The Road Warriors: Ko Pha Ngan

From beach to shining beach.

We were ready to fight for a seat on the bus if necessary. It was a long haul, up off the island then across the peninsula to Surat Thani. The bus clerk said four hours, but that reeked of BS. There was no way I was spending that indeterminate amount of time standing or sitting on a rail or stuffed in a luggage compartment or whatever. We got a seat thankfully, and it's a good thing too as the ride cut close too around seven hours. I'm not sure. I kept dozing off, occasionally waking to the sound of a young boy howling after being slapped upside the head by his grandmother.

We were deposited next to a tourism office in Surat Thani filled with other backpackers. Everyone appeared to be fixed in position, waiting for something. We knew what we wanted. At 11pm, a handful of boats left the Surat Thani night pier for the three main vacation islands on the east coast: Ko Samui, Ko Pha Ngan and Ko Tao. We wanted the boat to Ko Pha Ngan. "750 baht" we were told, but our healthy skepticism kicked in and opted to leave the other entranced travelers and walk to the pier ourselves. "Ticket same price at pier!" We'll see.

On the way to the pier, we grabbed dinner at a night market. It seems like every town has one of these, and they are always sinfully cheap. At the pier we saw the boats loading up. A man in front sold us our ticket: 400 baht. Traveling tip #1: NEVER arrange transportation through a tour company! With our tickets bought, there was nothing left to do but whittle away the next three hours buying snacks and finding cheap Internet.

The boat was interesting. It was a rickety wooden number, the inside lined with bunks. An overnight boat. I wondered how it would hold up against some serious waves and that scene from Amistad aboard the slave ship kept coming to mind. It was a seven hour ride. God help us if they overbooked this thing too.

Thankfully, it was underbooked and I had a good amount of space to spread out in. The lights went out as the boat left the harbour and almost immediately, I fell asleep. I awoke only once, during a particularly turbulent patch. In the long list of my waking up "where the hell am I" moments, this one ranked high. The room was moving and it was pitch black. I regained my bearings and went back to sleep.

The boat pulled into Thong Sala on Ko Pha Ngan just as the sun was coming up. Anyone who off-the-cuff travels knows that arriving at your destination is only half of the battle. Next came actually finding a place to deposit our heavy, heavy backpacks. Adam's sister told him of a wonderful place called Eden located on a beach called Hat Yuan. So off we went in search of Eden.

Ko Pha Ngan has always been a popular stop on the banana pancake trail. It has the distinction of being the premier party island due to it's notorious full moon parties. These parties can attract an upwards of 10,000 people, all getting completely screwed out of their gourds and dancing to psy-trance, a genre of music whose name alone is enough to make a sensible man's balls retract into his abdomen. Sex and drugs are rampant, and, for a time, the island seems to exist outside of the law. Of course, and island known for it's parties is not content having only one party a month, so numerous half-moon parties and black moon parties have taken root. Really, if the moon happens to exist that particular night, people will party. It is Ibiza East.

Thong Sala is the islands administrative capital and main port. The whole island is about 12km in diameter and very very mountainous, making even road travel difficult. The beach we were heading towards, Hat Yuan, required a trip to the other side of the island followed by a short boat ride. As we each rode on the backs of our own motorcycle taxis, the island's, uhm, "culture" became apparent. Signs advertising parties every 10 meters. Bars named "Purple Haze" and "Bar Rasta". An emphasis on red, yellow and green. Ugly, swirling font. An art gallery selling paintings of Bob Marley with a fat joint in his mouth. Tattoo parlours everywhere. An African drum store. So help me god, everything but unicycle rentals. I felt a bit worried. An entire island procured and emblematized by the epitome of Western laziness.

Our taxi bikes stopped on the beaches of Hat Rin, ground zero for the full-moon parties. It was 7am and the town exhuded a certain calm, but remnants of trash and various signage hinted at the debauchery which regularly transpired here. Tiny cramped stalls lined the beach, advertising booze buckets, each trying to outdo the other in sheer vulgarity. Not even clever vulgarity. Just the kind that would maybe tittilate a high school student. Apparently the denizens of Hat Rin have smoked their brains back into adolescence.

