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Sunday 20th January - Kho Phan Ngan
WARNING - Rant ahead!
We are awakened at 6am by the brusque bus driver, and hustled unceremoniously off the coach and onto a kerb to wait for a truck to take us to the ferry port.It is at this point that things go pear shaped... we retrieve our rucksacks from the belly of the bus, and it looks like they have been tampered with - my bag has all of its clips undone, and both of our padlocks have been inspected... it feels a bit odd, especially as the three drivers have swiftly gotten back onto the bus and sped away - every other bus trip we've been on so far, the drivers usually hang around for a coffee (or beer) and meal after any long drive.
We sit on the kerb outside a shop for an hour and a half, until a taxi pick-up truck arrives... it is at this point that I check my purse and realise that most of my money has disappeared.Normally, I hardly carry any with me, as we can use cash points for free and have no need to.However, since we weren't sure if there were ATM's near Bottle Beach, and my sister had brought with her my Christmas and birthday money from my parents and Uncle Bill, we had a lot more on us than usual - about two hundred and fifty pounds in sterling and baht - all gone apart from a few hundred baht.
I'm pretty upset, and ask the owner of the shop where I can report it to the police - she reacts strangely and tells me we must catch the taxi, "no police".We have a similar experience at the ferry port - they refuse to give us the number of the police station, then say its closed, then say we can't report it there and need to get to Kho Phan Ngan first.We give up for now and get on the ferry for a four hour trip to Kho Phan Ngan, during which I continue to be angry and upset, and Dave and Keren do their best to calm me down.It's not so much the money that's the problem (although it would have been useful!), it's the fact that it was taken from me, most probably in my three hours of sleep, and that the coach and ferry company appear to be in on it.
I keep blaming myself, but eventually come around to the idea that there wasn't a lot that any of us could have done, apart from stay awake all night, and we arrange a taxi to the police station in Kho Phan Ngan once we land.
Rant over.
We rouse the dozy police station, and after eventually persuading the policemen that they don't need to do anything, just let us make a statement for our insurers, they become quite friendly, and even decide start making funny comments about my passport photo!They rubber stamp everything, and we're back in our taxi truck for half an hour or so across to the other side to the island, to see if we can charter a long boat to Bottle Beach, after we've adjusted our watches to island time.
A man who appears to be several decades overdue for retirement eventually emerges, and gestures towards a four-man canoe sized longboat, which Dave, Keren and I clamber into, along with two girls from London who are heading to Bottle Beach for some snorkelling.We zoom around the coast to our new home, and despite our tiredness we are blown away by the view of Bottle Beach.It's small, quiet and has just a couple of rows of beach bungalows on stilts and a handful of ramshackle bars and restaurants.The sea is a bit choppy, and our rucksacks are bouncing around at the end of the boat, whilst we all get a bit soggy from the spray.We arrive at the beach and Keren and I make our less than ladylike exits from the boat into the sea, where the three of us ferry our bags onto dry land.
Twenty hours after we started our journey; one bus, two boats, two taxi trucks and some thievery later, we are at our destination, and it couldn't be more perfect.We settle into our basic beach bungalows at 350 baht a night (about a fiver), which have cold showers, electric fans and mosquito nets, and order the first of many banana shakes at the resort's bar.Our bungalows are on the beach, just metres from the sea, and despite being pretty basic; it's a world away from the hassle of the journey.
The three of us start to relax into beach life, and the upside of my money being stolen is that it proves a good conversation starter - we get chatting to Scott and Amy from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and also Charlie, an English horse trainer, and Mikkol, a Finnish chap who doesn't like to shake hands.
Keren persuades me and Dave to stretch ourselves, and we leave our porch to get a boat to an elephant trek, where Dave and Keren ride an elephant up a hill and then down again whilst I covet the baby monkey who lives on site.When they return, we spend some time playing with the monkey, and also a lemur called Johnny - the owners offer to sell him to us for 3500 baht (about 50 pounds) - but we managed to keep our spending fingers safely away, mostly because he would have only lasted as far as customs!
The elephants at the trekking place look bored and restless apart from at feeding time, and we're not sure whether they or the other animals are getting the best life here.However, we've learned that it most often does more harm than good to interfere - the elephants here are no longer needed for logging, and are provided for as best as possible within the means of the country when they might otherwise have been abandoned.It's maybe something to think about for when we get home.
The next interruption to our busy schedule of reading, sunbathing, eating and relaxing was the much anticipated full moon party in Had Rin.Pretty much everyone from the beach was going, and we'd arranged a ride in a 4x4 pick-up truck along the 'emergency' back road.They only use the road for access when they have no choice, as all food and people deliveries are done by boat... however, the sea was too rough, and being enterprising people, the Thai owners of our resort enlisted two of their bravest drivers and had a good bash at the very rough road to Had Rin, with ten of us squished on the back of each pick-up and a few more inside.
We arrived at the party - it was huge, with thousands of people there (30,000 according to Charlie's most recent Lonely Planet), all in various states of inebriation.People seemed to either be sporting random UV paint all over, or nasty scooter burns, or both.We busied ourselves purchasing plastic buckets of booze - Keren, Dave and I chose vodka, coke and red bull to share, although we soon moved onto the easier to handle bottles of beer.We potter up and down the beach taking in the different sound systems and trying to avoid seeing the men constantly lining up to use the sea as a toilet facility.We send Keren off to play with Jo and Jimmy, who are staying in Had Rin, and Dave and I settle down to people watch, sitting in a rare patch of clean sand.After spending a few hours laughing at random people, hiding in a bar from a rain storm, eating crepes and counting the hundreds of abandoned flip-flops on the beach, we drag ourselves back to the trucks for our 6am lift back to the peace of Bottle Beach, watching the sun come up on the way.We've enjoyed the experience, but are glad we stayed relatively sober after witnessing so many people passed out on the beach and desperate haggling with taxi drivers to get home... not only are we now travel snobs, but it turns we're too old to party too...
After a few more days doing b***** all, it's finally time to leave the island and get Keren back to Bangkok for her flight home.We book our return trip with a different company, which is twice the price of our journey down here, but they seem to be a lot more organised and friendly than the coach company we used previously.As the sea is still dangerous for small boats, we shell out for another 4x4 to the catamaran port.Unfortunately, the truck is open topped, and we and our luggage get absolutely drenched in heavy rain on our way to the port - the driver finds this very amusing!
The catamaran is quick but bumpy, although we dose up on travel sickness tablets and manage to avoid the worst.We then have an eight hour bus ride back to Bangkok, which passes (thankfully) without incident...
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