Me and Connie are now in the Gulf of Thailand on the notorious Koh Phangan. Enjoying it a lot, very laid back and although it's swarming with Western tourists, I don't really see it as any more than in bits of the Andaman Coast. At least here it's pretty up front about what it's about. Where we're staying is great, lots of cool people and a pig called Diamond, and spent last night at the 'grand' opening of a bar which has been set up by an English guy from our resort and his Thai girlfriend. It was pretty bare, they don't have a bin or a bottle opener and we had to help them take their fridge off the truck when it was delivered! However, they only decided to open a bar a week ago and they had to completely gut and refit the place entirely, so the fact they've got anything at all is impressive. Most refreshing is that the guy is cool for you to play whatever over the speakers off his ipod so you can actually listen to decent stuff instead of trance remixes of chart hits. Full Moon is tomorrow so it's getting busy, looking forward to seeing what it's really like after hearing so much.
Between now and previous post we've taken a bizarre bus ride from Hat Yai to Koh Samui, where the bus was fully booked so we were given plastic stools so we could sit in the aisle (make your own aisle seat joke). Then a very early morning ferry over to the island, which turned out to be going to a minor port which is hardly used, so we had to make our way round the island, not the simplest task when Samui taxi drivers have decided to just make up insane price for a lift, which don't even seem to be consistent with each other. Across the island? 600 baht. Down the road? 500 baht. Maybe they're just afraid of small change.
Samui itself wasn't all that. It's more of a holiday destination and expat settlement than a backpacker place, and consequently a bit more expensive and with little to do. We went for a wander to find a place called Elephant & Castle which was reportedly a matching replica of the same pub in London, but it had closed down very recently.
Been in Phangan since Monday now, will probably leave where we are Saturday, either to Koh Tao or to another bit of Phangan which isn't as built up. Then it'll be off to Bangkok to fly to Cambodia. That certainly flew by.
Well Connie's paying up for her computer now so I can't be bothered to go through and edit/check/make this interesting. Chao.
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