The day before the Koh Samui tournament, we decided to get some last minute training in and ended up helping with the set up for the tournament. The tournament is run by a California native who lives in Koh Samui and runs it as a non profit just to have a fun event. This year he received sponsorships from a number of Koh Samui establishments, with two of them being Hooters and Hard Rock. Hooters in Thailand is such an interesting thing because in the states, it is a risque establishment. It would be considered an adult restaurant. In Thailand, it is a short distance from actual strip clubs, so it ends up being like a family restaurant. We still get a good laugh thatwe ended up eating dinner together at Hooter’s on Valentines’s Day. We went to collect our welcome package, which included a custom Koh Samui Open jersey, a Hooters calendar, a mixtape, a water bottle and some other goodies. The package included a Hooters tshirt, which I gave to a Dutch girl in our hostel room and was rewarded with the knowledge that most Europeans do not know what Hooters is.

The International Debut

The first day of the tournament, the main court was lowered to women’s height and the net closer to the water was used for some men’s games. The net closer to the water had considerably more wind coming onto the court, making dealing with the unfamiliar ball even more of a task. We played our first game against a friend we had made earlier in the week, a German named Florian who was quite a bit above our skill level, who was playing alongside the owner of Beach Volleyball Thailand. It was nowhere near our best showing and we did not come out on top. Ryan posted some of the game on his facebook, if you feel like watching us fail. Game two would be the following morning against the first player I played with in pickup on the island and his tall American partner. We played them in two games before leaving Friday night and barely lost both times.

The second day, we came to play. We were on the second court again. We adjusted to the wind and kept aggressive. Ryan’s serves stayed in and the wind tossed them around, perfectly hitting the lines. Our first international win, we’ll take it. Our next game would be on court one against a very tall Russian that we played against our very first day in Phuket. I believe the score of that game was like four to twenty one, so we refused to let that happen again. Our game took place at two, announced over the loud speaker, with all of the people we had made friends with watching. The entirety of this game is on Ryan’s facebook, but unfortunately, we did not come out on top. A few mistakes at the end cost us the game. A line shot from Ryan at the end went just wide to end the game, with the entire crowd saying it was actually in after the game was called. Insult to injury, nobody could have spoken up a few minutes earlier. Oh well, our first showing ended one win and two losses.

We stayed to support our other friends and returned the following day to watch the semis and finals. Finals was between a Slovenian pro team and a Russian team that seemed outgunned. The taller Russian had other plans though, demolishing every ball that was passed above his head. Taking on two and hitting down from behind the ten foot line, he overwhelmed the Slovenian team and they won the match in only two games. A good showing and we decide to go home.

We had had scooters for about a week at this point. As I got to my scooter and got my helmet on, the scooter wouldn’t turn on. I tried everything, but no luck. I pushed it into the lot and tried some more. Ryan pulled his bike over to mine and told me his bike would not start either. Did someone kill our bikes? Did we both somehow kill our bikes? We had learned how to kickstart bikes in Laos, which isn’t exactly ideal in sandals. My bike started up after a few kicks. Ryan’s wouldn’t even kick down. A few minutes later, a group of younger Thai guys started looking at Ryan’s bike, trying everything. They pulled another bike over, took the battery out of his bike and threw in the battery from the other bike and got it started. Then they switched the batteries back and told him not to stop. Thai kindness wins again. We head home to get some sleep before playing in the morning.

I wake up and head to the gym one last time. It is about eighty five degrees and none of the fans are on. After about a twenty minute workout, I am pretty much drenched in sweat. I meet up with Ryan and friends for some games. A group of German FIVB playing girls showed up at the same time as the guys and dropped the net to women’s height to run drills. The four of them played some games and finished up as I arrived. We were going to run some drills but the other net had to be taken down and the Germans “didn’t have time” to reset the net to men’s height before leaving, so we just headed back. I thought I would have enough time for a haircut before our ferry so I found a barbershop.

We have had a number of instances of Thai guys wanting to take pictures with us, especially the ones we play volleyball with. No big deal. Laugh, take a picture, walk away. I showed the barber the usual picture I use for haircuts, a straight on picture from a wedding this past summer and tell him some numbers. As he shaves the sides, he asks if the picture was of me. After I answer, he calls someone into the room. They begin speaking Thai and I recognize the Thai word for handsome and begin to laugh. The barber asks if I speak Thai. Another worker walks in and asks if I have Instagram. I awkwardly say yes and my haircut is postponed for me to type in my username. I look at my watch, fifteen minutes until I need to be at the port for my ferry. The haircut continues. It comes to an end and the usual cleaning up is done. The barber asks to take some pictures. Sure, go ahead. A few more minutes of this and I am edging towards the door. As I open it, he asks to take a picture of the picture I showed him to start. The haircut went well, so sure. He takes the picture and I immediately exit to the ferry and arrive back just in time.

