Day 20

19/09/12

Started the day by booking a ferry transfer to SuratThani on the mainland. In one day I hoped to reach Khao Sak national park, I could get a bus from SuratThani there, over half-way across the mainland (about 130km).

There must have been some miscommunication about the transfer times because over an hour waiting at the resort I was still waiting for my pickup. Eventually it showed up and we went on a death ride across most of the island. The driver was speeding and doing reckless maneuvers to make up lost time. We had one very near miss with oncoming traffic. We reached a dock miraculously unscathed and I was transferred to a coach which took me to the Raja ferry port. At the port were a number of big car ferries and we walked on board past the shell of a big boat on the shore. The coach drove on board. I stayed inside as I was knackered and the views weren’t anything magnificent and read my Kindle. There was a lounge and shop inside with comfy seats and tables, though the boat was pretty old and showing its age. It was fairly quiet, most of the passengers were Thai with some tourists thrown in.

A few hours later we arrived at Donsack docks and got back on the coach. About an hour later we reached the outskirts of Surat Thani and the bus stopped a few times with people getting off. I knew the bus terminated at the bus station or train station so I stayed on. We stopped in the centre and the last people got off, it didn’t look like the bus station so I asked the driver and his assistant, who didn’t really speak English – fortunately I knew the name of the bus station and they drove me a few blocks to there. I got out and asked for my backpack from the hold, miming what I needed and pointing. The assistant seemed confused and discussed with the driver. I kept repeating what I needed and tried to open the hold door but it was locked. The assistant told me, “No, at office” “Your bag at office”. Great.So either I was being lied to or there had been a mistake and my bag had been offloaded at one of the earlier stops. I insisted it was in the hold but they weren’t having any of it, telling me it’s at the bus office. A songthaeow was nearby and the assistant spoke to him and told me that he’d told the taxi where to take me. I was the last person left and didn’t really know what to do. Noone spoke anything but basic English. If they were trying to drive off with my bag, I could make a scene, but I didn’t even know if it was inside. The confusion about the bag’s location seemed genuine and they’d made the effort to drive me to the bus station beyond their normal stop. In retrospect I’m still not sure what the best course of action would have been. Refuse to leave the bus until they opened the hold? Then they could have driven me off anywhere or if things got ugly with my refusal, I wasn’t in great shape to defend myself with the shoulder. Actually I think know phoning the tourist police would have been the best option, that’s if they’d stayed around for me to make a phone call. Anyway it wouldn’t have worked because I later found out my Thai phone had barred me from making calls! Interested to hear what you think I should have done.

Anyway, what I did do, was get in the taxi hoping that I wasn’t being strung up. He took me to the bus office a few km away. The main road seemed familiar but I wasn’t sure if we’d stopped there earlier as the bus curtains were closed. When we arrived it was after 5 and the place was shuttered up. Bugger. Now I was really stuck. I had no choice but to stay here tonight and try the office tomorrow. Thankfully I still had all my money and most of my valuables on me, but the main bag had plenty of expensive stuff including all my travel clothes, hard drive, little camera, credit card and more. I asked the taxi driver to take me to a hotel from the guidebook. When we arrived he recommended I call the tourist police and to him it sounded like my bag had been taken. At the hotel, a little way out from the centre, the staff only spoke basic English. I was shattered and feeling light headed, it had been a hot day and I hadn’t slept well the previous night. I got into the hotel room and rested to collect my thoughts.

I thought I should call the tourist police to get some advice. That’s when I discovered that my Thai phone was blocking my calls. I assumed I’d ran out of credit. The way I saw things, if the driver had gone off with my bag, it would be long gone by the time the police tracked it down anyway, plus there were many places the bag could have been taken so nothing could be proven. Therefore there wasn’t a massive urgency to get hold of them, plus I still hadn’t verified if it was at the office, although the more I thought about it the more unlikely it seemed it would be there.

