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It is with a sad and heavy heart that Marilyn and I say goodbye after 5 days to our dear Bottle Beach on Koh Phangan island in Southern Thailand. But we can't stay sad for too long because we are just moving one island over. :)
After spending approximately 48 hours in transit from Chiang Mai to the islands (one of the last legs of which was a vomit-worthy boat ride) we finally ended up being dropped off on the far side of Koh Phangan to grab a last little 15 minute boat ride to our remote little beach. It was only here, after paying our Song Thow driver (I know I spelled that wrong) 100 Baht that he said "sorry, no boat today, but I will take you back to Thong Sala for another 100 Baht." Gee thank you so much. We said "I don't think so"and went off to find food and another form of help. The waiter at the restaurant was awesome though and called a bungalow place on our beach and they said they would send over a car for us, free of charge, if we stayed at their place. That was fine with Marilyn and I, and so ensued the first great adventure of our trip. First the guy in our pick up threw our bags in the back. Then the bags of 2 German ladies coming too, then the bags of an Australian couple. That was all well and good until he said that now we could get in too. Um. Ok. So there were 6 people, about 9 giant bags, then we picked up one more person. Then we were all sitting on the edge of the truck while the driver visited what must have been his 5 girlfriends around the island and picked up two birds in cages to take back with him. FINALLY we headed in the right direction, but on the WORST dirt road I have ever seen, with water ruts over a foot deep, but that did not slow down our driver one bit. When we finally got to Bottle Beach we toppled wobbilily to the ground and thanked our lucky stars that we were still alive.
The 7 of us all grabbed bungalows right there and though we wanted to hit the beach, it was not sunny and the waves were stronger on the first day than they were for the whole rest of the trip. I had read that this beach attracted people to stay there longer than they expect, and that is just what happened to us, we ended staying 2 extra days. It was just a very small beach with no more than about 40 people staying there at one time. We made friends with 2 German guys, an Austrian and 2 Swedes (who were from the same town in Sweden but had never met. WIERD.) The 7 of us hung out together for most of the week, spending the days on the sand and the nights in the restaurant eating, drinking and playing crazy games of Backgammon and Jenga.
The most noteworthy day, however, was not spent on the beach at all, but on the hills above the beach. Six of us decided to hike up the hills about half an hour to the viewpoint above the beach. Which we did, it was beautiful and the viewpoint was a rock outcropping far above the beach. It was SO fantastic. The adventury part came when we were about 15 minutes from the bottom again and we came across a vicious dog. He was NOT ready to let us go about our merry way and just go home. The guys got very protective and masculine grabbing large sticks and ordering us girls to do the same and stay back. After acting threatening and menacing for 10 minutes or so, we finally made the (maybe stupid?) decision to blaze our own trail around the dog's territory and find our way back to the trail later. I know, that sounds so idiotic right now. So that is what we did. We spent the next 30 or 40 minutes following Alex, our fearless Austrian leader, through thick brush, trees and rocks. By the time we finally hit the trail again we had numerous scratches and welts, Marilyn had had a bug crawl up her pants and bite her, Jonas had walked directly into a red ant nest, I had racked up 53 mosquito bites all between my knees and ankles.
After stumbling red, exhausted and covered in newfound injuries, we hesitated not in running directly to the beach, stripping down to our skivies and diving in. It was the perfect end to a perfect afternoon.
But it WASN'T the end! After swimming came the showers, food and beer! Now THAT was the perfect end.
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