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Published: April 5th 2010
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Ko Pha-Ngan
Hammock action! So we fell off the train at some stupid hour like 5.30am, Rach having slept hardly any....it would seem the chill out area in the Happy House was also a breakfast bar for mossies or bed bugs - all you can eat type affair as Rach spent most of the day there reading - she was covered in bites, not conducive to sleep! We bumbled out of the train station in to the arms of touts who sold us presumably overly priced combined bus and boat tickets to Ko Pha-Ngan - we'd decided to miss out Ko Samui as very touristy and quite pricey now, apparently. And this was our first experience of the Stickers, a tool that was used from now on for all journeys - everyone given a sticker, the colour dependent on their final destination, and then you're gently shoved and steered to the relevant dock/bus stop/etc, known only by your tiny sticker which threatens to leap off at any moment, leaving you colourless and destination-less! But to be fair, it seemed to be a method that works ('Blue! Over there ! now! ferry leaves!'). So, after an elongated bus journey with the odd random stop, we arrived
Ko Pha-Ngan
Fire juggling at the ferry port (Surat Thani) for the start of the tropical beach leg of our trip.....in the most ridiculously heavy rainstorm ever! We then waited, a bunch of three bus loads of tired, grumbling, soggy tourists, under a porch for about an hour before getting on the boat. We then waited for another couple of hours for another three bus loads of tourists. Finally, with the boat filled to the hilt, sun seekers dripping off the decks (it had stopped raining!), we sailed off to Ko Pha-Ngan, dropping people at Ko Samui on the way. On arrival we weren't then happy with a simple destination. We (possibly me!) had decided we should try and head to a quiet bit of the island, Bottle Beach had such a reputation with the only vehicle access for hardy four wheel drives, but mostly by boat. So, a pick-up taxi to the north of the island and we find the taxi boat man who can take us to Bottle Beach - but with only two of us it will cost a fortune! Luckily we finally find another couple who also want to go and off we glide in a longboat to Bottle Beach
and a cosy little bamboo bungalow. Been quite a journey (maybe 18 hrs or so straight from Bangkok?), but we get there in the end!
Bottle Beach itself was a bit of a disappointment (after all that, bloody idiots!), quite a short beach although nicely fringed by forest, but filled for its entire length by bungalows and hotels. We'd expected something a bit quieter, something more akin to our deserted Cambodian beach....but we soon realised there isn't much, if anything, left like that in Thailand. Plus Rach's bites refuse to settle down. However, the food is good, the sea is lovely, warm and blue, the snorkelling is fun and we bought ourselves a couple of hammocks. Effectively we settled down for a few days hibernation with our books, and after a couple of days we'd settled in a bit. On the last day we decided to walk to the view point - a suicidal decision but for some reason there is always that urge to climb a hill despite the temperature! We got to the top in a sheet of sweat, couldn't quite find a viewpoint, but did slip/limp back down with a vague sense of achievement....not saying much
Ko Pha-Ngan
Happiness on a hammock! after 3 days in a hammock!
And then before we knew it, it was Full Moon, the day that all young and fun people head to the south of the island for the famed Full Moon Parties - all night sessions of music, booze and carnage. So off we headed....to the ferry to get the hell out of there to Ko Tao, the next island up! But just in time to see hoards of people poring off the boats for the parties. And stickered up, we headed off.
It turned out it was a good time to leave, with Ko Tao a bit quieter as a result of the Full Moon Parties elsewhere and therefore with less people diving. Also we started hearing tales of the absolute carnage on the beaches the morning after Full Moon, and the mayhem trying to leave the islands. So, suitably justified for being old and lame we settled in to our four day PADI dive course. We picked one of the recommended dive schools (Buddha View) and headed straight there and signed up for the course. We were joined by other Brits in our class, and later on a Canadian guy. And
Koh Tao
View of the buddha from Buddha View it was fantastic fun. Quite odd, and oddly reassuring too, to have a vague structure again - classes, practicing in the pool, dives out to sea and then home work in the evening. We did four dives out in the sea, and each was stunning - even the first which followed a sloping beach down to coral areas. Other dives circled rocky pinnacles jutting up from the sea floor, or followed rocky ledges. The corals were amazing, bizarre - weird finger-like branches reaching up through the water, wide flat tables, huge mounds, to large baskets, some with small, delicate, brightly coloured whorls of filters from Christmas tree worms popping out to capture passing food only to jump back in if you got too close. And stunning fish - aggressive titan triggerfish which will chase and bite you out of their territory which reaches from the sea floor to the water surface in an upside down cone; flattened angelfish, butterfly fish and rabbit fish mooching along; curious and friendly wrasse watching us like we're idiots as we do our underwater exercises; parrotfish of various types crunching their way through the corals and pooing out fine white sands which then make up
the beautiful tropical beaches; beautiful, graceful black and white bannerfish (William Defoe from finding Nemo and Rach's favourites!); nervous little clown fish darting in and out of their anemones (again, Nemo!); powerful barracudas perfectly streamlined for predatory bursts of speed; great shoals of brightly coloured fish moving in perfect unison; and the highlight of two 3m bull sharks gliding effortlessly past us in to the gloom - somehow we didn't spit out our regulators in our excitement although I think Rach was close! It was all quite nice really!
Apart from diving, we didn't have much time for much else in Ko Tao as you'll see from the photos! Our last day was spent nursing post-graduation hangovers and killing time before our 11pm sleeper boat back to the mainland. This was quite an experience, turning up to a rusty, dirty old car ferry and being led up to a large room, either side of which sported long platforms with mattresses above and below. We were thinking we would be alone before it suddenly filled with a load of chattering Thais and a few other tourists and we plodded our way back to the mainland.
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