Finding myself with two weeks before my flight left Thailand, and faced with warnings about being prepared for the cold of Colorado, I decided to head down to the south of Thailand to a beach to catch a little sun before the ominous cold. Arranging to meet up with some French guys I had met in Indonesia, I boarded a tourist only bus in Khao San Road in Bangkok. Welcome to the Herd the sign on the bus door should have read, please commence behaving like sheep. Before getting on the bus everybody was given a fluorescent sticker to put on their shirt (think ear tag for sheep) which designated which flock you belonged to (and allowed the Thais to more efficiently herd people around).
The bus was filled with an array of tourists, most already sporting a tan, and almost without exception fisherman's pants. (See the RANT page for my opinion on that) Fortunately the bus headed off a little late so I only had to endure one action movie, mind you it was so bad I may not have lasted a second one. We stopped at 11pm for dinner, which involved everybody being herded out of the bus, past the fried rice counter, followed by a smoke, and then back on the bus. At 5.00 am we arrived at what looked like a ferry terminal and were told the boat leaves at eight. We then had to be processed, passing a counter a being given another fluorescent sticker, and a new tribe. The attitude of the Thais reminded me of stockmen in the Kimberley looking at the cows they were mustering with a mix of disdain, pity combining to generate a disinterested and all in another days work approach.
The more enthusiastic European tourists immediately started drinking beer (nothing like a 6am start) whilst Thai hotel touts worked the crowd. started to discover that whilst Ko Phangan was famous for being a party island (original home of the full moon party) everybody was looking for a quiet place to stay. During the three hour wait another five double decker buses filled to the gills with tourists arrived, and they too were processed at the counter and given the appropriate coloured sticker to put on their shirts. After three hours of waiting about in the stalls we were herded back on to the bus for another hour to the actual ferry terminal, and on to the boat. The boat was completely full, and whilst I had noticed the large number of tourists on the streets of Bangkok it still took quite a bit of adjusting to take in the actual number of tourists all together in one place. The chances of finding a quiet beach diminished by the moment.
i finally arrived on Ko Phangan and there was no sign of the Frogs, so I hired a motorbike and set about checking out the more likely quiet beaches. I ended up on the western side of the island at Thong Noi Pan, a 3km stretch of fine white sand, border by limestone hills on either end of the beach. (Check the view from my bungalow window)
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