Once again, when normal people get time to prepare their paper for the final evaluation, they work on a paper. Ona, on the other hand, rushes with the paper and then runs away from Bangkok, so she could at least take a glance at some islands on the east coast of Thailand, which already started having the rain season. I just couldn’t help myself. Knowing that it’s the case of `now or never` [since I have no idea when is the next time I come to Thailand, if I ever come back], I decided it’s the right thing to do. To escape.
My trip started In Bangkok, trying to get a bus, going to the Southern [why the hell it’s called Southern when it’s clearly on the West, don’t ask me] bus terminal. And once again, of course, only in Bangkok, the city, known as one of the worst traffics ever, buses, that goes to West, has to be taken on the direction to the East. So after waiting in one bus stop and finding no buses, moving to another one, getting to the wrong bus [that’s also part of fun in Bangkok public transportation – you should never believe it – buses almost goes whenever and wherever they want], I finally got into the right one. And after `just` two hours of struggling in the busy busy traffic of Bangkok I arrive safely to the bus terminal I needed. Buying a ticket is a piece of cake, since there are plenty of buses going to the same direction at the same time, so I bought a ticket, waited for my bus and after a little while jumped in it and started moving. My sleep was not good at all, so I maybe managed to sleep for two hours max when I was waken up hearing `Miss. This is Chumphon and had to get off in the middle of nowhere [once again, I may say, bus stations in small cities are not stations. Just middle of the street], caught a bike taxi [scooter who takes you to where you want], which I thought will take me to the port, but no, he just took me to the train station. In the station I found a guy from the company, bought a ticket to the boat [with transportation to the port included, so I figured it’s a good deal] and had to wait [oh yes] three hours in the train station. I probably don’t have to say that it is a lot of fun staying there, just like anywhere else in the train station. But I did meet three nice Australians, heading also to Koh Tao, so at least we spend time talking and not falling asleep while waiting for someone to rob me [maybe that would have never happened, but I wasn’t ready to risk]. It was still dark when transportation came and took as to the port. In the `port`, which was a small thing with a big smell of fish, we had to wait for almost an hour, so there was nothing much else better to do but to make pictures, read book and wait for the boat to arrive.
Boat trip was a little exciting. I haven’t been on a boat for a long time now and I like it. Wind, islands around, water behind brought some memories and smile to my face. It was nice. But since I was a bit afraid of falling asleep, I mostly kept on reading my `The painted house`. Good book, by the way, if you are looking for something to read.
We arrived to Koh Tao with the sun and a lot of heat. We were all met by many [way too many, if you ask me] people who are offering housing, diving courses and anything else, you might consider be needed. Just so you know, if you ever come here, you might consider taking their offers, they have a huge variety of prices and accommodations, so you might get what you wanted. Since I was alone, and usually taking a room means taking a double room which also means paying double price, I went for the dorm style hostel, have them a call, arranged my stay and went for breakfast. No matter that sun came with us and the boat and I am a fast eater, during my breakfast the sun ran away [just like I ran away from Bangkok] and the storm began. I waited a bit for it to calm and moved to my hostel. It was only two kilometers, my back was light, so I figured I can just go, saving money and nerves on taxi [you always have to bargain and that’s tiring]. I found the place with no big problem, which was almost on the shore of the most popular and most busy beaches in the island.
The place I have been staying is `The backpackers hostel`. Well, what can I say – not recommended. Rooms are very much ok, eight beds in one room, but if you only plan on sleeping in there and not hanging out, it’s all fine and good, but the showers were not good. No hot water for starters, poor and water was weak. I mean I am not very demanding in the places like this, but if I get tired by trying to wash salt from my hair – well, that’s just not good at all. Good thing I was only staying there two days, if more, I would just gone crazy.
Since the rain stopped, I went to the beach, but it was too windy and a bit too cold to go swimming, so I was just walking playing with sand and water, reading my book and watching people going on little boats or going diving. Just a little tip – if you want to get license for diving – Koh Tao is a place to do it. Every second place is offering diving courses and it’s cheaper when anywhere else, at least in Thailand. I had no time, unfortunately. But most people are coming mainly for that, and who can blame them. So I was walking around and after some time I got tired of walking in the beach, I decided to walk in surroundings. I took one path which said `view point` and decided to follow. How far can it be right? I can make it in my flip-flops, right? Boy, was I ever more wrong. I just didn’t know it yet.
