Are We Nearly There Yet

by Lucy Vine

  Mark, Joe and I landed last night – buzzing and bouncing – on the Phi Phi Islands. I was permitted to enjoy Bangkok for just a few days before Mark insisted we head off to Phuket. The three of us spent our days walking around the city, staring at the architecture and sight-seeing. The local people are so nice and friendly, but there’s also such a vast ex-pat, international community, we couldn’t go many steps without waving at fellow Westerners. We all stick out like a sore thumb, and therefore tend to gravitate together. We bumped into a group of Irish Americans on our last night, who insisted on taking us with them on their group dinner to this incredible rooftop restaurant. We’ve all exchanged numbers, and there’s talk of meeting up on one of the islands in a couple of weeks. I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of that kind of thing on this trip and lots of then never speaking again.

  But to be honest, great as it was, I was OK with leaving. The city was a real culture shock after the carefree lifestyle of LA, I can tell you. And if you thought the driving over there was dangerous, you should see the small children driving scooter taxis all over Bangkok. They are everywhere.

  It was kind of fabulous though. There’s something freeing about everyone’s languid attitude to all the danger. And, look, we all made it out alive, so it’s fine.

  Either way, we’re here now, and first stop: Full Moon Party, because obvs.

  We got drunk at our hostel, dancing around the room like we were fifteen years old again, getting ready for the local disco at the Rec Centre. And now we’re here at the beach, surrounded by fellow clichéd Western tourists, and I’ve continued on that same teen-type theme; flirting shamelessly and gradually hiking my skirt up higher and higher as the hours pass. Honestly, this could only be more Friday night teen disco if someone released some foam from the sky and a tit fell out of a Jane Norman or Bay Trading dress.

  Oh, actually there are a few tits out over there.

  Despite the youth club atmosphere, the setting couldn’t feel more worldly and grown up. It is ridiculously beautiful here on the beach. The water is a colour I have only seen in films, and assumed was touched up in post-production anyway. The sand is so clean and white and soft. It’s like no beach I’ve ever been on. And I never want to leave this spot, feet slightly buried, shoulders warm, face buzzing from kisses from strangers. It’s glorious.

  Ooh, I should save that kind of cheese for the blog.

  Mark suddenly grabs me round the middle from behind. ‘Hello amazing sister,’ he says, kissing me on the cheek. He is drunk. ‘You smell like boys.’

  ‘You don’t,’ I say, giggling. ‘Met anyone nice tonight?’

  He shakes his head, giving me a mysterious half smile. ‘Nah, I’m having too much fun dancing and drinking.’

  ‘Don’t you want to meet anyone?’ I sound a bit exasperated and he rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t start with me, you’re as bad as Mum.’ I wince at the mention but we both let it go.

  ‘Where’s Joe, anyway?’ I say, dropping the romance topic and looking around. Mark shrugs. ‘Probably getting off with someone here, like everyone else,’ he says without emotion. He grabs my hand, pulling me into a group of dancing men nearby, faces adorned with intricate animal-face paints. They are all high as kites, pupils solid black, and I wonder which one I should snog next. It’s like a sex buffet here, it’s such a delight.

  We sway along to the distant music and Mark leans over to shout in my ear. ‘Speaking of boys, any word from TD lately?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, actually!’ I say enthusiastically. ‘You know I blocked him on WhatsApp after that weirdly sentimental message he sent me in LA? But he could’ve contacted me some other way. I haven’t had any emails or calls or texts – nothing. Which I think proves it was just a fleeting moment of emotion for him. Maybe he was drunk or lonely. Or, most likely, horny. Either way, I honestly feel fine about it. You know . . . I think I might finally be getting over him, Mark. I’ve hardly thought about him lately. And I have to say, all this snogging other people really helps.’

  He nods importantly. ‘That’s excellent. And you should do more of that then.’

  ‘So should you,’ I say carefully and we eye each other warily for a second.

  ‘Hannah sent me the latest family newsletter today,’ he says, tactically changing the subject.

