In my experience, party hostels are hit and miss. And after nearly four weeks in Thailand, Andy and I had only found the misses.
Bodega Party Hostels are a pretty well known chain in Thailand, with a good rep. So we decided to check into the one Koh Samui. For three nights it cost us each £13 – a tad more expensive than other options in the area, but it was worth it. The beds in our 4-bed dorm were super comfy and the rooms had great aircon. Bodegas also have swimming pools, and we quickly learned that this was a place that the likes of us could socialise.
In one afternoon, we made friends with more people than we had on the entire trip. Andy and I are quite often grumpy old men, but we can connect with people who just wanna kid about in a pool all day.
From left to right: Riley from Canada, Max and Andy from Manchester, Wilmer and Chelsea from the Netherlands, Kim from Germany, Chris from California and a guy called David from Cheshire.
All you need are some rubber rings, a volleyball net and some beers. Andy had a 3 hour stint in the water. Highlights of the day included Max falling down a hole to introduce himself and Andy trying to drown Wilmer in the deep end. Also I suppose the moment Wilmer and I tried to do a joint cannonball but I slipped and dragged him under… Fail.
One annoyance about party hostels is the price of booze. It’s expensive, and you’re not allowed to bring in outside food or drink – particularly annoying as Bodega Koh Samui is literally right next door to a 7/11. So it makes sense to make the most of the nightly drinking activities.
It was a Friday night, which meant tonight was the Koh Samui Pub Crawl. 450 baht bought you some free shots, a bucket of booze and a vest, as well as travel to the first pub. We’d also get a 2-4-1 deal on buckets at the first pub. Well, when in Rome…
We played a game where you flip a coin onto a table and do the activity you land on.
Riley somehow landed himself this.
He had to have someone suck alcohol out of his bellybutton and take the shot glass from him, mouth to mouth. I wish I could tell you that one of the girls were doing it, but as you can tell, this was a man-on-man affair.
Eventually the reps got bored of this game so we stopped and played ring of fire. Then they got bored of that and we waited around for the minibusses to show up.
After singing along to Dancing Queen by ABBA in our minibus, we arrived at our first pub in Chaweng with the rest of the Bodegans.
Here we got our 2-4-1 buckets. I was starting to feel it now tbf. Not as bad as our Canadian friend Riley who had gone very quiet… He threw up and had to go back to the Bodega.
Btw I’m aware of how red I was. We’d literally spent all day in the pool.
From here we went to a bar where there was a stone platform that our gang took over. We danced like morons above the packed bar.
Here’s Max next to German Max. German Max was from Exeter, and his name was not Max. I don’t know how he got this nickname.
Eventually we ended up at a pretty famous nightclub called the Green Mango.
The place is huge. All outdoors, with three huge sections to it. There was an old man stood on a box dancing like a mad man.
We were the last standing Bodegans – Max, Chelsea, Andy and some German lads. And me. In the back of the Green Mango there was a big screen hooked up to a live camera, so we had fun spotting ourselves on the TV.
Chaweng was great. It gets my thumb up of approval 👍🏻
We finished off the night with a 7/11 toastie – an absolute staple food for travellers in Thailand.
The next day we were pretty sad to be leaving the Bodega, but it was time to trade in a comfy bed for sleeping on the ground, and friends for ants…
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