Travels with Olaf

Written on Wed, Nov. 4th:

Currently on a bus back towards Phuket for Andy and I's last night before he flies out tomorrow. Where I go next, however, is still being figured out at this point. With weather being on the fritz in the southern gulf, I may have to wait out the storm on this side of the pinnensula and then hit up the islands after OR head further up north and miss it all together. Having a week long go at this traveling thing, Andy is convinced I'm crazy for traveling and, at times like these, I'm not sure I totally disagree. This gypsy life is a bit hectic and crazy at times but you take the bad with the good I suppose. And I think Andy would have to agree that there was more good than bad in these past 7 days.

We made it to Ko Phi Phi with no trouble at all- the boat ride, we discovered, was a lot more enjoyable on top of the boat deck where you have a view and a constant breeze to balance out the fumes. Arrive in the beautiful bay of ton sai and wait for our bags to be unburried- word of advice: don't be the first on the ship, you will be the last to disembark! Though we didnt have a place booked, we had done some research on Phi Phi and knew we wanted to get off the main bay and onto a secluded beach so asked the guy (who so graciously found us the second we stepped off the boat) that we wanted a bungalow for cheap on Runtee beach. Within 5 minutes we booked and paid for two nights at Runtee Bungalows. Done and done.

Took a longtail boat over to the beach with the family that owns the hotel and are fed some snakeskin-strawberry fruits and purple fried potatoes by the crazy wife/mom during the drive and finally arrive at our 'little bungalow on the beach'. Granted, our cute little bungalow only had power from the hours of 5pm till 3am, had no hot water and was one of those lovely western toilets that has to be flushed by pouring water down it, but still... We made it. This beach has three resorts (if you call bungalows resorts), three places to eat, one oversized swing, two hammocks and about seven people on it our first night. We take a swim, eat some more great food, down two more Changs and just enjoy some time off the road.

The next day was spent eating, snorkling, reading, napping, getting to know our neighbors and refusing 'thai massage?' from the crazy wife (who tries to intice you into a massage by squeezing your arm in a fashion similar to the Indian rug burn you used to give your friends when you were 5). The snorkeling here was pretty neat (though our equipment was a bit ill-fitted) and we saw some crazy looking fish and sea cucumbers and those black spikey sea erchins that look like they belong in a Mario bros video game. (Dad, saw heaps of those duck or rabbit fish- cant remember which one- that you have in the tank- they were huge!)

It was great to have some time just relaxing, but Andy and I were getting a bit restless after a day and a half of this beach bum living- something that really is so foreign to our lifestyles and white skin- so tried to figure out our next move. First option: stay put, enjoy being away from everyone and everything and just sit on our little beach with only 10 hours/day of electricity OR second option: take the ferry over to Krabi and circle around in time to catch andy's flight out of phuket on Thursday. We opt for the latter. We spend our last night eating dinner at restaraunt number 2 and then having a drink at number 1 with our new Brit friends, Nick and Caroline.

Wake up early the next morning and load up onto the longtail with eleven other people and their luggage and headed for ton sai. Just to give you a better understanding of the longtail boats: their shape resembles something between a wodden canoe and a viking ship, their bow is decorated with different color clothes and their engine is essentially a car motor with a 10 foot drive shaft dragging in the water. The ideal load on one of these boats, I would imagine, would probably be around 3-6 people, one solid driver and a full tank of gas. Well, since they charge less for a ride with more people, we jump onto the 8am boat ride over with the rest of the Runtee beach population and hope they are right when they say there's enough room. In total, we have eleven passangers, two retarded drivers and, as we soon found out, no gas. Awesome. The boat dies about halfway around to the bay and we are all just dumbfounded. Meanwhile, twiddle dee helps twiddle dum syiphone out gas from the corner of the gas can with his mouth. They finally get us up and running and we sputter along to the gas boat where we fill up before being dropped off. Oh the island way of life just seems to lack a bit of common sense at times...The day before we had seen a guy carrying a big gas tank in one hand and a lit cigerette in the other!

