January 25, 2006
January 25, 2006
Before I discuss the who, what when and where of recent events, I need to tell several stories that have backed up in the queue.
The viking burial: On Saturday January 21, I rented a scooter so Jodi and I could do a lap of Koh Samui. We enjoyed the ride but were frightened at first since it traveled at speeds greater than we have become accustomed to. I was a nervous wreck actually riding in the fast traffic with all the cars pulling out in front of us and speeding past. It felt like a really intense video game. Making matters worse, it wasn’t until after we took off that we realized the front brake, horn, head light and seat release didn’t work. We christened the scooter with name P.O.S. (Piece of Sh!t). When I returned it the next morning I mentioned its short comings to the owner and she apologized and did not charge me for the fuel I used in my travels. I left thinking that if they gave it a little TLC it would serve them and the renters for along time to come. Later in the day I went out to buy some water and I noticed they had parked the scooter in the field across the street and piled palm boughs around the base as though they intended to burn it. I thought to myself, "No way, they must have just moved it out of the way until they could get it to a mechanic." When Jodi and I walked to dinner we saw a water buffalo eating grass next to the burned remains of the scooter. We laughed for the next three days thinking about why in the world they would have burned it, how much use we could made of that scooter and what a waste it was to do that.
The Cambodia Lonely Planet: In Koh Samui they had a plethora of used book stores that had books in English and German. While browsing I discovered a Cambodian Lonely Planet with a print date of August 2005 making it the most recent publication. I asked the store owner how much and she said, "200 baht ($5USD)." Since it normally sold for $21USD new, I figured I was getting a bargain. When I returned to our "little home" I started reading it and I noticed some subtleties that did not seem quite right. The color pages were in color, the cover identical to the one I saw at Amazon but the pages were a little lighter in places as if they had been photocopied. I had heard they photocopy LPs in South East Asia but I envisioned a stack of white pages all binder clipped together instead of an exact replication of the book. My version was bound, just like a normal book but it is definitely a copy. I don’t feel too terrible about owning a copy of the publication since the "opinions" offered by LP to me are a problem and I wonder if its’ writers receive perks for favorable write ups. Many times on this trip I have visited places they totally dogged and I went to them thinking, "Oh crap, I hope this next town doesn’t suck" and found the town among the best I visited.
They also don’t even mention some of the smaller dots on our map which have definitely been worth some recognition.
Leaving Koh Samui: We planned on going from Koh Samui, to Koh Phangon to Koh Toa and then onto Chumpon, but learned the ferry companies do not allow bicycles on the Koh Toa or Chumphon ferries making it impossible to do as we planned. We asked if we could ride the ferry from Koh Samui to Surat Thani with our bicycles and were told "yes" and we needed to take the only ferry at 1:30PM. We laid low that morning taking our time packing and started riding to the terminal at about 10:30AM. It was in the heat of the day but we figured it was a short ride and we would only have to do a short ride in Surat Thani to some accommodation. We arrived at the ferry terminal and were told that we could not take our bicycles on the Surat Thani ferry and we should take the Don Sak (a.k.a. Don Suck-o-rama) ferry that leaves in 10 minutes. Confused and dazed we bought tickets to Don Sak and assumed we would figure things out on the mainland.
Don Suck-o-rama: Dan Sak sucks! It is a big hole where they dump western tourists off ferries and charge them what I call "the white skin tax" to climb out. It is 80km from the nearest major town and most people ride the "aircon buses" to Surat Thani to make connections with the train and bus systems. Since it was the heat of the day we could not ride 80km and were left with the choice of riding a bus or waiting until evening to ride. I asked several bus and share taxis for prices and one "jackal" tried to convince me that it was 200km to Surat Thani and it would cost 1400baht each because of our bicycles. As I watched the stream of western tourists unload from a bus and collect their twelve pieces of luggage before going on the ferry. I became very annoyed that they could bring so much crap for free and I had to pay extra for my bicycle that only weighed 11kg (not to mention most of the people were carrying more than my 11kg on their western well fed bodies). I began to feel trapped by the conditions and location of my situation. Jodi negotiated with a bus driver and convinced him to take us for 150baht each. I still thought this was high since the cost for just the passenger was 80baht We decided to have some lunch and not do anything impulsive. We figured at worst we could ride two hours in the evening if we could not find a bus driver to give us a good rate. As the hours past, the day became hotter and things became more uncomfortable. I negotiated with another bus driver and he said he would take us for 350baht total, 50 baht more than the rate Jodi negotiated but we took it anyway. We broke our bikes down and I think they learned just how much they were ripping us off when they saw how little space the bikes consumed in the cavernous luggage bay. We boarded the bus and were told we would leave at 2:30pm (we would wait 20 minutes). We didn’t leave until 4:00pm and during the wait the driver put some really annoying talking book tape in Thai on the cabin stereo at a high volume for everyone to listen to. I looked over at Jodi and she was wearing sour face and said, "If I have to listen to this all the way to Surat Thani I am going to cry". Luckily I had my minidisc player handy and we listened to it at extremely high volumes to cover the background noise.
