Ao Hat Lat

Not yet done with sea and sand, we have spent the last couple of days on Koh Phangan, the island most famous for its full moon party, which we avoided entirely by being there on a quiet week and on the other side of the island. We are all partied out for Thailand 🫠

The transfer from Khao Sok to Koh Phangan heralded a South East Asia first: Dan finally got enough leg room on the bus! (See photo).

Our two days on Koh Phangan gave us time for a lightning visit, so we got up relatively early for a hike up to the highest point on the island at Khao Ra. Pulling out his hiking shoes, Dan discovered the lost wallet from two weeks ago, which he must have ‘cleverly’ stowed in his boot on the night out in Ao Nang and then forgotten about in the morning. Needless to say, everything in it is now useless: all the cards have been cancelled, a new driving license is already on its way, and the padlock key is pointless as we used bolt-cutters to destroy the lock. But at least his masculinity is restored and he no longer has to carry random loose notes in his pockets when Chelsea occasionally entrusts him with cash.

The Khao Ra hike was 3km uphill and then 3km back down the same way. Even starting early, the heat and humidity were intense, and we sweated buckets. The hike was made more complicated by the presence of a large, black Labrador puppy, with no obvious owner, who followed us and some Russian hikers all the way up and down the hill. They gave her the zippy nickname ‘Chernokozhiy’. This was all fun and games until the dog inexplicably decided it was time to attack Chelsea's shoes and prevent her from walking, and wouldn't be deterred by stern warnings or physical restraint. She was very happy to bite our hands playfully when we pushed her away, loving the ‘game’. We spent about 20 minutes getting increasingly concerned (including a real worry that this dog might give us rabies or tetanus). Eventually Chelsea had to concede we needed help and Dan went to ask the Russians for assistance, who arrived only to find the menace had calmed down and was innocently tearing apart an abandoned shirt. Gaslighting masterclass.

We are getting better on motorbikes, although Chelsea did manage to tip hers over, very slowly, on an incline at the Khao Ra carpark. Humiliatingly, this also required the assistance of the spectating Russians. Like Western Europe in 2022, we found we relied too much on their resources, and have been humbled.

After the hike, we rode our bikes around the island to recover at an Israeli-dominated beach at Srithanu. Dan’s Saturday school knowledge of the Hebrew for ‘fish’ surprisingly useful in this unique setting. The west side of Koh Phangan has loads of Israeli tourists, with quite a lot of raves advertised in Hebrew. More significantly, this meant this was the first time since we left Australia that we have seen hummus and falafel for sale. After two months of rice and prawns, no political tension could stop us from indulging our base desire for chickpea products.

Lastly, in the evening we bought supermarket beers to enjoy sunset at our hostel. The ranking of Thai beers goes:
- #1, Singha (⭐⭐⭐⭐)
- #2, Chang (⭐⭐⭐✨)
- #3, Leo (⭐⭐)

Our good luck so far this year with hostels finally hit a snag. Chelsea was on a bottom bunk, which made a repetitive creaking noise and slight movement for the entire night. We thought the man above her was wanking, but he appeared to be lying perfectly still, and surely couldn't keep it up for 10hrs straight without a medical emergency. However, in the morning he left and we tried to find out what was wrong with the bed, but couldn't find the fault. The mastur-mystery remains unsolved.

Two final thoughts:
1) We found an electric scale outside a pharmacy and discovered that Dan has managed to lose around 3-4kg while travelling. This explains the presence of so many rib shadows in all our photos.
2) The Thai language has two words you can put after a sentence to indicate politeness, based on the gender of the person you're speaking to: "khat" for men, "kaa" for women. But you have to know someone’s gender to get this right, obviously. This feels like a genius linguistic prank in a country where there are more gender-ambiguous people working in hospitality than anywhere else in the world - it's a misgendering minefield! 😅
10/10, Thailand, keep us on our toes!

More island adventures to come in a few days time...Read more