Koh Samui - Thailand (Part 2)

The next day was CANOPY DAY so it was all sytems go!! For everyone else that is! I was feeling sick as a dog. But after a while and after more tablets, I finally felt a little better and decided to get up and go! What a great day.

The Canopy brochure told tall tales of how we could swing through the trees like monkeys whilst strapped to cables that connected one tree to another high above the jungle floor.

We had decided to drive to the Canopy Adventures. He he. It took us a short while to figure out which road was Soi 7. When we finally got the jeep through most of the ‘rough as fuck’ roads, we came to the bottom of a very steep muddy bumpy rain soaked hill. Now unfortunately our sleek black jeep was not a 4 wheel drive. So while I clutched the seats with white knuckles in the back of the car, Jim and Karen gave some encouraging ‘back-seat driver’ instructions.
Up roared the engines and down rolled we.
We then tried some guerrilla attacks, by sneaking up the hill from the left and then from t he right but down rolled we.

Johnboy eventually took a last ditch attempt up the right hand side! (ditch being the operative word – as outside my window (THE RIGHT SIDE) there was quite a substantial fall to a ditchlike place below). And finally with much shitting of pants and revving of the engine, we made it up the hill! Woohoo. Only as soon as we got up there, there was the entrance to the Canopy adventures! We could have parked the bloody thing at the bottom of the hill and strolled up! Lol

So in we trotted (me secretly dreading the drive back down) and called upon the merry men of the forest to bring us a-jungle-swinging. The lads were only to happy to oblige and they soon stuffed us all into some harnesses and gloves. Then we had to trek the 200 or 300 metres up the mountain in the sweltering heat. We were all nearly b*lli*ed before we even started swinging! He he.

At the top we did a test run on the pretend cable. We each went one at a time. Our harnesses were attached to the cable, then we had to put our right arm on the cable just behind the harness and when we wanted to slow down or stop we had to pull sharply downwards with our right arm. We all had a bash and it seemed easy peasy lemon squeezy. That is – until you had to jump off a treetop 200 feet up in the air. Jimbob went first on the first cable. He thought it was cool (I just asked him there now). He tried not to look down though and speeded down the first cable. Upon reaching the other treetop, he whipped out the camera and took pictures of the rest of us coming down the line. Hee hee. John & Karen went after and everything seemed to go tickety boo (except the harness was hurting John’s balls). On my go, I was a bit nervous about initially jumping off the tree but once I was in the air it was cool. I thought it was great crack.

The next few cables and swings were grand and we all got through them without too much nervousness or knee trembling. Then we came to the big fast one. The guy told us, to go fast first and then slow down coming towards the end. I went first in order to take some pictures of the others. I launched myself out and went f*cking flying down the yoke! When I was getting to the next tree I yanked down on the cable behind me but hardly slowed down at all and had to really give a right oul pull in order to try and slow myself down. It was exhilarating and a lil scary.

Next came big Jim who managed to fly down and slow himself right at the tree. What a pro! :p

Then twas young Karen’s turn. Karen was feeling a lil bit nervous and had cussed the whole idea of swinging through the treetops (it was Karen who encouraged us all to do the canopy swinging! ).
So on the really fast long cable, I was waiting with the camera, taking small videos. Off launched Karen from the other tree and she came flying down the cable!!! She was too small to try and slow herself down and by the time she got to our tree, she was like a bullet whizzing by at 300kmph!. The guy managed to catch her by the feet but the rest of her body kept going and me and the camera nearly got bumped off the edge of the tree by Henry’s arse! It looked very funny, but when she landed, we weren’t sure if she had done her neck an injury so I quickly switched the camera off.

After establishing she was alright, I switched the the camera back on and videod Johnboy who had a slow and controlled descent down the cable. It was like Superman had arrived for as soon as he landed, he put his hands on his hips, turned to Karen and said “Are you OK?”. (cue superhero music) I have it all on video and showed everyone afterwards and it got a right auld laugh.

The rest of the cables were not a bother after that. The lads (not I ) had a bit of height fright going down the really steep steps attached to the trees. I was surprised that I was not afraid at all. I got a bit rattled when some dude jumped off the tree platform I was standing on and the tree went flying but other than that the rest of the adventure was fantastic and we all really enjoyed it.

There’s nothing monkeys like better after swinging through the trees then a banana, but we decided to go for a swim in the waterfall first. Well actually we didn’t. The waterfall water didn’t look the may west to me so I didn’t get in. Johnboy was the only one who pranced about under the waterfall with the water spiders. It made for a great picture.

We made it back down the hill in the jeep without any hassle and went for a quick spin to the Big Buddha statue to take some pictures. We then went to the fanciest of places for lunch. We were sitting outside in the hotel grounds, admiring the infinity pool when all of a sudden the wind started to whoosh up and the rain poured out of the heavens. We moved inside the hotel to eat our sandwiches but we were not alone. There must have been at least 15 flys swooping down on our table. It was disgusting and it really put us off our lunch. I’ve never eaten a sandwich so fast. I was guarding it as if I was in prison. So we quickly escaped and went home for a quick shower before meeting up for drinks later.

Before grub, we had cocktails, then headed to this really cool chic and fancy pants place in Chaweng out on the beach. We all got tres fancy dishes – except me – I got vegetables in gravy. LOL.

Later we hit this really cool bar called The Pharmacy – which was done up exactly like a clinic. The place was completely white and sterile, with doctors and nurses written on the bathroom doors and they served us our shots in little plastic pretend syringes. He he

We also visited other bars before we headed out to the Half Moon Party by the lake. The place for the party was kitted out fantastically. There were lots of games, food stalls, comfy chairs and a big stage with the dj on it. There was one game that involved throwing balls at a stage to try to knock pretty young Thai girls into buckets full of water. The music itself was a bit progblandtastic but it was fun. I’d reached the ‘you’re not getting drunk no matter how much you drink’ stage again. (often reached on holiday due to excessive drink consumption). The lights at the gig were cool and we could see lots of people with aluminous tattoos. (I think I saw Skinny from Swords there too).

After a few hours we called it a night.