We make it to the bay, walk around in circles for awhile searching for wifi to send off emails to the 'rents that we are alive and well and catch our boat over to Krabi. Met a fellow from NY on his way to Koh Pha-ngan for the full moon party, enjoyed the brief but beautiful ride and get onto a bus headed for Pang-nga once we reach Krabi.

When we get to Pang-nga, we are greeted by a nice looking woman asking us if we know where we are staying. Well, no, we don't and this woman looks sweet enough so we follow her over to her little travel shop and we talk options. There's not a ton of options in this small town, so we ended up bargining for a package deal that includes staying in a Muslim fishing village, a boat tour around the bay/sound/river the next day and all meals included. We get picked up by a taxi/truck thing, driven over to the water and just told to wait there. So, we wait... We aren't sure for whom or what but what other options do we have? Start chatting with this little old lady who runs a refreshment stand there by the river and she starts teaching us the Thai words for monkey (ling) and dog (ma) and horse (also ma) and elephant (chang) and tells us about the 'big wave' and how she lives a little ways away but comes here everyday to work. She is probably the friendliest person I have met in Thailand thus far. A boat pulls up and tells us to get in so we do and, after a quick jaunt down this amazing river/ocean inlet, we come to the Muslim fishing village that is literally a village built up on stilts situated next to this huge piece of limestone jutting out of the water. Pretty amazing. We get let off at the first house and told that this is it. The boat drives away and we walk up the dock to look for the next person who will tell us what to do. Find a fairly young, pretty woman inside with a pink headscarf on who looks at us like we are disturbing her night and she shows us our room and tells us dinner is at 6. Okey dokey.

Our room is simply a single room with a matress on the floor. Bathrooms are down the hall but they flush and we have one window and a fan and electricity all night long so we're happy. The homestay is a bit funky as it has open sides, about 25 tables and a full shops-worth of pearls and sarongs with our room just sitting there in the middle of it all. But we are the only people here other than the family which was great- I loved that they really took no interest in us either- it really starts getting to me when everyone seems to be kissing butt to make a buck- these people were nice enough but didn't go out of their way- it felt more natural. We take a proper shower (the first in four days), clean up, look around at the stunning views, talk to the dad and son about harvesting pearls, see the biggest fish ever that the family somewhat keeps as a pet and go upstairs for dinner.

Oh and the dinner... Oh my lord this was the most gorgeous spread of food I have seen in a long time. For just Andy and I, there was a huge steaming pot of spicy seafood soup, chicken curry, stir-fried veggies and a slu of rice served in the most regal looking silver pot. The only thing that could have made this dinner any better would have been a bottle of wine, but we were staying in a Muslim fishing village so we figured we were SOL on that. We ate as much as we could humanly finish (bearly made a dent) and finished off with a dessert of fresh pinapple. Bliss. We decided to just sit out on the dock and watch the full moon and let our full and happy bellies rest. As thousands of kids were drunk and drugged and dancing on the beaches of Koh Pha-ngan for the full moon party, we were sober as could possibly be, sitting on the dock of a Muslim fishing village- it was perfect.

Next morning we woke up, ate our breakfast and jumped on another longtail. We were dropped off at the same marina area and told to wait. Again, we wait with no clue what for until a taxi truck comes and picks us up and drives us to another dock about a quarter mile away. We are told to go to the water, so find our way through shacks and roosters and find the water, two other western couples and our guide, Mr Kean (though we are pretty certain that this is not the real Mr Kean). We load into the longtail and start our journey through mangroves, lush mountainy limestone rocks coming out of the water and head further out to sea. We are later told 'no shoes, just cameras' as our guide motions to get out of the boat and hands us a bag of headlamps. We jump out onto this small little beach and find a ladder going up and into a cave. It was actually quite spectacular inside and even had an outlet on the other end that looked into this brilliant pool of water surrounded by limestone cliffs. Head back to the boat, stop for lunch on a little beach and get to know the other two couples that we were traveling with. Get back into the boat and tour around some more, stopping at James Bond island (where some Russian girls in skimpy bikinis were taking model shot pictures with eachother and one fat boyfriend), back to the village so we could grab our bags and some nice pearl earrings and then headed back to the travel agency/bus station.

