Ang Thong National Marine Park

Last night I was reading through some old e-mails from some friends who had been to Thailand and noticed a suggestion to do a tour of Ang Thong National Marine Park which is a 100 sq km area housing just over 40 islands of rock formations, all uninhabited except for one. We only had one full day left on this island though so we ran to our reception area and booked one for today by the skin of our teeth. B wanted to do snorkeling and I wanted to do kayaking, this one just so happened to have both.

So, 8am bright and early we got packed up, fired up the scooter to blast to 7-11 for yogurt and waited for our guide. It’s always interesting when the taxis pick you up because it’s usually a truck full of other foreigners and rarely does anyone talk to each other. I’m always car sick, so that’s my excuse. You’re about to spend all day with these people though, you’d think you’d say hello.

Oh, before I go on, I need to mention that as we were leaving, my hammock got caught on B’s arm and tore it about 6 inches.

Anyhow, we met up with the other taxis, had some fruit for breakfast and then we were off. It was a speed boat through the ocean where slowly these rock islands started appearing. Honestly, I took two gravol so I was fighting sleep at this point but I do remember a rock formation resembling a skull closely and another resembling a monkey.

Our first stop was to go snorkelling for about an hour. I happen to get quite panicked when snorkelling – my body is highly confused when presented with breathing under water and it would rather not. But since B always holds my hand and guides me through the water like a 6 year old, it is do-able. We saw a ton of fish, though mostly just schools of the same type. B saw a jelly fish as well, which was when I decided my time frolicking in the deep sea was over and I booked it back to the boat.

Another short ride and we arrived on an island that has a lagoon which was featured in the movie The Beach with Leonardo Dicaprio. It was a brutal climb up incredibly steep steps but worth it by far. It’s a damn shame we couldn’t swim in it but it was getting destroyed by the chemicals in our sunscreen so they had to close off swimming permanently. Oh well, at least we got to look at it!

Next stop was lunch and then kayaking. B and I have developed quite a taste for massaman curry which is a red curry with potato and chicken usually, which we get over rice. It is SO good. They served this at lunch as well as some fried veggies and noodles.

I’ve never been kayaking but since my hard on for rafting started, I figure anything with a paddle will suffice. Man, it was rough. We were given zero instruction other than, “Go to that island, half way around and back.” No guide, just us and the open sea! It was QUITE windy today, by the way.

When B gets nervous or awkward, she laughs uncontrollably. So when I was getting pissed off, not knowing how to control our water craft and she is in the back in a giggle fit, I believe i said something like, “I realize you are laughing but I am currently scared for my life.” And it’s true, I was pretty sure we were going to tip. On the way back we had to constantly row and row hard because the waves were so strong and directing us into the nearest rock island. We made it though, just in time to watch everyone else fail miserably trying to get back.

There was a guy on the tour with us who was maybe 30 years old and had clearly taken a diving course recently. He showed up wearing water shoes, shorts to his knees, a skin tight diving shirt that was long sleeve, some sporty streamline shades and a bucket hat. His shins, hands, and face were the only skin exposed. Maybe he has that same disease that Powder has.

The way back on the boat was the roughest I’ve ever experience. We were getting pummelled by the waves and I had to sit in the back holding my towel over my face as the water assaulted us. We got back to the hostel with so much salt on us that we could literally brush it off of our skin.

Then off to the food market where we saw this, clearly the best part of my night:

When we got home from the market, we had our traditional evening hammock rest while looking out at the night sky. Mine ended abruptly with a ripping sound and my ass flat on the floor. Just another day in paradise.

S.

Koh Phangan, Take Two.

As you know, I’ve been feeling pretty down about this island. I had a rough few days but yesterday we decided to rent scooters to explore a bit more. We had been wavering on the idea of scooters because safety is a big concern for us. One in every ten people here seem to be covered in bandages from scooter accidents, the roads can be rough and filled with people, and no one wears helmets.

Naturally, since we are Safety Sallys, we insisted on finding a bike with good brakes and solid helmets. We found a nice one, after walking around for about an hour in the sweltering heat and without any training other than, “This is how you turn it on,” we were off onto the open road. There aren’t many road rules here but we just keep to the very side and pray for the best.

We put less than 2 dollars worth of gas in our hog and with a full tank of gas and a couple of full bellies we rode until the pavement turned to dirt. Then, concerned for our well being, we turned around and did it all again. In doing so, we found an amazing little night food market with the most delicious banana pancakes! A banana pancake is a very popular dessert here that isn’t anything like it sounds. It is a very thinly spread piece of dough that is put on a griddle and then filled with your desired fruit. The dough is then folded over the fruit, fried again, and then covered in your desired topping (nutella and chocolate seem to be common ones.) It is then cut into squares and eaten in seconds.

