After a few days stumbling around Bangkok in the oppressive heat, Sara and I were both excited about spending some quiet time on the beach. Sara had been talking about visiting the famous island beaches of Thailand even before we left America, but she was still finalizing plans for our trip to Koh Phangan the night before we left Bangkok. She found us an amazing guesthouse with beachfront cottages called Ocean View, whose name turned out to be the understatement of the year.
But, first, we had to get there! We loaded into a taxi and headed to the Bangkok train station, Hua Lamphong. The station is a pleasant enough place to spend four hours waiting for a train, and afforded us the opportunity to do some great people watching - dividing time between guessing the nationalities of the countless hordes of incoming tourists and suffering through the first presidential debate on my laptop.
Sara took some pictures of the station, we ate some Thai food that can be described in both quality and nature as Train Station Food, and before we know it, we were piling onto our second sleeper train in a week. We were headed for Surat Thani, the mainland departure point for these Thai islands. Piling on the train along with us were our expectations that the train down to Surat Thani would be as nice as the one we took from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. Not so fast, farang.
The train to Surat Thani was in fact roughly half as nice as the Chiang Mai train, with none of the charm of the Japanese-style cabins, a horrifically damp and malodorous "bathroom", and at least one cockroach. It was a lesson learned on the differing qualities of Thailand's trains, but not all that bothersome as Sara and I both fell asleep fairly quickly and woke up just an hour and a half from the Surat Thani station.
The train station in Surat Thani was a microcosm of Thai tourism, with six or seven excited and pushy Thais waiting for the tourists to exit the train so they can sell them package deals for taxis, boats, and hotels. Sara had picked out the ferry company she wanted to use without realizing their ticket booth was located at the Donsak Pier itself, about fifty kilometers from the train station. The combination of hunger, mass confusion, and heat drove us to settle for a convenient but overpriced package that got us all the way to Koh Phangan via bus and high-speed catamaran. The boat ride to the island itself was uneventful outside of the amusement of the in-cruise movie: a candid camera prank show that spoke the universal language of people being embarrassed. (It reminded us of being back at Brooks house with our friend Dan!)
We made it to Thong Sala, the pier city of Koh Phangan, about three hours after our train arrived in Surat Thani. Due to some confusion with our guesthouse pickup, we had to wait around the city for about a half hour. In typical Thai style, the family that ran the guesthouse also owned a drugstore in town, so we did as the Romans do and did not find it awkward literally sitting on the floor of the drugstore surrounded by our luggage while we waited to be picked up.
The lady who ran the guesthouse was incredibly nice, and, thankfully, a capable driver, as the road across the island to our beach was windy at best and half-there at worst. After we arrived at our cottage, it took us both about five seconds to realize we had absolute no business being in such an indescribably beautiful paradise. As usual, I'm grateful Sara took lots of pictures to capture the visual beauty of our beach, but no picture can convey the sense of peace and comfort that took us over and stayed with us during our three days on the island.
We shared our roughly one mile beach with two other guesthouses, one of which was empty and the other of which had only two guests. The second night we spent on the beach, we were the only ones there - we had the fucking OCEAN to ourselves! Even when more and more guests started arriving, we pretty much felt alone because it was so quiet and peaceful.
We spent our days swimming, splitting time in our hammock, exploring the rest of the beach, and taking the hike into the village about a mile from our guesthouse. On the first visit, we got a little lost and ran into some local children. They seemed quite happy to see us.
Our guesthouse only served a delicious breakfast, so we got to eat lunch and dinner at the other two guesthouses on our beach. That was a huge blessing as both had amazingly friendly people and animals waiting to make us feel at home. To the west was a place called Coral Bay Bungalows, run by a reggae loving Thai stoner and a few of his friends. We went for the wifi, the only network for miles, but we stayed for the two-hundred pound pig they kept as a pet. Sara and I were somewhere between shock and disbelief when we nearly literally stumbled upon her, and we got quite a laugh out of watching her attempt to climb the hills surrounding the resort before she would inevitably tire and fall asleep in the shade. We spent some great time there, watching the ocean, enjoying the food and wifi, and even got to chat with the owner a bit, promising him we'd be back ASAP.
To the east was Coconut Beach Bungalows, another resort with great food and friendly owners. They got a huge kick out of Sara and I being able to speak a little Thai, and one of the employees wanted Sara to stay on the island to teach him English. I'm still not sure why she didn't take him up on it - I can only posit some misguided loyalty to her students here on the mainland. Coconut Beach had a lot going for it before we met its animals, at which point it became one of my favorite places in the world. First of all, they had a monkey. As usual, Sara and I were not at all cool with them keeping what was obviously a wild animal as a pet, but our stance softened a bit when we realized he had no interest in escaping even when let off his harness. He did, however, have an insatiable interest in biting and clawing for milk, which was obviously not forthcoming, so we decided to pick him up a pacifier during one of our trips to town. I think he liked it a lot, although he appeared to be intent on destroying it, perhaps, out of love.
Coconut Beach also had one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met, who was as soft as a kitten and loved attention. One night he followed us home and slept at our cabin door. I took a few solo trips down the beach to feed him and lavish attention on him, and the day we left I could see him on the beach about two hundreds yards down from us, waiting for his lunch.
Although Sara had plans to go on a snorkeling trip, the tour company cancelled due to the possibility of bad weather. The weather that day turned out to be perfect, which was a bummer, but we took advantage of the free time and explored the entire village.
That self-tour was the only real departure from our lazy days on the beach, dreamlike days without expectation or desire. Days of acceptance, warmth, and an inner peace so powerful that no alternate state could be imagined, let alone recalled. Days which, though by definition of standard length and possibility, seemed to be over in the blink of an eye. Just as soon as we arrived, we were planning our return trip, and it was only with the assurance that we could soon return that we were able to leave at all.
