Anyone who sat through the mess that was The Hangover Part II remembers that Bradley Cooper and his brohams woke up in Bangkok, with one shaved head, one facial tattoo and one chain-smoking capuchin monkey. Phillip Boyle and his friends managed to avoid the worst aspects of that movie, but the part about going out drinking and waking up in Thailand? Yeah, they did that. 
 
 Boyle and several friends went out on Friday night for a few drinks, picked up a few more drinks at a gas station and then stayed up all night throwing back the finest alcoholic beverages that Northern England has to offer. At 11 the next morning, Boyle’s friend Jamie Blyth started asking if he had his passport, then called a cab to take the whole hungover group to the Manchester Airport. Boyle told GazetteLive 
 
 When we got in the taxi we didn’t even have flights. It’s a last minute bad idea – but one of those bad ideas that turns into a good idea. I nearly canceled when [we were] on the way to Manchester Airport and realized this is all a bit rash and nothing was booked. 
 
 But they followed their best (worst?) instincts and bought tickets to Pattaya, Thailand, two seven hour flights interrupted by a layover in Abu Dhabi. Boyle said that he didn’t even pack a real suitcase, he just stuffed some t-shirts and some clean underwear in a grocery bag. After 14 hours and 6,750 miles, the group landed in the beachside city, where they planned to stay until Tuesday. “No one’s misbehaved,” he said. 
 
 Phillip Boyle went out for a few quiet beers and ended up on a plane to Thailand http://t.co/xO6KgmjppO pic.twitter.com/vEEnf4DGrS — HuffPost UK (@HuffPostUK) March 24, 2015 
 
 British teenager Luke Harding pulled a similar – if shorter – stunt after a night of drinking. The then-19-year-old was “well and truly plastered” in a cab heading home when he realized that he’d never seen the Eiffel Tower. He told the cabbie to take him to the Manchester Airport (which must have special boarding area for Drunken Travelers), bought a $150 flight to Paris and staggered onboard the 6 a.m. flight. He didn’t fully realize what he’d done until he woke up, beyond hungover in a bathroom at Charles De Gaulle airport. Harding said 
 
 When I woke up I initially didn’t know where I was but then I remembered a bit about being in Manchester airport and booking the flight to Paris – and thinking ‘oh sh*t.’ 
 
 The moral of this story seems to be “don’t drink in the north of England.” At least not without packing a bag first. ||||| VIEW GALLERY 
 
 So...how’s the hangover? 
 
 That’s the question on the world’s lips after news of Middlesbrough lads Phillip Boyle and Jamie Blyth’s last-minute trip to Thailand made headlines across the globe. 
 
 But - perhaps surprisingly - the pair are feeling pretty dapper. 
 
 “I’m feeling okay now,” says Phillip, speaking to The Gazette after their booze-fuelled jaunt to Thailand. 
 
 “I was worse when we came!” 
 
 Jamie and Phillip with his upgraded bag 
 
 “It’s been crazy,” says 33-year-old company director Phillip from Nunthorpe. 
 
 The Gazette first broke news of the story on Monday after learning that the pair - who started their Friday night at The Southern Cross in Marton for a ‘quiet pint’ - had ended up jetting out to Thailand in a drunken haze. 
 
 But the boozy plan paid off and - despite a few moments of hesitation as the drink wore off - they’ve had the time of their lives. 
 
 “It was around the bend there,” says Phillip of the holiday resort of Pattaya. 
 
 “It’s been non-stop as we were only there for a couple of days. 
 
 “We went out for meals and to bars and didn’t really sleep that much. 
 
 “If we were there for a week or so we might have travelled around a bit. 
 
 “I have fallen behind with a few things at work though,” admits Phillip. 
 
 Phillip had initially jetted out with just a carrier bag stuffed with a few T-Shirts and pairs of boxer shorts. 
 
 But he did manage to upgrade - buying a new backpack and a pair of trainers whilst out there, that were unfortunately swiped. 
 
 Phillip forced to wear work shoes after trainers were pinched 
 
 Pal Jamie, 33, a rigger from Marton and instigator of the trip, said: “On the way out there we sobered up on the flight and thought ‘what have we done!’ 
 
 “We were a bit confused in Abu Dhabi at the stop over but just thought ‘We’re here now so we should just make the most of it'. 
 
 “The guys that we knew from school were shocked to see that we’d turned up! 
 
 “It’s been great.” 
 
 Jamie, who has a new girlfriend, said: “She was a bit annoyed, but it was only two days - a short break. 
 