Thai Prices, Please

Koh Samui is essentially a tourist island you would take a family to. If that is the case, then Koh Phangan is a backpacker party island. The prices are similar to the less touristy Northern Thailand, but it attracts a lot more tourists. The beaches get packed every month for the Full Moon party. The beach fills with party goers and the locals sling buckets full of liquor and mixers and the beach rages all night. Bars blast music, there are fire shows and fire jump roping and people stay on the beach past sunrise. Essentially a bunch of drunk tourists cover themselves in neon paint and stumble arond a beach, but it is an interesting sight. Our second tournament took place on Haad Rin beach on February 20th, as did the February Full Moon Party.

Most of my traveling is very planned, but with the length of this trip, I have been trying to be more spontaneous and plan things as I go. I didn’t realize the Full Moon Party was happening and failed to book anything before everything cheap was sold out. Whoops. A girl I had met told me she could get us a hotel room right where we needed to be for considerably cheaper than our other options. Ignoring the fact that this would be a super easy set up to murder us both and take our belongings, we took her up on the offer. Maria was gracious enough not to kill us and basically handled everything for us on the island. She had been coming to the island for years and had a group of cool people traveling with her, so it was a great situation we had stumbled upon. She taught me some Polish, so now I am learning Polish, Thai and Russian for anyone keeping count. We head to the beach to check out the playing spot.

A few of the people we made friends with on Koh Samui were also playing in Koh Phangan, the first time on the trip that we had a group of friends to hang out with. We all went to the beach to play some games. The sand on Koh Phangan is almost silky, a sharp contrast to the gravel sand of Koh Samui. We got some games in and were told that we would get tournament information later that night.

The first tournament ran very well and everyone in the community was more than willing to help out. I am not one to speak ill of a situation, but it’s my site, so I’ll post the truth. Not having tournament information the night before a tournament is offputting. We didn’t know what time to wake up or even where on the beach the games would be. The group chat for the tournament was flooded with questions but no answers. We were told to arrive at noon for a captain’s meeting but were also told we wouldn’t play until one and that we didn’t have to show up until we played. Anyone who has been anywhere hot knows that one oclock is the worst time to be outside. The sun is out with a vengeance.

Oh well, we came to play, so we showed up at noon. We arrived to nets and lines on the ground five minutes before the first games were supposed to start. We were asked to help, so we did. For the same price to play as the smoothly run first tournament, we were building the courts at the last minute. We helped put things together for the first tournament, but just to speed things. Had we not helped, they would have gotten done, just slower. This time, had we not helped, I am not sure it would have. After about an hour of setting up, we were told to take a group picture. As cool as the Koh Samui jersey was, it was almost entirely yellow, so probably won’t be a regular wear for me. For this reason, we were excited to get different jerseys for this tournament. Everyone else had on different colored FIVB style jerseys with ones and twos on them. Awesome. We tried to get some for the picture and found out the only matching ones were yellow and we were told we had to match colors. We took the pictures and immediately took them off.

We played our three pool games against a strong set of teams and failed to come out on top in any of our games. The competition was strong and we didn’t play particularly well. Maria was a saving grace again, offering to take some pictures of us while we played with her DSLR. Not having any cool pictures of us playing, we were ecstatic at the offer. We stuck around to check out our other friends playing and decided to fix the jersey issue. We traded in the yellow jerseys for two red ones and mine has “RUS” on the back. Score. We head home and check out the island.

The second day, we make ourselves scarce to avoid more physical labor. The prices on Koh Phangan facilitate us shopping a bit more so we take advantage. We head over to cheer our friends on for semis and to check out the Slovenian team in finals again, but this time against our friends from Phuket. Not looking to make the same mistakes as on Samui, they lose the first game and then win the next two to take it. The tournament ended around 6:30, so the Full Moon party was being set up.

Booze in Thailand is particularly cheap. You can get two bottles of liquor and two liters for less than twenty American dollars. All over the beach, they sell buckets containing a mixer and a three hundred and seventy five milliliter bottle of liquor. These cost about five American dollars. A dangerous amount of drink and we received a number of warnings about people putting more than liquor into the drinks being sold. We had some drinks back at our place and checked out the scenery. It is standard fare to be covered in neon paint and glitter, but not feeling particularly eager to have either on any of my things, we attended as observers.

Blasting music, drunk people jumping over flaming ropes and a decent variety of light shows abound as the beach was literally covered in people. We roamed around and found some friends to hang out with before remembering that I care more about food than drunk people. We hit up a local burger joint that does the best attempt at a burger that we have seen in Asia and I decide it is time to get some sleep.

Next, we will check out some other parts of Koh Phangan and then begin the journey back to Bangkok to head to Vietnam before coming back to Koh Phangan for training with Olympic players.