Bangkok - Train Station

2004/5/6 - 18:02

We have the tickets - “joint tickets” - for our night train, the bus, and the boat to a Southern island. But we also have a four hour wait before our train leaves. Good thing I read that part in our guide book: at 6pm sharp, everyone at the station suddenly got up to listen to the national anthem (it’s very rude to stay on your seat, even if you’re a foreigner). Still one hour left to wait.

Surat Thani to Ko Pha Ngan - On the Boat

2004/5/7 - 9:10

The train ride was fairly comfortable, good service (although you would expect that from the first class). As always, they exaggerated a little with the air conditioning. Also, the ride itself is not the smoothest but it’s ok if you put on earplugs.

Once in Surat Thani, we had to take a bus to the pier where we got on the boat which will take us to Ko Pha Ngan with a stop-over in Ko Samui (we’ll skip that for now).

All of these places seem to be backpackers’ destinations. There are hardly any other tourists or Thais on the boat.

Some nice Thai guy approached us for a sales call on his bungalow. Athough we’re naturally very sceptical, I think we caught on and check out the place.

Ko Pha Ngan - Laem Son One

2004/5/7 - 14:30

So now we’re really in for some serious beach action! Amidst heavy rain, we arrived on the island. The guy from the boat took us (and all other 20 backpackers he apparently convinced) to the place. We’re now in our hammocks on the porch of our bungalow right in front of the sea. Like almost everybody else here.

Ko Pha Ngan - Encounter of the Cockroach Kind

2004/5/8 - 10:08

We had our first monster cockroach encounter last night. Our bathroom is not worth the 280 Baht we’re paying (the view is). The tap is broken, the wall has a huge hole, the shower has only cold water (which is probably standard) and there’s one hole at the other side of the bathroom for all the water so the floor is almost always flooded.

The food at the restaurant (at which they urge you to eat) is good but the portions are small.

We don’t want to complain but we might look into some alternatives.

Ko Pha Ngan - Laem Son Two

2004/5/9 - 12:11

We did move and the new bungalow seems to be similar but cheaper. Also, the owners seem to care more. It’s burning hot outside. We’re planning on renting a motorbike and check out the vicinity. There are supposed to be some waterfalls in this area.

Ko Pha Ngan - Born to be Wild

2004/5/10 - 9:15

The motorcycle is the primary means of transportation for most island inhabitants and tourists. I wasn’t aware how flexible we would get with a motorbike. It took a few minutes to get used to riding the bike (I had never done it before) but once I got the hang of it, it was much cooler than walking around in the heat (especially when the wind cools you down). We drove around the island (Maria in the rear) and found out that it’s not too big although about half of it is not paved. We stopped at a supposed waterfall but this time of the year is probably too dry so there was hardly any water. At the top of the waterfall, you could oversee a large part of the island. Today, we’ll take the bike for another ride and hang out at the beach in the afternoon.

Ko Pha Ngan - Thai Food

2004/5/10 - 9:27

This is the mandatory section about the local food. Most Thai restaurants offer pretty much the same kind of food. The dishes are very modular so the menu looks big. There are four main sections: soups, noodles, rice, and fried ingredients. Each section has several subsections such as fried noodles, thick noodles, rice noodles, or Thai noodles. Every subsection comes with your choice of vegetables, meat (chicken, pork, beef), or seafood (fish, prawns, squid crab). The difference between the restaurants lies in the quality of the portions.

We met a few tourists who were happy that most restaurants also carried burgers and schnitzel.

We always had a fruit shake or juice with our meal and a fruit salad as desert. I haven’t been this healthy in a quite a while

Ko Pha Ngan - Thunderstorm

2004/5/11 - 8:18

Last night, we had the heaviest thunderstorm on this trip. The difference between this one and the ones I’ve experienced before was that there were almost constants bolts of lightning. One of them must have struck a tree right next to our bungalow. Since they were so loud and the rain was heavy, we could only go back to sleep after about two hours.