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Published: March 27th 2009
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Chalok Lam
Waiting to be picked up by boat taxi to be taken to Bottle Beach From Khuraburi I travelled further North to a nameless, faceless town called
Ranong which most people only stop at to do a visa run over the border to Burma/Myanmar. I didn't need to go for visa reasons but did fancy seeing it for the afternoon. I kind of wish I hadn't bothered. Across a kind of muddy river I went on a long boat where after crossing the border I was accosted by hoards of "tourist guides" plying their services. These ranged from 80 year old men to twelve year old girls! I eventually let myself get lead away by one, who showed me some of the 'sights' for the afternoon, which basically consisted of a Chinese temple and a lot of poverty stricken streets. Eager touts aside the Burmese kept staring at me in an unfriendly and intimidating fashion so after a cup of Chinese tea I let the "guide" go and hopped it back over to the now familiar and comforting sight of Thailand.
Initially when I booked this trip I'd intended after the West coast to go daan saaf to explore and conquer the relative wilderness of the Satun province and the Ko Tarutao group of deserted
islands. However, as my intrepid adventurer skills haven't been as on-target as I'd hoped, I thought it best to play it safe and make my way back to the relative security of Koh Pha Ngan, which I loved.
After a 3 hour bus journey I arrived late in
Chumphon and crashed out, having booked my ferry over to
Koh Pha Ngan at 7am the next morning, which meant a (!) 5:45am start. Dutifully I set my alarm and went to bed nice and early.... only to be woken with a jump by the guest house owner knocking on my door telling me the bus had arrived! It seems I did set my alarm but er..... I set it one hour too late by accident! I swear to God I'm even blonder than usual out here.
After a 5 min dash to get ready I jumped on the coach to the pier in a bleary
Taxi boat
Typical long boat taxi eyed, pre-coffee state. It was only when we reached the pier, about 10 minutes away, that I started looking in my bag for my purse and realised...... shit, I'd gone and left it at the hostel! Cue much panicking and 'why does this stuff always happen to me' type melodrama. In London I have'nt lost or left my purse anywhere in years! This heat, it makes me crayzee yo.
I jumped off the coach and tearily explained to a boat man what I'd done. He shouted at his mate over on a motorbike taxi and said to go back and get it with him, and that he'd wait for me. So I jumped on, we sped off, and arrived back at the hostel 10 minutes later. Not being a regular Hell's Angel, I have no clue about bikes, cars or anything vaguely mechanical and didn't know that the exhaust pipe is a bit "tepid" to the touch. So in a rush I slid off on the right hand side and suddenly felt my leg being sizzled alive. In my state of panic I just yelped, ran in to the hostel, grabbed my purse (a bemused hostel owner looking on)
Bottle Beach
The view from my window, safely away from all the flies and then jumped back on and sped off back to the pier. It was only when we got there into the light that I looked down and saw that a sizeable chunk of my leg had been removed, and there was just a very pale pink and charred wound where my nice tanned shin had once been. No exaggeration going on here, of course. Since the event literally everyone I've met has told me this accident is very common... so common in fact it's known as a Thai Tattoo out here. This pisses me off greatly. How does everyone know about these things except me? Where was I when they giving out lessons on exhaust pipes?
Since the accident I've been on isolated beaches so all I've been able to do is put my own first aid skills to use (End crew: I knew they would come in useful one day) and bandage it up. It's not looking pretty and I'm hobbling around in an attractive fashion, but I think I might just survive.
So back to the travel: I had initially planned on stopping for a few days on Koh Tao first but due to lack of
Bottle Beach
Beautiful... such a shame it was so dirty time and seriously dwindling funds I decided to go straight to Pha Ngan in the end. I've loved travelling around and seeing lots of different things, but it's pretty tiring and I just want to spend the last week of my trip chillaxing (TM Rich Kelly) and getting my feet sandy. I'd heard and read quite a lot about
Haad Khuat (or Bottle Beach) up on the North of the island, and that it had a nice "traveller" vibe, was beautiful and relaxed. Sounded perfect, so I headed there. Travelled by taxi up to
Chalok Lam, a beautiful little fishing village where you can catch a long boat to Bottle Beach. Bottle Beach on paper sounds gorgeous, and on first sight it didn't disappoint. It's picture-postcard beautiful, with the obligatory white sand and tranquil blue waters. However it didn't take me long to realise there were cracks in paradise. Although the bungalows I was staying at were gorgeous and right on the beach, you could just tell they hadn't seen any Jiff in months. They were just mucky - the cleaners even left the previous occupants' rubbish bin of dirty nappies in my room! I went along and saw a room in every other bungalow operation on the small stretch of beach, and they actually all looked worse!
And the rooms were only half of the problem - what Lonely Planet fails to mention about BB is it had a serious fly problem! They were everywhere. Any time you sat down they would just swarm you, your food, everything. The restaurants looked filthy too. I kind of got the impression that because it's such a small beach, and the bungalows and restaurants on it are all owned by an extended family, they just don't give a shit. I've been roughing it pretty much the whole trip and, aside from the rats on Maya Bay, have accepted it as part of The Experience bla bla. But this felt different and I just didn't want to spend 5 days there. So in the end I stayed for one night, before hot-footing it back to....
Thong Nai Pan Noi; the sister beach to
Thong Nai Pan Yai, where I started out 3 weeks ago!
The minute I arrived here I felt better. Thong Nai Pan Noi and Yai are without a doubt the nicest beaches I've been to in my whole trip, in terms of the beauty / vibe balance. They're relaxed, but there's still people around, accommodation is basic, but it's clean enough, and there's a good choice in restaurants and the quality of food is good. Noi also has a bit of a hippy kinda vibe that I'm loving.
And so here I shall stay for the next 6 nights! On the day I arrived here I met 2 girls and a guy from London and the 4 of us have been stuck together since. Things are looking good; no more moving around, I can actually unpack some clothes, chill the fuck out and maybe even start doing some serious work on my tan, now that my old leprosy has finally cleared up.
Now where did I put that Factor 4....
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