We're back at Thong Sala burning up some time until our Ferry for Koh Tao leaves at 2pm, it's only 12:15pm at the moment. Instead of writing up a blow-by-blow I thought I might write up some of the things that I've noticed and/or find interesting about the time we've spent here so far.
First of all, everyone rides motorbikes or large ute and 4WDs around. There's no cars (with the exception of central Bangkok). Motorbikes are the way to get around though, you see motorbikes going past with 4 people and a dog on them, groceries and bags balanced perfectly.
On Koh Phangan I love the massive lightning storms that I've seen, even though of course they mean it's actually also raining and thus making our holiday less fun. They're huge though, the whole sky lights up every 30 seconds or so with these brilliant flashes of light. Way more exciting than any other lightning storms I've seen before.
There are dogs running around all over the place. I knew this'd be the case but it's still strange to see, they just run out on the road, on the beach. Some are obviously pets (like the one we saw sitting on a canoe) while others just seem to roam about with no one to look after them. On Koh Pangan at least there's a dog's home that gives them vaccinations and operations if they need them.
The street vendors who sell food. It took us quite a while to work up the courage to eat from them, being scared about getting an upset stomach. But the food we've eaten from them has been super tasty while being super cheap, you get a massive chicken kebab for 10Baht, that's a little less than 50cents in NZD.
The food. I guess it goes as standard, but the food here is quite amazing. Even getting a basic meal from our Bungalow, you'd expect it to be of average quality because of the cheap prices but it almost seems to be the less you pay, the better the food is. The spices and flavours are so intense, the presentation is excellent and the portions are a good size. Not everything has been great, but 90% of it is.
On Koh Pangan I was amazed at what a horrible dirty, generally crap place that Hat Rin was. Hat Rin is the home of the "famous" monthly full moon party, but the place is a shit hole. As Sarah said in her diary entry, it's full of obviously jaded Thai's who don't trust you at all not to steal, overpriced crap (western) food and of course hundreds of people who all think they're the coolest.
The cabling! I'm amazed that the Internet/phone/power works here in Thailand as there are huge black cables strung everywhere. Often they meet at some point and that point just looks like a massive bowl of black spaghetti. I can't help but stop and stare at it sometimes, it's just that sprawling and insane.
Everyone's a travel agent here, everyone does Internet and everyone does phonecalls. Though it's way better for us to use Skype, as phonecalls are charged at about $1/min, while Skype is about $0.02/min.
The huge bugs, critters and flying things. I love the massive dragonflies, the colourful butterflies and the geckos that run around everywhere. I've had the most massive (2 inch) beetles land on me and been bitten by angry ants as I tried to stop the tinest frog every from being bitten by them.
I'm sure I've missed a lot of things!
Tim
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