Booked a bungalow in khao sok national park with our girl at the agency and get on a bus to tuaka pa where we are told we can catch a bus to khao sok. Easy enough. Jump on for a quick 2 hour ride and arrive at Tuaka Pa to find out the last bus for Khao Sok left at 4:30. Well crap. We have a place booked for the night so we reluctantly pay a taxi 500 baht for a ride up to our 300 baht room. Well, it turns out that the bungalow was perfect and we were so happy to be in this beautiful, lush jungle so we couldn't complain too much- especially with hot water, a fan, a western toilet AND wifi. We had some amazing spicy curry and had a drink next door at the 'chill out room' (which lacked a crowd but did not lack a plethora of colorful lights and reggae music and posters of Bob Marley and one that just said 'drugs' on it) and called it a night after a swing in our porch hammock.

We decided to do a hike around the park the next day before we had to catch the boat to Phuket, so found our way over, paid the park entrance and decided to just follow a trail that apparently had waterfalls named, of course, waterfall #1, waterfall #2 and so on. Got to the trail head just as it started raining so hid beneath a little roof covering a map of the park and headed in as the rain started to lighten up. Right away we came upon some crazy looking lizards (kinda looked like Tweek Robby!) and heard a monkey somewhere but never saw it. We were on the lookout for elephants as Andy had just told me about elephants killing people and destroying towns, but didn't come across any. While walking, however, Andy pointed to a leech in a puddle. I had read something about leeches here so had already nixed the idea of swimming at some designated swimming holes, but when he pointed that out, we figured we should check our feet as we had walked through a few puddles. Well, sure enough, we both had them on our socks and shoes. Andy stepped up and pulled them off of me as I paniced like a 6 year old girl yelling 'get it off meeee!' before he stopped to pick them off his own legs- chilvary is not dead! We decided to avoid the puddles but were mortified to see that they would just appear on your legs out of nowhere... There was no strategy to avoiding these little wankers! After walking for another half an hour or so with the worst case of the heebie jeebies ever, we decided to turn back... It was just too much- these blood sucking worms were unavoidable and would show up out of nowhere. We essentially jogged back, too scared to keep our feet still for too long, and got back to the trailhead as it started down pouring again. 3-4 hour hike: fail. So we dried off and ate some good food and waited for our bus.

The last bus, as we learned yesterday, was at 4:30 so we decided to head over for the 3:30 bus just in case. Get dropped off at the bus station by our bungalow people and it is just absolute downpour. We purposefully get there a half hour early just to be safe and start to get worried when it's almost 4 and we still haven't seen a bus. There is an older couple from Holland that were there before us and we were all anxiously waiting to see if the public transport would pull through. Talking about our travel plans, the couple informed us about the monsoons in the southern gulf (which is where I was planning on heading tomorrow). Meanwhile, there is a local trying to convince us that we should just take his taxi all the way to Phuket (easily 1000 baht) and is just laughing at us being stuck at the bus stop in the pouring rain. It quickly reaches 4:30 and we still haven't seen a bus and Andy and I start giving eachother worried looks... But, around 4:45 our trusty bus comes hauling around the corner and we flag him down, run into the rain and jump on board.

So here we are: sitting on a bus on our way back to phuket- not our favorite place- not sure where we are staying, now not sure where I should head after Andy leaves, and already getting sad about saying goodbye tomorrow. Maybe I am crazy for doing all this, but I'm ready for it I think. For better or worse. I got some things figured out while andy has been around and am looking forward to settling down for more than just two nights at a time somewhere... Just have to figure out where.