Thursday 27 October 2011

Koh Tao and that ONE grain of curry paste….


The one grain of curry paste that was left was vicious!  Dan’s Thai Green Curry was completely inedible it was so hot.  We ended up having to rinse the chicken pieces in boiling water and add it to rice and mayo to even attempt to eat it.  I’ll cook next time!

We were up and about for a 6am start Monday to head off by taxi and ferry to Koh Tao, a much smaller island about 2 hours away by boat.  Dan has somewhat of an allergic reaction to boats although he is making progress in that whilst still green round the gills, the urge to honk his eggs and bacon everywhere has somewhat abated!!! (Nik you should know what I’m taking about – remember Tenerife!!!)!  We arrived in Koh Tao around 10.30am after stopping off to drop passengers at Koh Phangan (home of the Full Moon Parties!) after a fairly pleasant boat trip in terms of the weather and ferocity of the sea and Dan’s colour was slowly returning!  The scenery was stunning; loads of little uninhabited islands surrounded us, their tops shrouded in cigarette smoke coloured mist and clouds!  It was quite eerie! 

We had no accommodation pre-booked so set off amid a torrential downpour to find a bed for the night!  As you can imagine at a ferry port we were hounded by touts offering tours and the like and eventually picked one who was offering cheap accommodation just 10 minutes away.  The offer of 400 Baht a night seemed too good to be true – oh and boy was it!!!  We got into a taxi and were taken to a place called Sairee Cottage – it was a dive school and inhabited by all sorts of beardy weirdies – and they were the human variety!!  The room was rank; in the middle of a sort of garden at the back of the resort, no path or anything – you had to fight your way through vegetation and the like to get to it.  There wasn’t a solid wall in the place – take that as an open invitation for anything big to crawl through the walls, doors or floors!  No, we said – we didn’t really think it would suit us and beat a very hasty retreat!  £8 a night or not!  It was at this point that we realised that we were not going to enjoy slumming it!!! 

We walked down the length of Sairee Beach, which was just gorgeous, and all along its shore it was populated with other small resorts, dive centres, bars, restaurants and bungalow accommodation.  Almost at the end of our walk we happened upon a place called Bowthong Resort – this looked OK, a huge step up from the previous place so we booked a room there.  It was a traditional Thai bungalow (a wee bamboo house on stilts) and whilst not great, would do us for that night.  The rest of the day was spent sunbathing and swimming and a miracle happened – Dan finally mastered the art of snorkelling – and LOVED it!  After some gentle coaching from me that he could in fact actually breath underwater with the aid of the snorkel and that he was not to panic as soon as his face went under the water, the urge to fill the mask up with phlegm, spit and snot finally left him.  He was off!  A huge bonus from this new found skill was that he was actually swimming in the sea – something that before, he was most uncomfortable with.

We sat on the beach eating freshly cooked corn on the cobs from the beach man and waited for sunset.  Expecting magnificence we were bitterly disappointed to see that clouds had built up and blotted out the expected sunset.  The only thing we experienced was a charge of the bloody Light Brigade of mozzies that practically bit every part of exposed flesh!!!!

More disappointment was around the corner when we returned to our room – the shower was just three strands of water, jetting out in every direction but ours so getting even damp was going to be a problem!!  Covered in sand and oil and the general grime of the day was going to be difficult to remove!!!  We sat down on the bed in the room to contemplate our fate and as the last coiled spring in it poked us in the arse we decided there was only one way to cope – go out and get blind smashed!!!!!

Dinner was great; the wine and beer even better!  We discussed our predicament with increasing enthusiasm and cries of “We’re ‘ard from the ‘Nard – we can do it”!  Encouraged by the flow of alcohol we decided to head off to another bar for a night cap before retiring to our beds!

