thoughts on the phi phi return

I think it's fair to say that my four days on Phi Phi Don did not reach the same heights as they did when I came last year.

Tired and ill upon arrival on Thursday, a tsunami scare on Friday night, viscous wind and rain all day on Saturday - and then I fell ill again on the Sunday.

It's always difficult to decide whether to go back to somewhere you've been to before and had an amazing time. There is a certain inevitability that it won't live up to the previous experience. Having said that, I could quite have easily gone to somewhere I'd never been to before and had crap weather and got the shits.

On Saturday night, I decided to book myself on a Thai cookery course. It's about time I learnt how to do these sorts of dishes without the help of sauces bought from supermarkets, and the incessant rain made it the perfect occasion to spend some time in a kitchen.

I went for my course at probably my favourite restaurant in the entire world - Pum's. Given that it was just me doing the cooking and that you eat it all afterwards, I decided that two dishes would suffice. I decided to make a green curry (because I have no idea how to) and chili chicken (as it's one of my favourite meals).

I had deliberately selected two dishes that contained no fish, but the trouble in Thailand is that they chuck loads of fish sauce in just about everything anyway. As we were making the curry , my instructor's eyes lit up when it got to the part where we added the minge juice:

'And now the fish sauce! Would you like to smell it?'
'No! Listen, I don't like fish. Do we have to put that in there?'
'Yes, yes, yes we must. If you want we put in one and a half teaspoons instead of two.'
'How about one?'

He did look at me as if I was mad. If I'm being totally honest, he probably isn't used to the students on these courses trying to alter his recipes, but this was a green chicken curry for fuck's sake and I was the fucker who was going to eat it and I don't like fucking fish! If I'd told him I had a nut allergy, would he have insisted on bunging as load of cashews in just because it was in the recipe?

Anyway, something must have gone wrong with the meal because on Sunday I was ill all day. It probably wasn't just the food - a 'perfect storm' of alcohol, the heat, changed sleep patterns and travel often combines at once to make me feel dreadful.

It was a shame I was ill on Sunday because the weather had returned to normal and it was lovely and sunny. This meant that the beach parties, which I enjoyed so much last year, started up after a two day break enforced by the dire conditions. Unfortunately, I felt to ill to stay for more than a couple of beers and retreated to my hotel for an early night.

As I said, these four days had not been the same as before. Too much time sheltering from the conditions or recovering from tiredness/illness in my room and not enough on the beach soaking up the glorious surroundings of this island. There will be other chances. Or will there? Maybe it's better to carry on trying new experiences rather than attempting to re-create previous ones...