Next on our itinerary was Koh Phi Phi – another little island off the coast of Thailand that is renowned for its beaches, many restaurants and exotic nightlife. After having survived Koh Samui we felt we would be more than prepared to take on it’s twin brother a short trip away.

Phi Phi is a wicked place to hang out with a few notable differences from Samui.

Firstly it has a large Muslim population which was an interesting contrast to the mostly Buddhist residents in Samui and also resulted in loud calls to Mosque throughout the day echoing across the town. This was quite cool and gave the island an even more exotic feel if that was somehow possible.

Secondly the island was devastated by the 2004 Tsunami that hit the region. Most everything has been rebuilt in the 7 years since but you would run into many signs and pictures that told the stories of different people on that awful December day.

One sign we saw – and forgot to photograph unfortunately – was from a tee shirt vendor who put up a sign to thank the pair of tourists that swam into his store and pulled him from the rubble in the immediate aftermath of the Tsunami. The island paid a heavy price in both lives and property and we were impressed to see how mightily they have bounced back since that terrible day.

Thirdly this island was home to baggedmilk – one half of the infamous jeanshortsandbaggedmilk – for over a year if our memory serves correct a couple years back. How any place could keep that party animal employed and alive for any length of time is amazing.

Sir Baggedmilk was a true gentleman pointing us in the direction of all sorts of mayhem on his former island home as we peppered him with emails night and day.

Walking down the street one night we were approached by a British fellow who worked for one of the tiny clubs on the island. “Hey Lil Wayne!” he yelled as we were fashionably dressed in 1 of 3 Weezy tees on the trip “you probably don’t like to party do you?”

Now one has to remember that hundreds if not thousands of people walk past these bars for possibly the only time in their lives each night. The bar staff tasked with getting people in for drinks have to make their club stand out from the dozens of others on the same street, selling the same beer to the same tourists.

They know how to get your attention.

Having said all of that we could not – nay WILL NOT – tolerate anyone chirping our ability to party and Lil Wayne in a single sentence. We could not have been more insulted unless he had brought Eberle or the Oilers into the mix.

“Listen here you limey bastard” we retorted, “we will have you know that not only do we love to party but we are here to party. What are you selling? Suits? Booze? Suits made of some sort of booze? Let’s do this.”

And so we were led up the steepest, spiraliest staircase in all of the island of Phi Phi to a tiny outdoor rooftop bar named Banana Bar. And of the many bars that advertise “strongest drink! “ we can make a strong case that the Banana Bar was indeed the strongest.

As we sat in this little bar watching our fellow customers play beer pong and Nintendo Wii on a big projection screen a mini-typhoon rolled in drenching everyone and making the black diamond of a staircase even more dangerous.

In the name of safety we waited out the two hour storm in ankle high water, drinking “strong strong” buckets while the rain poured down.

It was the highlight of the trip to that point.

After having a wonderful time on the two Thai islands it was time to make our way to Bangkok to meet up with our Contiki Tour. The Capital of Thailand, Bangkok boasts a population of 12 million people and sprawls over an immense footprint. 

Traffic is crazy, the dense streets packed with vendors busily hawking their wares is crazy and many a tourist has apparently gone off the deep end within its city limits.

We couldn’t wait to get at it.

One night in Bangkok @thesquireyeg and your ol’ pal Wanye decided to get into the many beers that were for sale on every corner in the tourist zone.

Once properly imbibed we planned to go either a ping pong ball show or eat insects from one of the many bug vendors on the street, daring tourists to take a walk on the culinary wild side.

We both knew we would regret doing either activity the next day and from extensive research – which consisted of watching Hangover 2 the night before we left – we knew that Bangkok was a good as place as any to do something you will later regret.

A bakers dozen worth of Tiger beers down, we ended up at the bug vendors that were located outside out of one of the 1,245,305 ping pong ball shows in the main street of the tourist zone in Bangkok: Khao Sanh Road.

One epic game of rock paper scissors later – @thesquireyeg was on Team Bugs and your ol’ pal Wanye was on Team Ping Pong – we ended up eating both a grasshopper (pictured above) and a silk worm.

As she once said “that didn’t taste nearly as disgusting as I thought it would.”

If you are ever in the market for a high protein snack we can actually say with great confidence that a deep fried grasshopper (legs removed of course) isn’t all that gross.

We can also recommend the silk worm, which tasted basically like a French fry. If French fries had functioning brain stems and grubbed around in the dirt or whatever the hell it is that silk worms do when not being eaten or making silk.

 

And as we left Khao Sanh Road who did we run into but a Taylor Hall fan. As @thesquireyeg was similarly attired in a Taylor Hall shirt they recognized each other from a distance and we became the best of friends immediately. As new friends in Bangkok do to impress one another, we immediately forced him to join us in some more bug eating.

We had made a mental note of all of the particulars of this fine gentleman to include in our articicle as shoutout but unfortunately we were Bug Eating Drunk that night and  can’t recall his name or hometown.

Sorry old chap. Good reppin’ the team though. Mad respect.

We’re tweeting the heck out of this trip – though currently dark in Laos due to bizarre Sim card non-friendery with our new Laotian sim card. But you can follow the fun in real-ish time at @wanyegretz