While eating dinner last night an old thai women sat with me and started asking me about where i was from and questions about obama. She has lived here her whole life. She told me about the tsunami. Now she is working at this restaurant. She was very nice and told me I should take a hike to the View Point. She said to do it early or late to avoid the heat. As I was laying in bed this morning I decided to go for a hike and find this View Point. I looked in my book and saw a marker for it, also some trails that would lead to the other side of the island. Packed light and took off. Had to ask a few directions to find it but I quickly found the path... straight up. Took about 20 minutes but it was worth it. The island is shaped like a dumbell. Two large sides connected by a thin middle thats probably only a quarter of a mile wide. You could see the whole thing. I took some photos and will try to get them online soon. (below is the view)
Once I got to the viewpoint I found another side path that mentioned Ratee beach over the peak of the mountain(hill). I had marked this on my map and thought I would explore so I started down that. It goes through some dense jungle/forest and a steep decline. Though the island is small and getting lost is very unlikely, I considered the idea. Also, many of the areas looked like a natural setting for a tiger to jump out. Am pretty sure there arent any of those running around on this tiny island either.
I was very curious as to what I would find on the other side. Possibly my own remote beach, possibly a thai village... possibly a tourist filled bar. Eventually I started hearing waves and noises. When I finally broke through it was a charming little beach with all these rough bungalows right on the beach (20 yards if that). A little bar, a hommock and a couple long boats were all that was there. It was exactly what i was wanting to find. 3 ferangs were swimming in the ocean. I went to the bar and asked how much for the bungalows. 500 baht. Guess where I am staying when my 3 days are up at my current spot!
I decided to take a swim on the little beach and the 3 other ferangs quickly introduced themselves. 3 Canadians... two girls and a boyfriend of one. They too had just found this spot and were happy to be away from the party scene of Phi Phi beach.
We all ended up chatting for a couple hours at the bar and decided to continue hiking to other remote parts. We climbed back up our trail and took another route. We were looking for Long Beach. We probably traveled 30 minutes on trails before we found a paved path. We felt like we were close. Finally, we got there. I was disappointed. It looked like Phi Phi beach. Not remote at all like my friend Lisa (who had traveled here this july) had said. As we walked we started realizing that it was a bit too much like Phi Phi beach... like, actually that it WAS Phi Phi beach! Somehow I guess we took a wrong turn and instead of being on the other side of the mountain, we were back where we all started from. We got a good laugh out of that one.
It was past lunch time so we found a very authentic thai place to eat. Basically there was a sign down an alley... you go down and there are women cooking in what might have been their home. They were all eating. We joined them for 40 baht each. A delicious soup with noodles, chicken and fish (i skipped the fish).
Afterwards we swam for a bit on the main beach and then I skipped out back to my bungalow.
We have plans to meet tonight for dinner and drinks... and tomorrow at 10am we have already made arrangements for the 4 of us to go snorkeling. We rented our own longboat driver to take us out for 4 hours. Should be a lot of fun!
So, as I have left a friend yesterday in Phuket, I have made 3 new ones today.
My health is improving. No more itchy throat or zombie brain from lack of sleep. I am starting to feel good and the exercise today helped. I did yoga in my room a bit ago as well (i needed it bad!)
Funny though... something is biting the ferangs here like crazy. I have some red bumps on my body. They dont itch. Not sure if it is bed bugs or beach mites or... whatever. Everyone has something on their skin. Some look terrible. So far I feel pretty lucky.
The thai's here are VERY friendly. All smiles. Even while they are working. There were about 30 of them shoveling sand on the beach (not sure why) and they were having the best time! As I was walking down to the bar a group of like 5 locals asked me to join them in a game of hackee sack (except the ball was larger and plastic). I felt I held my own. :)
There is a lot of construction going on on the island as well. Some of the construction sites look dangerous. They seem to lack modern construction tools here.
The party that i missed last night sounded terrible. Its a loud thump thump thump kind of music. Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy good dance music, but this was just BAD... unfortunately it could be heard clearly... even at 3am.
My new friends are of the same mindset as me on the party scene here. They are done with their current place after tonight and plan to stay at the Katee beach bungalows tomorrow night. Lucky them. If they are still around long enough, I hope to join them there in 3 nights. The girls are traveling for 6 months. They just got to thailand from India. The boyfriend is here for two weeks joining them.
Well thats all for now. Good day. Excited about tomorrow.
chris
NOTE: I probably will NOT upload my photos for this trip online like I did last year in Europe... especially to my flickr account. My images are all at least 1 meg in size and it seems most of the internet here is SLOOW... Takes about 5 minutes to upload ONE photo. So I will be posting some images here on my blog (not through flickr). But it will be limited. When I get home, i will post them all in order on Flickr.
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