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Published: November 18th 2005
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Sunset at Leela Beach
Typical Thai fishing boat at sunset. Finally. Finally we are sitting here on the Khao San Road in Bangkok. It has taken us four days to get here, two trains and an overnight bus...oh and a bizarre full moon party on one of the most beautiful Thai islands.
It all started as we planned our trip from KL (you remember, the cool kids call it that) to Bangkok. Our intention was to take an overnight train to a town called Butterworth, where we would hook up with another overnighter to Bangkok. Well the first train went beautifully, and brought us to Butterworth without a hitch -- just a screaming baby for an hour or two and some dude smoking the foulest cigarettes you can imagine in the sleeping car.
Butterworth is not much other than an industrial town, a stop off point for trains heading through, and the point at which you can take the ferry to Georgetown on the island of Penang. Yes, yes we know....Georgetown, Butterworth, these are some of the remnants of the British East India company's holdings in the 19th century - the land of spice. We hadn't planned to go to Georgetown, as we didn't think there was much there.
Well we were mostly right other than some colonial architecture and an old British fort (Cornwallis). As our layover time was approximately nine hours and we arrived in Butterworth early in the morning, we ended up taking the ferry from the train station to Georgetown and met a couple of Irish fellows travelling the same direction. As sometimes happens when people travel, we found them to be fun and interesting travel companions despite the fact that sometimes we couldn't understand them. They mentioned that they had already been through SE Asia and were now heading up to an island called Kho Pha Ngan for a "full moon party". We took their word for it that there was such an island and such a party, but were still focused on going to Bangkok.
The craziness begins. The second train took us to the Malaysia-Thai border, where we got off and walked through customs (not unlike the Windsor-Detroit tunnel bus) and back on the train. When we got back on we had expected the sleeper bunks (which had been folded up) to be set up for us to get some sleep, but we realized something was rotten in the state of
The Coalition
French guys on either side, Nick and the two Irish in the middle. Songkla province when they weren't. Sure enough, five uniformed officials (they love their uniforms here) came through the cabin and stated that there had been an accident or derailment or something (these guys were harder to understand than the Irish) and so we were to get off at a town called Hat Yai, refunded our money for that leg and left to our own devices.
Well, we did what we always do in such situations: we sat there having a beer and discussing our options, thanking our lucky stars that we weren't on the train having problems. Off in Hat Yai we got refunded our money (already changed into Thai Baht from Malaysian Ringgits which made things a bit easier) and again met up with the Irish. On the spur of the moment we decided that instead of going through the trouble of finding a 12 hour bus to Bangkok we would find out what this whole full moon bruhaha was about.
Unfortunately it wasn't much easier getting to Kho Pha Ngan than it would have been to find a bus to Bangkok, but at least we had some travel companions and didn't have to organize last minute
accomodation in the hole that was Hat Yai. We discovered this about Asia: travel is never from A to B. It is about waiting around for a while at A, finally catching something to B, waiting around some more at B before getting transport to your destination C. This is just how it works. So after getting a bit of the run-around at the bus station at Hat Yai, we talked with a man literally sitting at a desk on a sidewalk who told us he could arrange a minibus to the ferry for the island....oh and it'll be here "in maybe an hour". Ahem. It was approximately three hours later that something showed up for us, and in that time the four of us had been joined by two cool french guys and three obnoxious merchant sailors from "guess where".
It's amazing when you meet people that absolutely reinforce all your stereotypes. These guys were drunk right from the time we saw them, and continued drinking through the night, while discussing their recent sexual exploits with the local prostitutes ("we had FOUR"). Classy. In a weird kind of microcosm of world politics, these three Am....er, individuals of "unknown
Full Moon on Hat Rin beach
All the crazies come out to play. citizenship" sat in the front of the minibus drinking, shouting and being right jerks while two Canadians, two Irish and two French sat there trying to sleep and not speaking a SINGLE word in their direction for approximately four and a half hours. Ugly, yes it was.
Skipping the ferry ride which was nice but uneventful, we arrived to this tiny Thai island and marvelled at how weird it all was. We were in the middle of SE Asia, and this island was absolutely FILLED with white westerners converging on this point from places like Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam....BIZARRE. And everyone was there to drink, drink, drink, and party for all hours of the day and night --- funny WE ended up there. Fortunately it was a pretty chilled out atmosphere so there weren't as many drunken brawls as there might have been---actually most of the danger came from scooter/moped crash injuries (and we saw some beauties). It's difficult to describe the beautiful landscape so we'll add some photos, but the party was fantastic on the gorgeous and huge beach lined with bars selling "buckets" of liquor. One of the coolest features of the party were the fire dancers on
That Man Has Balls of Fire
Does Sarah shock anyone else with lines like this??? the beach.
We knew we were still in Thailand when our accomodation, a little bungalow with en suite bathroom/zoo, cost us 350 Baht/night, or approximately $10 CAD. Can't beat that, now can you? In case you were wondering, our zoo consisted of a rotating display of critters including sausage-sized millipedes, geckos, a toad, a snail, and (our personal favourites) two spiders that were so big they had personality. I'm sure one even waved at me while I was showering. Apparently all these things are harmless, not poisonous, and don't eat humans.
We spent a total of three days and nights on the island, loving the laid back atmosphere but anxious to get up to "real" Thailand for something other than western culture. From our hostel we were able to arrange tickets for the ferry and an overnight bus to Bangkok -- we'll likely use this all-in-one technique in the future because it simplifies things a lot. Little did we know that this bus was notorious for having all your bags rifled through while you were sleeping! Our luggage locks were no help either -- these guys knew how to pick them. Fortunately we escaped with all our "valuables",
"Buckets of Trouble"
Nick and Darren during the full moon party. although Sarah did lose her towel. Now of all the things to take out of our bags, which included cool headlamps, a TOWEL? Come on. We arrived in Bangkok early this morning (4 am), found a hostel on the backpacker/tourist district of Khao San Road and crashed.
Sometime during this whole debacle, on November 13th 2005 we officially became Aunty Sarah and Uncle Nick when Sarah's sister-in-law Suman gave birth to an apparently VERY healthy (well endowed lungs) baby boy named Kieran. We were so excited to hear this, but a bit disappointed that: a) we weren't able to be there during this time and b) the baby's name wasn't Little Ricky. Oh well, he'll always be "The Rickster" to us.
Just kidding Suman (Sarah made me write that).
Now we are planning to spend a few days in Bangkok, see the Grand Palace and a couple adjacent temples, and head up north towards Chiang Mai. For now, we're still exploring.
PS-As we loaded the pics we noticed they were much darker than they appeared on the camera....is it true or just our computer?
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Cousin Kris
non-member comment
Tuk Tuk's vs. Cabs
Beware in Bangkok that certain taxis, no different from the regular taxis are commissioned to take foreigners to Jewellery Wholesale shops to try and get you to purchase jems to take back to your home country. These sales people, and the drivers are harmless though they are the best English Speaking Thai I ever met....it can be an inconvience. I suggest the Tuk-Tuk's over the cabs to save you the detour and shameless success stories...but that is just my experience. Enjoy Thailand, I miss it very much. Love, Kris