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Published: March 7th 2012
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I'm not only making this trip to become a beach bumb, my nephew Daniel and his dutch wife Tanja with their two sons Ziggy (4.5) and Django (2) have been traveling around the world for the past few months and decided to get married in Thailand ... they told everyone whoever wants to come join us, and they had told mi if 5 people will come we're a happy couple ... but lo and behold, all together 20 of their friends came and thus i ended up in a very busy dutch social week ... everyone was pitching in to plan the wedding and within one week of combined effort i think i attended the best wedding of my life ... in the next blog will tell a bit more about it and u can view the pictures, but first a little bit about my island life
i wanted to be close to them however the resort Christina (dutch/italian friend) suggested was fully booked, so i browsed the internet the night before my departure from siem reap and found an exclusive resort one bay away from where my nephew and the rest were staying ... i was picked up at
the Thong Sala pier by Nue, the resort's driver and finally after travelling (and of course waiting hrs and hrs between rides) 32 hrs after leaving my hotel in Siem Reap (and saved 470 euros ...)... i intended to hire a little scooter, however the way to my cabin is a 2km steep dirt road, and decided to splurge by renting a little jeep ... m glad i did as probably 1 in 3 scootering visitors have 'Thai burns' meaning they have had accident with scooter/motorbike and are covered with scratches etc ... i immediately felt i wasn't sticking out anymore after mi monkey related bike accident ... after i checked into my little cabin i was exhausted however REALLY wanted to see my nephews ... so after dropping off the owner of the jeep back at his rental place i drove to Had Salaad, where 5 resorts border a long stretch of pure white sand ... hmmmmm, how the F was i gonna find the right resort let alone my family ... i noticed a western woman walking out of athe local beach supermarket and hung out of mi window 'excuse mi M'am, where can i ...' i was
answered with a big grin and 'FILINE!, she turned out to be Allison, one of Tanja's best friends ... i parked mi jeep and walked with her to the beach were everyone was just having lunch ... my heart started pounding faster as i was so excited to see the young boys ... from afar Ziggy spotted mi and yelled out my name and started running across the warm sand flailing his arms, screaming my name, Filine Filine Filine ... while my eyes swelled up with tears, he jumped into my arms and we hugged and hugged ... when we finally looked at each other he also had his eyes filled with tears ... by that time little Django was hugging my leg 'Ien, Ien. Ien' ... I looked aside and Allison was also in tears, actually most of the bride and grooms friends were flicking away at their eyes ... It was also nice to see Daniel and Tanja, however that precious moment with my little nephews is stored in the memory banks as one of my better experiences so far on this trip
I broke up my trip by joining Sjoerd and Marion (two good friends of
Daan and Tan, whom have known each other a long time, however they ended up in a holiday romance ... ) with a whole day excursion by large speedboat to the Ang National Marine Park 1.5 hr away from Koh Phangan... a bunch of idealic islands which i had only seen before in movies ... on one of them we climbed a steep 100 mtr staircase to wander through fossilised coral which led to a blue lagoon ... on another island we had lunch and by that time i was ready for a nap ... my companions went for a swim and then also found themselves a place underneath a palm tree ... still somewhat asleep i was awakened by a ringing phone. Annoyed i looked around mi and realized it was my own phone ... it was Chang who was organizing the honeymoon day/night Sjoerd had put together ... it turned out the pick up by speedboat from the resort Tan and Daan were staying couldn't be done due to the low tide and wanted to know if he could send two 110cc yamaha jetskis ... even better ... finally coming into peaceful zone i heard another message coming
in, this time it was the artwork i had to approve for the wedding guestbook which i had fabricated with one of the locals ... hmmmm guess this time i was the one connected ... very strange, but also great ... we returned to the resort around 6pm and i picked up my car to go to Thong Sala (the princial town on the island) to pick up the guestbook, then returned to my little hut where after my cold shower (hmmm, better said, lukewarm shower) i returned to Had Salaad to join everyone for dinner ... I was just parking my car on the parking lot when a little Thai women approached mi aggressively telling mi i scratched her car ... i asked when, oh, this afternoon around 3/4 o'clock ... i started laughing and said impossible as i was 2 hrs away on some beach ... she insisted that i looked at her car and their were two light scratches about 15cm apart from each other on the front hood ... i told her again that it was impossible and when i checked my own car, there was nothing ... she almost started to hit mi with the
papers in her hand and i hovered above her and said ... u calm down, i didn't do anything ... then she hit mi with the papers ... yes u did, u did, i call police ... as m having a real hard time with my emotions when it comes to injustice i felt i was about to explode, thank goodness i was able to restrain myself, took a few breaths and told her 'fine ... u call police' ... i thought hey of all days being here this is the only day i really do have an alibi ... anyway the police couldn't come and the next day i went to my rental place and explained the situation ... he said best to go to police ... by time i got there the accusing woman (who happened to be the receptionist at the resort) arrived at same moment ... at first there was no one who could talk english and the woman was showing all the cops her scratches ... i shook my head, my finger, my hand ... shwoed them my boat ticket, walked around the my jeep to show it alltogether was impossible ... then suddenly one
of the cops started talking english and said i was guilty and took my car key away ... he continued ... u guilty, if u not pay repair u go to court and to prison ... we need ur passport and u gotta stay here ... i was flabbergasted ... again i felt an immense anger rising and turned away and took a few deep breaths ... and this all on the morning of my nephew's wedding which was scheduled at 3pm ... after about a nervous 3 hrs and a test on my patience 2 i got my key back to go pick up my passport which was in a safe with my rental car place ... when i got there the owner and his wife said they know i wasn't guilty, but that i had to pay up, i asked how much, 5000 Baht (about 125 euros) ... even if it wasn't that much money, i told them, no way i'm innocent ... but i changed my mind when i saw how terrified they looked at mi ... 'people of resort big people on island, connections with police and government' ... 'if u leave island we in BIG
trouble if u don't pay ... organised people they all want your money' I said crazy as i was 2 hrs by boat away, then the wife almost started to cry and the husband said they would pay 2,500 and i was to pay the other 50% and they would arrange everything and i should not speak again of this incident to anyone on the island ... so sad, the little hardworking people and an innocent bystander caught up in the islands normal way of business ... total corruption ...
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