Koh Pha Ngan

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Around 9:30 we were at the second dock waiting for our boat and saw the same rude lady from our bus going there! She works for the company…now we know she definitely didn't buy those two seats, they were given to her for working there! She tried to herd all the people waiting into this tiny area on the side and we decided not to follow her instructions because they were irrelevant. So we waited and the boat from the mainland came around 10 and we all boarded ad were off about twenty minutes later. This time the water wasn’t so rough so most people were fine and I think only one got sick.

Two hours later we arrived at the port in Koh Pha Ngan and headed for a big office we saw bearing the sign "Tourist Information". This turned out to be about the least helpful place we’d been to. The girl barely looked up when we came in and when we asked for something cheap, she told us of one place that cost 300 that was down the road. I went to go check it out and no one was there, but around that place I found a few others and 300 was definitely not the cheapest. One guy had a room with a bathroom (squatter) for 200. We were both tired, dirty, and hungry, so we decided to eat first and then decide where to go and what to do.

After our frightfully expensive lunch at the café next to the tourist information we decided we wanted to go down to Haan Rai, the beach in the southern part where all the moon parties take place. There was a list of hotels and guesthouses and resorts in the back of the tourist booklet that was free everywhere so I called one of the cheapest places and a man said he would come pick us up. After waiting about 30 minutes I called again and the same man picked up and said, “Oh, yes! I coming!”. After another half hour Ronald went and called a new place, Leela Beach Bungalows. I had called the woman before but she had told me that they didn’t offer free transport, so I hung up. When he called her she said the same thing and he replied with something like, “well, other places do, so thanks anyways” and she replied with a “well, ok, 20 minutes”. Yay for Ronald’s sly skills!

It took about 20 minutes to get there and it was a terrible road. I’m glad we decided not to rent motorbikes because we would probably die. When we got there we had two options for 300 baht: one behind a row of other cabanas and off the beach with two big beds and bathroom, or one small one on the beach with only one bed and and bathroom. We chose the one on the beach because of, well, its “onda” as they’d say in Chile. Better vibes.

Seeing as how Ronald had to work, we asked about wifi (there’s none, but she said she’d recently mentioned this to the owner and was still waiting for reply/action) and had to walk over to the Lighthouse Restaurant/Bungalow. We really just had to walk about five minutes along a wooden pier that hugged the edge of the large rocks and were greeted by little white barking dogs. The people there were very friendly and we ordered some food while Ronald worked and I checked out their little library. I later realized that this was the placed I’d called earlier for a ride. I felt sorry at first that we didn’t get to stay there because it was cheaper and had internet, but realized that Leela’s was in a much better location on the beach and easier to access.

There was nothing really going on at night but we did walk over to the Full Moon Party beach (apparently each moon party is held on a different beach) and there were a lot of drunk people and about 20 thousand little stands that tried to sell you buckets of drinks. We sort of walked past it all and found some people at the end who were jumping through and over a hoop of fire and, much to my surprise, succeeding. The techno music was blaring and we were, frankly, too sober to enjoy this, so we left. On our way out we saw a dog snoozing peacefully in the middle of the party…

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