So I went on, up the steep hills all the time. It wasn’t so easy to go on a slippery road in those `not shoes`, but the more I went, the less I wanted to turn around. Besides, I always had a feeling that it’s just around the corner. There were plenty of corners, I may add and none of them were hiding that view point. After a while my road separated into two and I had no idea where to go. I saw a couple going the opposite direction on a bike, so I asked them are they coming back from the point view. They said yes and added that’s it’s far away. `I can make it` I said and they looked at me and my almost bare feet but let me go. And I kept on walking. I was tired, hot, my feet were killing me, the hills were never going to disappear, but I was so angry, that my principles just did not let me turn around and go back. I decided that I will reach that spot no matter what.
After maybe and hour and a bit of walking I came to it. So I sat there for a really long time, since such a long walk deserved a long break. The view was nice, you can judge if it was worth it in the pictures on a facebook. While I was there, I met an American and English girls who were travelling for a year. After their left German guy Swen joined me on the spot. It’s just that all of them came there by bikes. Not so mane stupid ones are coming there on foot. We were sitting there, talking with Swen, when some locals came from the forest and offered us some sort of strange fruit, which we tried and judged that it’s probably a jackfruit [do you know it? Tastes strange, not bad though] and left telling that they are building a bungalow up there and we come there next summer. After a while and Indian girl with a father came along. I finally met someone, who was wearing similar shoes and coming up on foot. That felt nice. So we were talking to them for a while and decided to finally go down. We let Swen and here father to go on their bikes and moved down on foot again. Although going down seemed like a piece of cake after going all that way up. At some point we met a girl, also almost barefoot and after a little talk she decided to turn around and go there another day [she, just like us, was sure that it’s just around the corner].
So just before going to different directions we exchanged phone numbers and decided to meet later on. I went for a swim [first time in Thailand for me!], shower, dinner and a beer. While sitting and enjoying my beer in the bar I got a short message from one of the waiter’s saying: “I think you are very very beautiful :)” which honestly, made me smile very much. But so I left, since I wanted to walk along the beach while waiting for the guys to meet for later.
I was caught in the middle of my walk by and English guy, who said they saw me couple of times already walking here and there and they just wondered if I was ok. Of course I was ok, I was in the middle of the paradise, but he offered to join him and his friend for a beer and, since I had nothing else better to do, I joined them. We had some beers in the bar just on the beach, watching some fire show around us, talking about this and that, it was fun. I was planning on making that a short night and go to sleep [since last night was spent in the bus and almost sleepless], but we ended up walking along the beach after the bar closed and just siting on the wet sand and looking for some stars to show up in the cloudy sky. For the first time in my life, once again, I saw the sea floods very clearly. The sea was so much far away now, at night, when it was during the day time.
I got a little bit of sleep that night and next morning, since it was showering a little bit from the sky, I decided instead of going to the beach, to go and look for some more point views of something. I found a `OK view point`, which wasn’t good at all, so finally ended up getting a map of the island and decided to go the east side of the island [I was located in the West], but since I had to go through the hills up and down again, I decided to put on some decent shoes and call Swen, if he wanted to join me. He wanted to, so we met and moved to the East. Of course, in the middle of our walk, the pouring rain caught us, got us completely soaked, but we decided not to give up and move on. It was worth it, big times. An extremely silent nice beach we found. It wasn’t sandy at all and you cannot go swimming there, but the rocks and stones around made it very nice. Also, dark blue sky and very green trees around after the rain just made it even more perfect. We enjoyed the view for a bit and finally started heading back [meeting darkness in the middle of nowhere is not the best deal you could get, for sure]. On our way back we turned to a little road, passed through the bottle house [where house has millions of bottles in the walls, and, according to the owner, brings light from outside during the day time and light from inside when it’s dark outside. We talked to the owner and he seems to have a very interesting life story. We also talked about business in the Koh Tao, lands, prices and laws and it’s all so complicated, that if you want to have a business in there one day – you have to be careful and study it all.
We went on because it was supposed to be a viewpoint `really close`. It was really close it’s just that at some point we took a wrong turn and end up nowhere. Even there we managed to find a little view point and since it was also becoming dark, we moved down. On our way back, we, of course, found the right view point, which was nice, I have to agree, unfortunately not much was visible due to the dark period of the day already. We cam back to the city and it was already completely dark, but we decided to meet up later. So I went back to the wonderful showers in my place, had some dinner later on and met the guys for something that is was better known as `my last night in Koh Tao`. I have decided before going out that it is going to be a short night for sure, since I had to wake up early for the boat to Koh Phangan and I was already tired. Do I need to mention, that once again, I was so wrong about my expectations?
