Day 26 - Koh Pha Ngan

first of all- my camera was fixed! somehow the guy cleaned the saltwater out of it and it was fine. only cost me $6! can you believe it? it would have cost me like $100 or more to have a "professional" look at it. geez.

anyway- we got up this morning and got breakfast at that bar we ate at before...never did figure out the name...lol we watched bbc news while we ate and heard some of president obama's speech.

we got muesli with yogurt and fruit and i'm really getting tired of eating out! you just never know what you're going to get unless you go to the same exact place and order the same exact thing more than once. we think some of the fruit in the muesli was a bit rotten :oP i love being on vacation and i love eating good food from restaurants but eating out in general gets a bit tiresome. i'd like to cook my own food but we haven't a had a kitchen at any of the places we've stayed. i'm hoping i can deal with another month of eating at out lol

after breakfast we went back to the bungalow and waited for the taxi to come. the truck taxi was so packed with people and stuff that we had to sit in the backseat of the cab which they normally never let you do.

he took us "near" the ferry terminal lol we had to walk quite a ways to get where we needed to be and then it was complete chaos. we waited around a while to get on the boat and then when it was time to get on we had formed two different lines and were merging to go onto the bridge to the boat but then this woman was like- no you have to go all the way around to the end of that other line and go down the bridge one by one! lol how ridiculous is that? well we didn't do it. we went to the side of the other line and just merged with it and got on fairly quickly. the bridge and platform were pretty scary though. just a bunch of random wooden planks nailed together haphazardly.

so we got on the boat and some men just piled everyone's bags into this huge mound on the deck. then jens and i went down some stairs and found two seats inside. it was a fairly small boat and the seats were small and hard. we were in a row of three and a big guy sat next to us. there ended up not being enough room for people up on deck or in the seats and some people had to sit on the floor inside.

the boat got going and it was fine for about 10 mins. but then it started rearing up and hitting the waves really hard! that's when the nausea started...it was horrible. after about 10 mins. my entire body felt nauseated! my ears were hot and my fingertips were tingling and i felt like i was dying! i know that sounds like an exaggeration but that's how i felt. now i had bought some motion sickness patches in korea before we left and i used one once on a long bus ride but none of the boat rides had been bad at all so i had no idea that i would need one on this trip! well of all the times not to wear one! my god! i couldn't even put one on if i wanted to because they were all the way out on deck in my bag probably under a hundred other bags! so i was screwed. i curled up in a ball, clutching jens and moaning for an hour and a half lol moaning actually seemed to help. the last 15 mins. or so the nausea finally subsided. i think the seas were calmer then.

during at least half the trip if not all of it (i'm not sure because i was in a nausea coma for the most part) this scottish girl was sitting on the floor at the front talking ENTIRELY too loudly. she was like 8 rows ahead of me and i could hear every word over the crashing of the boat on the waves, the motor and other people chatting lol she was SO LOUD! i couldn't believe it! well we weren't the only ones who thought she was too loud because these two dutch women in front of us kept trying to hint to her that she was being too loud. at one point one girl sang that song- " shut up just shut up shut up!" lol and later she started mocking the girl by repeating what she was saying lol well the girl never got the hint apparently.

when we docked she stood up and was talking to her other scottish male friends and they ALL started being really loud and that's when i saw they were all drinking beer at 11am (the boat took off at 10am or so). well we finally started lining up in the aisle and one of the guys starts yelling back to the girl- well you're sleeping with 4 guys! you slut! and she's like omg take that back! i have my own bed! and they start all joking about that, etc. and then one dutch girl starts talking to the other dutch girl about them in dutch but obviously gesturing to those scots and the scottish guy notices and he's like oh i'm sorry if i'm being too loud! i'm probably one of the biggest assholes you'll meet and the dutch woman goes- no i think she is! (gesturing to the scottish girl- who is still oblivious lol) and the dutch woman asks the scottish guy- where are you from? (he tells her) and she asks- do they all talk this way over there? (meaning really loudly)...dunno what he said. then she gestures to the beer and asks- is this your coffee in the morning? lol anyway over all he was apologetic and she said well - think about it next time. (meaning don't be so loud next time). it was pretty awkward lol

so i ended up standing up right in front of the scottish girl unfortunately and then she dropped her beer and it splashed all over my feet and legs and she was like ooooh noooo that's half a beer!!!! (not even saying sorry) and i said- i think you've had enough! but she still didn't hear. and the dutch woman looks right at her says- that's a sign! that's a sign! you've had enough! lol dunno what she did. she probably still didn't get it.

so we get out on deck and that's when i realize just how drunk the girl was. she sees this guy with really nice snorkling (or diving) fins and they have a slit down the middle of them (probably to go faster) and she's like HEY FLIPPERS! (the guy looks at her) WHERE ARE YOU FROM? (i guess he tells her) YOUR FLIPPERS- WHY'S IT GOT A LINE DOWN THE MIDDLE LIKE THAT? (he says- better) and then she says to her scottish friend who's standing right next to her and the guy and already heard the entire conversation- HEY BETTER! lol omg....i couldn't wait to get away from them...

