One Island left, lots of fun to be had

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So it is off to Kah Tao, the last Island adventure of this leg of Thailand, quite possibly the last Thailand beach I will get too. After a rocky ride we get to the island safely I was a little concerned for a bit. It was a pretty bumpy ride, and I didn’t take any anti nausea pills. I had figured that I had been o.k s far so I should be right, how ever I didn’t take into account that the reason I had been o.k on other trips was because I had taken the pills, it was a little bit of a fail for me. At least I wasn’t the worst of there, there was this poor lady with a very painful broken leg, who was having a mighty rough time of it. It took us a bit of a group effort to get of the boat.



We had decided to stay at Chalok Ban Khao which a little away from the popular Sairee Beach, it was a quiet little place with some nice walks around. We were a litlle tired from traveling all day so we just went for a little walk to explore our little bit of the island. The place we were staying in was quite nice, but the food there was pretty bad and the service was terrible, we had heard that there were some good hikes around and asking them for advise on that or anything to do with the island was like getting blood from a stone. From getting greeted with what do you want, to getting answers to any simple question with I don’t know we decided to try other avenues for advise.



On our usual quest to find a good reggie bar we stumbled across a little place called the why not bar, it was a funky little place that we stopped of for a drink, then decided to get dinner. We found this little place called yin yang. It was the first time in a while we came across a menu with just Thai food on it. It Koh Phangan we discovered that nearly every place specialized in western/italian/mexican/indian/thai food, and didn’t do any of them that well. We settled on what we were going to have, and it was amazing. So happy to be eating good Thai food again. We sort of put ourselves into a food coma though and decided that we would have an early night, so we could get up early to do a trek.



The alarm going off for us at 7am was a bit forigen and it did take a little to get going, but we soon found a path and headed on up. It was a little steep and a little bit of a mission, but once we got up it was well worth it. There were amazing views of shark bay and Chalok beach. It was really beautiful up there. After a late breakfast we decided to go and chill out on the beach for a while. It was super shallow for swimming but nice none the less. While we were chilling out who happens to walk past, but Kane. It was good to see him, we were a little concerned that we hadn’t caught up with in in Koh Phangan. We knew he was a big boy and could take care of himself, but it can be a bit lonely traveling by your self. Plans were made to catch up in a little while, and we got back to some serious sun baking. It didn’t last long though as our run of great weather ran out and it started to rain. Thankfully it only rained for a short time but enough to motivate us too move.



We ended up catching up with Kane and hung out for a while, we got everything sorted for traveling to Bangkok. It was decided that we would head into Sairee for some dinner at this great pub that Kane knew about. It turned out that it was the gold meddle match of the Ice hockey and the place was packed, time for plan b. We headed somewhere else to eat which was so so, nothing too great, then off somewhere else for a drink. This is where things got a bit blurry after that. I am not sure if it was the hugh glasses of red wine, or the shots of Zambuica, I mean what was I thinking, I am not 20 anymore. It was a great night we had lots of fun, how ever I have started to notice something a little strange. I am starting to encounter a few guys wearing all black shirts. This would be fine if they were Kiwi’s but none of these guys are, they do talk of there love of the All Blacks though, how ever I feel there is some thing else behind it.



After a few drink, very large ones mind you, we left the we’re C***s bar, yes it was called that, and I have such a strong dislike for the work, I can’t even write it. It was decided to head back to the why not bar, where we chilled for a while then ended up at the bar talking to the owners till the wee hours of the morning.



The next morning it was up for 10am to head to Koh Nangyuan, now this was a little tough, I felt a little rough from the night before, as we all did. After getting some breakfast down, and organizing some snorkeling equipment it was off on the water taxi to Koh Nangyuan. We had been looking into doing one of the tours but they pump you through 5 different spots in about 7-8 hours so with traveling time and lunch you would get to spend about 40min at each spot. You are also in a big group and we saw that all the tour companies have the exact same schedule, so even if your group is small you are still going to fighting for the same space with countless other people. They also make you wear life jackets while snorkeling. We decided instead to catch the water taxi from where we were staying over to the Island. When D had asked around the day before she was told 1500, however when we turned up they were trying to tell us that it was 2000, we got into a bit of a discussion about why it was more and he told us that it was 2000 no matter how many people you have. So with that info we grabbed a couple who were wanting to go as well and got them to join us, true to form he did try to charge us more at the end, but we stuck to out guns telling him that he agreed to 2000 for the trip regardless of how many people there were.



Once getting to the Island we set about getting organized and finding a spot. There seemed to be a few big tour parties there mainly from China all in the ocean with there bright orange life jackets, this was my first experience with big tour parties over here, something now that I see and am filled with dread, I now see any big group like that and I want to run and hide. So we go off and find a quieter spot with a lot less floating jacket people. It bewildered me a little what they were doing. It was like there were groups of 4-5 florescent orange jacket strapped people bobbing up and down in the water the was about 50cm deep looking down at what appeared to me to be sand, I mean there wasn’t any coral there, maybe the sand looked cooler under water! So we head off and find a quieter spot near a bunch of Coral and go off exploring. It was pretty good, not the best ever, a lot of the coral had died. You weren’t allowed fins there to protect the coral, how ever I did see a few self important idiots who clearly though they were above it wear some, it made me a little angry. As we were exploring Kane and I saw this fish that looked a little like a stone, it was right next to this rusted old can. The fish went for a little swim, then swam into the can and really looked like it was taking a nap. Quite funny. We went out exploring a bit and saw all types of fish and coral. It was quite fascinating looking at all the different types of fish. Kane wasn’t overly impressed by it all, but then again the guy is a dive instructor at the great barrier reef, so any thing else for him is unlikely to be impressive. It was a great day though and I’m glad I finally got my snorkeling in.