We made a completely international group, sitting in the bar on the beach, even during the little rain [which felt nice and I loved it]: Indian, German, English, American and me. After a little while a Dutch guy joined us and people started moving around. Some of them went home, some went for dancing or something and it was only me and Rick left there [the Dutch guy]. We were spending time very nicely there, having a nice conversation, watching people around having fun. After a while the bar closed, but we did not want to go anywhere, so we stayed there at the beach, talking about almost everything. I knew I had to go home and get some sleep, but somehow I just wanted to stay there and enjoy the conversation. It’s not everyday you meet such people, that you know you might never see again, so you try to postpone the separation as long as possible. We were there till all of the people were gone, security checked the place and shut down the lights and finally we decided to go somewhere. We found some sort of a bar [more like a tent than a bar] and decided to continue there. At some point Swen showed up from somewhere and we were still there. Almost just before the dawn, that `bar` closed and I finally decided to go to sleep. It was way too little for me of the sleep, but I needed at least that little.
I probably once again, don’t have to say that I overslept in the morning and almost made it to be boat. But I did it and not enough, in the boat I met Tom and his friend. We shared a boat and then after a short while I left in Koh Phangan, while the guys moved forward.
I came to the island with the sun, which, after a bit hid under the clouds. I phoned the place I was planning to stay – The smile beach resort. Well, what can I say – highly highly definitely recommended. It was fantastic place. Although going to it was a bit complicated, since it was the low season. I managed to bargain bike taxi and got a ride to the most beautiful [at least claimed as such] and very silent beach. My resort turned out to give me a wonderful bungalow with a king size bed and a fan for only 250 Baht [~7 EUR] and the shower was perfect [even more than perfect], the staff was helpful and amazing and only 10-20 meters to the beach. I also had hammock just outside my place which just made it even more perfect.
After such a long days and nights in Koh Tao, I very much enjoyed Koh Phangan and it’s silent and beautiful beach with almost no tourists around, just walking around, making pictures, reading a book, and so on. I had it all. I had my own butterflies around, frogs to listen in the evening, even an evening refreshing rain and even swings just on the beach, which made it completely perfect, I just couldn’t believe. In the beginning I tried to get some trips around, snorkeling or something, but due to the low season it was impossible, so I made my best to just enjoy if full time.
I was mainly just swimming and reading a book and being with myself, contemplating and trying to make order in the chaos, better known as my mind. I’m not sure if I managed that, but at least a had a rest my body was begging for.
I finished my book just before leaving and kind staff let me exchange my book with the ones that they had on the shelves, so I almost shrieked when I saw a book I wanted. Lisbeth Salander was with me again. I started reading immediately. My `taxi`, which turned out to be a pretty fancy car of the resort with a manager driving, came to pick me up just before my boat left and so I left the second paradise, don’t know why, but almost crying. Even though I left no one there, it was still sad that my trip is almost over.
To my surprise, the boat was going back to Koh Tao [how was that possible, especially with the price I paid for the ticket, I still don’t get] and my oh my, can there be more of coincidences, Rick was on the same boat. We met just outside the boat, so we exchanged some last sentences, wished each other nice time in wherever we went [he headed to South, I was going back to Bangkok], he left and I stayed waiting for my bus.
.Back in Bangkok.
Bus ride was ok, even though the bus was pretty old, but at least it took me to my city. We got off the bus at around 3 a.m. and after a little waiting for the bus to go home, which never came, I just took a cab and got back to my dormitory. I managed to get a little bit of sleep, prepared myself and went to the school. Here we go again.
My lecture was a little odd, I may say. I have never had this experience when there is no clear start of the lecture. Teacher just starts writing things on the whiteboard with no words expressed. I was writing everything down and watching the time. So after 57 minutes of the lecture she said her first words in the lecture. Well, that will be something interesting in this course, I made a guess. And somehow I get the feeling, I was right about this one.
All the rest is again, business as usual. Same sun, same heat, same cloudiness and pollution cap, nothing is changing. I feel like I’m at home again.
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