My companion and I had just made it to the ferry dock at Ban Thong Sala on Koh Pha Gnan after a punishing trip in the back of a truck from Thong Nai Pan Noi. The ferry sailings to Koh Tao had been cancelled the day before, and the morning sailing also did not leave from the dock. After insisting that I did not want to return again to Koh Samui after already spending 5 days there, we eventually boarded the ferry for the 45 km trip from Koh Pha Gnan to Koh Tao. The smooth waters that I viewed from the dock soon turned choppy.
About one hour into the trip I was starting to realize what a mistake it was to get onto this overloaded wooden boat. As the vessel rocked back and fourth and rose up and down in the waves many people were getting sick right where they clutched for safety. By 2.5 hours into our journey most everyone was very worried; it was horrifying when the boat slammed down from the tops of the 3 metre swells because I could hear that the boat was on the verge of breaking apart. Each time the front of the boat rose up into the air I wondered if it could survive the impact on the way down. The trip time was doubled with the slow pace, this was a very worrisome sailing; so stressful. Somehow the boat made it to Mae Haad Pier at Koh Tao, we felt very fortunate.
We made our way up to the north west coast and found a little bungalow on a bluff that had a good view of Nang Yuan Island.
We walked downtown via the beach, where possible, it was just an okay beach; very long. After a little walk around we made it back to our little village, where the generator operates from 6pm-midnight, and got settled for the night; thoughts of the harrowing boat ride were still fresh in my mind. The next day we visited Nang Yuan Island which was actually 3 islands connected by sand beach. We climbed to the highest point for a good view
and the rest of the time was spent leisurely swimming and laying around a beautiful beach. The next day we walked the 5 kms to the ferry dock with our packs, they seemed a bit heavy on this morning. The ferry ride this day was an excellent experience; the weather was beautiful, which made for nice views.
We overnighted on Koh Samui and then caught the first ferry to Surat Thani; from there we caught a bus for the 155 km trip to Krabi. The scenery was okay, many jutted mountains; too bad our bags got drenched on top of the taxi that we took to the bus station. We found a guest house that was very reasonable and then we walked around Krabi, fairly nice little city I thought. In the morning we caught the one hour ferry to our 6th Thailand Island, Koh Phi Phi, we would celebrate New Years here. The island was jam packed, after searching everywhere we were lucky to find a women in a small house who was renting a bed. We had an excellent New Years at the Jungle Bar, we met so many people and had a blast.
When we made it back to our lodging at 3:30 am we had to get rid of 2 Thai's that were sleeping on our bed; at 7:30 a guy opened our bedroom door just to look at us; needless to say we were tired the next day.
On Jan. 1st a very nice bungalow became available so we moved our packs down the beach and settled in. I then hiked up to the viewpoint which give a great view of Aow Ton Sai Bay and Loh Dalam.
After that I walked to the opposite end of the beach where I found many monkeys in the bush and sat to watch them interact with each other for an hour, very entertaining. That evening we were spoiled by a delicious sea food dinner and a nice stroll on the beautiful beach.
The next day we took a long boat trip around Phi Phi Lay which was very nice; the boat stopped at a large cave.
We then headed around the big island, stopping for lunch on a nice beach. After lunch we went to Bamboo Island which was also very nice. We walked the beaches and spent a lot of time snorkeling; this was a great day.
The next day we were going to be moving on so I went for one last walk early in the morning. I found another viewpoint that needed about 1 hour to climb and was the view ever worth it......stunning. We loaded the ferry for the 1pm sailing and the boat pulled away at 1:30 only to turn around before we got out of the bay to be met by a long boat with 4 passengers; once those passengers got on the boat was turned around and we set sail. After a few minutes some workers on the ferry started a 20 minute argument with these passengers; these people had paid for the trip in Krabi and the workers wanted them to pay again. The captain stopped the boat in the middle of the sea and threaten the passengers to pay or he would take them back...it seemed like the rest of us were forgotten. There seemed to always be nice scenery from our boat excursions.
After some delays and a 35 km sailing, we arrived at Koh Lanta and settled in to Lanta Sea House; it was time to get familiarized with another island,
No comments:
Post a Comment