At the time of writing this post I am just 5 minutes into my 12 hours train ride from Surat Thani to Bangkok. The ‘good’ trains were full so I am stuck with a 2nd class seat without air condition. I seem to be the only non Thai in the whole railroad car and this train looks even more beaten up than the one I came south on. But this reminds me that I should start at the beginning.
I arrived in Bangkok in the middle of the night and stayed at a hotel close to the airport. The following day I moved into the city, to a place close to the famous Khao San Road. After being shown in the movie 'The Beach', this road became even more popular with backpackers from all over the world. I went there at night and dived into the buzz of street merchants, restaurants, bars and a huge partying crowd. Quite an experience! On my way back to the hotel I even saw a little elephant on the streets of Bangkok. This might be a normal sight for Thais but you sure don’t see that in any European city.
The next day at about 7pm I boarded an overnight train to Surat Thani, to eventually get to the Krabi region. The train looked worse than I imagined but I still had a good time playing 'Phase 10' with some fellow travelers and I actually got some good sleep. Once in Surat Thani it took a bus and a couple of vans to bring me to Ao Nang. That was a long trip to the beach. From Ao Nang you could take a boat over to a place called Railey - a beautiful piece of land featuring two beaches. Since it is cut off from the rest of the mainland by impenetrable rocks it is accessible only by boat. This was my first glimpse of the beach paradise that makes Thailand so popular with travelers. I did some hiking to a lookout point and after that down to a lagoon. The latter part of the hike was actually pretty strenuous and I don’t think it was worth the effort. The lagoon looked good but I thought the water to filthy to swim in. I finished the day with some quality time at the beach and, back in Ao Nang, with a cocktail. I missed the sunset, though.
I came back to Railey the next day to watch some rock climbing. I was only a passive watcher since my toe still hurt and I didn’t want to force my foot into one of the very tight climbing shoes. Talking about shoes – on this day my flip flops finally broke. It was actually a little sad, because they were very comfortable. But I’ve had them a long time – they carried me faithfully through 11 countries – and the sole was so worn, that they actually became death traps when I was walking on wet surfaces. Let’s see if my new ones will be as good as their predecessors.
From Railey it took almost a day’s travel to the island of Ko Phangan. Here I stayed for eight nights. The longest I have spent anywhere on this trip. One reason is that it is really a beautiful place to stay, definitely high quality postcard material. You can relax and snorkel and/or party all night if you feel like it. The beach in Haad Rin would fill up every night with people that want to have a good time. There was a lot of fire shows going on like jugglers etc. But if you wanted to do more than just watch you could participate in the fire limbo dance or the fire rope skipping. I tried the latter and burned myself slightly. It wasn’t my fault though. Some other guy jumped in and messed up and suddenly I had the rope on my neck. I also played a few games of Connect Four with these local kids going around challenging you for money. I only won one out of four games which made me a little angry. Next day I downloaded a few programs and tons of reading material about strategies onto my computer. Too bad these kids didn’t show up the next day because I had really smartened up by then.
Anyway, the other reason why I stayed so long is that one of the famous Full Moon Parties was only a few days away and I decided to go take a look at it. The little town of Haad Rin was definitely packed and the streets were buzzing. I met up with a few other people to have some beers and everybody got painted with those fluorescent colors. What people didn’t know by then was that there was hardly any black light at the beach. It was still fun. I will try to get a picture of what my back looked like. Be patient.
So these parties are huge rave and techno events. And if you know me than you will also know that I despise this kind of music. But with the help of some ethanol in different shapes I managed to have a somewhat good night. But for me once is enough. Make that whole thing a metal show and it would be awesome!
Like the other continents Asia took a toll on my electronic equipment, too. I lost the cell phone I bought in Australia…the third one on this journey to get stolen, break down or get lost. Also some sand somehow made it into my camera so it only works half of the time. And when it does you can hear all kinds of crunching sounds when the lens extends or you use the zoom.
Now, as I said at the beginning, I am on a train back to Bangkok. I will get there at about 5 in the morning and will spend the day exploring the city – I didn’t really see much on my first visit to Bangkok. Then, at about 7:30pm, I will get onto another night train that will take me to Chiang Mai. So beach time is over. Bring on the culture and the trecking!
PS: Book update
- 'Und morgen in das kuehle Grab' by Mary Higgins Clark (terrible book!)
- 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen
- 'Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less' by Jeffrey Archer
- 'Sonnenblumenland' by Miriam Sieber
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