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Published: February 26th 2008
Hello everyone
Well we are finally down south in the Islands at Ko Phangan, relaxing on the beach with cocktails in hand... it really is the life! So what have we been up to since we last left you? Lots of drama... lots of relaxing... Rinna has even managed to read the first 2 books of her life!!
We had quite a fun day in Bangkok during our quick stopover... first we dropped our luggage to the train station then we caught the subway/skytrain to a shopping centre called Siam Paragon. Very posh, but it had a massive food court, and more importantly a cinema... yep we decided it was time to hightail it to a cinema and have some chill out time! First stop however was the food court (surprise surprise right!). I had the BEST Duck Noodle Soup in the world.. so good! We then loaded up with icecream and headed to the cinema! The only movie showing in English was "Charlie Wilsons War" .. the tickets only cost 160 baht and the seats were the comfy-est things ever! At the beginning of the movie everyone in the cinema stood up... Rinna was like "what are they
doing".. I was like "sshhhh stand up"... confused she stood up and then realised that before every movie they play the national anthem and a film clip comes on the screen of the Kings life... yep a salute to the King before each film! Hehehehe! The look on Rinna's face.. priceless!
After the film we wandered around, had some McDonalds (yes food again), went to the dentist to get my new tooth (LOL! Seriously) and then caught the subway back to the train station for our overnight train down South...
100%!S(MISSING)trike Rate
Ok so this was to be my 4th train journey on my two trips to Thailand and up until this point I had not had much luck with clean toilets... everyone else I speak to always says the toilets on their trains were fine... maybe I have a sensitive nose.. I dunno but so far it was not looking good.... To my dismay when we got to our seats I realised that we were at the end of the carriage RIGHT next to the toilet carriage... Oh my god! Are you serious!!! As soon as the train took off the smell of
urine wafted up my nostrils (ever so gently!) and a few minutes later it was all good.. no more smell.. ok I can handle this! The problem was though that each time the train stopped, and then took off again, the same thing happened.. but each time the smell got a little bit stronger... to the point, that at 3am, I was bolting down the other end of the carriage each time the train stopped, and standing in the aisles (with people all asleep around me)... I did attempt to go back at one stage, and dry heaved my way quickly back down the train... Rinna just stuck her head in her pillow and attempted to not breathe! And the award for 100% strike rate on SMELLY ass toilets goes to ... yep you guessed it... Reety!
Anyway I digress... back to my story.. so we settled into our train journey with Chumporn our destination at 4am... a couple of hours into the trip the attendant came around and turned our seats into beds and after a few beers we settled in to try get some sleep. By 3am we were awake and wondering how the hell we would
work out which stop was the correct one (since there is no announcement)... and while sitting there this conversation took place :
Reet : Rinna, make sure you get our bus/ferry tickets ready
Rinna: I dont have them. What tickets?
Reet : yes you have them... they are in the little jacket that the train tickets were in
Rinna: no they werent
Reet : yes they were ... the guy put them in there when we bought them
Rinna: no they werent. I ripped that up and threw it in the bin earlier on .. there was only a flyer in there
Reet : Rinna, I hope you are kidding. They were definitely in there. Thats why I gave you my train ticket back earlier
Rinna: well I hope they werent because I ripped it up
Reet : I hope you are kidding.. they were 900 baht each!!
Rinna: I am not kidding
Reet : (getting very upset at this time of the morning) Where is it??
Rinna: I threw it in our bin (She looks to where the bin WAS) ummmm but our bin is not there
Reet : what do you mean the bin is NOT THERE?????
Everyone elses bins are THERE!
Rinna : Our bin is gone...
Reet : please tell me you are kidding
Rinna : No..
The next 15 minutes sees us trying to remain calm and search every bin in the carriage - we finally asked one of the attendants who found our rubbish bag in one of the other carriages a minute before we were due to get off the train! We jumped off and with ripped tickets in hand we approached the lady from our ferry company... we showed her our dilemma of the tickets in a million pieces, to which she just laughed evilly and said "no no no... ticket no good. you buy you buy" as she pointed to the ticket window...
What followed was NOT pleasant and ended with Rinna telling her to "pipe the F down"... hilarious after the event.. but at the time we just wanted to kill her... she was so bloody rude to us.. and it was obvious the tickets were legit! Eventually a nice couple (Tina and Frank from US) approached us and gave us a book of stickers they had to which we proceeded to stick our tickets back together...
