Make da boom boom ... characters and charm in Koh Phangan

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We LOVED Koh Phangan! After our scooter experiences at Koh Samui, we rented one as soon as we got off the ferry and headed out in search of budget accomodation. We wanted to be fairly close to to Ban tai beach as the Black Moon party (full moon's slightly smaller and less teeny bopper cousin) was to be held there the day we arrived. After 20 or so minutes scootering about we found some lovely huts just off Ban Tai beach. They were cheap, cheerful and had great views of and access to the beach – ideal! Something just didn't feel right though … for somewhere that should be commencing a huge beach party in a few hours there were few signs of life. Zombified looking groups sat and lay about the bar area of our hostel. The beach was strewn with sickly looking individuals clutching bottled water and the town was eerily quiet. We soon learned why. It turned out we'd got our dates wrong and the Black Moon party had actually FINISHED just a few hours before we arrived!! doh! The pitfalls of travelling, I guess, it's hard to keep up with what day of the week or date of the month it is!!

Nevertheless, we had a fantastic time at Ban Tai. The beach was gorgeous, and had been cleaned up remarkably quickly following the pary. We ate at a beachfront bar then wandered homeward in relative silence (of course, everyone was recovering from the day and night before!) along the main road, to keep an eye out for somewhere to have a beer. We soon found a lovely little bar with a few thai people in it and went into have a beer. We ordered and I asked the sweet and friendly waitress/owner where the toilet was. She took my hand and lead me across cracked paving slabs and through jungle-esque foliage to an outhouse. When I came out, she was waiting. 'You wan sink?' she beamed. 'Oh, yes please' I asked and she grabbed my hand and led me back through to the bar, up a few rickety steps and to a red vinyl couch. This was odd, where was the sink? 'so, what you wan sink?' she asked, smiling again, as she turned a computer screen my way and thrust a microphone in my hands. Then it dawned on me … she hadn't been offereing a place to wash my hands, this was a karaoke bar! Those of you who know me will know trhat I rarely turn down an opportunity to sing so I selected a tune and belted it out.

The waitress/owner, who introduced herself as Dea, apllauded and hugged me 'so good!' she enthused 'You do this one now for dea?' and so I sang about 5 songs in a row, some of which I'd barely heard of whilst we got to know dea. She was an absolute scream. She told us how she had only recently moved back here after splitting from her Muslim husband ('I becom a musalim for hin, haf chilren for hin, wear da clothe with yust my eye look out an he take seben more wife! I tell him nomore, this no good. So I leaf and bring my chilren. Now I do massage and run brother bar and I no wear the clothe no more I so pleased, I always sooo hot in da musalim clothe!) and how she disapproves of so many of the tourists coming to Thailand 'to make the boom-boom'. She told us how men come into her massage parlour and ask for extras, which she and her girls never do, 'dey come in, lot of them is big and hairy man, and dey ask for make boom boom. I tell them no, we no make da boom boom here, he go some else, but one day a lobely chocolate man come in and I think, he ask boom boom, I might just give,' then she winked and let out a big cackle. I was liking her more every second!! I asked about the party we'd just missed and she said ' oh, it not really something.. yust lot of velly young tourist take drug, do dance and make boom boom .. in da sea, on da sand … it not nice. I think dey mus wake up nex day and be so shame. Dey mum and dad not be happy. It same same ebery tine dere a beach party.' We learned that the other clients in the bar were her best friend, sister and their partners and we stayed there for hours, chatting, drinking beer and singing … Mike did about 10 songs and he never sings! The sad thing is, we never found out what the name of the bar was, otherwise I would tell everyone to go there, just for the loveliness and laughter Dea provides. The woman is a gem.

