We all knew Columbus was full of shit......

China Found U.S. First ...

Hellride, delayed.....

Onto the ferry where, as usual, we were accosted by the touts offering us plenty of places to stay. Picture books and all. When I returned from buying some Cokes, Matt was deep into conversation with a man we would come to know as "Speedy". He had just what we were looking for. Isolated beach huts for dirt cheap, and the almighty bamboo bong. His reviews and pictures were quite convincing, but we'd go on one condition: He roll one for us on the boat. He took our offer and tripled it! He said, " Let me make my rounds and meet on the roof." BOOyah! While we were in the midst of round one, I noticed a dolphin looking thing of the side of the boat. Speedy's eyes lit up, telling us that it wasn't a dolphin but a ????????. Whatever it was, apparently they are pretty rare, he rides the boat daily and had only seen but one or two. With are luck running this good we knew it was going to be a good trip with his guy.

After three hours, and a few more rounds on the upper deck, we finally reached Ko Phangan a little after dark. Speedy rushed off to try and snag a few more people and told us to meet him by a truck once we got off. After braving the herds we arrived to see Speedy on a Moto next to a truck. "jump in the back and ill see you there" he said speeding off. Why not trust him, were the thoughts going through both Matts and my mind. The ride was long but beautiful staring at the sky, our minds slowly changed as it started to rain and we ended up on a dirt road that was really, really bumpy. After a 45 minute truck ride we stopped right at the ocean, at a place called Haad Tian. Lighting was flashing as were greeted by a few people telling us to leave our stuff behind and get some food. Beer was the first thing we ordered. By the time we had finished the beers and food Speedy showed up and asked if we wanted to meet his bamboo friend. "Hell Yeah!" was more than likely our mutual response. Of we went, lighting showing the path and the beauty of where we were, as we meandered 50 meters over to his little hut. Once again he pulled out the big knife and wood block I've come to know and miss. Many, Many rounds later, we were all staring of into space watching the show. Words cant do justice to the images, but as we were sitting there watching the lighting strike in the middle of what i recongnized as a private bay, it illuminated the whole area for a few instances. The shape of the small cove caused the thunder roar up the hill behind us and even shake the earth. Utterly amazing and one of the images still ingrained permanently in my skull. We walked back to our bungalow by the light of the sky and envisioned just what we would be waking up to.

The morning was even better than I could have imagined, a secluded cove with a dozen or so bungalows, crystal clear water and hammocks galore. I knew it was going to be hard to leave this place.... The next days consisted of eating enormous amounts of great food, swimming in the ocean, reading 3 books, and hanging out with Speedy. A lot. Two days come to mind though: The first being the Ganja Shake day. Mmmmmmmmm (Homer with mouth open drooling sound) We drank them in the early afternoon, as suggested by the owner of the place. The guy who made them. Needless to say the rest of the day was very, very mellow and the sunset was brilliant. The next day a group of 4 guys more showed up making the total number of guests 8 or 9. Next thing we knew we were cajoled into playing volleyball, which went suprisingly well considering our constant state. "Its all fun until someone gets hurt" Right?
Well it was still fun cause the Irish asshole got what was coming to him. The group of four guys were a tad competitive in the game and eventually ended up hurting each other, twisting one guys ankle pretty good. The influx of these guys indincated our departure time and off we went: To Haad Rin a.k.a. Full Moon Beach.
Intro to the "Hell Ride": We arrived at Haad Rin, looking to party, because, well, you just don't go to that area of Ko Phangan for anything else. After a seemingly endless search for a place, we found a killer spot over looking the ocean. After our isolation in Haad Tian we were looking for the chaos. Unfortunately the place was pretty dead and after two nights of looking for fun and being utterly bored of fire dancers, loud techno and beachfront bars we decided to call up our buddy from Ko Samui. That's where the real "hellride" begins. In fact I think ill need a whole entry for this one.

