enough to remember it all and it was very difficult not be overcome by it all.

The temples of Siem Reap were outstanding; we were also blessed with good weather here.

Out trip to the island of Koh Rung Saloem was great, although I did miss the air conditioning and I now understand what they mean by the rainy season! There were two stunning beaches......however one was ruined by the copious and I mean copious amounts of litter washed up each and every day. On a stretch of beach two football pitches long, you could have easily have filled at least 25 bin bags full of rubbish. We were told the boats just throw everything overboard, do these countries not realise that if nothing is done they will kill tourism in this part of the world? As you can probably tell, I get quite irate about litter!

Apart from this we had a great time, we played lots of Canadian Rummy (can I buy that card?) and enjoyed each other’s company.



Rick's Resume...

Following a 23 hour journey from Manchester to phnom penh it was all worth it after seeing those I hold closest at the airport. It was also nice to see Beatrice. An enjoyable taxi ride was spent catching up before arriving at our hotel for the night. After food, beer and wine I was disappointed to learn I was the only one "up" for a night out. Nevertheless an enjoyable night out by myself followed. A cambodian club named utopia providing the highlight....comfortably beating the Blackburn equivalent which I spent far too much time frequenting as a nipper.

The next morning a two hour boat journey to lazybeach, our home for the week, was spent with further catching up and getting sun burnt. I was expecting clear water and white sand and I was not disappointed. Lazybeach was a million miles away from the 100mph lifestyle back home and we all had a great week. It was during this week that I devised my optimum strategy for winning Canadian rummy. My book is due out later this year.

The week went far too fast and I was sad to leave the great gandolf and miss cross although I knew they would be home soon. Great food, great company and great memories.