Hat Noppharat Thara

09:50
Learning much from our experience of getting up too early, and having too much time to pack when leaving Koh Tao, we once again get up too early, and have too much time to pack when leaving Koh Pha Ngan. Not *quite* as much sitting around time today, so I guess that’s progress. We’ve checked out of TropiCoco, and are waiting for our taxi to the ferry jetty, for onward travel to Krabi. Today is our last really chunky bit of travel before we head home, and it’ll doubtless feel a bit of a slog.

We’ve both loved Koh Pha Ngan. It’s difficult to think of another place that so effectively combines blissed out relaxation with a hedonistic party life-style. We’d come back, for sure - but would want to explore more of the island, and perhaps stay on one (or more) of the other beaches around the island. And lovely though TropiCoco has been, there have been times when it’s felt it could have been a beach resort pretty much anywhere. It’s quite a family oriented place, and also has one of the few pools along the beach. The owners are more than happy to welcome customers not staying at the hotel to use the pool and beach bar facilities, which has left it feeling a little crowded at times. Our guesthouse in Ao Nang looks a decidedly more adulty affair…

15:00
Our taxi down to Thong Sala jetty transpires to be a Songthaew, the ubiquitous covered pick-up truck with benches that roam the Thai islands. It’s a far cry from the air-conditioned van that met us on arrival. The journey down to the pier is fairly bumpy, and requires the passenger to hold onto a roof rail for dear life to avoid being deposited out of the rear of the truck. I enjoy it perhaps just a tad more than Vicki.

There’s a small amount of confusion at the pier when a ferry arrives which we assume to be ours, but isn’t. We’re quickly boarded onto the correct ferry though, and grab some space in the shade on the outside deck. The crossing to Koh Samui is blissfully quick and smooth. Today is looking good. At Koh Samui though, far more passengers board than depart for the onward journey to Surat Thani, and the boat suddenly feels full to bursting. A family with small child ask to share our bench, which is kinda ok - I guess, but leaves us hemmed in a little. We end up moving, and skulking inside for the last 40 minutes of the journey, which has the upside of being air-conditioned.

Surat Thani is the boat’s last port of call - all change please, all change. Disembarking the boat is a bit of a clusterfuck. No one is really sure where to go, where to collect luggage etc etc. Vicki and I are briefly separated while I head off to grab my rucksack - her wheeled luggage will be waiting for her on the dockside. We make off to find our coach to take us down to Krabi. Buses are numbered 1 to 8. 1 is going to Surat Thani airport, 2 is going to Surat Thani train station, 3 is going… and so on. Buses 7 and 8 are going to Krabi, so we need to jump on one of these. Rather unhelpfully, the buses are also numbered with completely different numbers. Bus number 7 for example, also has large stickers on it declaring it is bus number 14. We find a helpful driver who is loading luggage onto what seems to be bus 7, and he agrees we’re in the right place.

The drive is around 2 1/2 hours. The bus has air-conditioning, but it’s a little lacklustre. Vicki decides to sleep through as much as possible, in some kind of snoozy protest. I envy her. No matter how much better I am at sleeping than I used to be, sleeping upright on a bumpy coach is, I think, always going to be beyond my powers of nap. I instead, read, watch some TV and watch the world go by. This is the first properly rural part of the Thailand mainland that we’ve travelled through, and it’s fascinating to see the changes in scenery, architecture and land use as we pass.

20:00
At Krabi, our cab is waiting to take us onwards to Ao Nang, a beach about 10km to the South. We arrive at our new accommodation, Blue Bayou around 16:30 - just coming up on 7 hours since we left our room at TropiCoco. Our longest journey from here on in should be less than half that.

Our room at Blue Bayou is lovely, but HOT. The ‘feels like’ temp down here is 42C, and the A/C has not been running in our room ahead of our arrival. It’s just starting to cool down as we leave to find beer, food and breeze. The seafront is a short, 3 minute walk away. There’s a warm but cooling breeze (no, I don’t know how that’s possible either) running along the wide boulevard that separates the beach from a row of bars and restaurants housed in shipping containers. We park ourselves at the first that has some jaunt - a pretty kitsch place called Pink Lady. We request, nay - we demand ice cold beer, and it is forthcoming. Sweet, sweet Jeebus it’s good. Our first beer lasts next to no time. We order another, and continue to devour it’s icy coldness. We’ve eaten nothing today beyond a handful of peanuts or cashews en-route, and are both suddenly hit by a famished hunger. Several containers down is a traditional Thai place called Cholmay. We bowl in that direction in urgent search of sustenance.

The food at Cholmay is top notch. A green shrimp curry for Vicki, and a southern yellow seabass curry for me. The green curry is excellent, but I’m really taken by the yellow curry. It’s unlike any other Thai curry I’ve had. There’s no richness of coconut milk (which I had assumed there would be), but rather the sourness of tamarind, the sweetness of pineapple, and the heat of chilli. The curry ‘sauce’ is more of a broth, but none the worse for it. It’s fabulous. One of my fave meals of our trip so far. We have some stir-fried morning glory (fnarr) to accompany it which is also excellent. Morning glory occupies a place somewhere between broccoli and spinach, and is the most common everyday green vegetable in Thailand. It’s simply stir-fried here with chilli, garlic, ginger, soy and fish sauces, and finished with a little oyster sauce. Brilliant.

We’re planning / hoping to meet Pete while we’re in town, who is the younger brother of our dear friend Debbie. Conscious we need to freshen up fairly markedly before we encounter other humans, we head back to Blue Bayou. A shower seems an utter waste of time, so I have a dip in the pool instead. It’s warm and luxuriant, and right outside our terrace doors…

23:30
We successfully find Pete, and end up back at the Pink Lady, where a half-decent band are covering the likes of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Radiohead, Franz Ferdinand. Pete’s a very easy drinks companion, and tells us many stories of his 12+ years living in Thailand. He’s here for the duration - he and his Thai wife have plans in play to build a retirement home in the North of Thailand, and holiday homes for rental in the South. We spend a delightful hour or so shooting the breeze, before Pete heads off to meet Ffa, his wife.

We’re not quite ready for our day to end, so head down to the daily night market. The nightly market? I don’t know. You get me, right? Here, there is a less than half decent band murdering the likes of U2, The Police, Bryan Adams. They are not good. Vicki has earplugs, which we both employ. We have a little wander around some of the market stalls, but will come back for a more complete look around tomorrow. Vicki has her mind slightly set on replacing one of her thumb rings, and this could be a good opportunity.

We stop in at Dragon’s Breath on the way back to Blue Bayou - one of the many weed dispensaries we’ve seen. Strictly speaking, these are intended for the sale of medically required cannabis, but from what we’ve seen, heard and read, no one is asking for a prescription. The range of weed on sale is both impressive, and daunting. Neither of us is a big smoker. I had my time when I was younger, but very rarely smoke these days. Mainly outside of the UK to be honest. Vicki has just never got on with smoke - doesn’t like the feeling of being stoned. We’ve agreed to try once more, with (hopefully) something not too strong, and we’ll carefully moderate our intake. The guy in the shop gives us a few different options for Sativa strains, and we plump for a strain called Black Cherry, on the basis that we like the fruit, and it smells nice. He makes us a ready rolled with the precision and speed of one who has done it countless times before, and we’re quickly on our way back to our room.

No bifta tonight though - it’s past 23:00, and Vicks is ready for more sleeps.Read more