Once back on the mainland we headed home showered and got ready to go out for dinner, it was decided to head back to yin yang, we were all super tired though and headed home after dinner. It was off on another adventure tomorrow. We had to check out by 10 am and made sure we were out with time to spare, this place charged you half a days fee if you were late checking out, and I had no doubts that they would enforce it if you were even a minute late. We managed to leave out bags, I was surprised that we weren’t charged for that and headed off to get some breakfast. We had a few hours to kill after that so we headed to a restaurant that has a pool and just hung out there for a few hours, I got to catch up on some reading while the guys played pool.

We headed off to the ferry terminal, once there had a little panic as we realized the place that we had bought our tickets from had written the wrong date on D’s and mine. With fingers crossed that they wouldn’t notice we checked in, they didn’t and jumped on board. The boat ride was pretty smooth, uneventful. There was this one hippy looking dude that almost missed it, they had to wait while he run up carting a guitar and all his bags to get on. Once we arrived in Chumphon we were put on busses to take us to the train station. Once again we were help up by hippy with guitar dude. We get to the train station we a few hours before our train, dump out luggage and head somewhere to eat. It turned out to be somewhat comical, the girl spoke pretty much no english, she took our order and kinda disappears for about 10 min. D ordered some food, Kane and I weren’t hungry just then so wanted to order latter. About 10min latter another person turned up and asked us what we wanted, we explained that we had ordered and she went to sort it out, now it was just a waiting game to see if D’s food turned up, it did finally and was really good. Kane and I decided to order a little latter, he got cashew chicken and I got pork red curry, or so we thought. She read it back to us an all, however when we got our food, which she swears was ours, he got sweet and sour pork and I got chicken green curry, obviously she decided that we ordered wrong and gave us something else instead. After a while it was time to head to the train station and get ready for our adventure to Bangkok. Now I have previously mentioned that in Kho Phangan you can get these drinks of mixed sprits and soft drinks called buckets. We had taken great pride in the fact that we had not done this at any stage, somewhat setting us apart from the bucket heads. So when Kane ordered a scotch and coke on the train imagine his surprise and our amusement when it came in bucket form, so classy. We settled down to watch a little Harry Potter before sleeping heading into Bangkok.



Upon arrival in Bangkok we went to get tickets to Aranyaprathet, which is right at the boarder for Thailand and Cambodia. There was a little confusion, I was still a bit sleepy and the guy sold me tickets to the wrong place, thankfully we caught it out and got it sorted pretty quickly, however we had said goodbye to Kane and still had hours before our Train. We went and got some breakfast. The guy there was super lovely, D’s rice tasted funny so she didn’t eat it, he was really cool and didn’t charge her for it. He said he would rather make smiles than lots of money and was there to sell happiness. It was cool. We managed to contact Kane and head over to crazy Khaosan road. It is different during the day, they have some great bargains though so I must go back before I leave Thailand. We ended up have a shower and heading out for something to eat, Again not great food it was pretty bland and D’s pad thai was full of tofu, when she complained the manager told us that she should of asked for no tofu in the first place. Apparently it was all D’s fault for not having her physic powers switched on that day, because it certainly wasn’t on the menu. Getting back to the train station was a bit of a mission, we found out latter that there had been a bombing the day before and the protests were a little mad. We made it back though and settled in for a 5 1/2 train trip. The scenery was nice and it was quite a pleasant trip. I have no idea why people take the bus when they could train it. The trip is so much more comfortable nicer. We make it into Aranyaprathet, we had decided to get a hotel for the night there and deal with the boarder crossing tomorrow. The hotel was quite nice, it even had a divider between the shower and toilet, we were living in style.



We decided to go and get something to eat. We found this little place along the street that seemed o.k. They had these claypots with hot coals in then sitting outside that we didn’t take much notice of. No one spoke english so we resorted pointing at the menu. We decided on the hot plate thing which we had no idea what we really ordered. Out comes the claypot with a metal plate on top and a heap of different meat and veges and some broth. After a quick demonstration we kinda got the gist of it, that we were to cook ourselves. It was great fun and a little adventure. I am sure we were doing it wrong looking at what other people were doing, but we didn’t care. It was probably the best meal we’d had so far and a lot of fun as well. We were really glad we decided to stay the night before heading across the boarder. The best part was the price of the meal came to about $7 each. That was with a few beers as well.



So now it is on to Camboidia, I really have no idea what to expect. I don’t know many people who have gone there, and as I wasn’t looking at going here before I stated this trip I haven’t done too much research into it. I am hoping it will be great. Until next time.

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Photos

Kho Tao Transportation
Getting around Kho Tao on the back of a ute. So much fun

Menu of Restaurant in Aranyaprathet
A little hard to order from, pictures helped, kind of. Great result

Lets get cooking
These are what we cooked our meals over

Getting my Cook on
Using my cooking skills at dinner.

All finished
We did it, food was delious. So full

View from Koh Tao
The view from the mountain we climbed so worth it

Koh Nangyuan.
Koh Nangyuan Island

More Koh Nangyuan.
Such clear water and beautiful view

Koh Nangyuan.
Over looking the whole Island

Turtle realise programme
These turtles have been bred to be reintroduced to the ocean

Train to Bangkok
Getting ready for sleep time

Comments

[mum]

Lots of eating and drinking.
What great adventures, looks and sounds fabulous. Loving following your travels