From the beach, we caught a boat a few fathoms up to Hat Yuan, where we would finally be able to rest after 24 hours in transit. by then, the sun was high in the sky and the beach was beautiful. We seemed worlds away from the vulgarity of Hat Rin, and much of what we saw seemed downright classy by comparison. Of course, there was a healthy handful of Che Guevara posters and billboards advertising "happy shakes", but just enough to stay within certain boundaries of tastefulness. Like the right amount of bacteria to curdle milk into yoghurt.

Eden was full unfortunately, so we set up elsewhere and I immediately set to work doing nothing. And so it went. For three days straight. Sure, Hat Yuan offered snorkeling and kayaking and all the other fun vacation stuff, but it also offered a quiet beach, a stunning view and a true feeling of time standing still. No one else on the beach could tell you if it was Monday or Saturday. The occasional boat would roar by, but otherwise it was all ocean. Not even a seagull. There's something about the sound of the ocean, especially for someone who rarely gets the opportunity to hear it. The soft swell, lulls like a siren's song, and with each wave it pulls away a layer of burden, bit by bit, until you succumb to it's grand reverie. For three days I listened to that ocean.

When Eden had a vacancy on day 2, we got on board. The pathway to Eden was a cleverly constructed boardwalk that wound up the rocks that lined the outer fringe of the bay. Around one bend that appeared to go nowhere, our lodging gradually revealed itself. It was perched high, overlooking the bay, yet it seemed to sit outside of view from everything else. Like a little secret that we had been let in on. The lodgings themselves were tiny A-frames seamlessly integrated into the hillside, like someone blew them there as seeds and they took root and sprouted up. We met the proprietor, Kang, and he made sure from the getgo that we all remained on a first name basis. No "sir"s, no "man"s, and think Christ no "mistar"s. After we settled, I resumed doing nothing, this time in the hammock thoughtfully provided with our A-frame.

At night, the nights of the bay glew faintly, almost naturally amongst the environment. From the balcony of Eden, they clung to the curvature of the bay like sugar on the rim of a glass. Just around the way, there was undoubtedly some kind of arrant depravity taking place in Hat Rin, but we seemed worlds away. I met another older gentleman from England who was traveling alone. His name was Phil, and he was also a teacher in Korea, however he was only on holiday. He had been teaching on and off again since he was my age, and spoke with an informed knowledge as to why it eventually became his calling. He had been a ratshit kid well into his twenties that was eventually dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood. It took him a long time to realize what he wanted to do with himself, but since he made his decision to teach abroad, he hasn't looked back. Very interesting perspective to say the least.

On day 3 I actually started getting a little restless. The aformentioned reverie eventually turned into ennui. Listlessness. I think I was getting a bug too. Fatigue. But I had to do something. Someone told me that there was a dirt road that led back to Hat Rin, so I set out trying to find it. I honestly didn't think it possible for a road to cut up the steep mountains that encased the bay, but after a little searching, lo and behold, there it was. I followed it. It kept climbing and climbing. Red dust and dirt garnished my legs from the shin down. It was horribly hot that day too, and I had exhausted my 2 litre bottle of water too early. High up, the sea and sky seemed to blur together, no visible horizon, like entire island was floating in a void. I was so very tired. The descent proved to be much easier, but the road didn't reach Hat Rin. It was a further 5km walk to get there along the steep coastline. By then I could officially say that I had been walking all day long. I made it to town, stumbling in like a wounded villager who had just survived an encounter with Grendel. Just then, Adam sped by on a motorbike and picked me up. He had been whizzing about the island all day and was just about to return the bike.

By then, the sun was beginning to set and bodies were amassing on the beach. Stalls were already starting to sell their booze buckets, and it looked like some people were already drunk. The beach itself was beautiful, albeit strewn with cigarette butts. Exhaustion had become frustration with a tiny dose of heat stroke thrown in. I knew I had to get back to Hat Yuan before any psy-trance elevated my mood to full on indignation. We boarded the boat.

I decided that that night would be my last in Ko Pha Ngan. there was still so much more to do, and time was standing a little too still for my taste. Adam wanted to stay however. He had already booked a dive for the next day. So we agreed that we would part ways, making no discerned plan to meet up later. I figured that we'd at least be able to meet in Bangkok. Until then I would go it alone and see if my sanity would hold. Traveling is all about trying new things right?

So at 9am, with Adam already departed for his SCUBA trip, I woke and dutifully packed for my next destination, Ko Tao. Another beach. After bidding Kang farewell, I wrested myself from the island, leaving Adam and the rest behind to further revel in it's capsule.