Advertisement
Published: March 6th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Penang hill
forgot to add to last entry... We freakin slept in! Too many vodka pineapples the night before?!! Amanda set the alarm clock the night before and it didn't go off--we still don't know why--quite the mystery. But considering it was a travel day, i wouldn't have expected anything less. We literally ran w/ our packs to the ferry terminal that was to take us to Langkawi. Our reservation was for the cheaper boat at 8:30 am (had to be there at 8am) and we didn't hit the pavement till 8:20 and obviously missed the boat. Luckily there was another one at 8:45 and hopped on to start the travel day w/ Thailand as our destination. We had the whole upper deck to ourselves and took a nap. At Langkawi we bought our next ferry boat for Satun, Thailand, got some lunch and fiddled around for an hour. The second boat was great as well and w/in two hours, we were docked and through customs. it was around two-ish and we were obviously running late and had to catch yet another boat from a different dock in order to make it to Tarutao. As soon as we were on the other side of customs, this lady that wanted
boat
looking like a tourist on our first boat me to exchange my Ringgets to Bhat was completely festering me and saying there was nowhere else to exchange money. Do travelers actually fall for that?!! i told her to leave me alone and she just wouldn't go away! Then we're getting housed by all these other people to take their taxi and we couldn't even get a word in. We were basically shoved into our first sawngthaew (truck taxi--passengers sit in back) told to pay 900b if we were to make it to the 3pm ferry that goes to Tarutao. Having to make all these decisions and spending money in a new currency totally got us flustered and we later realized that we were totally ripped off. We were both ticked and upset that we just spent way too much money. By the time we got to Pak Bara, the peir that takes off to Tarutao, it was 3:45. We knew the boat was well on it's way and that were were gonna have to spend a night at the pier. We purchased our tix for the following day to get to Tarutao and also found out that there wasn't even a 3pm boat! We found a place for
boat 1
the art of boat travel 300b--our first air con room--and threw our stuff down and asked the owner where we could get our first pad thai dinner. It was awesome!!
The next day i had to get to an atm and the closest one was 20 min away and i had to take a motorbike taxi. it was fun but scary considering the thai people love to change lanes and pass every other car on the street--dotted and solid lines are just a suggestion! The boat ride over was nice and i was checking out this guy with sunglasses on--trying to figure out if he was cute lookin or dorky. Amanda and I agreed dorky the minute he pulled out his camera--he was just wreaking "tourist." and by this time, Amanda and i had the boat traveling thing down to a 'cool' perfection. So the dorky guy was getting off at the same island we were (others stayed on to go to Kho Lipe--more touristy--we were looking for seclusion) and so I approached him and asked him if he wanted to share accommodation w/ us to save money b/c the only way to rent accommodation at the park was to book a 4 bed room.
sawngthaew
our first ride in thailand! What guy wouldn't say no to sharing a room w/ two beautiful girls, so he was in and we were able to split the cost, 500b, three ways.
From the boat we had to hop on a longboat b/c the water was too shallow for the big boat. We got to the visitor center and the guy tells us we have to pay 20b for that little ride and then 200 for the park fee. Carson (our new bunkmate) and Amanda were pretty ticked and sick of getting swindled all over Thailand and they were yelling at this guy, calling him a thief, crook... i laid back and stayed silent figuring we didn't need to triple-team this guy and b/c i didn't want to get kicked off the damn island. After all the drama, and having to dish out the bhat, we threw our packs down in our shack and took a dip w/ our cosi's (Australian for bathing suit ;-)) on in the ocean. We had the entire beach to ourselves. We enjoyed really cheap beer and ate some more pad thai played volleyball w/ some local fishermen and hung out on the beach watching the stars and going
pak bara
sunset on the pier for dips in the water. It was absolutely perfect. The next few days just run together as we just spent them exploring this island that litterally had about 50 people on it...one of the days we did a 15k walk (3k on rocks) around the island so we did get some activity in besides sleeping on the beach! We also found a waterfall that was listed in the LP book. it took us forever to get there though and when we did we ran into a naked Russian skinny-dipping it in the pool below the falls! Carson also cracked open a coconut--which took him about 20 min though and we ate it for lunch. the whole thing just made me think "survivor." The best part of the day though was when Carson picked up a live clam that was chillin in the water and we were trying to make it open. Then out of nowhere the thing opened and it looked like a cow's tongue licking his lips. I screamed in shock and scared Carson so bad that he screamed and threw the clam like a rocket flying into outer space! Amanda just laughed at how silly we both looked
being scared of this little clam w/ a long tongue. Stayed a total of 4 nights in Tarutao and ate Pad Thai every night for dinner!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.093s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 61; dbt: 0.0631s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb