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It was an early morning start: we were being collected at 7.30am. We made our way to the corner where we'd been dropped off and sat with our bags at the restaurant that was closed, waiting for our lift. There was a minivan parked a little further down from where we were, so Edd went to investigate if it was our taxi. He asked the driver if he was going to Koh Lipe and the guy shoved his hand in Edd's face in a 'talk to the hand' kind of gesture. The people here left a lot to be desired when it came to customer service. (We'd been warned on the forums that for whatever reason, the staff at many of the hotels on Koh Lanta were incredibly rude, wanting to shut bars early and asking people to leave. When the people enquired as to where else they could go that would be open, the answer was 'to your bedroom'). This man was no exception; Edd took his hand to the face as a no and walked away. It was too early to tell him colourfully what a rude pig he was.
Our taxi arrived 10 minutes late and we got in - well, we squeezed in. The problem with the minivans is that they have no where to put bags and they stack them with people. I sat in the front seat with the driver with 2 bags stacked on me, while Edd and Cip sat at the back squished between people, smelling their armpits. I got my mp3 player out and started listening to music; it was going to be a long journey.
1.5 hours later, we were at the pier. Edd was given new stickers and cards that we were to use to get on the speed boat, but it only left at 1.30pm, so again, we had an hour to kill. We hadn't eaten yet, so went in search of food. There was a grand total of 1 place to eat at and they served noodles with pork, noodles with beef and noodles with chicken. I had just noodles while the boys had the chicken option. It was flat noodles and the meal was surprisingly tasty; at least they had had enough time to perfect this dish, considering there was only one of them.
I walked across the road and got an ice cream and water. It was stinking hot again and we needed something to cool off. We then started walking back to the tourist information office where we'd left our bags, grabbed them and then made our way to the pier.
Pier entrance lady: '20 Baht please'
Me & Edd: 'For what?'
Pier entrance lady: 'To get onto the pier'
Me & Edd: 'But we don't want to go on the pier, we want to go on the boat?'
Pier entrance lady: 'You have to walk on the pier to get to the boat'
Me & Edd: 'Westerners are not walking money bags. This is extortion.'
We paid and walked through. The 'all encompassing' tickets we'd bought in Koh Lanta, were not as encompassing as we'd been told they were. Clearly.
We watched as the Thai people refuelled their boat packed our bags in the flooring and on the front. We made sure we were near the front of the crowd so that when we were told we could come down and board, we got the option of good seats.
We got the nod and raced down to the boat, nabbing 3 seats right at the front. Everyone else got on board and glared at us for the forward thinking: we were seasoned, haters gonna hate. A few locals climbed on with large bags of watermelons, mangoes, spinach and about 5 buckets of KFC. Quite bizarre. Everyone got as settled as they could and the captain started the engine.
Edd had originally guesstimated our travel time to be approximately 1, maybe 1.5 hours at 35 knots an hour (not that I've every understood this whole knots business) but after about half an hour, he decided it was more along the lines of 2 hours to our destination. I got my mp3 player out and tuned in. The sea was choppy and we were getting whiplash from the way the boat kept hitting the waves; I could think of worse journeys we'd had. At least there were no bed bugs.
We got dropped off on a barge, just off the coast of Koh Lipe; we could have swum the short distance, but unfortunately had our ninja turtle packs to think about, so had to pay another 50Baht to get across a short stretch to land. What a joke. I swear the only thing they don't do is stop in the middle of the ocean and threaten to throw you overboard if you don't pay them extra. This lot are a different breed.
Edd got out first and grabbed our bags, there was no one to assist us getting of the long tail boat, it was every man for himself, and the crashing waves of course. We'd marked up a few spots on a map I'd picked up on the pier, of places we could stay at, so went in search of accommodation on the beach, expecting something along the lines of what we had in Cambodia.
The first place we found was reasonably priced; it was on sunrise beach so not entire where we really wanted to be, but the rooms were decent. The problem, however, was that the beach was awful: there was no where to swim as fishing boats lined the shore and locals sat on the beach making nets. Yes we were in low season, but this was a bit ridiculous.
