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Published: March 21st 2008
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Ko Tao was great but time to move on. I hopped onto the ferry heading over to Ko Samui to stay the night and meet Graeme at the Ko Samui airport in the morning to head over to Ko Pha Ngan, but first things first was to get rid of the Rough Guide travel book which was about 4 years out of date and the weight of a brick (including the 7 other books which I have read half of 2 so far, my bag has become annoyingly heavy). So good bye Rough Guide and hello Lonely Planet's Thailand's Islands and Beaches which will eventually be traded in for the Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia version when I head north.
Anyways, back to the ferry...the 2 hour ferry to Ko Samui flew by since I met yet another group of 3 girls from the UK (not sure why UK girls seem to travel in packs of threes, but I'm sure there's a good joke in there some where). Now these girls (Laura, Bianca, and Abi) were awesome, they were 22 and just plain fun...I had no clue where I was going to crash for the night in Ko Samui except that
I wanted to stay on Lamai beach and since they were staying on the same beach I ended up getting a room in the same resort as them. It was nice to actually have a hot shower, and use a washroom that wasn't mosquito infested which had previously required an interesting array of acrobatics while doing your business to constantly keep moving so not to get bitten (and no the insect repellent wasn't strong enough in case you were wondering).
After taking that long over due shower and shaving for the first time in 6 days the 4 of us were off to explore Chaweng Central in Ko Samui and grab some food. Now, people weren't kidding about how built up Ko Samui is...it is a total resort island complete with several Starbucks, Haagan Das ice cream, and full western style fancy restaurants. We had the most expensive dinner on my trip (cost me $10 compared to about $2 everywhere else) at one of the top end restaurants (we felt like splurging). But what I didn't know is that anything and everything fake can be bought there, and I mean good quality stuff. The girls ended up getting Tiffany
bracelets, Links of London bracelets which came complete with the proper bagging and packaging for dirt cheap.
The next morning I woke up early, had my complimentary breakfast and jumped in a taxi to meet Graeme at the airport. Both me and the driver were freaking out since the traffic was horrible and I ended up getting to the airport 20 mins after Graeme's plane arrived but thankfully even the airports run on Thailand time and I still got there earlier than Graeme was off the plane (but good thing about the traffic was that it let me practice my Thai with the driver and picked up a couple more phrases). You'd be surprised how far a few phrases get you here...it's turned even the most instantly rude Thai into a smiling polite Thai after a couple of words.
After a quick speed boat trip over to Ko Pha Ngan, Graeme and I were able to get a room in the Milky Bay resort (same one the UK girls suggest I stay at) dropped off our gear and headed to the beach. Now the brochure the girls showed me about the resort didn't do it justice...it was picturesque...the
tide went so far out you could literally walk over 1 KM and the water would only be up to your knees.
At night we went down into Hat Rin beach (where the full moon party was about to take place in about 4 days) and checked out the scene. Lets just say only in Thailand would they ever let people do the things that we witnessed (sorry, didn't bring my camera)...there were 2 main bars on the beach (Cactus and Drop In) and both had events dealing with fire (a lot of fire). At one point there were 2 Thai about 40 feet apart both standing on podiums about 5 feet off the ground. Between them they were each holding one end of a 40 foot rope that was on FIRE and letting the drunken spring breakers do a round of jump rope! And you know when you lose at jump rope right? When you get caught in the rope (which again, is on FIRE). Then they did the Limbo, again with it being on fire and the spring breakers being the participants.
The next day Graeme and I got pretty good at haggling for the tuk
tuks (flat bed pickup trucks as taxis) and made our way up to the northern part of the island to Hat Yao which had the best beach I've witnessed to date. After a few hours in the sun we stopped off in the local market for dinner (don't worry, my stomach has become iron strong now) and met up with the UK girls from Ko Samui who had just checked into the Milky Bay. After we both got Thai massages (my forth on the trip) we met up with the girls had some watermelon sized drinks (literally they used watermelons as the cups) played some pool and ping pong (kicked Graeme's butt) and headed into Hat Rin for round 2 (this time with my camera). But it wasn't anyway near as good as the night before (more people, less fire).
That morning we said bye to the girls and checked out of Ko Pha Ngan (yup we decided not to stay for the full moon party since it was basically 18-23 year old spring breakers) and decided to head west over to Ko Phi Phi (made up of 2 islands, 1 of which was the same island that they
filmed the movie the beach on). After 1 ferry and 2 bus rides, and 1 night in Krabi, we arrived in Ko Phi Phi today...time check, its about 10:58pm so I got to go since we're heading over to Reggae bar where they have a Mauy Thai boxing ring where they have the patrons fight each other to win free buckets of booze...should make for some interesting pics! 😊
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shirley
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Glad to see that you're having a great time! minus the food poisoning of course ;) The pics look awesome! Keep 'em coming with the stories :)