After spending the night on the airport floor in Kuala Lumpur, we flew to Bangkok, Thailand. We landed late morning and the airport was quite beautiful and modern looking. Unfortunately all the signs, pamphlets, tourist magazines and maps were in Thai. We had already looked up busses to get to the city but no one would tell us where the busses came. So after struggling a bit in the airport, we caved and took the more expensive train to the city.
The plan was to find a place to stay for a couple nights in the backpacker area and then figure out where we wanted to go next. Bangkok is a large city and confusing as heck. Nothing is in English and it's difficult to trust anyone with directions because they are usually just trying to sell you a room, a ride on a tuk tuk, a bag of fresca or SOMETHING. So we finally found an information booth and asked the lady behind the counter all our questions. I am not sure how this happened but from there we caught a very expensive public bus (I think we got ripped off) to the Southern bus terminal which is quite far from the city.We found out later that the public busses with AC cost more than the ones without, so we should be looking for the busses with the windows open. At the Southern bus terminal, we inquired into going to one of the Southern Thai Islands. One thing lead to another from there and we found ourselves on a bus for 12 hours overnight to Ko Pan Nang.
We bought enough fried chicken to get us through the ride and woke up to the sun on the other side of the country. Here we waited for the public ferry to take us to paradise. I have to admit that at this point in our trip, we are a bit snobby about beaches. We really have seen the most beautiful beaches in the world, camped on its soft white sand, swam and snorkelled through crystal clear oceans and tanned in the sun. I still have to say that Thai beaches are amazing with palm trees, clear turqoise waters and amazing scenery.
After the lengthy boat ride, we got off with all the other tourists and set about trying to find a place to stay. Since we had come on the day after a "full moon party" (a very popular monthly event that attracts nearly 30,000 tourists), there was NOTHING available. We wandered under the hot sun with our bags walking and hitching through the island. Finally a friendly local dropped us off in front of a bungalow hotel who also told us they were full. Out of exhaustion and fatigue I asked if he had a couch or anything we could sleep on. I must have sounded desperate because he offered to let us sleep in his outdoor restaurant. It worked for us. It was a chill environment and we got along with everyone. We showered, hand washed the laundry and head out for food. This was our first of many encounters with Pad Thai. A delicious Thai noodle mixed with special sauces, vegetables, egg, tofu and a choice of meat. We sat in a bungalow and ate the generous portions.
We soon realized that 7-11 is the main "grocery store" here and so this is where we shopped for the next few weeks. We wandered the town and there was not a whole lot going on. Of course there were full moon spin off parties (black moon, half moon, jungle moon etc) but all in all it was pretty relaxed. Particularly when the young boisterous full moon folk left for other islands. Every other person was walking around with "Ko Pen Nang tatoos". This is another word for bandaged hands and feet due to motor bike accidents which are super prevalent here with all the pot holes, curvy roads, stray animals, inexperienced drivers and, of course, alcohol.
We spent our first day at the beach nearby the hotel. The water was so shallow that we could walk out what felt like a kilometer and the water was barely to our knees. The water was warm and perfect though. We layed in the sand and worshipped the sun all day. That night we waited until the restaurant/ hotel hang out cleared a bit and tried to get some sleep. At one point the owner's daughter got into a screaming match with the police and another family. All I could make out of the conversation in English was grossly mispronounced four letter words. After listening to the dogs howl and fight most of the night, we slept and then woke up to the lovely call of the rooster early in the morning. After the rooster made its presence known we also got to enjoy the owner's daughter disgrace herself while swearing and screaming at the employee as well as to no one in particular all morning. Needless to say, when they offered us a room for that night, we politely declined.
Since the power had been out on the island the first day, the wifi at the hotel was not working. So we tried to "borrow" some from a nearby restaurant. The young female owner caught us and reamed us out shamelessly. If we had any pride we would have been good and embarrassed but backpackers cannot be prideful so we packed up and left gracefully.
We did not need to walk far to find the perfect backpackers bungalow hotel called Mac's. We got a private bungalow and although the bathroom and showers were a bit far, we enjoyed our time here very much. The young lady who runs the place is very sweet, there were kittens everywhere and plenty of books to borrow. The bungalow was loosly built and completely open in the flooring and roof so it felt like we were sleeping outside. We spent the next three nights here under a supplied mosquito net.
We walked to Hat Rin beach that day which, if you ask a local, is an impossible walk. So far this trip however, every single time (with zero exceptions) that we have asked if somewhere is walking distance, we have gotten a sure NO (with an are-you-crazy glare). So we decided to walk anyway and while the hills were steep as can be and there were tons of them, we made it. The beach here was very beautiful and picturesque but busy as ever! There were young people riddled all over the sand with hundreds of shops catering to tourists from tattoo shops, to buckets of alcohol to full moon party clothing and gear. At one tattoo shop, while Tyson was contemplating some bamboo art, we met a guy from Edmonton who was getting a huge tropical picture done on his back. We ate our daily serving of pad thai here on the beach, frolicked until dark and trekked back to our quieter part of the island.
