what I did this weekend

We spent a night in the bit of strip called Lamai on the eastern shore of Ko Samui. Becky ate most of white snapper that she got to pick from the bucket of ice before it was steamed. Once again, Becky and I managed to find ourselves in a remote spot full of Germans. As we left the restaurant, the proprietor bowed a friendly vielen dank.

Taxi to pier, and breakfast with australians next door to the building that houses the only decompression chamber in these islands. Two eggs on toast, mine soft, becky’s well done. We were headed to ko tao, but after a few hours wait, we discover we should have booked the tickets in advance. We can only go to Phangan.

Now, Phangan is where everyone told us to go, but most ay in the south where they have parties on the occasion of the full moon that bring out the worst in twenty-somethings from all over the globe. We were planning on skipping this island, and heading straight to ko tao for diving, but we take what we can get.

The boat was a “hi-speed” catamaran that skipped over 8 foot swells with a sickening urgency. we were anxious to get off the boat and grateful for the short trip to phangan instead of the hour and a half to ko tao. But, then, about 15 minutes towards the next island, there was a man standing in a small boat waving his arms. No sail, and apparently a broken motor. Our boat pulled along side, and the man came aboard while the crw tied a line to his little boat. From there, our high-speed journey ended as we slowly towed the man’s broken vessel to phangan.

Once ashore, a crew of wisened songthaew drivers shuttled us into the backs of their converted pickups to take us where we needed to go. We were hoping to check out bottle beach in the north, as far from the other backpackers as possible. The plan was to hitch up to this pier in the north where we could catch a boat around the peninsula to bottle beach. But, the seas were too high and choppy, and no boats were running. We got off near the pier anyway along with another slightly lost german couple. There wasn’t much to see, but they went and found motor bikes and sped off to the hills looking for a bungalo while we walked out the pier to survey the coast.

We ended up with a 200 baht bungalo right on the beach, complete with mosquito net. There is a front porch with a hammock overlooking the stray dogs and palm trees, and the bathroom that is attached has no roof. This sounds bad, but it is actually the most charming and peaceful place I can imagine.

We spent the afternoon reading and enjoying the sound of the surf, and then as the sun set we decided to take a walk along the streets that seemed so deserted just 6 hours earlier. It’s hard to tell the storefronts from the homes here, as so many buildings serve both purposes. This may be a touristy place in a few months, but right now we visitors are not yet the focus of everyones attention as we were on Samui.

True to the guide books, everywhere there is Internet. If anyone is reading this, send me an email or leave a comment on this page. Hope you are all doing well.