  ‘And you haven’t forwarded it to me yet!’ I gasp, laughing. ‘Any highlights?’

  ‘So many,’ he confirms. ‘Apparently Hannah finally has absolute proof that the world is flat. Who knew? She has been swapping messages with some, er, “experts” she met on AWOL. They told her they’re whistle-blowers from NASA and the round Earth thing is all a lie to keep us from investigating the aliens who really run the government.’

  ‘That is so totally amazing,’ I laugh again, as he continues.

  ‘Yep, she is now officially referring to herself as a Flat Earther and included a number of YouTube and sub-Reddit links on the email, for those of us who want to know “the truth”.’

  I clap my hands together, delighted. ‘Please forward it on to me immediately,’ I say. ‘Because I need more information. Do these people also think the sun is flat? And the moon? Why are there are no Flat Sun-ers or Flat Moon-ers?’

  ‘I can show you a flat moon right now,’ Mark says dryly, pointing at his own admittedly shapeless bum. We both giggle. I am so happy. Hannah’s conspiracy theories are my favourite thing.

  ‘It’s a very good point about Flat Sun-ers though,’ he adds seriously. ‘Maybe I will raise it with Hannah and she can address her thoughts on other stars and planets in her next newsletter. But the whole thing is your fault, anyway. She’s been looking into the Earth shape because you’ve been travelling to such faraway lands. She’s really worried you’re going to get to an edge and fall off. She’s also asking the two of us not to go up any mountains while we’re in Thailand, as the other side is often a drop-off point into outer space. Obviously. That’s why we can’t see the edges, they’re up high. This whole Earth thing is essentially a valley.’

  ‘That makes SO much sense, she is so clever,’ I nod enthusiastically along. I love it. But I guess that puts paid to the mountain-climbing plan, at least. How useful because I didn’t really want to do that anyway.

  A man with a tiger painted across his face leans into our space.

  ‘You with him?’ he shouts at me, gesturing rudely towards Mark.

  I look at my brother, my eyes wide. Outrageous! Interrupting us, barging into our conversation, dismissing my beloved Mark with a wave of his hand! No one talks to us like that! I will tell this idiot where to go.

  ‘Nope, I’m not with him,’ I say instead, smiling up at tiger face, all heavy-lidded and flirty. ‘Why, are you interested?’

  Mark winks at me, understanding that he could be falling into a vat of acid right now and I would not care or save him.

  ‘See you later, loving sis,’ he says with emphasis, and wanders off to find Joe. I turn back to the tiger, who is grinning at me.

  ‘I’m a firefighter,’ he says in an Essex accent, puffing his chest out. And it is a nice chest. ‘Fancy a shag?’

  ‘Does that line ever work?’ I say, genuinely curious. Firefighters are sexy, sure, but is saying the word one time enough to make all pants in the vicinity drop en masse?

  ‘About eighty per cent of the time,’ he says, nodding, still waiting for my answer.

  I consider it. I am definitely up for getting off with him – it would break my one-night snogging record, currently held by sixteen-year-old me when I got off with Adam, Giuseppe, Fazli and put half of my tongue in Aaron’s mouth. Slutty Sarah said that only counted as three and a half – even though I actually went back and snogged Adam a second time later that night. So, snogging four people tonight would be a nice round number to reach, fourteen years later.

  But it would also break my Thailand rule to actually shag him.


  Hold on—

  ‘How many cats have you saved from trees? Do you keep count?’ I ask, carefully.

  ‘Four thousand and seventy-two,’ he says confidently.

  ‘That many?’ I am surprised and turned on. ‘Who is putting all these cats up trees? Is it the arsonists, hoping to keep all you firefighters distracted while they set alight to the world around us?’

  ‘Is that a yes?’ he says, smirking.

  Oh, you bet it is.

  17

  AWOL.COM/Alice Edwards’ Travel Blog: Living My Dream and Feeling Very #Blessed

  26 May – 6.22 p.m.

  Can someone let me know in the comments section if the monkey photos are loading? I can’t see them and I really want to post these incredible pictures I took of monkeys. You will be super amazed by all the monkeys, I PROMISE.