We also found the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen in my life. It is on the north part of this island in a place called Choluklum. We promised ourselves we’d come back in the morning before we checked out but it turns out that the hostel we booked on Koh Tao was full and they had to cancel our reservation. With a stroke of luck, we googled the bungalows on that perfect beach and not only are they in our price range, they had one free the very next night. HAAAALLELUJAH!

We woke up this morning with smiles on our faces. MOVING DAY! We finally got to say good riddance to the shit hole that was Red Cube and hello to where screen savers must be made. This place is GORGEOUS.

Not wanting to spend an arm and a leg on taxi services, we decided to transport our luggage to our new bungalow ourselves... on our scooter. No, we’re not total idiots, we didn’t try to take both backpacks at once. First B got on, she’s the driver. Then I strapped one backpack on and took the bitch position on the back of our 150CC beast. So maybe we have to lean forward to stream line our bodies against the wind resistance when going up hills but hey, we made it. Renting a scooter was the best decision we’ve made since coming to this island. I can say that with confidence because I’m writing this from the hammock on the deck of our bungalow overlooking heaven.

S.

Full Moon Party

I thought the full moon party was happening this week but it turns out it was just a Jersey Shore convention... Oh well. Yup, it was a beach packed with 20,000 good looking people and 10,000 ugly ones, all covered in neon body paint and drinking buckets of alcohol.

For those of you who don’t know, the Full Moon Party is a party on Haad Rin beach on the island of Koh Phangan. It hosts about 30,000 people on the full moon every month. To put that into perspective, only 12,000 people actually live on this island. If you’re young and in Thailand, there is no way you are going to miss this party.

We stayed about 20 minutes away from Haad Rin in an attempt to avoid all the noise but we all know how much fun I had there! We taxi’d to the party at about 10pm that night and walked into complete chaos.

I’m not much of a partier nor a drinker so this is quite out of my element. In all honesty, if it wasn’t for B, I wouldn’t have even gone to this but I am glad I did. It was the first time I actually had fun on this island! Within about 6 minutes of arriving, we encountered this guy:

Body paint and neon are the sole requirement for dress here – shoes definitely not needed as shown by this flip flop graveyard.

There was food galore and endless supplies of alcohol. Most of the alcohol is served in buckets which include a mickey of alcohol, a can of your desired soda and usually a Red Bull. The Red Bull here though has ephedrine in it, which we were told by a Canadian fire fighter we met later in the evening, which makes you feel like your heart is going to explode. B learned this after consuming her bucket of red bull, vodka and coke but luckily didn’t have any adverse effects other than a case of beer goggles.

The beach was littered with people so thick it was like a full pickle jar when you want that one on the bottom. The beach was lined with bars, each one hosting a different DJ and type of music. You just walked down the beach and stopped for an impromptu dance party whenever you felt the urge.

My four favourite parts of the night are as follows:

First up, the Fire Slide. It is impossible to take good photos in this light so I apologize for the shit quality. This was a giant spider net rope ladder that led up to a platform that housed a big ass slide with water pouring down it. Now, in North America they might have something like this but there would be some sort of safety barricade and there most certainly wouldn’t be pillars of fire on either side. Every time someone would come down, since the slide was wet and so was the pad that you land on at the bottom, the people would FLY off the end and into a crowd of people walking by unknowingly. We stood for some time and watched people get taken out at the knees over and over.

Second up, the Fire Jump Rope. You don’t have to be a trained professional to use this insane jump rope about 20 feet long and lined with flames, you just have to be drunk enough. We watched time and time again as drunken MEN jumped in only to be immediately hit by the rope and then catch on fire themselves (I guess we women aren’t dumb enough to do this.) And to make matters worse, the Thai people running it did nothing to make it safer. In fact, if you happened to perform a miracle and jump the rope successfully, they would just start swinging it faster and faster until only Flash Gordon could triumph.

Third up, when we got back to our hostel at about 4am, we had a 2 minute walk to our door. In that time, a stray dog came up to B. She bent down to say hello to it, “SAAAA WAAAAA DEEE KAAAA PUPPY!” That must be the secret call because it was mere seconds before suddenly there were 5 dogs around her fighting each other for turf. We booked it back to our hostel while I repeated, “Stay calm, they can sense your fear.”

And fourth up... This guy.

S.

Koh Phangan and Red Cube Hostel

We arrived on Koh Phangan a few days ago and walked into hell on earth. Ok, maybe that is an exaggeration but I truly hate it on this island. I wasn’t pleased with Koh Samui because it was so unbelievably touristy but this place has been disappointment at every turn.

