Lonely Beach

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Got up early and went on a quest for a better bungalow. Found one down the road with air con and a real toilet. So the "village" at lonely beach is a sort of ad-hoc shantytown consisting of clusters of these bungalows, restaurant/bars, tattoo shops (oodles of these!) and the odd convenience store. The beach was nice but I was already developing a magnificant sunburn, so I rented a motor scooter for 200 baht and went for a spin around the island. They held my passport as deposit.

125cc automatic; I'm not sure what the top speed was as the speedo and odomotor were disconnected (the poor man's way of rolling back the milage.) First order of business was to fuel up. All along the main road, there are little shelves set up with old liquor bottles full of red juice for sale. That's the stuff - 0.5 L for 30baht. Fire hazard? Sure. Molotov cocktail waiting to happen? I'm surprised there aren't more frequent riots in Thailand. Off and running! They drive on the left in Thailand, which wasn't too hard to wrap my head around as there were many other vehicles on the road (almost all scooters and pickup trucks). There are several tricky "hill passes" with steep grades and switchbacks but after 20 minutes or so I was back in the swing despite having not motored on two wheels in 15 years. Like riding a bike, it is..

I dropped the bike once, I passed the ferry terminal just as a boat had come in and there was a load of traffic which I merged into. A thai cop behind me, and me a bit nervous as not entirely legal to drive in Thailand. So I pulled off and tried to stop on dirt not pavement. oops... I broke off one of the mirrors, but no other damage to me or the bike. The Thais who were hanging out at the restaurant next to my spill rushed over -- "you ok? hello?" they were super cool. I sipped a coke to get my bearings and was off again. luckily, the rental place did not charge me for the damage, I still had the intact mirror, it was only the plastic bit it screws into that had broken off.

Clusters of shops and restaurants at the other beaches, I passed a shop called "Viagra Massage" and laughed so hard I almost fell off. Traffic was ok -- I'm sure the Thais know how to handle the roads but all the other tourists speeding around were a bit disconcerting...

Later went out for a drink with my new friends (sans motorbike). Lonely Beach has a moving "party" which consists of a couple of decent Djs and a bunch of local guys who do some firespinning. Usually the fire show is out on the road in front of the bar, and thats how it started out. Soon however, they moved inside the bar! It was an open-air joint with a roof but no walls so the fumes weren't a big deal. Next they were spinning behind the bar, in front of the (flammable) liquor bottles! Wild stuff. I noticed that the fire guys had absolutely no hair on their arms or chests. Could be an Asian thing, or maybe they burned it off during practise?

I met a charming girl from Malmo, Sweden named Mimi who kept turning up at each party. She had just come from Cambodia and explained that it was a very poor country and she felt compassion so she volunteered for a week teaching English in a village. what a sweetheart! She was lovely, only twenty years old, she made me feel a bit old. *sigh*

Phil and I went for an elephant ride through a rubber plantation. It was bumpy, elephants do not have great shocks. Not the most scenic ride, and the elephants didn't look too happy. I will keep my eye peeled for a better elephant ride later.

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Photos

Lonely Beach, Ko Chang
View from the restaurant near my bunglalow. Just to the right of the big tree was beachside thai massage, $8 per hour. heavenly!

Bungalow, Lonely Beach
home sweet home

Lonely Beach
Seating area at the restaurant. shoes off please!

rubber trees
note the little buckets on each one, drawing the sap as with maple syrup