I got up at 8am and returned to our bungalow to sleep some more after staying up all night. I slept until ten and then packed up and checked out of the hotel awaiting our 2 oclock boat in the Viking bar. We take a boat to Aou Nang and then a 3hr bus across the mainland to a ferry which takes us overnight, to Ko Samui. I had my coffee with Nam at the Viking bar and sat in a hammock looking out over the glimmering sea.
Ali, Gwen, and Christine came by and joined Chris and I as we waited for our boat. Ali was leaving a bit earlier than us so we said goodbye to her and she took off. Chris and I hung out in hammocks in the shade and talked about things we wanted to do in Ko Samui. Cookie showed up and sat with me at the Viking bar while Chris went to get a massage. I zoned out for a while lost in my iPod writing about the past few days and listening to my music. This beach is really peaceful and I feel completely relaxed. Our bus in Aou Nang leaves at 3pm but Chris lost track of time and didn't come back to the bar until around 2:15. When we went to where the boats left we had to wait for more people to fill our boat before we could leave. Already being a bit behind schedule we were a little anxious to get going. We sat on the beach in the shade of the huge rock cliffs and waited for enough people to fill the boat.
We made our way quickly to the bus stop, but ended up waiting for a while before the bus came. Things here tend to be a bit slower, they say go slow on Thai time, so we had enough time to get some food while we waited. At 3:15 a funny looking bus came to pick us up. There were quite a lot of tourist on the bus already but they packed more of us in and off we went. We drove for like 45 minutes on this funny colored, very funky looking bus with rusty paint and long termite ridden boards as seats.
We were dropped off at a small restaurant to wait for the main bus to the east side of the mainland. As we sat on the roadside I exclaimed to Chris how fast the time flys and how far we have come. We have seen so many great places, people and things in just 3 months. As a traveler, time can feel both extraordinarily long and also so very short when you visit so many different places like we have. Sometimes when you look back and remember the great times you start to feel sad they are over but then you realize there are many more great experiences awaiting you around every corner.
As we sat waiting, Katie Bullock a girl from England we had met back in Thailand in the city of Pai as well as other places throughout our crazy adventures, showed up. A guy from Wisconsin named Joe plopped down on the roadside next to us and we all had a great conversation. He made lots of jokes and was very entertaining. He may have been a bit drunk but he was hilarious and we all laughed ourselves close to tears as we waited for the bus.
A group of drunk French guys sat behind us on the bus and the laughing continued on as they sang french songs while still drinking. The ride was 3 hours long and very uncomfortably bumpy. The French guys all sound like borat to me and I could not hold back my laughter.
Out of the blue a girl came running to the back of the bus as steam filled the front compartment. The radiator had overheated and steam had shot from the air con vents filling the front part of the bus. People all filed off the bus and waited on the road for the driver to fix the bus. They needed our drinking water bottles which they actually poured in through the dashboard of the bus to refill the radiator. We all gave them up quickly to help fix the bus.
It was a quick fix and within 5 minutes we all got back on the bus and off we went. We arrived at a small restaurant around 8:00pm to wait for a transfer truck to the dock where the night boat would take us to Koh Samui. The restaurant was filled with bags and tourists loud with conversations. Finally our rides came to take us in loads of 8 to the harbor. We boarded the sleeper boat which was not at all what I had expected. It was very cramped and stuffed with cargo and people laying on mats side by side all over the boat. Because we had been some of the last to get on there were no beds left for us. Luckily we found two mats off to the side and put them over the engine room among the luggage. It was very loud right under us but we had plenty of space around us amiss the luggage and cargo and didn't have to sleep next to some stranger.
I was tired and passed out quickly due to sleeping pills. I did not wake up until when we had already docked. I got up sleepy eyed and staggered off the boat.
No comments:
Post a Comment