Japan

After another flight, a nightmareish train ride and more severe travel drama, we managed to get to Koh Phangan from Bangkok. Our train was pretty scary and dirty and random dodgy Thai people were jumping on and off it throughout the night. The only privacy we had for the 14-hour ride was a curtain we pulled across our "beds" and I kept tossing and turning, worrying if one of these "dodgy Thai people" were going to pull back the curtain and mug me. The inside of the train resembled a prison actually, because of the metal luggage bars and tiny compartments. Hmmm, wait, maybe more like the inside of those submarines your see in the war movies... Anyhoo, it was a nightmare.

After we got off the train, which was 2 hours late, we got on a bus to the ferry port. When we arrived there, they told us that there were no ferries to Koh Phangan that night. This was a huuuuge problem because we had non-refundable reservations there and we just had no clue where we were or what we should do. They said we could stay in that town overnight, pay for another bus to Krabi, on the other side of the southern strip of Thailand, or, we could buy another ferry ticket to Koh Samui because, "Government say no ferry, dangerous ocean today." You know, we had just gotten screwed over so many times that I automatically smelled a rat. I got a little tisky with one of the staff and he finally said that we could probably get to Koh Phangan if we first go to Koh Samui. Which all that of course means, buying another bus ticket to another port AND buying another ferry ticket. So, we went to Koh Samui and sure enough, we could in fact go to Koh Phangan from there. We normally would have been so angry because we missed a whole day on the island because of their scam, but, we were so glad to finally get to our resort that we just couldn't get too upset about it.

Our resort was great though. Our bungalow was pretty nice and the beach was great. Koh Phangan is much less developed than Koh Samui, so at times, we were the only ones out on the beach! I enjoyed getting up pretty early a couple of mornings and walking along the beach. I felt like I owned the whole thing! You just wouldn't believe how many coconut trees there are along the beach either. One late afternoon, I found a coconut that had just fallen from the tree and took it to the maintenance man at our resort and asked him to open it for me. He made a small hole for the straw and I drank the milk. When I finished that, he opened it up and I ate the coconut inside. A couple of days, we went to the local market and got fresh pineapples and ate them while we were sunbathing. The fruit was soooo delicious!

I also really enjoyed renting a motorbike and riding around the island. There were so many little jungle roads that were so secluded that all I could see at times were forests of coconut trees and rivers. I literally rode all the way around the island over the course of the week, stopping whenever I liked to catch an overlook for a fantastic view. It was absolutely gorgeous. One day, I was riding around and found an old Chinese temple on top of a small mountain. I was the only one there, besides a little old Chinese lady that was cleaning the steps. From the temple, I could see out to the ocean, so I just walked around and enjoyed the spectacular view for about half the day - I just didn't want to leave.

We had a couple of very rainy days when we got there so we were kinda bummed out for a while. But by Christmas Eve, the weather cleared up. That night, I had Christmas Eve dinner on a restaurant situated on a cliff overlooking the ocean and the next island over, Koh Samui. After I got back to the bungalow, a group of Thai people from a Christian church came by and sang carols. I was so excited because I was actually missing Christmas at home and they were so adorable singing with their heavy Thai accents. I have a video of them singing, so if you want me to email it to you just let me know... Anyway, they invited me to their Christmas program the next night, so, I went and it was again, just so adorable. I have pictures of that below. We had Christmas dinner with our "Adopted Travel Mom" and her family from Canada. It was very very good, but I have to admit it was a little strange having a barbeque and fighting off mosquitoes during Christmas dinner!