So much time and so little to see

We have so much time and so little to see… Wait a minute. Scrap that. Reverse it. – Willy Wonka

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Busy days the last few days. After the last update I took the morning ferry to Koh Tao, one of the smaller, most idyllic islands in Thailand.

The first day I rented a motorbike and explored the island, risking my own (because some times the road would suddenly be gone) and Toms (the Brit I met in Koh Phangan, who took the same ferry as me to Koh Tao and who happened to be on the back of my motorbike) lives in the process. Koh Tao is very easy. There’s one main road, and a couple of exits every once in a while. We explored the island together, seeing beautiful beaches, we went swimming in the sea and we even got to see a whale skeleton (that was located quite high above sealevel in reference to the average whale skeleton).

When I dropped Tom off at his hostel, we saw the Brit and the Irishman we knew from Koh Phangan check in, so we had a nice chat with them. The world is quite small. That night we had some dinner together, I lost horribly in a game of pool (Tom used to play 8 games a day, where I don’t think I have even played 8 games in my lifetime), and then I went to bed early-ish.

The snorkeling tour I went on the next day was pretty awesome. We had to climb through 5 different boats in order to reach ‘our’ boat, but as soon as we got there, and got to the snorkeling, it was quite amazing.

The water over here is ridiculously clear, you can see everywhere for quite some distance (no clue on the actual distance, but it looked far) and the fantastic fish in all colors of the rainbow (and more), that weren’t for a moment afraid of the big monster with a snorkeling mask floating between them, are beautiful. The last stop of the day was on some island north of Koh Tao, which had one of the best viewpoints I have seen yet.

The island itself was a little too touristic for my liking, they had everyone pay for mats or beach chairs, and you couldn’t use your own towel on the beach.

That night, it was time for a new kind of transport vehicle: the night boat

I slept ridiculously well, but the boat arrived at 5am, which was also the end of my sleep for that night.. The original plan was to head to Krabi, but then I noticed that I would be the only one of the people I met at the night boat going there, so I decided to join the others and go to Ao Nang. Over there, the four of us (a Swede, Brit and an American) decided to go and find a place where we could all stay. The original plan was to go for THE party hostel of SE-Asia, but it was completely booked, so we ended up across the road. My first day in Ao Nang I mostly walked around, exploring the city, and in the evening, me and King (the American) had a great night at the party hostel across the street.

The next day I went on a 4-island-tour, and saw beautiful tiny islands (packed with tourists). A couple of the islands we passed and visited made me think of the Avatar movie.

The first island we visited was kinda weird, in that it had a dedicated space to pray for the Buddhist goddess of love (if I remember correctly). That in itself isn’t too weird, but what does one give the goddess of love? Indeed! Wooden dicks.. I thought (think) it was a tad weird, but that might also be because I’m not a Buddhist.

Ah well, besides that, the islands were terrific, and it was also nice that I could chat with a Dutch couple that was also doing the tour, so I had fun.

That night, I planned to get into bed early, but after returning to the hostel at 3am, I decided that my plan had failed miserably.

The next day it was time for yet another new vehicle: the minivan. I took some kind of bus/car-hybrid from Ao Nang to Hua Hin.

The trip was interestin, to say the least. Our driver must’ve been a potent racegames player, because he overtook anyone and everyone left and right. I also noticed that the emergency lane at the side of the road works different in Thailand than back home. In Thailand, the emergency lane is also used to get on/off the highway, as an improvised extra lane, or even if you want to sneak ahead at the traffic lights. In the end, after 3 different minivans and a touring bus, I got to Hua Hin 2.5 later than originally planned t. Which meant that pretty much every hostel was already closed for check-ins, and I now share a room with two Thai guys that speak absolutely no English, and seem to live here. It will be okay for one night, but tomorrow I’ll probably go and look if there’s some backpackers hiding in one of the neighboring hostels.