Ko Pha Nga, Ko Tao, and My Birthday

I'm pretty behind on my blogging right now -- way more happens in a day than I can capture in the limited hour of internet time I get a few times each week -- so I'll have to leave out a few details in this part.

Back to Ko Pha Ngan --- Being the beach party capital of Thailand, we decided to check out the bars and see what the nightlife had to offer. We went up to a very chill lounge on the rocks at the end of the bay where a few groups of backpackers were sitting in circles of floor cushions. We sat down and started talking to the people sitting next to us who were Japanese kids around our age that didn't speak much English. I pulled out the few Japanese phrases I had been storing in the recesses of my brain for a moment like this, and we immediately broke the culture barrier and clicked. We had a great time drinking, dancing, and laughing at each other. We walked down the beach toward the fire shows where we parted ways (the Japanese guys were getting jealous that we were stealing the attention of their girlfriends... oops). When we sat down to watch the fire show at another beach bar I thought I heard people speaking Mandarin for the first time in a while. The beer had been flowing readily, and I was feeling pretty confident, so I approached them to try out my Chinese skills. The whole family of Beijingers - parents, kids, grandparents, uncles - was blown away when I started speaking their language. We talked about where I was from, where I was going, why I knew Chinese, where they were from, the details of their travels, the food in Thailand, the meaning of the character on the bead bracelet the monk had given me in Kuala Lumpur, and the father gave me his phone number and said I had to call them when I got to Beijing. I felt bad leaving Brian out of the linguistic loop, so I said goodbye and left - adrenaline rushing from my first extended encounter with native Beijingers. I think I might just be able to survive my semester!

We walked back into town to find some more Pad Thai and ran into a group of Irish girls, some Italians, and some Israelis - with whom I used a little Hebrew, just to see if I could. There are more Israelis here than I've seen anywhere outside Tel Aviv. Half of the signs are completely in Hebrew, and most people have no idea that the writing is not just some strange Thai script.

We ended the night fairly early and caught a ferry the next day to Ko Tao - the most famous diving resort in Thailand. As we pulled into the town we were once again rushed by tuk-tuk drivers, taxi drivers, hotel reps, and travel agents trying to force us to give them money. "Where you go, friend? You need taxi! Taxi boat, taxi boat!" After successfully restraining each other from stabbing the next person who asked us "where you go?" we found our way to the less hectic northern part of the beach which was WAY cool. This part was a mix of the backpacker vibe and clientele of Ko Pha Ngan and the relaxed boardwalks of Saltaire, Fire Island. We scouted out the best beach cafes as we looked for a hotel.

Our first night there was pretty relaxed, and we spent most of the evening sitting at a cafe with a balcony over the beach that had pillow recliners next to low tables, where we watched the sunset and ate dinner. The next day we switched our room to a nicer bungalow (I wanted to have a better place to spend my birthday - the first night was kind of just a last-resort, cheap room), which we shared with a bathroom gecko the size of a small child. I woke up early to do some scuba diving with a group of two Italians, a Dutch girl, and an English girl. The guides were English and Australian, and they thought my accent was southern Irish because they were so unaccustomed to seeing Americans. (I don't see the resemblance - maybe because we both pronounce our 'r's?)

The truck ride that took us across the island to catch our boat was breathtaking. We all squished in the back of a pickup truck with our gear and climbed up and down STEEP hills with hairpin single turns on single lane dirt roads. The bay where we were dropped off was equally gorgeous - the ancient granite cliffs that had crumbled into the sea millennia before had left a picturesque bay rimmed by enormous granite boulders with no beach. These boulders extended down into the water for about 40 meters, and we did our first dive around and through the caves made by the stacks of underwater rock. This was the first cave diving I have ever done, and it was unreal - better than anywhere I've been by far. The fish life wasn't amazing on the east side of the island, but we did get to see some moray eels and trigger fish. (No sharks, and no whale sharks unfortunately... maybe next time..) The second reef dive was great too, but the visibility wasn't that spectacular.

We spent the afternoon on the beach and at that cafe again, reading, eating, and drinking pineapple shakes. We found a bar that night with fire shows and met some more English girls (they are everywhere). The fire shows were great at first, but when you dip a stick into kerosene and start spinning in quickly, centripetal force kicks in and sprays the kerosene everywhere, making for smelly, flammable clothes - not fun, we left.

Monday morning - my birthday! We rented dirt bikes and decided to explore the island for the day. After figuring out how to maneuver the clutch and how to shift (pretty straightforward)
we set off for the other side of the island. When I mentioned the conditions of the roads before I think I failed to go into enough detail. The island is about one mile wide and there is a mountain range in the middle that rises to about 1,500 feet - that's not much room for a slow grade, the island is steep. Unlike most mountainous places, Ko Tao hasn't figured out switchbacked roads or pavement. The roads are more like trails, and they go directly up one side of the mountain and straight down the other. Some of the roads we drove over were waaay too steep to walk on.

We tried a few routes that were too steep ever for the dirt bikes, so we settled on going back to the bay where I had set off on my diving trip the day before. We ran down to the end of the pier and jumped in to let the exhaust pipe burns on our legs sizzle in the cool water. We swam around for a while enjoying the tropical reef below through makeshift hand goggles before grabbing some drinks at the empty cafe before heading off to the next bay. We spent the rest of the day taking adrenaline-gushing rides over the steep hills and discovering the untouched beauty of the most remote parts of Ko Tao. Never having ridden a motorcycle or dirt bike before, and riding one for the first time on some of the most challenging terrain you can imagine for a beginner was the most exhilarating experience. My heart was racing more while navigating these so-called-roads that it was repelling down the sheer cliff on Ko Samui just a few days before.

After having a delicious dinner at one of the beach bars we found on the south end of the island, we headed back to shower and go out for the night. We went to watch the fire show for a little while, where we ran into the English girls again. On our walk back from that bar we found a Volkswagen bus-turned-beach bar and sat down with a circle with an Israeli girl, a Dutch guy, an English guy, and an Irish guy and had some great conversation as the night grew later. We all headed back to the first bar where a "doctors and nurses" party was going on that had become more of a Euro-style rave. I wiggled my way through the masses, enjoying the characters on the dance floor. Without really knowing what hit me, a short Thai girl and her friends latched onto Brian and me and wanted to dance. We danced for about 20 minutes and she was getting pretty wild until she pulled me down to her level and whispered in my hear ("1000 baht for tonight, you and me"). I politely declined my offer by the kind Thai hooker and Brian and I laughed our way back to the bungalow to call it a night - a birthday well spent.