Moonin' Round Asia: Ko Tao Arrival

We arrived in Chumphoin via the overnight train very early Tuesday morning. We got off the train at about 5am and waited for about an hour before the bus for the high speed catamaran arrived to take us towards the water. We boarded the bus around 6am and drove through landscape that was polar opposite of what we were used to in Bangkok. We arrived on the coast somewhere around 7am and walked the longest, most treacherous pier I'd ever seen. It looked like it was held together by sticks and literally shook as I walked down it. We got on the catamaran safe and sound and took our seats inside while reruns of "The Nanny" played on the tv's.

We arrived in Ko Tao after about another hour and were amazed by the beauty of the island. Everything you'd expect was exactly true. The water was crystal clear, the island perfectly green and seemed to jet straight out of the water like they'd fallen out of the sky. We got off the catamaran and a shuttle truck was waiting for us. We hopped into the back of a pickup truck while about 60 guys sat around yelling "Taxi? Taxi?" at us. It was a very short drive down the island and we were dropped off at Sensi Paradise Hotel.

At first glance, Sensi WAS paradise. It was on the beach, but still nestled in the jungle. When we arrived, the reception desk attendant was waiting on the stairs for us with 2 local drinks made from a flower. It was one of the best juices I'd ever tasted. After checking in, we were taken to our "room" by a hotel worker. When we got there, we quickly realized that our "hotel" was nothing more than a bungalow. There was no tv (and I get it, I'm on vacation - I shouldn't be watching tv... but when you're trying to fall asleep, it's nice to have some kind of background noise rather than the howling birds and animals of the jungle), no alarm clock and the AC worked just ok - barely capable of cooling off our 15 x 15 bungalow in less than a half hour. Nonetheless, we ignored these things, talked about how beautiful the jungle was and got changed to go down to the beach.

We got down to the beach and experienced a few mixed emotions. The water was like bath water and was crystal clear. However, it was very rocky and our "private beach" was surrounded by the main pier to the island. Boat traffic was high and swimming just wasn't fun at all. This swimming session lasted all of 8 minutes and we then decided to walk in to town. We got some lunch, rented a scooter and rode back to our hotel to get ready for the night. When we got back, we were pretty tired and decided to hang out in our room for a bit and take a quick nap. When we got back, the cleaning lady had already been there and put the bug net down around our bed. We climbed in, loaded a DVD that I had purchased in town and started to watch. This didn't last long. Molly jumped up about 15 minutes in and proclaimed, "Did you hear that?!" I hadn't, I had dozed off. About thirty seconds later, I heard what seemed to sound like a group of gnomes dashing across the floor of our bungalow. Then, we heard a howling bird who had apparently made a nest in the vent of our bungalow. Then, something scurried up the wall/across the ceiling. It embarrasses me that these things concerned me. Myself 15 years ago would have slapped the crap out of present day me for being worried about this, but present day me has lived in a city for the past ten years where the biggest critter we deal with is rats. If a rat walked by, smoking a cigarette in our bungalow, I wouldn't even give it a second look, I'm USED TO that. However, lizards, snakes and spiders are very unfamiliar and concerning to us. These noises went on for about a half hour before Molly finally made me get up and go check if there was something big in our room. I searched with a flashlight and found nothing. I can only assume it was some sort of mystical beast with the ability to disappear into thin air. Thailand is crazy like that. We decided shortly thereafter that this hotel was not for us and we'd be leaving the next morning.

We woke up and packed our belongings and told the front desk that due to my illness, I wasn't able to dive and we were leaving to move to another island. The manager told me that because we booked through a website and not directly, he wasn't able to refund us for the 4 unstayed nights. I've emailed the booking site asking for a refund but as of yet, haven't heard anything back.

We hopped on the scooter with 2 enormous backpacks, Molly's little bags that's she's acquired along the way and my backpack with the computer and all other electronics and books. It was a tight squeeze and I think we bottomed out on a couple of bumps, but we made it into the town called Sairee Beach. Sairee Beach is a stark contrast to where we were previously. There's a TON going on, lots of bars and restaurants and general excitement. We found a hotel called Simple Life that had one room left that had a tv, wireless internet in the room and was about 50 feet from the main street running to the beach. We booked instantly and are extremely pleased with this decision. Our room is comfortable, we don't have to use the scooter to get anywhere and there's so much to do around here.

After settling in, we went out for lunch and picked a place called Choppers, an Australian bar. Molly, being the social butterfly that she is, walked up to another couple that was playing pool and asked if we could join them. The guy, Doug, was from New Zealand and his girlfriend, Kate, was from Australia. We played a couple games of pool, losing them all and learned the difference between Australian rules, British rules and our rules. Towards the end of the game, The Origins Rugby game came on. The bar had filled up with Aussies and Kiwis at this point and it was explained to me that this game is the equivalent of the superbowl. It's played once a year and consists of a 3 game series played by the best rugby players in Australia. These all-stars have to provide a birth certificate to show whether they were born on the north side or south side of the island and then play for their perspective side. Doug explained all the rules to me and we watched the whole game, drinking quite a bit. After learning the rules, it was honestly one of the most exciting games I'd ever seen. We planned on doing dinner with Doug and Kate, but they had clearly been overserved (damn bartenders!) and they decided to just stay at the bar while we went back to hop in the pool and get cleaned up. This did not treat them well. We arrived back at the bar just over an hour later and Doug and Kate were a couple sheets to the wind. Kate then proceeded to sexually assualt a British guy, which greatly angered Doug. Kate confronted us, let us know that they were experiencing some "drama" (what, you mean like grabbing some other guy's junk?) and that we should probably just go on without them.

We went to an awesome authentic Thai restaurant for dinner. We had a great meal and met ANOTHER Ohio State Buckeye who was in the army, but was on leave and has been working for a dive place on the island for the last 5 months. We drank with him and his friends for a while and they then took us down to the beach to watch the fire twirlers (see my youtube video here -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGjpNUd0Aus) . It may have been the booze, but this was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. It was on the beach, they served drinks and were just blaring music that these 3-5 Thai guys twirled fire batons to. We had an awesome time and afterwards the locals wanted to take us to an after-hours bar, but it was late and we decided to come home and get some rest.

Today, we're going to go book our diving class and maybe do some snorkeling. More to come later. Check out Molly's awesome pictures though!