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Published: October 25th 2006
Oh dear, oh dear do we have a tale to tell!
Just arrived in Kanchanaburi after 2 solid days of travelling punctuated with minor incidents!
We left Krabi (regretfully) on Monday afternoon to catch the bus and then night ferry to Ko Phangan, and arrived in Surathani (the outward port) with no problems. We were the last ones left on the bus and got dropped at a 'travel agency' where they gave us a menu and told us the taxi would be an hour!!!!! Captive audience or what?! How to guarantee yourself some trade.....set yourself up on a street with nothing else on it and then get buses to drop unsuspecting travellers on your doorstep, give them a menu and tell the taxi driver to give it an hour before he comes! Well....we weren't having any of that....had got chatting to an American on the bus who was living in Surathani who suggested we go to a place called Milano's for some of the best pizza she had had! Man was she right....we resisted the travel agency's rather basic and relatively expensive menu and waited til we got there! MMMMM-MMMMMM, GOOD pizza! Anyway, food aside, we checked out the 'ferry' which was basically 2 floors of mattresses on the deck....although I use the term matresses very lightly! May as well have been lying on a plank covered in cotton (under a gutter - torrential rain and a thunderstorm made things all the more interesting). And we were off, ETA Phangan 6.00am, no worries or so we thought.........after a rather broken night's sleep - thanks largely to some overly loud and inconsiderate Israeli's, we arrived to grey skies and a few hundred touts! Grrrr!
Up to this point we had um'd and aaa'd rather alot about where to go and (having heard that monsoon season was in full swing) decided to head for Had-Rin (Where the full moon parties are held) to give ourselves more amenities and things to do (mistake No.1) Man what a dump! How you can turn a tropical island into a shanty town is beyond me, but they had most certainly managed it! After wondering around - aimlessly for quite some time, we finally found somewhere that was open for breakfast - and it wasn't cheap! No-where seemed to be though!! (Captive audience I ask you again?!) Although it did provide some much needed shelter from the torrential downpour that ensued!!!
Having both taken a rather instant dislike to the place we opted to get the bus back to the port at Thongsala and decide what to do from there......over coffee we contemplated our options and decided that as we had come here for the diving, that would be what we would do! This decided (finally) giving us a destination at Had Yao on the North West coast we set off......pretty knackered and relatively fed up (we blame the weather - rain clouds and torrential downpours do NOT make for PMA!) .....we were trundling along the road backpacks and day bags on and pretty well laden down.................when.........for no apparent reason I went belly up..............slipping in some mud my foot went out from under me, jammed where the pavement meets the road and then had my full weight and back pack land on top of it.....and....with a bit of a crack it was over. I was floundering around like an upturned turtle incapable of getting up.
Pride and dignity now in tatters I shouted for Jen who appeared looking this way and that and completely bewidered! An 'I'm on the floor' got her round to me to help me up to discover I couldn't actually stand on my right foot and that it was swelling as we looked at it! REALLY not liking the island now, she raced off to get me some ice! Given the speed of the swelling and the rather resounding crack I had heard when I fell(as well as thinking about having not so light weight me, as well as 2 bags land on it!) I was more than a little fearful that something quite serious may have happened! Yet more contemplating decided that a trip to the hospital was in order, 1 hour later I had been seen, Blood Pressure taken, x-rayed and prescribed anti-inflammatories for the ripped tendons that the doc diagnosed - thank goodness! This did, however mean that diving was out of the question as the doc said 5-7 days rest (that's really likely!!!) but I did think that big scuba flippers maybe taking not-resting to some pretty major extremes! Thus, there we were, on an island we didn't partucularly like, with my ankle strapped up pretty impressively, quite an impressive limp and no place to stay........What to do?!
Well, our previous contemplating had thrown up the idea that we could just cut our losses (about 3.50GBP boat fare!) and get off the island, but with the idea of diving in the offing we thought we could hang around a few days and put up with the rain - HOWEVER with an ankle in straps and diving out of the question we decided to hot-foot it off of there! Just to make things a little more exciting it was now 11.45, we were at the hospital, the boat left at 12.30 and we had no tickets and no idea of where we were going! Some of the fastest decision making I have ever seen from Jen ensued and some fast talking got us back on the boat to Surathani with a ticket for a night bus to a place called Hua Hin, from where we caught a train to Kanchanaburi. Not the most comfortable of trains, we were on it for 3 hours to get to a place called Ban Pong with a 45min bus transfer to Kanchanaburi. Where we were met by yet more touts!
This time however they were to come in quite useful, again some split-secong decision making (can you believe it) picked out the Jolly Frog Backpackers as a place to stay and a little (about 5ft) trishaw driver offered to get us there for 40baht (about 55p) However, Jen in negotiating mode, managed to get him down to 30baht (bargain hey?! ;-) and we were consequently loaded onto the smallest trishaw in the place - well, more like jammed into! And we were off......now no joke this bloke (who was smaller than Jen) must have had legs of steel, he took Jen and I AND both our backpacks and 2 day bags each 3km in very good time! Faster than I would have cycled it I reckon! Astonishing! SO much so that we felt so guilty that we decided to give him the full 40baht anyway! Then got ourselves an ensuite room for 200baht (2.87GBP) between us - not bad hey?!
After our rather extensive travels we were pretty knackered and after a brief breakfast, climbed into bed to sleep!!!!!! More on Kanchanaburi to come tho!!!!
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kirsty
non-member comment
sounds horrendous
sounds horrendous but atleast u didnt break ur ankle jess, i think id love every bit of your adventure except for the "getting to places" so am rethinking my strategy for travelling, lol. love ya xxx