fixed pix and island livin’
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008i’ve managed to retrieve the photos from the hackjob and all is again well in cyberspace…for the time being.
after spending a night on a beat up old rickety local train from bangkok to chumpon, southeastern thailand, and then a 2 hour “fast” ferry (high speed catamaran, for those who are interesting in knowing the details: we cruised along at about 30 or 35 knots), i arrived at 9 am on the island of ko tao in the gulf of thailand 75 KM from land. my neighbors to the south are koh samui and kho phag ngan, the former being a high falootin classy resort type place, notably more expensive than some other islands, and the latter being the host island of the notorious and legendary Full Moon Parties. i may give samui a miss and take a peek at ko phan ngan now that the full mooners are gone and things are back to sane there.
as for ko tao, for 500 baht i’m living for the next who knows how long in a round concrete and bamboo structure, about 6 feet around with a conical roof peaking at about 15 feet, less than 100 feet from the crystal blue/green waters of the gulf of thailand. this particular spot does not suck. the place is called sunset bungalows. my first mistake was transferring from the pier to here via truck from the ferry pier. the road is TERRRRRRIBLE with potholes galore & ups & downs and i sat in the back of the truck that had, thankfully, 4WD. what may have taken about 10 minutes on a good road took about 30 (this island is only 21 KM around, to give you an idea of distance and sunset bungalows are probably about 5-7 KM from the pier). fortunately, the driver was very cautious and i never felt as though i’d be pitched out the back into the jungle, left to fend for myself (good thing i love coconuts if that has been my fate!).
[read on]
karen_shelver