First step was to get some phone credit, if my bag was gone tomorrow I’d need to phone all the relevant companies. I’d also need to buy a load of basics to be able to continue travelling at all. I only had a very basic map of the city but knew I was near the Tourist Information, it would be helpful to find that for tomorrow. Noone spoke enough English at the hotel enough to help so I went out to hunt around 7pm. I passed shops and restaurants and eventually found a 7/11 and bought some phone credit. I didn’t have any joy with the tourist office and as it was getting late I headed back. I managed to get the hotel wi-fi working after a difficult explanation with the front desk, unfortunately the tourist police didn’t seem to have an English presence online. I tried to top up the mobile phone but got the same Thai voice message. Damn, something was wrong with the phone. I decided my best course of action would be to find the tourist information tomorrow and get them to help me with the phone, then I could go to the bus office and if there were any problems I could phone the tourist police from there. Had a restless night.

Day 20

Started the day with some fresh mossie bites around the ankles. These are driving me crazy recently, I have about 10 around my ankles and they are maddeningly itchy. I have many more bites but the other real baddy is the one on my thumb. What evil creation of nature makes you itchy on the thumb, it hurts to scratch it and you’re always moving it so it always itches. Rargh! I like nature and usually don’t go out of my way to hurt it, but mosquitos fall outside that barrier. They must all die.

The beach along where I was staying

Today I wanted to see the cultural highlights of Samui. After ringing the bank again to find out why my card still wasn’t working (turns out Thai ATMs use the strip, not the chip, and that needs authorising separately), I walked out towards “Fisherman’s Village”. The weather was awesome but scorching. This would have been a better day to go to the national park. My resort owner told me on Samui the forecasts can’t be trusted, the weather is always changing one hour to the next. Anyway the walk took much longer than anticipated, over an hour along the beach and then further along the main road.

Fishermans Village

The fishing village is a strangely European looking place filled with seafood restaurants and shops. Two piers stick out from it, one wooden, one artificial. Some young English blokes were at the end of one fishing. No luck yet, they told me. Still they could admire the nice view over the sea to Phangyang.

The fishing blokes

A shop in the village was full of jolly wooden statues

I walked along the big beach here past posh resorts with sunloungers on the beach, speedboats and watersports. It was quite busy but not manic. Jetskis look fun, I’m going to try that one day. But this beachlife isn’t really my scene, if I wanted to chill on the beach I’d rather go somewhere quieter and natural like Koh Tao or Koh Chang. This is too resorty for me – unless I was on a party holiday (ah Greek island memories!).

Some Thais roamed the beaches selling their wares, jewellery, sarongs, windmills, drinks. Some entrepernurial Thais had little barbeques on the beach doing chicken, sweetcorn and salads. They pulled in plenty of punters as they were cheap compared to the resort restaurants. I bought a nice papaya salad, prepared right in front of me with fresh vegetables, and hid in the shade of a palm tree to rest.

Beach barbie and salads

Then I headed to the main road and caught a songthaew to the other side of the island. We passed through the main beach area ofChaweng which is the most popular part. Sure enough there were loads of tourists around and shops everywhere. I didn’t get to see the beach though which is the best bit! Turned out this songthaew terminated in Chaweng so I had to wait for another going further south. This was a private one but I was bored of waiting whilst the afternoon ticked away so forked out the extra dough.

Driving through Chaweng in the back of a songthaew

I got off at HuaThanon, a muslim fishing village. I’d read about the fishing boats so wanted to see for myself. I went straight for the sea, not hard as I was already there. Walked along an abandoned pier and down some crumbling steps and had to wade back onto the beach. The shallows were muddy and murky. Here the beach was lined with ramshackle shack houses made of everything, with tight, uninviting alleys leading into town, most with fishing gear in front. In the water the colourful fishing fleet was moored, most boats having a horizontal pole sticking out from their mast with massive bulbs attached – used at night to attract the fish. Smaller boats and kayaks were in the shallows.