One thing about Haad Rin though, the beach fills up with thousands of people every month on the full moon. I don't even know if I'd want to be there for that, its probably like Embarcadero or Times Square for New Years, something you only want to do once. The bars were all horrible, played shitty music, sold expensive drinks, catered to way too many drunken Idiots, and severed buckets galore. I've included the picture of Matt for three reasons: 1) Its a typical beach bar: bamboo mat's, lots of sand, drunks around the bar. 2) You can see the "bucket" in the guys hand that are one of the best and worst things about Thailands islands. 3) The only reason I took this picture is because the two guys in the background were hilarious. They kept constantly hugging each other proclaiming their "bro-ly" love for each other, then parting about 5 steps then rushing back to hugging and proclaiming, then parting for at least a half an hour. It was a strange and funny scene. You probably had to be there, but it'll jog Matts memory nonetheless.

To the middle .....

Well, I've finally mustered up the energy to write a decent entry, inspired in part by the Whale and Mr. Rankin. I miss them both. I'll see them soon enough,I guess.

Last I wrote...... We were leaving a wonderful place called Railey Beach and heading back to Krabi Town. When we arrived, we thought (hoped) we could catch a bus straight out of town, unfortunately we were forced to spend the night. We grabbed a room for dirt cheap and meandered around town looking for tickets of the same character. Well actually, we were leaving our place when a random guy started talking to us and wanted us to go with him to check out his Bamboo Bong. Curiosity got the best of us as we hopped on a long boat and head down the river. Quite away down the river, we ended up at a small village, where our "friend" took us to through a number of random places including, a school, a convienence store/house and multiple alleyways.It was also during this time that we realized he was pretty drunk too. After a 15-20 minute walk through all of these places we arrived at his house. Where he proceeded to live up to his word and get us highly intoxicated, with a bamboo bong.

Interesting technique Thai's have for chopping up the green though. It involves a big knife and a wood block. As we were smokin' a number of random people would come in and out giving us very, very weird looks. After about an hour or so of strange people, messed up stories of death (his reason for being drunk) and cockfights we finally got him to take us back. Ohhh, how could I forget the 7 or so chickens he kept feeding around his house that he appenerntly made decent money off of. But then if he made decent money he proabbly wouldn't have asked us for money or made us pay for the boat ride there and back. Everyones got their stories......

Relieved to be done with that surreal experience we ate and waited to get out of town the next day. The next morning we hopped on truck, then to a mini bus and then again to another minibus at a random interchange. The drive from there was amazing through some beautiful valleys and under misty mountaintops. It was raining all the way until we reached Koh Sok National Park. The "town", if one could call it that, was basically a road with about 15 guesthouses/restaurants. We stay at a killer place called "Smileys Guesthouse". We booked two bungalows for the price of one, and then went to feed monkeys down by the river with the owners nephew and daughter. The place was paradise, the food was excellent, the scenery sublime.

The next day we took a hike through the park, which was expensive to get in. The hike was nice even though it began dumping profusely, and Matt made the bright choice of hiking in sandals.... Whoops... Even though it was only a couple mile hike we were a tad beat. I went take a shower, cold of course, and was a little surprised to find tadpoles shooting out the spout. Which wasn't really a spout but a bamboo tube dripping out river water... . We meet back up with the nephew had some beers, some food and then went back to our bungalow to get irie while watch the lighting mingle with the fireflies. Pretty nice way to end the day.

We decide to leave the next day, basically to get the hell out of the rain and back in the sun. Tallied up our tab and hit the road to Surat Thani where we could catch a bus and ferry to Ko Phangan. As we waited at the corner of an intersection in the rain with tickets in hand, I just hoped the bus stopped. It did of course and we were off on our first Kareokoe bus! Basically most of the local buses in Thailand seem to have TV's that play Kareoke videos nonstop. Fun at first, highly annoying later. Anyways, the bus once again dropped us off in a random place: A temple in Surat Thani across from another travel agency. Of course this one was charging an arm and a leg, or so we thought, so we ran around trying to find a cheaper place. To no avail. Although while checking prices Matt ran into the guy we meet in Georgetown, Malaysia. He said, "come over to Ko Samui and I'll show you a good time". We were already heading to Ko Phangan, so we told him we'd meet up later. Ate some shitty pad Thai and hopped on another bus to the ferry that would lead us to what Charley would describe as a "Hellride". Hell yeah.

Up next: Back in the Island Life Again