KOH PHANGAN, THAILAND
Whew. Eighteen hours after boarding a double-decker tour bus in Bangkok with 50 other scraggly Khao San Road backpackers, I finally dragged myself into my bungalow on the island of Koh Phangan, off Thailand's east coast, at noon today. The epic all-night bus ride would have been bad enough, but combined with my nasty head cold and a throbbing headache, it just plain sucked. Not to mention the fact that they'd overbooked the bus, which meant more delays and lots of angry people. It actually took us about two hours just to get out of the city, and then en route we stopped two more times on the side of the road, in the rain, for for no apparent reason! Oh, and someone vomited on the bus steps. Worst of all, we were forced to watch the movie Stealth. All I could think was, This must be what Guantanamo is like.
And that was just the first part of the journey--then I had to get off the bus in Surat Thani, take another bus to the coast, and then ride a freezing-cold ferry over choppy seas, first to the big resort island of Koh Samui, then north to Koh Phangan, where two Swedish guys and I caught a taxi north to "The Beach" at Sritanu, where we'd booked bungalows.
Unfortunately, despite its name, this place isn't nearly as scenic as the Leonardo DiCaprio movie. The bungalows aren't bad, but the beach here is alternately rocky and muddy, and too shallow for proper swimming, unless you wade a long way out. But frankly, I didn't care, as I was too exhausted to think about swimming. Actually, all I wanted to do was crash, but the Swedish guys wanted to get something to eat, and as our resort is kind of in the middle of nowhere, we decided to take a taxi back into the "town" of Thong Sala (where the boats come in) and find a restaurant. This we did, at which point they decided to rent a motorbike to go exploring, and I took a taxi back to the bungalow and slept.
People met today:
Whew. Eighteen hours after boarding a double-decker tour bus in Bangkok with 50 other scraggly Khao San Road backpackers, I finally dragged myself into my bungalow on the island of Koh Phangan, off Thailand's east coast, at noon today. The epic all-night bus ride would have been bad enough, but combined with my nasty head cold and a throbbing headache, it just plain sucked. Not to mention the fact that they'd overbooked the bus, which meant more delays and lots of angry people. It actually took us about two hours just to get out of the city, and then en route we stopped two more times on the side of the road, in the rain, for for no apparent reason! Oh, and someone vomited on the bus steps. Worst of all, we were forced to watch the movie Stealth. All I could think was, This must be what Guantanamo is like.
And that was just the first part of the journey--then I had to get off the bus in Surat Thani, take another bus to the coast, and then ride a freezing-cold ferry over choppy seas, first to the big resort island of Koh Samui, then north to Koh Phangan, where two Swedish guys and I caught a taxi north to "The Beach" at Sritanu, where we'd booked bungalows.
Unfortunately, despite its name, this place isn't nearly as scenic as the Leonardo DiCaprio movie. The bungalows aren't bad, but the beach here is alternately rocky and muddy, and too shallow for proper swimming, unless you wade a long way out. But frankly, I didn't care, as I was too exhausted to think about swimming. Actually, all I wanted to do was crash, but the Swedish guys wanted to get something to eat, and as our resort is kind of in the middle of nowhere, we decided to take a taxi back into the "town" of Thong Sala (where the boats come in) and find a restaurant. This we did, at which point they decided to rent a motorbike to go exploring, and I took a taxi back to the bungalow and slept.
People met today:
- Sammy and ??? (darn it, forgot his name), from Sweden. Nice guys. Sammy just got his master's degree in International Business or Finance or something a week ago. They're on a three-week holiday in Thailand, and came to Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party.
posted by John Kuge at 7:37 PM
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