Burn baby Burn!! -Koh Tao Confidential Vol. 13
Greetings Followers,
Almost a month without a post! Between working, marking and moderating IB exams, diving, Songkraning, a visit from Mr. James Miller and breaking up with my boyfriend (again...) I have been a bit busy and my blogging has, predictably, fallen by the wayside. As usual, much apologies my faithful followers (like a broken record, I know...).But, have no fear my frosty friends in places less sunny, you can once again live vicariously through my endless beachy adventures. Never a dull moment shall pass on these sandy shores without a little chronicling from the Princess (even if it takes me a few weeks to get my ass in gear to write about it).
Anyway... let's get on with it shall we??
Working at the reception desk of a popular dive school means I spend a lot of time answering questions. Actually that's pretty much all I do. Questions about diving, questions about travel, questions about whether or not divemaster A is single or Instructor B would be interested going on a date with a particularly keen student. Questions about where to eat, what to drink, who to talk to, who to avoid. "Why does my toothpaste taste like salt?" "Have you seen my underwear?" "What exactly did I get up to in the Big Blue Bar last night?" "Is fire boy C is man whore?" "What exactly is this I'm eating?" it's all in a day's work here at reception. I am the veritable tree of knowledge here on Sairee Beach. Ask and yee shall be informed!
Quite predictably, a question I get almost endlessly is: "what is there to do around here?"
well....you can: dive, Sleep, Eat, lie on the beach, go for a boat ride, snorkle, cliff jump, hike, get a massage....or, you could partake in one of Koh Tao's most popular pastimes: Getting absolutely hammered on buckets of mysterious composition then burning your face/legs/arms/back/ass/hair off jumping through a flaming hoop or attempting to do some fancy moves in the flaming skipping rope. Of course this is all done in the hopes of impressing the equally inebriated girls you've just met and luring them back to your cozy beach bungalow. Most people come to Koh Tao for the adrenaline rush of their first SCUBA experience but far too many leave having experienced that other adrenaline rush we do so well here: Burning yourself to bits in the fire show.
Now, in order to understand this rather interesting phenomenon, we must first understand that at any given time this island is saturated in young men who, due to their age and the fact that they are on vacation in a tropical paradise full of topless Swedish beauties, are constantly in need of opportunities to demonstrate their "manliness" and puff their plumage for members of the opposite sex. Well, seek and ye shall find! Wanna look manly?? Well here, jump through this flaming hoop! Wanna show you've got balls of steel? Why not jump in a flaming skipping rope....hell, why not do it NAKED! Yes! that will surely impress the ladies! ...and so it begins.
What makes the whole event that much more interesting is the fact that all the buckets these would be Evil Keneevils consume tends to make them believe three dangerous untruths
1) If you ask to borrow the fire boy's pois and spin them around you will not automatically look like this:
No, Alfie from Essex, Scott from Texas and John from Canada, your Western fed, haven't seen the light of the sun for the past 9 months bodies do not look like this. Even if you stand in the middle of a ring of fire. K.Tao fire spinners spend 5 hours a day working their asses off doing this and it shows...don't be a fool boys, don't be a fool.
2) Just because the fire is attached to a hoop, skipping rope or limbo pole does not mean that it can no longer burn you. If you get a flaming rope to the face/leg/arm/ass, your skin will melt off and hey, if you're lucky it will come off in a neat rope pattern to boot. A special keepsake of your time on Koh Tao.
3) If you jump naked you will not be invincible to the flames and no, all the girls will not magically want your naked (now scorched) body. More likely you'll end up like this guy:
Ahhh to be young, drunk and overflowing with lust and testosterone.
