Sick, sweat, storms and sleeplessness

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I have to write this entry more for my own memory than anything else. The journey to Koh Chang was something else and I don't want to forget all that we went through to get to this island known to most as a tropical oasis, but to us has been something quite different- but that is another entry altogether!

We left Pai at 2.30pm on Wednesday afternoon. We had bought a direct ticket to Koh Chang for 1000b. Slightly overinflated but worth it for the convienience. The drive down from Pai was always going to be curvy as the hairpin bends seemed to be never ending. That wet afternoon our driver must have had a grudge against those mountains and decided to taken them on at crazy speeds. We buckled our seatbelts and held on for dear life, both Lisa and I fought the need to be sick- despite both of us having taken a motion sickness tablet. At one stage we drove past the scene of a recent accident. About 15 people sat huddled together on the side of the road dripping from the rain. This proved as no deterrent for our driver, even though the rain was bucketing down so hard the visibilty was literally only a few metres.

After surviving our ride back to Chang Mai we ate a delicious dinner of Vegemite sandwiches and congratulated ourselves for getting one third of the way to our destination, "Only 20 hours left we cheered".
By 7.30pm we were being transported to our overnight bus to Bangkok. We were expecting a semi-nice bus as this is normally the way for long haul/ overnight trips. We were dropped off at a petrol station in the centre of Chang Mai to be disappointed by our crudy, broken-seated, stinky bus. We did manage to score the last two seats together so we didn't have to sit next to randoms all night.
Of course only a few minutes after driving off from our petrol station boarding point we drove into another petrol station. Seriously, I can not get into a form of transport in Asia without the driver suddenly realising that he needs fuel. You would think that this would be done well and truly before departure..butthis would make too much sense. I just hope when I fly out of Bangkok in a few days the pilot doesn't suddenly announce, "sorry folks, just pulling into blabla's airport for some refuelling".
Where was I?
The Chang Mai- Bkk drive was loooong. Around 8pm we looked at our watches hoping it was closer to 10pm. The only entertainment was the lightning show that was going on outside our window. It was amazing and lit up the entire sky. Suddenly a lightning bolt cracked the earth right out of my window. Everyone jumped- it was such a massive sound and the closest I have ever been to a lightning strike before. We both hoped this rusty metal bucket we were trapped in was earthed.
Around midnight neither of us had gotten any sleep. At the obligatory midnight food stop while Lisa munched on an icecream, I downed a good quality motionsickness tablet hoping fo sleep to be the affect. It worked and I did manage to sleep for the rest of the journey.

By 6am we were in the Koh San district of Bangkok. With nothing open we breakfasted on Burger King but shortly before were due to catch our 8.30am final bus Lisa turned green. I sat her down with some ginger tea. She slowly came around but it took a few hours. By that stage we were on the last leg of our Koh Chang journey.
This bus ride was the hardest for me. We were going stir-crazy after sitting down for so long and the bus kept stopping in the middle of nowhere, frustrating us to no end. By 3.30pm we had arrived at the ferry terminal and all we had to do was cross the calm seas ahead of us and we would be there.

Once in koh Chang we caught an expensive tuk tuk (100b) to Lonely Beach (backpacker central) but were discouraged to find all the accomodation options below par. Around 5.30pm we settled for a bungalow which was clean, albeit smelly with damp (that surrounds everything on the island). Our journey to Koh Chang was over- a mere 27 hours in the making. That night we ate another ordinary meal, showered our smelly travel weary bodies with luke warm water and put our soggy moods down to the soggy weather and general exhaustion. We felt sure that some sleep and some sunshine would turn Koh Chang into a worthwhile place.

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Comments

[Colin Pond]

Character building.
And you wonder why I don't want to travel O.S. anymore? I remember in Russia, back in '75, the van broken down, couldn't get parts into the country, couldn't get food, - but that was another time, another place. Love Dad.