We didn’t stay in Bangkok but kept moving. Many people have said good things about Bangkok and some of the awesome stuff to see and do there. Since Bangkok is the main hub for travelling around Thailand we will probably end up back and have a chance to explore it then. A word of advice for anyone flying into Thailand: ask on the plane for an immigration form. We had to wait for quite a while for the airport staff to find some spare ones and the queue to get through immigration control just grew and grew. Your airline is apparently supposed to provide them but we didn’t get any. Entering Thailand is pretty easy, the guy didn’t say anything, barely even looked at me, so the queue, despite being pretty long, moves a fair clip.
We took a flight to Surat Thani with Smile Airlines. We’d bought a croissant (secretly filled with bacon, apparently filling croissants with random stuff is a thing over here, and it’s certainly no bad thing) and bananas to keep us going which turned out to be to my fortune since they provided an inflight meal of fried crab cakes (fucking good too) and Sinead was full up, so I got two inflight meals. Winning. Smile are cool. We reached Surat Thani in good time and set about finding travel to Koh Pha Ngan. So to get to Koh Pha Ngan you need to take a bus to the port then a boat. There are a couple of different ferries you can take, that vary slightly in speed and times but there isn’t much to choose between them. It is pretty easy, there are several stalls where people will sell you a combined bus and ferry ticket, though it is probably cheaper to buy the bus ticket then buy the ferry ticket at the docks. But we went for the easy option.
We had unfortunately just missed a bus so had to wait a little while for the next one. It wasn’t really clear when that elusive bus would be turning up and I got waved back to my seat several times by the shouty ladies directing people to buses. Eventually our turn arrived and we were led towards a magnificent bus, a shiny bus that promised comfy seats and frozen-balls aircon. And around this bus we were led to a rickety old minivan with torn up seats and broken aircon. But hey, the driver was crazy and we made good time on what was a surprisingly long drive.
Upon reaching the port it turned out we’d just missed a ferry. Of course. We settled down for our two hour wait to watch the rain fall with our first pad thai at the small (and only) restaurant at the port. Port is a generous word for it, it’s pretty much just a pier with a waiting room and ticket office. And did I mention it was raining? Yeah, raining quite a lot. The bright side is that rain in Thailand is warm. We boarded the ferry where I promptly fell straight asleep for the two hour trip.
I woke up as we were docking in Koh Pha Ngan. In the rain. Naturally. We didn’t really have a plan so just followed the crowd down the pier where we were all violently accosted by taxi drivers offering to take us, well, anywhere. Didn’t really help us since we didn’t know where we were going. It would probably have been smart to get a hostel in Thongsala, it was getting late, about 4pm, and we were totally clueless. Instead we went and gazed dumbly at one of those crap tourist maps (not drawn to scale, or to any sort of standard), picked a random place, jumped in a cab and off we went: to Haad Tian.
Most taxis in Koh Pha Ngan are pickup trucks with a cover over the back that you just clamber into the back of. It was a pretty mad ride through the flooded roads and steep hills. Turns out we chose somewhere on pretty much the opposite side of the island. We reached the turning for Haad Tian and turned into a well kept road, that quickly deteriorated into what can only be described as a mountain path. Heavy rainfall had lain waste to what was undoubtedly an already pretty rough track, leaving bare rock and slush. Our erstwhile taxi driver made a valiant attempt at it but we were quickly tossed to the curb (psyche, there was no curb) and told that it was a little way down this “road”. We left him peeing into a bush and no doubt wondering how the hell he was going to get himself out of there.
It was now beginning to get dark and the rain was falling heavier. And we were in the middle of nowhere. But we were still imbued with our sense of adventure or whatever, so we soldiered on with confidence. Confidence that was, as it turned out, well founded. We passed a few turnings to other beaches and resorts, but nothing about Haad Tian (we had decided to go to Haad Tian so goddamnit we would find Haad Tian). Haad Tian was at the end of our bumpy trail, at the bottom of a scarily steep descent. If I’m honest, it didn’t look particularly inviting. There was a broken shed with some broken scooters, a sad looking water feature and a lot of mud. And it was raining. We tentatively wandered in. And for a place picked out of thin air, it was a pretty good pick. Palm trees hung with hammocks lined a cute promenade on the waterfront. An open fronted restaurant sat just behind with a swimming pool, flanked by bungalows, each with a private porch and hammock. Lush vegetation and water features filled out the spaces and steps led down to a golden sandy beach on the side. In all honesty, we’d been travelling for over two days straight and we’d found somewhere and it was going to be paradise whether it was actually paradise or not; I wasn’t going to allow anything to rain on my parade. But raining it was. Hard. Lashing it down. The sea was a violent tempest crashing into the little promenade, spray leaping into grey sky. The wind battered the trees, the hammocks swinging wildly as people huddled in shelter of the restaurant. Did this bother us? No. It couldn’t. Wasn’t allowed. A friendly lady greeted as we rushed for cover and informed us that they had a room available for 500 baht. In the waning light and thundery weather, it was unlikely that we’d be off to find somewhere else, she could have rinsed us. But she didn’t, and she was lovely, gave us a bungalow right on the seafront and we stayed for two nights.
The restaurant was more of a communal area for guests that also served food. All day long. It had a cool vibe, friendly. We enjoyed the food there the first evening, venturing into the local town the second night. It wasn’t too far, turning left at the main road and about a ten minute walk. I’d highly recommend the Hilltop View bar, a ramshackle reggae bar on the way into town that clings to the side of the hill, and as the name suggests, offers a magnificent view of the bay below. The town is a typical beachside town in Thailand, with everything built directly onto the beach and a jumble of streets of which none seem to actually lead to the beach. After clambering through a closed down restaurant and down onto the beach, we wandered along enjoying the rich smell of thai cooking, the twinkling lights reflecting off the ocean, the sound of the surf washing on the shore and laughter drifting from the many restaurants and bars that littered the waterfront. We ate at Jack’s bar, in the cool upstairs area, lounged out on thai cushions, alongside a strange French couple who sat on their phones witshout a word before being joined by another few couples, proceeding to then play a boisterous game of dice. Very odd. Sinead had a fantastic green curry soup. Soups are pretty huge in Thailand, which being the uncultural bastard that I am, had no idea about.
Our room in Haad Tian was simple, just a bed, a cold shower, a bucket flushed toilet, a fan and a hammock on the porch. It was perfect. Until the hammock broke and I crashed into the porch. But still, pretty much perfect. Sitting on a porch, with just the sound of the rain for company is awesome. I’m obsessed with the porch, I know. I don’t know why. I love porches. And I love rain. A match made in heaven. In Haad Tian.