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Published: September 27th 2007
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Tight Fit
First class all the way Man it seems like so much has happened in the short amount of time since our last entry. We ended up sleeping in pretty late on our last morning in Bangkok and just packed our stuff and headed to the train station. Luckily we made it to the station 30 minutes before the next overnight train. What a beautiful country side! We departed the train station around 1 pm and had fun playing cards (none of us have figured out how Brett won every game but my best guess would be that anyone who has had that many broken bones has played a lot of cards) and bothering the other riders with our ipod speakers. At the time we felt pretty uneasy about being cooped up on a train for 20 hours but we all agreed that having a bathroom near by and a seat that converts to a sleeper at night was a real slice of luxury out here.
We arrived in Sangi Golok tired and ready for a hot meal. Unfortunately the locals have got this whole thing figured out and they quickly funneled us into a taxi and over charged us for a short 500 km trip to
Almost There
Last leg of our journey to the island the border crossing. Still we breezed right through the border crossing with a buzz of energy excited to reach our island paradise and feeling as if we were freed from a railway cage. Our group got larger by one during the crossing though, Jo the only other backpacker around at that time was traveling alone on holiday from England. Only a few steps into Malaysia the taxi drivers swarmed us and we negotiated a good rate for 2 taxis to take us to our port, which we found out was an hour away. You might think that the taxi drivers in Tijuana are unmatched in fearful driving techniques, but you would be wrong. I have never seen Brett and Russ as angry, frustrated and violated as I did that afternoon, especially Brett. Apparently as Ryan, Jo and I were enjoying our fast but in control drive with unfamiliar sounds from the radio, Brett and Russ were in hell car. Their driver not only stopped for gas and a water, he played chicken with on coming trucks and sped through small towns and around turns that 'far exceeded tiny cars suggested speeds. Anyhow we made it to the port and purchased
Good Morning
Need I say more? our tickets for the water taxi, still with 10 minutes to ravage a hot meal and rehydrate.
The Perhentian Islands are visible from the port so we all wore our biggest smiles at the sight of dense jungles, clear tropical water and silky white sand beaches. Most of the structures on Long Beach look something off of Gilligan's Island and there are monitor lizards, geckos, squirrels and chickens in greater numbers than people on the island. Working at island speed we find some killer hillside bungalow accommodations. There is a fantastic breeze that blows past us most of the day and we have an suitable view of the beach and island jungle(I really dreamt of staying in a tree house but this was close enough). I think most of our time was spent drinking banana shakes but we lazily made time to snorkel and walking around the island. The under water views around long beach were full of giant clams, colorful tropical fish, large grouper, scallops, green and blue rays and green turtles, to name a few. Apparently the islands are a national park and we were not allowed to kill or eat any of the seafood we saw while
Coral Bay
A 15 minute walk from our bungalow and we were on the other side of the island diving, which is good for everybody else because we were ready to carve a spear from the jungle and catch dinner survival style. The whole island was very low key which I think has a little to do with hot and humid weather and water almost as warm as the air.
For anyone wondering, the food around Southeast Asia has been pretty standard consisting of rice or noodles with chicken, pork or seafood. Most places also have a variety of "Western Food" serving their versions of hamburgers and fried chicken. Mostly I've been eating the local food and haven't been sick yet.
Anyhow, after a few days on the expensive island (it was almost $17 us a night, I know its outrageous) we were ready to head up to Haad Rin on Koh Phangan island in Thailand for their Full Moon Party. We survived the taxi ride back to the border, thanks mostly to the well traveled car which lacked any type of suspension and had long ago lost use of 1st and 2nd gear. When we arrived at the border we were hungry (noticing a pattern) so we headed into the less traveled border city in Malaysia and had
Mom, look away
Hope your immune system us stronger than your wrist some great street food then picked up some snacks. The people in town were all friendly and curios about us four cruising through their market. A couple teenagers even stopped their moped to ask where we were from and if we were a band. Then as we started towards the border it happened again......our friend the tropical rain storm showed up. We walked for You might think that we would have purchased umbrellas or even a cheap plastic poncho by now, but you would be wrong. So we continued toward the train station but were forced to stop for a Singha in a Thai street shop when the lightning started striking across the street from us, sketchy. As we continued towards the train station we were forced to walk knee high through the river that now filled the street (literally we saw a fish float out of the sewer and start flopping on the sidewalk?!) Thankful that we all got our hepatitis shots, we finally made it to an empty train station to discover we missed the last departure time by 2 hours. But we quickly found an overnight bus that could take us to the Koh Phagan ferry station.
Watch for Falling Coconuts
The jungle on the island was beautiful and dense After 9 hours on a bus and 4 hours on a well traveled ferry we set foot on the island.
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Eron Armour
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Good times
Keep the posts coming. Good stuff.