The ferry looked pretty safe and sound, but close inspection revealed a few corrosion problems solved with a lick of paint. Sometimes its best just not to look too much. There was an interesting collection of vehicles onboard the ship. One ute was filled with about 9 live pigs! They were riding on a percarious looking bamboo structure and were rather noisy for the entire trip. They entertained the ferangs though.
We got to the wharf on Ko Phangan, at a town known as Thong Sala. As we get off the ferry, there are a group of people all hustling you to get in their taxi. By taxi, I mean a ute with 2 bench seats and a canvas roof. They are all asking "Where you go?" and thrusting maps in your face...rather intense as you can imagine!
We had pre-booked accommodation at a place called Smile Bungalows in haad Salad. (haad = beach) I manged to negotiate a reasonable price, and we waited in the back for the driver to finish her hustle with the other farangs.
Unfortunately she didn't manage to find many others to fill the ute up with, so we found that the price had changed when she came back. We had to re-haggle, or face being stuck in the wrong bay!
We managed to get an acceptable price considering, and got dropped in haad Salad. The drive over was quiet scary, as there was little to hold on to, and, in true Thai style, the driver drove like it was a Rally with no oncoming traffic. Sometimes its just best to close your eyes in these kind of moments...
We get to Smile and head to the check-in. To our horror, Princess can't find her wallet anywhere! We check in, and then immediately go through all our luggage to see where it might have got to.
But to no avail: The wallet was lost somewhere en-route. We are both pretty sure that no-one else was ever around the bag it should have been in, and we resign ourselves to the fact that we must have left it somewhere; either on the minivan, or maybe at one of the food stops along the way. Very stressful! Thankfully not too much money was in the wallet - about NZ$80 - but Princess' Visa, EFTPOS and drivers license are all gone. Princess got straight on to the phone to cancel the cards.
The biggest issue is the Visa, which is Princess' man access to cash, and the helpful guy at BNZ explained that if we found a contact at a reputable bank in Thailand, they can courier it to that contact fo us to pick it up from. No problem... or so we thought! A later phone call revealed that infact Princess cannot get a new credit card sent to South East Asia at all, so she is transferring her money into Toolman's account instead.
Here is the bungalow we stayed in. It was all quite new, and had a hot shower, toilet and oscillation fan inside. Basic, but everything we need. The deck also had a nice hammock, which was great for reading in.
One night I was reading in the hammock, and had a little gecko fall on me from the decks roof. It made me jump, as he was quite heavy for what I assumed was a moth. Before I knew it he ran off me, leaving me to catch a glance as he skuttled into the grass. Geckos are everywhere, as are iguanas, monitor lizards, and all the other reptile type creatures. Very different to NZ, and as its hot, they are all very active. They are cute little critters though, and not really anything to be afraid of.
The establishment also has an open air restaurant which was very pleasant (and convenient). Smile Bungalows is a family business, and everyone does their bit: mum and dad on the finances and high level stuff, daughter running the restaurant, and son running the check in and icafe on site. As we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner there, we got to chat and meet the family, especially the Daughter, lots. the Thais love to joke (and have fun), and I was routinely picked on, while Princess and the Daughter shared a chuckle...
This is the beach early evening. The sand is pure white and the beach is completely clean. The whole bay is waist deep, so you can wade out for over 100m before getting to any deep water. This shallow water soaks up heat during the day, so if you go for an afternoon swim, the water is as hot as a bath - really!
In fact the water is so calm that only the upper layer of water gets hot (maybe the top 20cm), so you can swoosh cool water from the bottom up to the surface and make it just the right temperature. A really good trick when you have skin like mine - hot salt water tends to sting on irritated skin! I just had to wait till my skin went numb, weathering the 20 minutes of stinging. Is supposed to be good for my skin anyway.
Princess bought a pink lilo to relax in the sun of the bay. It was wonderful floating around, the only thing that could have made it better would have been a companion floating bar! I wanted to look at the coral and marine life out in the bay, so I rented a snorkel and mask from Smile. We swam out to the edge of the bay (where the interesting stuff really starts) only to find that we had dropped the snorkel somewhere on the way!
Reminded of the previous loss, we started hunting - surely it can't be very far away? Well after 3 hours of getting coral-cuts on our feet, wading around the waist-deep water, we declared it lost and went back in to recover from the sun, cuts and damaged pride. What would be next to loose? Thankfully, Smile was very good about it, and we ended up paying only for the replacement snorkel at the locals price - about NZ $4.
This place is so pretty and quiet - we loved it! Was great to be able to really relax and contemplate what we were doing. We spent about a week just swimming, eating, reading and sleeping - exactly what we needed.
We hired a scooter here also, as we wanted to explore the rest of the island. The same system here as in other places. Most places take your passport as security, which we found a little unnerving, but its what everyone does, and we haven't had any problems yet.
Loading up on a few whiskey bottles worth, we head out to the opposite corner of the island, haad Rin, which is famous for its monthly Full Moon Party. This is a busy town, full up with and targeted towards farangs. More about it soon.
The road to haad Rin has all sorts of signs offering everything from accommodation to food to, er, massages... We decided against going here for a massage!
Most of the islands roads are not too bad, although the island is very hilly. The road out to haad Rin, however, is very steep and windy in parts. This road has caused many Ko Phangan tattoos - grazes falling off scooters, or burns from the muffler while falling off!
The reality is that this only really happens to the really unlucky, and the hoons. Plenty of 21 year olds from the UK/US, where the currency converts very favorably, come here. So mix cheap drinks, lax road rules and dangerous roads and its easy to see how the legend began.
So we get to haad Rin, my shirt pulled on enough to ensure that I hardly ever hooned - thanks Princess! Haad Rin is full of restaurants playing movies or TV shows off DVD. Anything to bring the punters in, and it works. Most have timetables with the movies they are playing etc. The usual markets are also in operation here - tee shirts, sarongs and other trinkets. You could potentially spend abit of money if you arrived with an empty suitcase, but in our case with already full packs we have to be careful with our purchasing.
Koh Phangan truly is paradise. We talk about it almost daily and definitely plan to head back there at some point.
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