The next morning we ate bread, honey, chocolate milk and yogurt from 7-11 and baked in the sun in our local area. It was quiet and beautiful. When we ran out of snacks we head out to town about 1-2 minutes away. This was when we decided it was necessary to rent a motorbike so we did so. The rental place wanted to keep our passport as a deposit which is apparently normal procedure but we refused so they tore up the contract. We moved on to the next place though and they thankfully agreed to accept a photocopy of our passport and a driver's liscence. We got some over priced gas for the bike and tore around the island. Actually the first thing we did was buy greasy fried chicken and eat it with sweet chili sauce...sooo good. It was so good in fact that we went back to get more but (thankfully for our cholesterol) they were closed. We visited night markets, sampled local foods and used up all the fuel.
That night we booked our flights from Bangkok to Hong Kong as this was one of the portions of the trip we had not pre bought. The thought behind this was that we would travel overland to save money. Unfortunately, we apparently did not look at a map when making this decision, thus leaving us scrambling to buy last minute tickets. Also out of four credit cards, three declined due to various reasons (one being I got in a fight with the bank and they cancelled it). The comedic part of all of this is that we pre-purchased the flight from KL to Bangkok which was completely unneccesary. We were in Penang which is already within a few hours of Ko Pan Nang (this island). Instead of travelling this overland, we bussed back to KL, flew half way up Thailand to Bangkok and bussed back. So virtually we paid to get here four times and spent three days doing so. Tyson and I have agreed that our only true regret (other than leaving our full wallet on the bus in KL) was purchasing the tickets that we did. The KL to Bangkok flight was not the only time we had to severely backtrack to catch a flight only to bus back to where we were. We did it in our flight from Rio to BA when we bussed back to Iguazu among other examples. This continues to be a sore spot with the lack of proper research and planning, complete waste of time and money but hey...next time we'll do it differently:)
So the next day we took full advantage of the motor bike by ripping up to the North side of the island. We spent much of the day snorkelling, napping and swimming on MaeHead beach. We rented snorkels and watched the pretty fish and corals in the clear waters. Since we had brought most of our valuables with us (due to the openess of our hotel room) we had to select a trusting looking family on the beach to watch our stuff. Luckily it worked out and our stuff was not stolen. Along the drive we had to stop for monkeys hanging out on the road as well as to gawk at the elephants casually eating food in the fields. It was surreal. We snacked on mentos and oreos that night and watched streamed Modern Family episodes.
The next morning was our last on the island. We bought boat and bus joint tickets back to Bangkok and used the ATM to withdraw funds since ours had dissappeard quite quickly in a few days. The "tourist ATM" charged shameless fees but we had no other choice so we bit the bullet. We passed on the taxi ride to the port and walked the 7km with our bags instead. Although we arrived over an hour and a half early, we somehow still managed to be the very last two people getting on and almost missed it. We bought enough servings of Pad Thai and oreo cookies to get us through the very long ride and joined the hundreds of crammed tourists on the boat. They charged an extra fee for actual seats inside the boat so everyone squeezed in the outside area. It wasn't too bad though because the weather was nice and the view was amazing. We also took the opportunity to meet some of the other tourists and chat. We also ran into the Edmonton guy from the tattoo shop again and I lost Tyson to him for the remainder of the ride. They exchanged facebook names and might become best friends forever.
After the boat we boarded the oldest, crappiest, dirtiest bus to Surrathannyi and I was shocked that we actually made it. Then we waited until 6pm and caught a brand new, shiny, clean bus for 11 hours through the night back to Bangkok. On the bus we watched the movie Blow and then stopped at a road side mini restaurant owned by the bus company. Here they absolutely ruthlessly rip off tourists by selling them crap food at inflated prices. But alas, since we had no choice, we bought dinner at triple the regular cost and it wasn't even that good! Then I played solitaire and slept all the way back to the big city. Later the next day we realized that on top of charging 100 baht for the rice I ate, I had accidentally paid with a 500 bill thinking it's a 100. So I never got the change and got screwed out of 400 Baht. Awesome.
We were supposed to arrive to Khau San Road (the main backapacker mecca of Bangkok) at 5am. Normally everything is 1-8 hours late in Bangkok but as luck would have it we arrived early at 3am. So basically we were stuck in drunk and tripping Bangkok in the middle of the night. In a few hours we physically witnessed everything that is wrong with the world and we were both traumatized for life. From intoxicated street vomitting to bad drug trips to lady boys being hit on by skinny white kids to prostitution and extortion we saw it all in what little time to took us to get the heck out of there. We could not find a tuk tuk driver who was willing to not rip us off to the point of humiliation so we walked the several kilometers (5-6) to the train station. The third class train was not leaving until 22:00 that night so we bought tickets and then slept until early afternoon at the train station with many other people.
It was at this point that we realized we were missing a chunk of money and in retracing our steps, we realized the lady ripped us off. This was difficult for us to stomack because we already felt ripped off so it just added salt to the wound.
We walked around Bangkok that day and stopped at MBK mall. This shopping mall makes Metrotown look like a small convenience store. It was too big to describe with at least one level dedicated to one category of items. For example there would be a whole level of cell phones and accesories or one entire level of shoes. They sell stuff that I never even knew existed, it is a pretty crazy sight. We stored our bags here for the day and picked them up before heading out to see Lumphini park. Lumphini Park is a large beautiful park with fountains, green grass and hundreds of Thai people. Every night they hold free aerobics classes for the people in the middle of the park and people can join as they please. During the time that we watched there were over 500 people all dancing to the same beat. It was amazing to see. We stopped at the only HSBC in the country to restock on cash and head back to the train station but not before picking up two pad thais on the way.
CONTINUED
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
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