I only wish I had videos of some of the more epic flaming rope meets stupid tourist moments. This will have to do (imagine if these guys keep drinking buckets and try again in an hour's time...naked)
Almost a month without a post! Between working, marking and moderating IB exams, diving, Songkraning, a visit from Mr. James Miller and breaking up with my boyfriend (again...) I have been a bit busy and my blogging has, predictably, fallen by the wayside. As usual, much apologies my faithful followers (like a broken record, I know...).But, have no fear my frosty friends in places less sunny, you can once again live vicariously through my endless beachy adventures. Never a dull moment shall pass on these sandy shores without a little chronicling from the Princess (even if it takes me a few weeks to get my ass in gear to write about it).
Anyway... let's get on with it shall we??
Working at the reception desk of a popular dive school means I spend a lot of time answering questions. Actually that's pretty much all I do. Questions about diving, questions about travel, questions about whether or not divemaster A is single or Instructor B would be interested going on a date with a particularly keen student. Questions about where to eat, what to drink, who to talk to, who to avoid. "Why does my toothpaste taste like salt?" "Have you seen my underwear?" "What exactly did I get up to in the Big Blue Bar last night?" "Is fire boy C is man whore?" "What exactly is this I'm eating?" it's all in a day's work here at reception. I am the veritable tree of knowledge here on Sairee Beach. Ask and yee shall be informed!
Quite predictably, a question I get almost endlessly is: "what is there to do around here?"
well....you can: dive, Sleep, Eat, lie on the beach, go for a boat ride, snorkle, cliff jump, hike, get a massage....or, you could partake in one of Koh Tao's most popular pastimes: Getting absolutely hammered on buckets of mysterious composition then burning your face/legs/arms/back/ass/hair off jumping through a flaming hoop or attempting to do some fancy moves in the flaming skipping rope. Of course this is all done in the hopes of impressing the equally inebriated girls you've just met and luring them back to your cozy beach bungalow. Most people come to Koh Tao for the adrenaline rush of their first SCUBA experience but far too many leave having experienced that other adrenaline rush we do so well here: Burning yourself to bits in the fire show.
Now, in order to understand this rather interesting phenomenon, we must first understand that at any given time this island is saturated in young men who, due to their age and the fact that they are on vacation in a tropical paradise full of topless Swedish beauties, are constantly in need of opportunities to demonstrate their "manliness" and puff their plumage for members of the opposite sex. Well, seek and ye shall find! Wanna look manly?? Well here, jump through this flaming hoop! Wanna show you've got balls of steel? Why not jump in a flaming skipping rope....hell, why not do it NAKED! Yes! that will surely impress the ladies! ...and so it begins.
What makes the whole event that much more interesting is the fact that all the buckets these would be Evil Keneevils consume tends to make them believe three dangerous untruths
1) If you ask to borrow the fire boy's pois and spin them around you will not automatically look like this:
No, Alfie from Essex, Scott from Texas and John from Canada, your Western fed, haven't seen the light of the sun for the past 9 months bodies do not look like this. Even if you stand in the middle of a ring of fire. K.Tao fire spinners spend 5 hours a day working their asses off doing this and it shows...don't be a fool boys, don't be a fool.
2) Just because the fire is attached to a hoop, skipping rope or limbo pole does not mean that it can no longer burn you. If you get a flaming rope to the face/leg/arm/ass, your skin will melt off and hey, if you're lucky it will come off in a neat rope pattern to boot. A special keepsake of your time on Koh Tao.
 |
| Jump through this! Don't worry it's on a hoop so it won't burn a bit! |
3) If you jump naked you will not be invincible to the flames and no, all the girls will not magically want your naked (now scorched) body. More likely you'll end up like this guy:
 |
| "damn my balls are burning...and where are my clothes? and what about the throngs of girls I have impressed with my mad naked jumping skills....????....d'oh!" |
Ahhh to be young, drunk and overflowing with lust and testosterone.
I only wish I had videos of some of the more epic flaming rope meets stupid tourist moments. This will have to do (imagine if these guys keep drinking buckets and try again in an hour's time...naked)
Cheers from the burn ward
J
J
1 Comments:
BAhahaha. You rock my fucking world Joe-san.
And it burns me to bits that you will not be in Tao when I'm back in August. *sigh*
Peter
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