Purple dishwasher monkeys

This requires a bit of explanation, I think.

My first stop on this trip - after Bangkok - was Koh Tao, a small "dive island" in the Gulf of Thailand, north of Koh Pha Ngan. On Koh Tao, I fell in love with a couple of young Australian girls called Grace and Jess and also, funnily enough, a Californian fire-fighter called Doug.

Oh yes, there was also a Swiss carpenter called Andre, but I didn't fall in love with him, we were just good friends. Worth mentioning though. Top man.

You may be wondering how it's possible to fall in love with three people (and make good friends with another) at the same time?

Simple. The potent power of Sangsom rum. Bucketloads of the stuff.

A bucket contains a bottle of Sangsom, a can of Coca Cola and a small bottle of hideously strong Red Bull. This heady but inexpensive coctail of legal uppers is then garnished with a smattering of straws so that you and your new traveller pals can sit round a table and all get stuck in together so that you can get drunk and start trying to pull each other as quickly as possible.

An hour and three buckets later things will probably get interesting... and a bit silly. You might also end up in all kinds of trouble, like becoming the prize in a fist fight between two ladyboys. But if it's simple silliness that you're looking for then it helps if you throw two lovely, crazy girls from WA into the mixer, and also a chilled out Californian called Doug. If you were to do this then you would undoubtedly be confessing your sexual fantasies by ten and prancing around in the ocean with no clothes on by eleven.

I don't want to give you the impression there was anything sordid going on. The love I'm talking about is of the platonic kind, not this so-called "free" love that all the kids these days seem to be getting excited about. This is the kind of love that forms when you bond through buckets, embarassing stories and skinny dipping.

After a few days of bucket bonding we had to go our separate ways and I was very sad. There was an empty little place in my heart, a little ache. So sad was I that I was compelled to follow Grace and Jess to Koh Pha Ngan, where I spent one, final magical night in their company. I guess I was kind of their bitch, following them around lost puppy-style like I did, but I didn't mind, they were the providers of fun after all.

Cheeky girls, as the pictures below indicate.

So long, Grace, Jess and Doug, and thanks for all the silliness. This is my tribute to you.