Advertisement
Up at 6.30am to decide if the weather looks good enough to go to Koh Pha Ngan, yet another island. Yes it did so we bought our ferry tickets and waited for the bus to pick us up and take us to the jetty just 6km out of Surat Thani.
After loading on the mountain of backpacks and the hoards of people we were on the boat ready to leave for 8am, but for some reason we did not set off until 8.45am.
Oh well, on the deck we got chatting to another couple (Hamish, a kiwi and Lindy from UK now living in New Zealand) who had decided to go to the same beach as us on Koh Pha Ngan, Bottle beach. So we planned to get a taxi together as it was a bit of a trek, when we actually arrived on the island.
3 hours and 45 minutes later we finally arrived at our destination. Before we were even off the boat the touts were shouting at us and holding up boards. ( I , Andy have a song for the "Tout Attack" it goes with the music of Beadles About and it goes like this "Watch out,
touts about, watch out, touts about!) Good eh?
As we waited for a bags to be thrown off the boat a little lady asks us where we are going so we tell her, straight away she says ok, come, come and goes on and on at us. We asked other taxis how much, they were all the same price and no one was budging. However this little (evil) woman said she would do it cheaper so we decided to go with her. When it came to it she said that she didn't say that price and went off on one. Unfortuantely there were not many others about so we stayed with her and payed the full price, but were not happy as we would have rather gone with a less pushy and non-lying tout! Never mind.
On the sawngthew we met Carole who had been waiting for people to come so the truck would leave, so eventually we headed off to Chalaklum where we then got a long tail boat round to bottle beach.
Now this was all a bit of a trek and an effort to get to this beach so we hoped it was the secluded, quiet paradise
that we were expecting.
Like on Pulau Perhentian there was only electricity from a generator from 6.30pm until early morning. We did have our own bathroom but it was still flush with a bucket or the bum gun!
We had all chosen the same place to stay, Smile Bungalows. We checked out a bungalow, it was nice enough and cheap enough so we got settled and then Andy and I went for a swim and lie on the beach.
Laying on the beach, it was the quietest place we have ever been! There were half a dozen people on this one long, white beach. About 4 different places to stay, 3 or so restaraunts and 1 bar. It was the quiet secluded place we had expected so we were pleased.
We all met up at lunch time in our resteraunt and then went back on the beach together.
That night after showers we all went to Hamish and Lindy's balcony for a drink and chat before heading down to dinner. Somehow Andy managed to fall over off our balcony and sprain his ankle which swelled up and caused him a lot of pain.
After a late night
The wind breaker
It was really windy this day so Andy used 2 sticks and our towel to make a wind breaker. Truly english.we headed back to our balcony where Andy and I played cards.
The rest of our time on Bottle Beach consisted of pretty much of the same. Swimming, reading, sunbathing, playing cards and visiting each others balconies.
On our last night we went to a different restaraunt where we had a lovely meal. (It says in the guidebooks that you can get evicted if you dont eat at your guesthouses place.
Was this paradise?? We don't know but it was really nice. We have decided to go tomorrow to an island nearby called Ko Tao (Turtle Island) where there will be a few bars and it will give us a bit of a contrast.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.203s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 27; qc: 128; dbt: 0.1214s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