 “She’s just been laughing about it and thought we were daft.” 
 
 And Phillip has some advice for others wanting to follow in their footsteps. 
 
 “I would recommend it - it’s been brilliant fun.” ||||| SMITHS FALLS, ONT.—During his years as a hostage, 4-year-old Jonah Boyle was terrified to close his eyes. This wasn’t just the protest of a child who didn’t want to nap or go to bed. “Even if you tried to play peekaboo with him, he would scream, he would panic,” said his father, Joshua Boyle. 
 
 Linda Boyle kisses her granddaughter, Grace. She and her two brothers, Jonah and Noah, the children of freed hostages Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman, have known no life other than what they experienced at the hands of their kidnappers. ( Steve Russell / Toronto Star ) Patrick Boyle holds his granddaughter, Grace. Her parents, Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle, were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012 and all three of their children were born in captivity. ( Steve Russell / Toronto Star ) 
 
 The fear began one evening when the kidnappers transferred Jonah, his younger brother, Noah, and their parents from one prison to another. The boys were asleep, and the guards forced Boyle and his wife, Caitlan Coleman, to leave their sons and get into the car first. Jonah was also asleep until the kidnappers returned. “A bunch of masked men with Kalashnikovs then came into the room — their mother and father aren’t there — and start picking them up and say, ‘Come on, come on, we go in the car,’ pulling him to some place he doesn’t know.” Boyle told this story Saturday not to recount the horror his son endured — but to highlight his recovery. 
 
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 Jonah Boyle, 4, looks out from behind a door in his grandparents' home. Jonah had trouble getting to sleep on his first day in Canada because he was so excited to be free, said his father, Joshua. ( Steve Russell/Toronto Star ) 
 
 “Last night he wouldn’t close his eyes because he was so excited and he just wanted to sit on his pile of toys with a gigantic smile on his face,” Boyle said. “It took him about three hours to fall asleep, and it wasn’t three hours of panic. It was three hours where he just wanted to really, really cherish this gigantic rabbit and these plastic Lego blocks and these toys, and he wanted to sit there and bask in being ‘no bandi’ after all of this time.” “Bandi” is what the kidnappers called their hostages. Coleman and Boyle would tell their sons hundreds of stories about how life would be once they were free, even as they sometimes lost hope that they ever would be. Boyle spoke to the Star on Saturday from his parents’ home in a wide-ranging interview — the first since the couple, their sons and a newborn daughter, Grace, were freed in a dramatic rescue by Pakistani forces three days earlier. Read more: Joshua Boyle demands justice from Afghan government after returning to Canada 
 
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 Details about the rescue are still unconfirmed, but Boyle said all five family members were in the trunk of a vehicle to be transferred to another location when shots were fired. Some of the kidnappers were killed and others fled. On Saturday he described some of their darkest moments while being held hostage: cells that were no bigger than a bathtub, or underground; his wife’s rape and forced abortion; the daily cruelty of the kidnappers. And then there was the devastating boredom during five years spent almost entirely without books, newspapers or movies — allowed only a slate and a piece of chalk. Boyle said that when they once asked for something to read or anything to relieve the tedium, the kidnappers returned with a pile of dirty dishes to wash. They didn’t know Justin Trudeau was Canada’s prime minister until after they were rescued. One of the captors told Boyle the new U.S. president was Donald Trump before he was forced to make a “proof-of-life” video. “It didn’t enter my mind that he was being serious,” he said. 
 
 Joshua Boyle and his son, Jonah, play in the garden at his parents house in Smiths Falls, Ont., Saturday. ( Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press ) 
 
 But outside Boyle’s father’s office where we spoke Saturday, there was little evidence of what his children had been through as they enjoyed their first full day of freedom in Canada. Jonah was fascinated by flushing the toilet, and had dirty pants and bare feet from digging in the vegetable garden. Noah, 2, played with wooden trains with his mother and aunt Heather. Boyle’s mother, Linda, found the best position to soothe her months-old granddaughter, Grace, was snug against her side, cradled like a football. Candy wrappers littered the floor; tables were covered by colouring books, bouquets of flowers, a cake from Pakistan’s high commissioner. A Welcome Home banner hung over the dining room windows. The library looked as though a hurricane of toys and children’s clothes had touched down. Boyle said he knows there will be many more questions about the family’s captivity and rescue, and he plans to address them in coming days, already fielding an inbox full of emails from media outlets around the world. Coleman, on the other hand, wants to stay quiet for now and declined to be interviewed. When the young family arrived back in Canada on Friday night at Toronto’s Pearson airport, Boyle’s statement to journalists prompted more questions than answers. He spoke of the murder of his daughter, “martyr” Boyle, which some news outlets reported as the killing of a newborn named Margaret. He called for justice for his captors, whom he wanted the Taliban to punish, or for them to be brought before the International Criminal Court. Coleman, 31, and Boyle, 34, were kidnapped in Afghanistan in October 2012 during a backpacking trip through Central Asia. On Friday, Boyle said they travelled to the country as “pilgrims” to help people in need in a Taliban-controlled region. 
 