The beach was badly littered near the houses and the shallows and beach were scattered with assortments of seafood remnants – fish heads, crab shells, sea shells and other rubbish. The water looked pretty skanky and the place smelled rank.

On the shoreline and in the water people were working on fishing nets and boats. Children were playing in the water and digging on the beach, and dogs lounged on the sand. Ducks and chickens pecked around by the shacks and cats skulked in the shadows. It felt a world away from the main road I’d been at a few minutes earlier.

As soon as I set foot on the beach a dog appeared from under a shack and snarled at me and started barking, coming closer. This was bad news, I backed away quickly reaching for some objects to scare it. A bare chested, tattooed man nearby shouted at it and reached for a stone as well, and the dog backed off and I continued quickly, calling my thanks to the guy. Two yapping puppies appeared which could explain the dogs behaviour. I am very wary of dogs here now, they’re so unpredictable – some are very aggressive, some are curious, some are friendly. Some seem fine until the last minute when suddenly they freak out. I try to stay clear on the streets but it’s unavoidable to pass close to them sometimes, whether knowing it or not!

Keeping a close eye out for other territorial dogs hidden by the shacks I worked my way along the beach taking pictures and watching all the activity taking place. A group of guys called me over and gestured that they wanted me to take their photo. Such willing subjects don’t appear often so I readily agreed.

The guy insisted on taking one of me with the other, at this point you have to make a quick judgement call, might this person run off with my camera? It’s a tricky line to walk as playing it safe can not only seem rude but it also seems sad that you’d trust no one. On this occasion my gut feeling from their behaviour was that these guys were sound and there were people of all ages in the area so I wasn’t isolated, so I agreed. Sure enough it was fine and interestingly the guys didn’t seem bothered about seeing the picture on the screen, though a few of them looked, just getting their photo taken was reward enough! I always tell my subjects jokingly they will be famous and a big celebrity though no one ever understands my English.

As I continued up the beach some people would say hello, or acknowledge me when I gave a nod or smile, others would ignore me. Usually children in these places that tourists don’t often go to will be curious to see a farang, but the kids here barely noticed me at all. I didn’t really envy them playing in that water when I’d seen all the crap going into it further down the beach. Some were scraping holes in the beach with shells, maybe they were looking for crabs or worms. One adult in the water was wading around up to his chest, working on the hull of his boat.

At the end of the fleet I headed inland into a coconut plantation where a docile buffalo was tied up. They have quite a lot on the island apparently but this was the only place I saw them, there were more grazing further in. Big piles of coconuts were by the track. A guy came from the beach with his friends to look over the buffalo and it was quite content to have people touching it.

I wandered into the village, now I was on the other side of all the shacks. The narrow street winded past many food st

Day 18

My sunburnt shoulders and back were healing but were a horrible peeling mess. So a t-shirt for today’s outing! An early start for a tour pickup. In classic Thai fashion one hour later the mini-bus finally arrived and we drove at hair-raising speed along to the south coast, stopping at resorts to collect people. The posh resorts employ death-defying guards whose job is to run into the constant melee of traffic with a stop sign so that vehicles can enter and leave the resorts – otherwise they are stuck waiting for hours. As you see motorbikes and pickup trucks veering around them I wonder how many get flattened. To get a sense of the madness of Samui’s roads get this: I read Thailand has the highest road accident rate in the world, and in Thailand Koh Samui has the highest accident rating of all! There’s always people doing crazy overtaking, farangs riding around on bikes for the first time, people pulling out of nowhere, vehicles on the wrong side of the road, animals in the road, you name it – and because the roads are good everyone is going fast.

At the docks we got onto a big “slow boat”. Speedboat tours cost over double. The travel agent had recommended this company over another one which seemed exactly the same because of they had a nice new boat. Well, if it exists, this wasn’t it. This ship was falling apart. It was about 500 years old but had a certain rusty charm to it I suppose. Aside from me there were very few people alone on board, most were couples of all ages and nationalities, with a few families and groups of friends thrown in.

