A Week of Beach Hopping

Our week in Ko Phangan was a sort of "calm before the storm." It was decided that we would have 5 to 6 solid days of relaxation before our attempt at traveling through Cambodia and Vietnam (which I lovingly refer to as 'Bodes' and 'Nam.') Sun and relaxation is what we had indeed!

After our huge day of traveling Leah and I were looking forward to hanging out, stationary, for a bit with Brittany. We stayed at Beam Bungalows on the beach Hat Thien. Leah had her own bungalow and Brit and I shared one. Not only did we share it with one another, but we shared it with a dragon. I'm not one to exaggerate (...) but it wasn't really a dragon, just the world's largest gecko. It was honestly at least a foot long and as thick as my arm--and I've been lifting the old 5 pounders lately. At this bungalow we had a rusty fan and electricity for only a few hours--conveniently the electricity, and therefore the fan, was not in service during the hottest hours of the day or while we were sleeping at night. It worked though and we spent ample time at the beach and in the ocean.

We spent a day there and were over it. It was very secluded so we decided it was time for bigger and better things. Our next destination was the beach Ao Thong Nai Pan Yai. The plan was to board a cargo boat at 9 AM. When it finally appeared we stood on the beach and watched it turn around and go to the next beach. We ended up having to chase it, up a mountain, and over to the next beach. We caught it and were on our way.

The next beach was bigger than the first and had more options for eating and sleeping. We found a cheap place with 24 hour electricity, a ceiling fan, a flush toilet and a king sized bed for the three of us to share. It was absolutely perfect.

At first we thought we would spend only a little time in Ao Thong Nai Pan Yai and then move on to the next beach, but we decided to stay! This beach had great shopping, great restaurants, a great supply of banana shakes and a great beach. Unfortunately I was pretty burnt from the boat ride over, but I still managed to lay in the sun a bit. It was also a relatively quiet beach. The infamous full moon parties were going on at the other side of the island, so we were surrounded by more families and people looking to relax instead of to party.

One of the days at Ao Thong Nai Pan Yai we took a truck ride over to another beach, Bottle Beach, for the day. We had our standard fruit shakes, Thai food and sunning time. This was also a quiet beach but there wasn't much to do. It confirmed our suspicions that we were staying at the best beach.

Another exciting day-excursion was to our beach's waterfalls. We were told by a German man how to get there in broken English. On our way there we found ourselves in someone's backyard being barked and growled at by some gnarly looking dogs. They could smell my fear, I swear. We got to a creek, where our German friend told us to cross, but when we saw the water quality we changed our minds and turned back...through the death path of dogs. We ran into another man who I refused to talk to because you had to cross a path with a million giant spiders (are my fears coming out in this blog or what?) Brit and Leah found out, from him, a different path to the waterfalls and we went back through the dogs once again. We climbed up a "path" through the jungle. For me it took some nice deep breaths. We eventually reached our waterfall destination. They were a little smaller and dirtier than expected, but still a great sight to see! We turned around and made our way back.

At the end of our 6 day trip to the beaches of Ko Phangan we boarded another cargo boat towards the sister island of Ko Samui. Due to our "interesting" trip at the beginning of the week we booked plane tickets back to Bangkok. The airport is on Ko Samui. We got there early in the morning, layed on the beach for awhile and had some food. Then we made our way to the most beautiful airport. It had all these buildings that gave off a bungalow vibe. There were beautiful flowers everywhere. We had to walk outside, through streets lined with palm trees, to get to the various terminals. When we got to our terminal there were free Thai munchies and fruit juices waiting for us. We eventually boarded our plane and after an hour and a half were back to the chaos of Bangkok.

It was a relaxing week filled with sun and fun.