But, first, we had to get there! We loaded into a taxi and headed to the Bangkok train station, Hua Lamphong. The station is a pleasant enough place to spend four hours waiting for a train, and afforded us the opportunity to do some great people watching - dividing time between guessing the nationalities of the countless hordes of incoming tourists and suffering through the first presidential debate on my laptop.
Sara took some pictures of the station, we ate some Thai food that can be described in both quality and nature as Train Station Food, and before we know it, we were piling onto our second sleeper train in a week. We were headed for Surat Thani, the mainland departure point for these Thai islands. Piling on the train along with us were our expectations that the train down to Surat Thani would be as nice as the one we took from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. Not so fast, farang.
The train to Surat Thani was in fact roughly half as nice as the Chiang Mai train, with none of the charm of the Japanese-style cabins, a horrifically damp and malodorous "bathroom", and at least one cockroach. It was a lesson learned on the differing qualities of Thailand's trains, but not all that bothersome as Sara and I both fell asleep fairly quickly and woke up just an hour and a half from the Surat Thani station.
The train station in Surat Thani was a microcosm of Thai tourism, with six or seven excited and pushy Thais waiting for the tourists to exit the train so they can sell them package deals for taxis, boats, and hotels. Sara had picked out the ferry company she wanted to use without realizing their ticket booth was located at the Donsak Pier itself, about fifty kilometers from the train station. The combination of hunger, mass confusion, and heat drove us to settle for a convenient but overpriced package that got us all the way to Koh Phangan via bus and high-speed catamaran. The boat ride to the island itself was uneventful outside of the amusement of the in-cruise movie: a candid camera prank show that spoke the universal language of people being embarrassed. (It reminded us of being back at Brooks house with our friend Dan!)
We made it to Thong Sala, the pier city of Koh Phangan, about three hours after our train arrived in Surat Thani. Due to some confusion with our guesthouse pickup, we had to wait around the city for about a half hour. In typical Thai style, the family that ran the guesthouse also owned a drugstore in town, so we did as the Romans do and did not find it awkward literally sitting on the floor of the drugstore surrounded by our luggage while we waited to be picked up.
The lady who ran the guesthouse was incredibly nice, and, thankfully, a capable driver, as the road across the island to our beach was windy at best and half-there at worst. After we arrived at our cottage, it took us both about five seconds to realize we had absolute no business being in such an indescribably beautiful paradise. As usual, I'm grateful Sara took lots of pictures to capture the visual beauty of our beach, but no picture can convey the sense of peace and comfort that took us over and stayed with us during our three days on the island.
We shared our roughly one mile beach with two other guesthouses, one of which was empty and the other of which had only two guests. The second night we spent on the beach, we were the only ones there - we had the fucking OCEAN to ourselves! Even when more and more guests started arriving, we pretty much felt alone because it was so quiet and peaceful.
We spent our days swimming, splitting time in our hammock, exploring the rest of the beach, and taking the hike into the village about a mile from our guesthouse. On the first visit, we got a little lost and ran into some local children. They seemed quite happy to see us.
Our guesthouse only served a delicious breakfast, so we got to eat lunch and dinner at the other two guesthouses on our beach. That was a huge blessing as both had amazingly friendly people and animals waiting to make us feel at home. To the west was a place called Coral Bay Bungalows, run by a reggae loving Thai stoner and a few of his friends. We went for the wifi, the only network for miles, but we stayed for the two-hundred pound pig they kept as a pet. Sara and I were somewhere between shock and disbelief when we nearly literally stumbled upon her, and we got quite a laugh out of watching her attempt to climb the hills surrounding the resort before she would inevitably tire and fall asleep in the shade. We spent some great time there, watching the ocean, enjoying the food and wifi, and even got to chat with the owner a bit, promising him we'd be back ASAP.
To the east was Coconut Beach Bungalows, another resort with great food and friendly owners. They got a huge kick out of Sara and I being able to speak a little Thai, and one of the employees wanted Sara to stay on the island to teach him English. I'm still not sure why she didn't take him up on it - I can only posit some misguided loyalty to her students here on the mainland. Coconut Beach had a lot going for it before we met its animals, at which point it became one of my favorite places in the world. First of all, they had a monkey. As usual, Sara and I were not at all cool with them keeping what was obviously a wild animal as a pet, but our stance softened a bit when we realized he had no interest in escaping even when let off his harness. He did, however, have an insatiable interest in biting and clawing for milk, which was obviously not forthcoming, so we decided to pick him up a pacifier during one of our trips to town. I think he liked it a lot, although he appeared to be intent on destroying it, perhaps, out of love.
Coconut Beach also had one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met, who was as soft as a kitten and loved attention. One night he followed us home and slept at our cabin door. I took a few solo trips down the beach to feed him and lavish attention on him, and the day we left I could see him on the beach about two hundreds yards down from us, waiting for his lunch.Although Sara had plans to go on a snorkeling trip, the tour company cancelled due to the possibility of bad weather. The weather that day turned out to be perfect, which was a bummer, but we took advantage of the free time and explored the entire village.
That self-tour was the only real departure from our lazy days on the beach, dreamlike days without expectation or desire. Days of acceptance, warmth, and an inner peace so powerful that no alternate state could be imagined, let alone recalled. Days which, though by definition of standard length and possibility, seemed to be over in the blink of an eye. Just as soon as we arrived, we were planning our return trip, and it was only with the assurance that we could soon return that we were able to leave at all.
You had to *share* a hammock?! That is an unacceptable hardship!
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