  Will update properly in a bit, but we’re having a great time. Who knew there were monkeys????

  Alice xx

  8 Comments · 1 AWOLs · 13 Super Likes

  COMMENTS:

  Karen Gill

  | Yep, all 86 of the monkey pictures you took are on here.

  Hollie Baker

  | Wow!! Monkeys!!

  Isabelle Moore

  | Can you Skype me and @EthanWinkleman so we can see the monkeys!

  Ethan Winkleman

  Replying to Isabelle Moore and Alice Edwards

  | Fair warning, Alice, we will be in bed, so you might see something you shouldn’t ;)

  Isabelle Moore

  Replying to Ethan Winkleman and Alice Edwards

  | We really should get out of bed sometime!! But it’s so hard when you’re such a sexy boy . . .

  Ethan Winkleman

  Replying to Isabelle Moore and Alice Edwards

  | I’ll show you something else that’s so hard, babe . . .

  Alice Edwards

  Replying to Ethan Winkleman and Isabelle Moore

  | BLOCKED AND REPORTED

  Ayo Damiunse

  | Wow, you are the first person to ever see monkeys in Thailand. Thank God you exist.

  Joe and I are snuggled up in a hostel bed together eating an early, wholesome dinner of crisps. Many, many crisps. We were at a street market earlier and dared each other to try some deep-fried spiders – and now we feel predictably sick. The crisps are an attempt at masking the awful taste, but we also agreed that we just really needed to spend an evening lying around eating junk food and trying to illegally download some English telly.

  It’s really nice actually. Doing nothing for an evening. There’s quite a lot of pressure when you’re away travelling, pressure to make sure you fully experience everything. Pressure to make the most of your time. So a night of doing nothing – a night where I could easily just be at home in England, dreading having work in the morning – is exactly what I needed.

  ‘Have you heard from that tiger fireman you had a special, adult cuddle with after the Full Moon Party?’ Joe says, giggling through a mouthful of crisp.

  I make a face. ‘Yep, and it was gross. I should not have given him my number. He tried to sext me last night – it was hilariously bad. Hold on, I’ll read it to you.’

  I pull out my phone and find the message. ‘“Peep this, you naughty bitch,”’ I read aloud in a posh accent, trying to keep a straight face. ‘“I’m horny. Where do you” – spelled with just the one letter – “want me to put this?”’ I pause dramatically. ‘That’s what he’s written, and then he has kindly attached a picture of his very average cock.’

  Joe bursts out laughing as he takes my phone and reviews the image. ‘Stunning. And did you reply?’

  I nod, ‘Yes. I wrote: “Hello. Your penis looks a bit herpes-sad.” He didn’t reply. But ugh, Joe, it was such an awkward, crappy one-night stand anyway. He wanted to have a bath! When are people going to get the message that taking a bath together is not sexy? Especially not in grotty hostels. Like, how do you take your clothes off? When you’re just having normal sex, you can take them off while you’re kissing and that. But he suggested getting in a bath the moment we got back to his place – we’d just walked in the bloody door. It ended up feeling like I was getting ready for bed. And then I accidentally took my bottom half off first, which just made me look like Winnie the Pooh with my belly hanging delicately out of my top.’

  Joe spits out some half-chewed food, and bends forward laughing.

  I sigh, continuing on with my woe-is-me tale of bad sex. ‘It got even worse when the two of us tried to cram into this small, dirty bath. Of course I got stuck with the tap end because he’s a selfish prick – which I found out later when he made absolutely no effort with my genitals. He seemed to think foreplay is just aggressively rubbing his dick against my leg before sticking it in. And he’s one of those blokes who’s watched way too much porn, so thinks we all want to be called a dirty bitch and sprayed across the face with sticky semen. It’s not like I’m a prude, it’s just so deeply, genuinely unsexy, and also makes such a mess.’

  ‘Sounds like you could’ve done with another bath afterwards,’ Joe laughs again, squeezing my hand.

