In the spirit of throwing myself head first into the travel blogging community (as I so rambled about in my last post), I was kindly picked by Mr Neil of Backpacks and Bunkbeds to join in with an Olympic sized travel blogging relay, where me and a bunch of other lovely fools, pass our Team Purple baton and witter on about our Top 3 Travel Memories in the hopes of winning an iPad2, an DSLR and some walking boots.

So it is with some trepidation that I take the slippery purple baton from the über lovely Larissa of The Blonde Gypsy. You see she was handed it from Mr Will Peach and I’m seriously hoping she thoroughly washed it, as it was likely put in some highly unsavoury places by his decrepit soul.

Now let’s get our minds away from purple batons and back on to the case in point…

I need a pair of walking boots.  That arse who stole mine in Auckland is still at large and I have much walking to do here in New Zealand. So you judges, help a girl out and consider her poor feet when you make your vote. I have been going barefoot for some time now.

Here’s my addition to the fray…

3rd – Silent Disco, Goa

what a face

Who hasn’t heard and guffawed at the idea of a silent disco?  I imagined them to be abominations of dodgy headphones and daft dance moves.  Well, Palolem in Goa showed me that they are those things and more.

With nothing but the dim blue light of my phone as a guide we slipped and tripped our way up and over jet black rocks to stumble into the most random yet brilliant party.

Three DJ’s with their decks each lit up in a different neon colour were surrounded by dancing bodies, all slightly mismatched in rhythm.  The headphones weren’t half bad and whichever DJ we chose to listen to, they lit up the same colour as his decks; that way you could spot who has the same (bad) music taste as you.

You know when a DJ starts playing music that makes you want to rip your own ears off? Well now no more.  We could just turn him off. Or to be honest, should none of the frequencies take your fancy, taking them off altogether and watching hundreds of bodies throwing a clusterfuck of shapes on the silent dancefloor is worth the admission price alone.

Maybe it was the fact that I had totally fallen in love with this hippy South Indian beach town and a one week stay turned into a month. Maybe it was the hilarious drinking partners in crime with which we had spent the warm up to the party playing the funniest vodka fuelled game of “I never” EVER.  I don’t know… It was Goan backpacking beach party heaven.

2nd – Tubing, Laos

ladylike as always

Whichever bright spark conjured up the genius idea of encouraging backpackers to jump in a giant rubber tube and float down a speeding river whilst inebriated deserves a hearty pat on the pack in my book.

Tubing is one of those ‘heard it on the grapevine’ travel experiences. You’ll often hear someone harping on about what a great time they had whilst you’re sitting there waiting for a bus or divine intervention.   Whispers of the high-jinx, accidents and epic boozeathons pass from traveller to traveller and I must say it lived up to its reputation.

Any event where you are given a shot of whisky on entry is destined to be messy affair but aside from the marathon boozing this is one of the most bonkers things I’ve ever done.

Flying off questionable home-made slides, rope swings and giant inflatables, all into a fast flowing river with more than a few bevvies inside me, is in no way sensible and clearly that was its charm.

1st – Aussie Day, Koh Phangan

Aussie day love-athon

Sounds like a contradition but yes celebrating Aussie Day – even though I am not Australian, in the not Australian country of Thailand was one of the best memories of this trip.  In truth, I can think of at least 20 other amazing days I spent on this much loved island with all the lifelong friends I met but this day had it all.

It was one of those completely perfect Koh Phangan days, clear blue sky for the sun worshipper in me, turquoise ocean, a pool-bar all to ourselves and beer for breakfast. We did it like the Aussie’s do and paid homage to all things booze with hours of slam dunking into the pool, underwater photo shoots and general face-aching fun.

Needless to say this day ended up with us jonesing for the only decent burger joint on the island (I know, I know, how could I, when Thai food is so amazing) but it just had to be done. In all our burger boozy joy we drove off on our moped totally forgetting to pay the bill. The next day we were chased down by two Thai ladies in a high speed chase only to realise that we were wanted for non-payment of burger bill. In usual Thai charm, it was all resolved with profuse apologies and smiles. Served as a reminder of the heathenry of the day before…

Why oh why did I ever leave?

…

So there we have it, those are my top moments in booze on this trip. Of course, I now realise that some of you may think I need an appointment with the AA but let me assure you I have had many other fine moments where I was not inebriated. I think…. No really…. Making it to the top of my giant trek in Chiang Mai was pretty special. See?

And now I pass the baton over to sexy Rexy of Rexyadventures…

You can follow the action in Team Purple via the twitter hashtag #TeamPurple (that is if you have gotten over the fact that Twitter is not actually the plague) via the lowcostholidays.com twitter feed. You can be a traitor to the purples and check out the other teams (you can forget we were ever friends though) via the hashtag #BloggerRelay – and if you want to join in and be part of team purple contact our team leader, the mighty neil@backpacksandbunkbeds(dot)co.uk