January 27th to 29th- mad hostel, beach parties, and guns

After the horrific ferry ride we're safely in gorgeous Ko Phangan. Our hostel is owned by a wild 40 something English man and his Thai wife and children. He's been there for 20 years, clearly not wanting to grow up, walking around with an un-buttoned shirt, telling us stories of drug times, mad parties, becoming the hostel dj at night, which he's actually surprisingly good at, passing out on the sofa.. Cigarettes, alcohol bottles and various strange memorabilia lie around the bar area, along with a gun.... His life based around giving his 16 hostel visitors a wild time. His kids don't seem to have a bed and instead sleep on the sofas in the bar/lobby/dj area, and amazingly sleep through his booming djing combined with the music coming from  5 metres down the road at the beach parties.  
   The first night we spent at an amazing foam party on the beach. Dancing in the foam that came up to well over our heads was so much fun, not sure if you were going to drown, then running into the sea to wash it all off. There was a huge bolt of lightening followed by thunder and a tropical rain storm. So lush all dancing away on the beach in pouring rain. The storm caused a powercut and all the lights and music on the whole island stopped for a few scary but exhilerating seconds as we all suddenly found ourselves in PITCH black. The fire dancers here are mental, huge skipping rope set alight, massive circle formed, then pissed partyers encouraged to jump in and skip as they spin the flaming rope faster and faster. So many people being bashed over the head or getting themselves tangled in the firey rope... Thai kids younger than 10 spinning fire poi on platforms. They sell strange alcohol buckets here, and we had a major warning from the British embassy guy we met here about them. They each have a bottle of concentrated red bull type stuff in, which is banned in the EU, and Thai law state nobody should have more than 2 of them within 24 hours, when of course people are drinking far more than that. They make your heart beat far too fast apparently.. The concentrated red bull stuff is then mixed with coke, which makes it even worse. Then added to that is what is supposed to be vodka or whisky but in most cases definitely is something more like petrol. We've been drinking our own alcohol bought from a supermarket instead, but have had a few buckets and they're definitely interesting... Met so many lovely, friendly people, the atmosphere here is so happy I love it. Apart from the one fight last night in which a bench was smashed over someones head. Sent me into panicy tears, but think things were ok after half the crowd rushed in to break it up... 
   Spend the day times recovering on the beach in the sunshine. Ben and Will started a game where you have to throw a ball to hit a plastic bottle in the sand, when you hit it you have to move to a line further back and try to hit it from further and further distances. Weren't many people left on the beach so decided couldn't embarrass myself too badly considering my serious lack of sporting ability... Anyway, turned out that i beat both boys very impressively, hitting the bottle from the furthest distance long before they got past the first stage. HA HA HA. ;)
     Last night we were drinking in the hostel bar, and me being my usual nosey self sat there people watching the people in the street, noticed a oddly-behaving, tattooed Thai guy swagger in to talk to our hostel owner. They were acting weirdly, and then slunk off across the road to a tattoo shop were the Thai guy pulled out a huge shotgun from his trousers. I seemed to be the only one who had noticed.. He then handed our hostel owner a smaller gun, which he snuck down his trousers and came back over to our hostel and hid at the back of a drawer.. Didn't feel threatening to us, he clearly moved here to live the gangster life style.. But the Thai guy hung around outside for a while, falling about looking a bit off-his face on something, then marched in muttering something to our hostel guy, they both rushed over to the drawer, grabbed the gun, the Thai guy rushed back outside and shoved this English man, grabbing him round the waist. This is when I decided I was about to witness a shooting a few metres infront of me and ducked down under the window waiting for the screams.. but it all jsut seemed to fizzle out.. Who knows.. This place is mad.