 Patrick and Linda Boyle's home in Smiths Falls, Ont., is finally filled with toys, books, games and the sound of children. The couple welcomed their son Joshua Boyle, his wife Caitlan Coleman and their three children, Jonah, Noah and Grace, who were recently rescued from a five-year hostage nightmare. ( Steve Russell/Toronto Star ) 
 
 His comment led to speculation about the couple’s intent, with some noting Boyle’s previous brief marriage to Zaynab Khadr, the daughter of Egyptian-born Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr, who had been suspected of financing Al Qaeda before he was killed by Pakistani forces in 2003. Boyle said on Saturday that he had read U.S. media reports that questioned why he and Coleman were in Afghanistan. “I’m a harmless hippie and I do not kill even mice,” Boyle said. “I’ve been vegetarian for 17 years. Anybody who knows me would laugh at the notion that I went with designs on becoming a combatant.” When the Haqqani network kidnapped Boyle, Coleman was five months pregnant. All three of the couple’s children were born in captivity, and they kept Coleman’s second pregnancy a secret, surprising the captors when Noah was delivered. The Afghanistan-based Haqqani network are skilled kidnappers who often hold hostages for years as they negotiate lucrative financial deals or the release of prisoners. But holding women or children is rare for the group — and among the many attempts to free the family over the years was an appeal to respect Pashtunwali, a sacred code of honour in the region among Pashtuns. “Those who are Haqqani are different,” Boyle said Saturday, growing angrier as he spoke of the kidnappers. “These are people who have no relationships in life that are not purely mercenary. They have no real friends, only cohorts. They have no wives, children. Those we met who were not orphans spoke of hating their parents.” He said the captors showed no mercy — to any of them. Of the three children, it is the middle boy, Noah, who appears to be suffering the most from the ordeal. At least a quarter of his days are spent crying and screaming, Boyle said. 
 
 Noah Boyle sleeps on a sofa with his aunt, Heather Boyle, close by. Joshua Boyle says he and his wife, Caitlan Coleman, told their sons hundreds of stories about how life would change once they were set free. ( STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR ) 
 
 “He’s not having a temper tantrum; it’s that he saw the colour of orange and orange scares him, or that he saw a screwdriver and screwdrivers scare him. Boots scare him,” he said. Security and police are stationed outside the Boyle house. When they came to the door Saturday, the toddler panicked. “He’s not scared of them specifically; he’s scared of the boots,” said Boyle. “Because the only people he has seen wear boots are people who are coming in to kick you.” 
 
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– We don't want to know how many pills it took to kill this hangover: Two buddies went out for a few drinks at a pub in Marton, England, last Friday. Hours later, they were in Thailand, a la Hangover II. The idea for the spontaneous trip sprouted around 11am Saturday at Phillip Boyle's place. The men had headed there from the pub around 1am for a "quiet night" after picking up a "few drinks from the petrol station," Boyle, 33, tells GazetteLive in a story spotted by USA Today. Friend Jamie Blyth "asks if I have my passport handy and comes up with the idea of us going to Thailand straight away," says Boyle. "Then we got into a taxi he'd phoned and—apart from the short delay of picking up Jamie's passport—we were off." It was "all a bit rash," says Boyle, whose luggage consisted of a grocery bag containing a few shirts and some underwear. The men booked two seven-hour flights spanning 6,750 miles, heading for the beachside city of Pattaya; they apparently "knew some guys from school" in Thailand. "On the way out there we sobered up on the flight and thought 'what have we done!'" Blyth tells GazetteLive. But they made the most of the adventure, which ran through Tuesday. It was "brilliant fun," Boyle says. "We went out for meals and to bars and didn't really sleep that much." He adds, "I'm feeling okay now." The guys admit they did face consequences. "I have fallen behind with a few things at work," Boyle says. Blyth adds his new girlfriend "was a bit annoyed," but "she's just been laughing about it and thought we were daft." (A night of drinking didn't end so well for one Qatar Airways employee.)