The next day we headed off on the scooter to explore the north and west of the island and find somewhere to stay. We'd heard that the north was the prettiest so we followed mountain roads (I had to get off the scooter and walk with Mike's collosal backpack as few times as the road was too steep for the bike to go up … bloody hard work in the 35 degree heat!) up into the jungle where a dirt track led to the 'Why not Bungalows' gorgeous wooden huts built amongst the jungle high up and aimed at backpackers, so ridiculously cheap. We booked 3 nights and loved every bit! The proprieters here, a Thai woman and a German man, were just as friendly and welcoming as Dea had been and we dined there every day on the delicious and cheap home made Pad Thai and Mussaman curry whilst we listened to the birds and looked out over the treetops to the turquoise seas of Mae Haad beach.

We spent our days exploring the beaches and coves of the north and adored Mae haad. From there, we snorkelled out to Koh Ma islet, attached to the mainland at low tide by a sandbar, and discovered beautiful sea life … tropical fish of myriad sizes and colours, sea cucumbers, corals and stunning sheels. It was truly stunning, I thought Mike had suffered an accident when he had still not returned from snorkelling after 3 hours...when he finally got back I discovered he'd been round the whole islet, following barracuda and shoals of thousands of fish and skin diving into cracks and crevices to check out the christmas tree coral! We also took the scooter off into the jungles and parked it up while we trekked out to a waterfall, where we had our feet pedicured by dozens of fish in the pools, without paying for the experience as we would have in the towns selling 'Dr Fish' treatment! a weird sensation, but they did make short work of our dead skin! We also took the bike up to one of highest points on the island... well, as far as we could before it refused to go anymore! so we parked it up and walked through the jungle to a really funky bar up a VERY steep hillside with views out over most of the island ... we were the only ones there too! Bliss, and a well deserved drink after the sweaty uphill trek to get there!!

It was at Koh Phangan that we discovered the source of the weird 'Ehk Oh' noise we'd been hearing nightly since arriving on the islands. We'd thought it was a bird, but our hosts at Why not told us it was a gecko. The noise was particularly loud in our hut and it turned out we had a sizeble chap living in the roof!
'How many times you hear it' frowned our thai hostess,
'Oh, loads, ' I said, 'it was going off about every hour.'
'no,' she replied ' How ,any times in a row did it make the eck-oh sound?'
I thought about it. 'Maybe 9 or ten I think.' I said.
'This is good if 9, not so good if ten.' she replied. Mike I frowned in confusion. 'There is a belief her that it is lucky to hear the gecko sound 3, 7 or 9 times in a row. It is not lucky if he does even numbers or 5'.

Despite my lack of superstition, I found myself counting every time the gecko called that night. It did 9 calls all but one time when it did 7. The next morning the lady asked if I'd heard him again.
'Yes,' I said, 'I counted ten times in the night that he made the noise and each time was 7 or 9 calls.'
'That is good luck, ' she said ' but if you are awake counting the gecko its not good for your sleep and maybe not good for my business. People will not want to be awake hearing the gecko every night. Maybe I need to try to move him.'

After leaving why not bungalows we returned for a couple nights back in the town close to the boat docks so we could arrange transport on to Koh Tao. When we were paying up for our jungle stay we emntioned we were headed to Thongsala and the german owner gave us a card for his sister hostel in the town. It turns out he opened and ran it for years before selling up and moving to the quieter bungalows.

We stayed a night in Why Not? Hostel and loved it! The German owners were welcoming, friendly and fun and we were up all night drinking and partying with them. The next day we headed to the beach, returned our scooter and booked a place on the next day's ferry to Koh Tao. The evening was spent eating dinner in the night market, a fab experience which I'd recommend to anyone, whilst street dogs fought and humped all over the place, then wandering the markets where Mike haggled a gorgeous pair of blue linen palazzo pants for me for the equivalent of around a fiver.

If Koh Samui didn't quite live up to our expectations, Koh Phangan exceeded them. Everyone we met was friendly, welcoming and fun and every place we stayed in was clean and comfy even at our low budget. The beaches, particularly in the north and west, are clean and pretty and the water is sparkling, clear and teeming with life. I'd go back there in a heart beat.

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