The other bar was so much more than a bar, it was a restaurant set back in the rocks at the very end of the beach with lay-down seats and little low tables with candles on, the most attentive yet unobtrusive staff in the entire world – and they did accommodation – AND they had a vacancy – we just asked on the off chance –as you do like! I went to view it just for curiosity sake of course – NO WAY were we going to pay for more accommodation!  Oh my giddy aunt!  It was a tree house set up in the coconut palms, reached by wooden slats, with a hammock hanging on the terrace overlooking the beach.  The doors opened up to the most gorgeous room I’ve ever seen, the bedspreads were made into lotus flowers, shell curtains cordoned off the bedroom from the bathroom area, bamboo sofas and furniture were scattered around the room.  The bathroom and shower was the size of a small ship and was actually outside – yeah outside - in the tops of the trees!  It was so unique – bosh! decision made – we now had two rooms to choose from – here’s the thing – guess which one got booted!  Hmmmmmm – no shit Sherlock!!!!!  Three Long Island Iced Teas later and we never even went back to collect our stuff from the other place.  We hung out like Robinson Crusoe in our hammock overlooking the twinkling lights of the beach and all was good with the world!  7am the next morning, I scarpered off to collect our belongings and conscience won out – I paid the bill for the room even though we didn’t stay there.  You know I wasn’t dragged up!!!!! 

Day Two in Koh Tao brought a kayak adventure which culminated in us tipping each other out and it up, not once but thrice!!!!  We were just thrilled with our kayaking prowess I can tell you and kept more than a few tourists on the beach mighty amused!! Eventually we managed to get us both in the damn thing and stay upright and Dan fancied trying his hand at snorkelling in the deep water off the reef but I fear that his new found confidence was about to be dashed if he rushed into this and so gently said that I’d do it first and see if there was anything worth seeing down there.  After about 5 minutes I decided to clamber back into the kayak and as I’d spent so little time snorkelling, Dan was convinced I’d seen “something” down there and decided that yes, perhaps he shouldn’t run before he could walk on that score!!!!  The afternoon was spent on the Koh Tao Cabana sun beds – huge things, like a 4-poster double bed, with comfy mattresses and pillows and we were brought not one, but two towels each for our comfort.  This alone was worth every extra penny we spent on the room!  We were dining at the Rim Lae, the restaurant attached to the Cabana and after showering outside in the rain – bizarre and quite surreal – we were just about to head for dinner and Dan noticed a rather large spider just above our bed!  We are complete novices in knowing what will kill you with venom and what will just give you a nasty nip so hailed down to reception for “a man”!  Up he duly came and removed the offending object, chuckling away to himself, it was only a common or garden spider!  I sure he was thinking what namby-pambies us English tourists were!!!

We BBQ-ed our own dinner in the restaurant at our own table and just sat and listened to the sounds of the night; the rain drizzling away and the rumblings of distant thunder split occasionally by flashed of forked lighting.  Nature at its most ferocious.

Wednesday it was time to head home and we awoke to the most terrific storm yet.  All of a sudden the palm trees were at 45 degree angles with the force of the wind, the electricity went off, the sun just seemed to disappear – the sky was almost black.  We opened the doors to the room and sat on the terrace and just watched in absolute fascination at the weather.  Then the most horrific thought occurred ……Dun Dun Duuuuuuun ….. the ferry trip home! Oh Christ this was going to be interesting.  The next few hours pre-departure were spent begging and pleading and practically selling our bodies for anyone that had anti-seasickness pills!  After an long walk we saw a faint green cross blinking in the distance – a pharmacy!  Wahay!!!!  Saved!  Or so we thought.  The crossing was horrendous!  The huge catamaran might as well have been an origami boat!  We were getting tossed here, there and everywhere and how my wee fella managed to keep his BLT and coconut milkshake down is anyone’s guess.  He seriously manned up to the challenge and whilst he spend the entire trip standing, white-knuckled, gripped on the to hand rails at the top front of the boat, in a force 9 – not speaking, or even looking, at me – he did it – stomach contents remained in tact.  I’m not quite sure how long the green pallor will take to fade though.  Hopefully the thought of our interview for volunteer jobs at the Safari Park will help bring some colour to his cheeks by Thursday! 

Take care M&D x

PS we’ve been for the interview, got the job – you won’t wanna miss the next blog I can tell you!!!!!

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