You can strand me on your island any day

Island life is a very addictive thing. I arrived in Ban Phe around 3pm on Weds. It’s about a 3 hour bus ride from Bangkok. And between Bangkok and Ban Phe is mostly countryside rice and pineapple fields and lots and lots of very large industry warehouses and factories. I'm convinced some of them were  sweatshops because of the large cheaply built apartment buildings next to them.

 It’s the off season and not the weekend so it was not very busy in Ban Phe or the island. There are tourist shops all over the Ban Phe pier and it cost 3 baht to use the bathrooms. Which is hardly any money but I saw it was usually 5 baht in the on season. The ferry to the Koh Samet was fun because there were big swells half way to the island time and the weather cleared up also compared to the muggy mainland. I didn’t know where I was going to stay so I took a taxi truck with a father and daughter from Utah who were staying at one of the fancy resorts on the beach. Beach bars and reastarants and little resorts all over the place. The first night I found a room with wifi and my own bathroom for 500baht, that’s around $16 for the night. I could have gone cheaper but the first spot I looked at for 300baht was dark the power didn’t work and the bed was a cot. Livable but I was on an island so I had to treat myself a lil bit. Went swimming, played with beach puppies (there are dogs everywhere on the island with no definite owners usually but all very friendly) ate dinner got a drink and sat on the beach under a bush of some sort as a thunder storm rolled over the island. I got wet the lightning over the beach and waves was more then worth it.

The dock

Not the safest dock. A few of the pillars underneath were broken and most were decayed .

                                           

2/3s of the way there

Looking back at the mainland from the boat. 

Ao Pai beach. Puppies included.

Beach bitch enjoying the surf

The next morning I woke up early as usual and took a hike down the coast to find the beach that fritz had recommended. The only people awake were the locals who were harvesting crabs from between the rocks at low tide. It took me about an hour to get to the beach I had set out to find but when I got there they were doing a lot of renovating and there was no one else staying there from what it looked like so I started back up the other way. I found a little beach on the way down that only had one small resort on it with very rustic huts.  It was only 700baht for a beach front hut so I decided to move in. I went back to the main beach where I stayed the first night and rented a motorbike. I hadn’t ever ridden a motorbike but got the hang of it pretty quick. I could tell the guy I rented it from was a little bit nervous when I rode away because at first I had asked for an automatic but realized it was 400baht a day instead of 300 so I changed my mind. Messed around on my motor bike on the bumpy dirt roads until I finally found the one my hut was on went for a swim and biked around the island more and explored/experimented with how fast I could go. I’m getting a motorcycle no doubt about it. There was only one other old couple at the beach when I got back enjoying the peace like I was but then a young couple showed up and started kanoodleing all over the place. Making it quite hard for me to enjoy being by myself in such a romantic setting but I eventually fell asleep and had a dream that had something to do with me being able to speak dog and a group of the beach dogs were showing me how to get somewhere or something…I cant remember what now, but some those dream people that you know but don't, were all very jealous the dogs favored me so I woke up feeling really special, two shades darker on my back and dehydrated.
  I watched the sky darken with what looked like more thunder clouds and the tide come in with a beer on my hut porch. Walked to the main beach around 6 (Saikaew beach) which was about 3 beaches away from mine and made friends with some Thai guys running a little beach bar that no one was at. It was happy hour so I got two drinks…when I wanted one (and more free ones because I was the only one there)..played connect four and taught them how to play Crazy 8’s. David was a fire dancer, Lak was from Cambodia and….uh..S…I’ll call him Smith. (his real name was really cool but hard to remember) was a DJ. When I told them I was from America, Smith put on some horrible pop music and they were surprised I wasn’t more excited and singing along to Miley Cyrus or whoever it was, I really had no clue. Got them to put on some 70’s music and it was a party. I ate some roasted duck and rice with them before I walked back to my beach. They were all very worried for me because apparently I was staying at a beach where a girl had drowned and her ghost lures people in the water and drowns them. They were seemed seriously scared about it and offered more then once to let me stay with them or at least give me a ride back so I wouldn’t have to walk on the beach but I reassured them I had made peace with her ghost and she wasn’t going to bother me. I got back the hut ghost (and guy) free. 

Behind the hut

My porch. 

Bug net saved my life

Dog hung out with me on the beach and chased crabs

my beach. you can see the top of my hut in the trees bottom right

Spider the size of my hand. I was more scared of running into one of these then the ghost.

just steps away from my hut

My bike Bangarang

Want

Cigarettes are scary (er) in other countries

It rained a lot the next morning which made it easier to leave. I would have stayed longer. Tropical beaches are a hard thing to not enjoy even when its raining. I could have stayed another week in that hut if I had the money and hadn't already bought plane tickets to Cambodia. Then it was a long ferry and bus ride back to Bangkok. I left the island at 2 as there were hoards of people going to the island for the weekend. I didn’t get back to Fritz’s until 7. The traffic was horrible and all I wanted to do was hang out on my beach and eat fruit in my hut instead of sit in traffic in an uncomfortable bus the isle over from the same kanoodleing couple that had been at my beach. People in love I tell ya so disgustingly adorable, like watching kittens play in a dirty litter box or something like that. Well off to dinner now at Fritz's friends then CAMBODIA on MONDAY!