  I lie my head on his shoulder. ‘Well, I did go back in the bathroom to have a wee after the crap sex, but he immediately knocked on the door. Is there anything more horrifying than someone knocking on the door when you’re perched on an unknown toilet? And what are you supposed to say? “Occupied? I’m in here? Sod off, I’m weeing?” I’ve always wondered if there’s a toilet etiquette involved, because mostly I just make a loud frightened noise and fail to wipe myself properly.’

  Joe agrees noisily just as Mark stomps in.

  ‘Shut up whatever you two are saying,’ he shouts excitably.

  ‘That’s not very polite,’ Joe begins teasingly, but Mark cuts him off.

  ‘No time for politeness, we must pack!’ He is bouncing up and down. ‘We’re going to Koh Chang in the morning.’

  ‘We are?’ I say, surprised.

  ‘Yep, we’re going on a retreat.’ He smirks mysteriously, and I know there is more to it.

  ‘A . . . retreat?’ I say, deeply suspicious. ‘Like, with boot-camp exercises and a week of eating spinach smoothies?’

  Mark snorts again. ‘Something like that, Al. My guru friend runs an Ayahuasca retreat.’

  ‘Not Gary?’ Joe says suspiciously.

  ‘Gary the guru?’ I say, my voice high. ‘And what the hell is, er, I-have-a-whisker?’

  ‘Ayahuasca,’ Mark says with emphasis, rolling his eyes. ‘It’s a tree bark or a vine or something.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve done your research,’ I observe dryly.

  ‘Actually, it’s a life-changing experience, Alice. And isn’t that what you’re looking for from all this?’ he says, grinning. ‘You spend a week hallucinating and vomming everywhere.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful,’ I say sarcastically but feeling intrigued, despite myself. I pause, considering it. ‘But I already did my drug experimentation thing in LA.’

  Joe hides his smile behind his hand nicely and Mark less nicely throws his head back laughing. It is the sort of deeply unkind, mocking laugh only siblings can get away with.

  ‘You smoked half a spliff with a dickhead on a beach,’ he exclaims, still unkindly. ‘You cannot call that your once-in-a-lifetime drug experience. And this isn’t recreational anyway, Ayahuasca is a truly important and spiritual entheogenic brew that will return you to the womb and help you see God and the universe. It’s a deeply respected ceremony – a medicine – used by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin.’

  ‘But we’re nowhere near South America,’ I protest weakly. ‘How did your guru friend even get it over here?’

  He nods importantly. ‘Gary smuggled it in up his bum.’

  Joe cheers and I reach for the crisps.

  18
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br />   AWOL.COM/Alice Edwards’ Travel Blog: Living My Dream and Feeling Very #Blessed

  27 May – 2.58 p.m.

  Hello, dream chasers,

  We have left Phuket after a dreamy time, and we’re on our way to Koh Chang! We are getting trains and ferries and taxis, which is all very, very enjoyable. Luckily I don’t get car sick, and we have played I Spy all the way, and it has given us a chance to really take in the very impressive views and bond with each other even more. There is nothing like travelling to bring out the very best in people and bring you together. We are getting on really, really, really well. Despite seven hours in a car together. We are great. Closer than ever.

  Anyway, now we are on our way to a spiritual retreat!! We will spend a week taking a very mythical form of tree bark called Ayahuasca. I shall hallucinate and connect with the universe and find out who I truly am. It is not always a pleasant experience and there may be bodily fluids as it is a drug, and I will not sugarcoat this, but it shall be worth it!!

  Wish me luck on this journey,

  Alice xx

  #Ayahuasca #LegaliseWeed #DrugMules #TravelBlogger #GoneAWOL #AliceEdwardsBlog #BloggerLife #Blessed #Brave #DreamChaser

  7 Comments · 6 AWOLs · 18 Super Likes

  COMMENTS:

  Karen Gill

  | Sounds like your brother is driving you round the bend!! Eh? Eh?

  Alice Edwards

  Replying to Karen Gill

  | What exactly are you driving at?