i zoomed off the boat and jens grabbed our bags and met me on land. we both had to walk down this gauntlet of touts though! there were like 30 people with signs saying taxi lol it was insane! i can't believe they let the people up there when we're all just trying to get our bags and get off the boat! they're like HELLO HELLO TAXI! and i'm like MY NAME ISN'T TAXI!

so we got outta that mess, found a guy and asked him how much. it was a decent price so we said yes. we got to the truck and it had a roof over the bed which was nice and we got in. there was a girl from canada and a girl from quebec already in there. they had met on another island and decided to travel together a bit. they were nice. there was also a little tiny thai girl in there who was probably about 4 years old. she was so adorable! she came right up to all of us and took our stickers off our shirts that we had to wear for the boat. then she stuck them all on our arm hair and pulled them off lol then she separated all the stickers and gave us each one only to come back later and take them all off again. i guess she doesn't have much to do lol we waited a long time and finally the guy came back with two other people to ride with us and we thought it was time to go but no! he went off again to find more people. then it started pouring down rain and jens had to get out and get onto the roof of the truck to put the rain covers on our bags that were up there lol we thought the guy had given up on getting more people at that point but no he crammed two more people in and we finally left while it was pouring down rain and our backs were getting soaked.

it was a bit of a ride (maybe 10 mins.) but thank goodness our bungalow happened to come first! it had stopped raining at that point which was also nice :o) we checked in and walked to our bungalow and boy was that a sight for sore eyes! SO NICE! not like ultimate luxury but it's the nicest place we've stayed in so far (and probably the nicest we WILL stay in!)

it's a beachfront bungalow with two porches, one of which faces the beach directly and the one with the front door is perpendicular to the beach but the short end of it faces the beach too. the front door porch already has a hammock on it so we hung up our hammock too and now we can both lie in hammocks at the same time! :o) inside is really big! we have two full-size beds, shelves, aircon, a fan and a fridge! the bathroom is HUGE! way more space than we could ever need in a bathroom lol

(side note: you cannot flush toilet paper in thailand whatsoever! like it won't even go down the toilet and even if it does apparently it will clog the pipes really easily. you have to throw tp in the trashcan which is really hard for me to remember lol thai people just use a hose with a spray nozzle to clean themselves off but i still don't know how that works. do they just go around with wet nether regions afterward? lol)

anyway the bungalow kicks ass! i love it! we're staying 6 days and i'm hoping that's long enough :o) we could extend...we have a few days of the trip that are free. we'll see.

we just unpacked a little and then went to lunch at the bungalow cafe because we were starving!!! jens got veggie fried rice and i got veggie fried noodles. it was really good!

we went back to the bungalow, took some pictures and then dropped the freaking camera on the freaking tile floor and dang near cracked it wide open!!!! i was so mad! we JUST got it cleaned and it was working great and then THAT happened! amazingly enough it's still working fine. the two halves of it are just a little further apart than before and we'll have to be even more careful about getting water or sand in it which is really hard when you're staying on a beach! i wish i had known i would need a waterproof, shatterproof camera lol

after that incident we both laid in our hammocks, read and feel asleep. so nice!!!! when we got up the sun was low in the sky and it created a beautiful scene over the ocean so i took some pics and we walked down the beach a bit.

i was hungry again so we got a mango shake and spring rolls and ate them on our porch. that's when the mosquitoes came out with a vengeance! i have always been lucky in that mozzies never want to bite me! all this time they've been leaving me alone but for some reason the mozzies on koh pha ngan LOVE me! i was getting eaten alive! i put on two different insect repellents AND burned a repellent coil lol that seemed to work.

we hung out on the porch a bit and then decided to go to dinner. we went to la dolce vita down the beach. it is the only non-thai restaurant on the beach (and there are only like 4-5 restaurants on this beach in total lol) they serve italian AND thai food. we weren't super hungry so we just got one iced tea with lemon and gnocchi in pesto sauce. well the guy acted weird when i ordered the iced tea but i didn't think much of it. he repeated iced tea with lemon to me so i figured he understood me....until he brought me my drink, i took a swig and it was iced COFFEE with lemon! GROSS! lol i told him i ordered iced tea and he was like no you said iced coffee and i was like no i said iced tea! lol i dunno why he thought i said coffee...

so then this other guy brings me a drink, i take a sip and it's LONG ISLAND ICED TEA! lol i gave up at that point and resigned myself to drinking a drink a didn't want but then another guy brought me the regular iced tea i originally ordered! so he took the long island and realized it belonged to the guy behind us and he was gonna give it straight to him but i said - oh i already tried it! so he was like ok and took it back to the kitchen but he came right back with it really quickly so i think he just changed the straw lol but whatever...

the food was pretty good. while we ate we got to see a fireworks show put on by some random people that bought a bunch of fireworks at the local minimart. i love how fireworks are legal for anyone to buy and set off anywhere they want here! it's awesome!

after dinner we decided to come here and do some interneting. i think we'll get dessert now and go to bed!

it was a pretty crazy day but overall good :o)