Quest to See the World

It took me 20.5 hours to get here, but i finally made it to Ko Pha Ngan in the gulf. I was originally going to the Andaman coast and then come here, but i need to relax a bit. I left the hotel in Bangkok at 6:30pm last night to head to the train station and arrived in Surat Thani at 7:30am, an hour late. The sleeper cars were sold out so I thought I was getting a seat in an a/c car, but no such luck. It wasn’t hot when the train was moving, actually, I got chilly later in the night, but it was sooooo loud with the windows open and I had a very difficult time sleeping. The bathroom was quite pleasant though, very spacious and it didn’t stink either. I didn’t realize how bouncy trains are though until i was trying to pee. I’m not sure, and i hope i’m wrong, but it kind of seemed like the pee went straight out onto the track because it sounded like I could hear the noise from the outside coming up through the toilet????

anyway, when i first got on the train there weren’t a lot of people on there yet and the few that were on there were together and my seat was next to one of them. they all looked at me, then looked at each other and began to say something. they didn’t seem too thrilled that I was in their section, they didn’t seem mean or anything, just not thrilled. They were a family and the one girl around 22, asked me where i’m from and she said that she lived in phili last year for a little while, she was friendly, but she wasn’t staying on the train, just sending off her family that came to Bangkok for her graduation. So her mother was the one beside me and once the train got moving she got up and moved to a different seat but left her purse sitting on the chair beside me, at least she trusted me about an hour into the trip she had moved to the seat in the row in front of mine on the other side where another woman had been sitting. the woman that was sitting there previously had moved to the space behind my seat (i was in the last row) and laid on the floor to sleep. I didn’t understand this and even smelled my armpits to make sure i didn’t stink, and i didn’t because I freshened up before getting on the train. eventually, after a few stops the train filled up and the only empty seat was the one beside me. for a few hours i stayed within the limits of my personal seat, but then i decided to stretch out for a while and figured she could wake me up if she wanted to come back to the seat. at around 6 am she did just that. she then went into the bathroom to freshen up i guess and came out all spiffied up with her fancy fake pearl matching ring, earrings and bracelet. i really don’t understand why she slept on the floor?!?! she was around 60 years old too. i’m only 32 and i can’t emagine how i would’ve felt in the morning after sleeping there!!! I’ll just think of her as the dog lady from now on because she slept on the floor and after she woke up she spent the rest of the time standing behind my seat with her head out the window. weird.

I read in the book that a bunch of annoying people would be there to meet the train to arrange transportation to the boat and decided that i would just pay a little extra and go with one of them to save some time since i was so tired. sure enough there they were when we arrived. that’s one thing that bothers me, when you can’t even get off of the transport without having people swarm around you asking where you’re going…where am i going???? to the space right over there where i can breathe… seriously, they’re like vultures, i mean, i know they’re just trying to make a living, but they don’t have to invade my personal space so much and impede me from being able to walk. so i walked away from the first ones, put my pack on my back and talked to one who was a little further out. ok, so i get on this bus full of tourists and we waited about 10 minutes to depart. then we drove about 10 minutes and half of the people got off and transferred to another bus while more people got on my bus. oh, i forgot this part-on the way to this first stop i hear the thai guy yelling in the back of the bus and looked back to see what was going on. i thought that he was joking around or something, but he wasn’t and the the family he was yelling at looked quite concerned. he asked them for their tickets and they said that they already handed them to him and he said that they didn’t. come on, it was a family with a 12 yr. old kid, like they’re going to try and poach a bus ride. i’m not sure how it was resolved, but he stopped yelling after a few minutes and they stayed on the bus. if that was me, i wouldn’t have sat there and just looked at him because he needed to know that he was being completely inappropriate and disrespectful. that just reminded me why i never do packaged trips. if you pre-pay everything then you’re stuck with the service you get, otherwise, you can just step off of the bus and find another way there and don’t have to take anyone’s inappropriateness. i hope that’s not the opinion those people are going to leave thailand with.

so after another hour we made it to the boat. we made one stop at ko samui and then we got here after 3.5 hours on the boat. this island is where the infamous full moon parties occur, and last night on the train i checked out the moon to make sure i wouldn’t be here for that, but it’s close-on the 18th. i picked this island because besides the wild party area, there are other tranquil spots. of the boatful of people, i’d say at least 75 people, all but 8 of us went to the party area, which was a good sign. two other people were headed to the same area as me and we split one of the those pick up trucks to get here….another hour, but his time it was entertaining because the road is dirt for most of the way and really bumpy. when the guy saw one of the parts we had to go through he said in English, “oh my god!” and got out of the truck to check out the road ahead, but we continued, very slowly. i also picked this island because i was searching for one of those cute little bungalows on the beach and of course, monkeys. so the driver dropped me off at the resort where the other people were staying and i cut through it through some huge sea boulders with my pack on, but it was very close and a resort employee showed me the way. the resort looked really nice and i’m thinking of poaching the pool tomorrow. i originally was looking for a place called star huts, but as soon as i got on the beach i some some cute little bungalows and stopped in to ask how much. 300B without bath and 400B with bath ($9 & $12) i splurged for the bath, but not i’m not sure why because the shower sprays directly onto the toilet unless you turn it on extremely high and in that case it hits the floor right in front of the sink.