Our New Home
Thong Nai Pan Noi Beachthe ferry company was insistent that we could not use them!!! Right before the bus left the station we showed the lady our tickets all stuck back together to which she showed all the other Thais, they all looked at us and laughed then said "alright you go on bus go go"
We were stunned, and could not believe it... we jumped on, got to the ferry, and as we settled in for the ride realised that we were on the wrong boat... we were sitting on the slow boat (300 baht tickets) when we had paid for the fast boat (900 baht tickets)! Apparently we were told, that the other boat was full so we were on this one... Only in Thailand (we say this catchphrase ALOT!!!). Tina and Frank were in the same situation too having paid for the fast boat so we didnt feel like the world was totally picking on us!!
The boat got going and after having downed a few travel sick tablets I fell asleep... Rinna NEVER gets seasick so didnt take the tablets and she fell asleep too... about an hour later I woke up feeling pretty damn sick.. I sat
there with my eyes shut for a bit trying to convince myself that I was imagining the sickness... because I had taken the tablets... but after 10 minutes I knew I was going to be sick... We happened to be sitting downstairs at the front of the boat, and the waves were pretty big.. we were getting the full brunt of their brutality!! I looked at Rinna and said "I think I am going to be sick"... she had her head down looking for something in her bag... she looked up at me and said "I AM going to be sick" to which she promptly started throwing up into a plastic bag she just happened to find in time!
I turned around and a guy was giving out sick bags.. I grabbed one and 10 seconds later I joined Rinna in throwing up my guts! Rinna had filled her bag halfway by this stage.... and we were SO sick that we didnt care what anyone around us thought! LOL! This continued for almost another two hours, us moaning "I am so sick" in between spews! LOL!
When we arrived at Ko Tao we jumped upstairs on the deck
and lay down.... the next hour was spent trying to talk ourselves out of being sick again..... Upon arrival at Ko Phangan we both almost kissed the ground... but both were already thinking of the trip back to the mainland in a week! LOL! We jumped in a 4X4 taxi and an hour later (on the bumpiest road ever) we arrived at our little bungalows Star Huts for a week of relaxation!
Paradise on a Beach
So here we are on a little beach called Thong Nai Pan Noi staying in a cute little bungalow not 5 meters from the sand of our beach... A great little place with not alot to do but eat, drink, eat, suntan & yep you guessed it, eat!! LOL... We suntanned for the first couple of days and went to Thong Sala & Haad Rin (where the full moon party is held) for a day to look around. The full moon party was meant to be on the 22nd but due to the Thailand Election it was postponed till the 24th.
At Thong Sala we were in a shop trying to buy dresses when the thai lady told me
that I could not try on the dress as I was 'too fat' and 'would stretch dress for other customers' ... this is despite the fact I was just about to purchase it along with a few other items.... Rinna turned around and said "Are you calling me fat?" to which the lady said "no no her" pointing in my direction.. to which Rinna gave her a mouthful of how rude she was... needless to say we both walked out without purchasing anything!
Once in Haad Rin we had lunch at the Outback bar, and I got my long awaited tattoo! I really didnt think too much.. spur of the moment really.. I originally intended to get a bamboo tattoo as they heal virtually overnight and you can do everything as normal the next day.. but no.. not thinking I ended up doing it the normal way and have since spent the past few days trying to not get it wet (yep no ocean or swimming), trying to keep the sand off it (yep staying on a beach and partying at the full moon party has been an issue)... stupid... it seems to be healing but I think its
a little dodgy.. may have to get it fixed in Chiang Mai or Bangkok before I leave! Doh! It does look cool though!
On the 22nd we didnt find out the Full moon party had been cancelled until mid afternoon .. I went to check my emails only to get some frantic emails from others we had arranged to meet for it asking if I knew what was happening! What the!!!! Only in Thailand would they change a major festival at the last minute!! One couple that we were due to meet, Karrie and Ross (Scotland) made their way to our resort anyway, and we ended up having dinner and drinks with them at our resort.. we then arranged to meet them at Haad Rin for the party... it was great to meet them..
Anyway... thats it for now... I will save the full moon party for its own seperate blog which I will try to type up later! Another couple of days here and then we will be heading to the Similian Islands for snorkeling and my birthday. Hope all is well with everyone everywhere..
Love to you all
Reet & Rinna xxxx
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Carolynn
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Loving it! Loving it! Loving it!
Keep em coming.