Hello, I’m new apparently

We headed out for over an hour towards the park. Our jolly guide showed us the options available when we arrived. I asked him about the climb to the viewpoint the Brits had warned me about. “You’ll be ok, just be careful”. No kayaking for me of course! As we approached the green islands came out of the haze. I read this was one of the places for the inspiration for the novel and film “The Beach” and you can see why. Real paradise islands covered in hilly jungle with little strips of white sand and limestone cliffs and formations rising off them. Very cool.

We landed on this beach

We pulled into the big island where the park headquarters are and got on a longboat to the beach. You can stay in bungalows here, I’d love to do that sometime but it’s too pricey for solo travel. A few other big boats were moored offshore and the island was quite busy. I began the climb up the jungle path to the viewpoint. It was hard going and immediately got quite steep with natural steps between roots and jagged rocks, some smooth from many feet over the years. In the wet this would be lethal but the weather was true to the forecast, a bit cloudy and strong sun. I had got lucky!

The jungle climb

By 200m up the going was steep and I wished I’d brought more water. There was a rope by this point to help with the climb. The viewpoints at 100 and 200m were impressive but I just stopped to look quickly and pressed on to the top, we didn’t have much time. I was encouraging a German woman who was with me who was on the verge of giving up – promising her the view would be worth it!

The last section was as extreme as I’d heard. A steep climb over a diagonal slope of jagged grey rock with no path and a rope to help.With one arm and my heavy camera shoulder bag this was quite a challenge but slowly and surely, with the help of the rope, I climbed my way up. A little wooden platform is just below the summit and the view is amazing as you can see! Photos with the tripod I’d lugged up were almost impossible as anyone moving on the platform vibrated the whole thing. Well, sharp photos or not the view was worth the climb. Quite a few people gave me kudos for doing it one-armed!

A very treacherous climb…

…but this is the reward!

The descent was very slow going and much harder than the climb. I got there in the end and saw some monkeys on the way down with a baby. They didn’t move to anywhere easy to photograph. I discovered a small scratch on my big zoom, probably from sand. Damn, that will come up in every photo with that lens now.

Amazingly I wasn’t the last back and the other stragglers arrived to get a longboat back to the big boat. When the guide’s assistant told him I’d gone to the top the guide was laughing at me. “I thought you meant you go to the 100m viewpoint, not 500m! You are climbing up there with one arm – good man! Haha!”. We had an epic lunch on board and I chatted to some 50ish Aussie chaps who, when I told them of my plans for scoping out Oz for emigration, warned me that they reckon Oz working hours and conditions will go down the pan soon, along with the economy. The cost of living there has reached untenable levels, one of them explained. I guess I’ll have to see how things are in a year or two.

We puttered through the scenic islands through turquoise water, next stop was a paradise bay with a path up from the beach to a lagoon. By “path” I mean the steepest steps known to mankind. If you don’t hold the rail you are mental as one foot between those steps would be a broken leg, and one slip a broken neck! The lagoon is awesome though, well worth the climb once again. You descend the other side to get to the surface and you can see fish from a platform above. No swimming allowed although you are dying to jump into that turquoise water after that hot climb!

The lagoon

Back at the beach you can snorkel and swim, but I couldn’t be bothered, Koh Tao has the best snorkelling. Chatted to a young travelling couple who studied in Oxford and turned out they were heading to my next planned destination around the same time as me, KhaoSok national park. Maybe I’d run into them again some day around there, unfortunately I didn’t get to catch them again before the end to exchange email addresses. Whilst we waited for the kayakers to return, people could dive off the boat and swim in the lovely turquoise waters.

As the sun got low we headed for home. The trip back was awesome as clouds came down over the islands and the sun shone through making god rays. The deck was warm and most people came up top to sunbathe and watch the islands getting smaller. I put on my favourite liquid drum and bass tunes, sat back and felt probably the best I have since I started these travels!

Approaching Samui

Goodbye, Ang Thong. I’ll be back one day!