i’ve seen a lot of beautiful beaches in the caribbean and i was still impressed with this one. it’s really beautiful in a hidden little bay with big smooth boulders on each side. the area where i’m staying is called Thong Nai Pan Noi and it’s really chill, no parties. my bungalow isn’t right on the sand, but it’s just 26 steps away (i counted) and it’s up on stills right at the edge of the beach-it’s the last business on the edge so it’s nice and quiet. there’s a nice little deck too and there’s a bbq tonight so i’m going to get red snapper for $1.50. most other things are understandably more expensive here, like the internet for example, and beer, but seafood is cheap and i love red snapper. i hope they don’t serve it with the head and eye though, but they probably will.

i finally arrived at my bungalow at 3:00 pm and got a tofu burger with fried sweet potatoes, but the burger was just breaded straight tofu, fried. i was super tired so i took a nap on the sand in the shade for a little while. after that i decided to check out the village which has this internet place, about 10 thai massage places ( suppose i get one), a little mini mart, a couple of scuba places, an atm and some other restaurants and bungalows/hotels. they’re building this fancy looking place right in the middle of the beach area so there aren’t a lot of people here because a third of the beachfront is still unoccupied. the place where i’m staying has cute little bamboo tables and chairs on the sand too. the bay is really beautiful because it curves around on the right side and there’s a forest covered hill that loops around to form the bay. the vegetation here is pretty wild and lush because of the lack of development due to the road not being paved.

when i was walking around the village earlier i was talking to this brit who works at a scuba place and she asked where i was headed next so i told her that i was thinking of going to khao sok national park to see monkeys. i told her that i really like them and she was like, “oh, well then you have to go to the next village down and check out this baby monkey that this girl has”. some tourist was doing an elephant trek and saw this little baby monkey that’s only 5 weeks old in a really small cage. she noticed that it had a broken hand with the bone exposed and told the people she was taking it to get treatment. they said that the mother did that to it, but she didn’t believe them. i find it hard to believe that they just let her take it. so anyway, the girl explained that i would need to walk up the big hill of a road and down the other side to get there, so i left immediately. after about 20 minutes i found the beach and the bungalow with the cage on it, but no monkey. i sat and had a sprite and some guy came up to give me a flyer so i asked if he knew anything about the baby monkey and he helped me hunt it down. IT WAS SO ADORABLE!!! and tiny. she had its had wrapped and told me that she was taking it to the next island over tomorrow to a zoo there. i asked her if there was some sort of government office that deals with wildlife and she didn’t know, she was just taking it to the zoo. i’m not so sure that it’s going to have a better life there. its hand will probably be able to heal, but it’s still going to end up living in a miserably sized cage for the rest of its life. i suggested that she try to contact a government office in Bangkok, like the national park service to find out if there’s some sort of monkey rehab center like the elephant nature park we visited near chiang mai that saves abused elephants and doesn’t use them for shows. i held it (and didn’t get scratched), but i seems to have grown very attached to the girl and just wanted to go straight back to her.

on the way back i was walking in the dark up over the hilly dirt road and a woman on a motor scooter stopped and gave me a ride. it was fun. i’m going to rent one tomorrow and check out the island. it’s only $7.50 for the day, but i’ll have to get an automatic. there are 3 waterfalls on the island so i’m going to find them and try to do some monkey spotting too. i still haven’t decided what to do the following day, snorkel, intro scuba, or head back to the mainland to the national park.

i still need to fill you in on the elephant bathing, but that’s for later. i’m off to get that red snapper so if you’re reading this between 7:42am east coast u.s.a. time on july 13th and the morning of the 15th, just think of me in tropical paradise zipping around on a moped/scooter, hiking to find waterfalls and monkeys, sipping a cold chang beer on the beach (not until after i’m done driving for the day), lounging on fine white sand, reading a book on the balcony of my cute little bungalow that overlooks that gorgeous turquoise blue bay (for $12), swimming in the warm waters of whichever body of water this is….

Tags: ko pha ngan, monkey, thailand, train

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Asia Trip-Summer 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.