Koh Samui is the largest and most developed island of the Gulf of Thailand islands and it seems like there are more Europeans than Thai people there. The island’s sole business appears to be tourism. Every store you pass sells sunglasses, sarongs, shorts and beach hats. Every restaurant boasts American food on their menu. Every second vehicle is a taxi that honks at you, thinking you may have forgotten you need a ride.

That all being said, we had a beautiful hostel with a gorgeous private beached area, a pool, a restaurant, free beach towels to use, and a very cute puppy named Mini.

Now, welcome to the home of the full moon party (that will be another blog entry entirely) and the Red Cube hostel. Firstly, no one knows of the Red Cube. Whenever we go anywhere, the taxi drivers always know the names of the hostels. Not this time, as this place is clearly unpopular.

We were greeted by a woman who took our money, gave us the key to our room, showed us the place and explained the general rules of the hostel. Our room was disappointing to say the least, especially after seeing the very new and inviting lobby they have downstairs. This room reminds me a Czech prison. Our beds are foot to foot and there isn’t a mirror or place to really put anything down but that is all something we can live with.

Then I sat down on my bed. It’s broken. The entire mattress collapsed in on itself and you can feel the outline of every spring. Knowing how hard it is for me to sleep in even the most comfortable bed, B kindly offered to switch with me. She’s such a doll. Now, onto the blankets. There is no flat sheet on the bed, just a fitted one. The blanket is too small to cover the single bed, let alone our bodies in a laying position. I am quite short and B is taller than I am – they do not cover from shoulder to feet.

Ok, so we won’t sleep with the air conditioning on, no biggie. Next, time for a shower before bed, that’ll be nice. The shower head is not in a separate area from the toilet or sink – this is quite common in Thailand that there be no curtain but generally it is to the side so that not everything in the bathroom gets wet. Not at the Red Cube! The shower head points DIRECTLY onto the toilet seat. If you’d like to be standing under the shower, you have to be straddling the toilet. There is no way to avoid getting every single square inch of that bathroom soaked. So, when B had her shower, she made sure to toss the roll of toilet paper out the door to keep it dry.

A few minutes later I hear her yell, “The door in here is just SOAKED” which causes me to look up at the door, where I notice streams of water pouring out from under it and the toilet paper, which is outside the door, soaking wet. I couldn’t help but laugh at this point because, seriously? Did I mention that the entire cube of bathroom is raised a foot off the floor for no apparent reason?

B got out of that shower steaming angry. We haven’t complained much in Thailand because it is usually met with laughter. Dinner takes an hour and you’re unhappy? Say something and you get laughed at. Hurt? Laughter. They take very few things seriously but this just built and built until...

B storms downstairs and let’s it out on the lady who checked us in. She did it in a pretty tame way for her, but it turns out that the woman doesn’t even work here. The owner just asked her to stay here since he was in a motorcycle accident earlier in the day... she gave us two towels to use as additional blankets. Toasty warm!

It’s been two nights and two days and we have yet to talk to anyone with any authority here. The only person who admits to working here is an unpleasant man who continually tells us to wait for someone else who works here to get in. It is beyond frustrating.

Other complaints about the Red Cube, this island, and the last few days:

1. The room, more specifically the bathroom, smells like assholes.

2. I got ice cream down the road today and it tasted like chemical.

3. I got a curry and rice dish at a restaurant today that had a dead fly in it. At least it was cooked, right?

4. Haad Rin beach is covered in garbage. Ban Tai beach is covered in rocks... and garbage.

5. There is never anyone at this hostel – staying or working here.

6. The prices here are insanely over inflated. Every day is like being in a sports arena but they charge you to use the bathroom.

7. Their specially made custom logo curtain is too small for the window.

8. The reading lamps and power outlets are conveniently located at 6 feet high.

And here is where people tell me to stop being such a negative nancy and to look on the bright side so here are the positives about this island:

1. At least this room doesn’t smell like dead bodies.

2. Hey, I didn’t consume those ice cream calories! That’s a plus, right...

3. Dead fly = protein? I bet it is a delicacy, they must have been confused when I complained.

4. Is that garbage on the beach or just free stuff? New flip flops? Need a lip gloss or a blush? How about a comb?

5. No one at this hostel not only means a lack of general atmosphere and new faces, it also means quiet hallways!

6. Sports are... fun?

7. That bright sun at 5 am? Early bird catches the worm!

8. Six feet? I can work on my high jumps!

See, silver lining.

Oh, I almost forgot. When I was sitting in the lobby on my computer this morning, someone was just checking in. He came back down from the room a few minutes later holding dirty sheets and asked for clean ones, since new sheets were not put on his bed before he checked in. He was told, “No, no more sheets, all finished” and had to go back to his room to presumably sleep on a bare mattress.

Really.

S.