Edd then suggested we go back to where we were dropped off, walk along the beach to the left and stay in a place he'd called that seemed nice. This was all good and well, but my bag weighed a ton and I was struggling to carry it, we'd already walked over 2 km's with 15kg's on my back; I was not designed for manual labour.
Edd was my knight in shining armour: he took my big back pack off my back and carried it on his front. 'Strong like bull' as he says. I walked ahead to the bungalows to sort things out while he and his friend minced on the beach a bit to catch their breath.
I clambered up rocks, walked along a rickety old bridge and up the side of a mountain; it was not looking good, I did not like the mountaineering that was required to go to bed. Unfortunately, no one was home. Literally. Reception was closed, all the bungalows were unmade and empty and not a soul was in sight. I tried to call to find out where the owner was, but it went straight to voicemail. This was not looking good; I hung around until Edd and Cip arrived and wondered what was taking them so long.
I then heard Edd calling me from somewhere down below.. It turned out I'd walked up stairs to the wrong accommodation and he and his friend had beaten me to it, after having a massive head start. Doughnut. I walked back down the dodgy stairs and over a small hill to Sanom Beach Bungalows; I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
I selected a bungalow furthest away from the entrance, bungalow 1 and Cip decided to take up occupancy of bungalow 2, right next to us. The owner had to call a lady to come down and sort our rooms out for us, so we sat around on the beach and waited for her while she pottered around sweeping, making beds and hanging bug nets. We had landed in paradise.
We were shown our rooms about 45minutes later and I unpacked our things, set everything up in our own private bathroom (yippee!) and got our costumes out. We then all went for a swim in the sea of the private beach and chatted about snorkelling the next day.
Edd and Cip then grabbed a beer each and sat on their respective balconies, contemplating life. I went for a cold shower. They then followed suit and we all got ready for dinner.
The great part about where we'd decided stay was that it was far away from everything. The down side to where we'd decided to stay was that it was far away from everything. We had to walk back along the rickety bridge, clamber back down the rocks and walk across the beach to Walking Street (original). The whole operation took about 15 minutes.
I then found a restaurant that served food that seemed reasonably priced, so we sat down, ordered and drank our drinks and chatted while we waited for our food to arrive. We were all starving hungry and looking forward to a hearty meal.
I was served a mound of plain rice with 6 prawns. Edd was served a mound of plain rice with 6 pieces of calamari. We asked if it was correct, as we were sure we'd ordered a main dish. The woman that served us said that if we wanted more food, we should have ordered a main dish where the rice comes separately. She then told us to stop complaining before she got angry. I wished I could have spoken to customers like that when I was a waitress back in South Africa. Shut up and eat or I'll get mad. Hilarious. She told us to come back the next night and ordered different food, we explained that under no certain terms would we be eating there again, she'd cooked her goose, so to speak, we'd had bigger starters than her mains in restaurants.
We ate our minuscule dinner and left. We needed to drown our sorrows, so went to a bar that had a good happy hour special: massive cocktails for 120Baht. Winner. The boys got beer and I sat and sipped away on my passion fruit mojito. We laid on what could be sun beds during the day, but they were elevated. It was a bit strange, but we enjoyed it and sipped away to the beat of lounge - type reggae, while guys with massive afro's served customers.
We finished up and started off on the great trek back to our bungalows. The walked seemed further than I'd remember, but we had a torch so it wasn't too bad. We washed our feet with the bum guns they'd installed at the stairs up to our room - this way we wouldn't get into bed with sandy feet, like we did at the Sea garden all the time. (Bum guns: what the Asian's use to clean themselves instead of toilet paper, actually really handy, we have not yet worked out the technique of using them, without getting our clothes wet, though. *Watch this space*). We then lit a mosquito coil and climbed into our white sheets with the fan blowing down on us. This was definitely, the life.
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