Surat Thani: The bus dropped us in Surat Thani at what I would call a "non location" (a busy street with no transportation alternatives other than the "jackals" that wait there to collect westerners and charge high fees.) Walking off the bus the Thais ahead of me received little attention but when they saw me I was bombarded with calls of "hey, where you go, I take you". I told them repeatedly "I do not require transportation, no transportation, no." Even while I assembled our bikes and was loading the panniers, they still didn’t get that I did not require their services. It seemed the only thing that changed was the price of transport.
Jodi and I rode our bikes a short distance to find a restroom and a place where we could talk and read the guide book. Jodi suggested we find a place called "Ban Don Hotel" that had a decent write up in the book. I talked with several young women and they were not able tell me exact directions but were able to convey that it was close. So I suggested we make a loop of the next block and found it on the first turn. What a find, the room was clean, cheap and across from the night market, I couldn’t have asked for more.
Our guide book describes Surat Thani as follows: "Uninspiring Surat Thani....is generally worth visiting only as the jumping-off point for the Samui archipelago..." That to me is not a very nice review and we read it thinking that it was going to be a bad stop in our travels, but we found Surat Thani very enjoyable. The city had a nice buzz with the best night market of any city we visited on our way up the peninsula. We enjoyed a nice dinner along the river where I sang some Thai kareoke, had a few to many beers and a fabulous time.
The next morning: We awoke at 4:00am to ride 50km to Chaiya on the old Surat highway. It was a route suggested by Mr. Pumpy. We covered the distance quickly and we were in Chaiya by 8:30am. The only hotel in town looked dismal so with the day being cloudy and cool we decided to press onward. We covered 153km of the most beautiful roadway I have ever seen. We seldom saw cars and most of the time we were alone with only the sounds of the environment to keep us company. At times I was concerned that we were lost but the occasional signs always indicated that we were heading in the right direction. We saw so many things and I can only describe it as the Anti Pole. It was everything the pole isn’t...full of life, color, light, fun and beauty. We saw undeveloped beaches with blue water and long stretches of white sand as well as landscapes of rice fields among mountains and palm trees. It was as if we were traveling in a dream and several times I expected to snap from my sleep and still be in Don Suck-o-rama. We eventually arrived at Arunothai Beach and found some nice beach bungalows to spend a couple of days.
Notes: The ride had several bail out points along beaches with beach bungalows. It is not necessary to stop in Chaiya and possible to find nice accommodation along the way. Jodi and I saw three locations that were not in our guide book or on our map.
Before I discuss the who, what when and where of recent events, I need to tell several stories that have backed up in the queue.
The viking burial: On Saturday January 21, I rented a scooter so Jodi and I could do a lap of Koh Samui. We enjoyed the ride but were frightened at first since it traveled at speeds greater than we have become accustomed to. I was a nervous wreck actually riding in the fast traffic with all the cars pulling out in front of us and speeding past. It felt like a really intense video game. Making matters worse, it wasn’t until after we took off that we realized the front brake, horn, head light and seat release didn’t work. We christened the scooter with name P.O.S. (Piece of Sh!t). When I returned it the next morning I mentioned its short comings to the owner and she apologized and did not charge me for the fuel I used in my travels. I left thinking that if they gave it a little TLC it would serve them and the renters for along time to come. Later in the day I went out to buy some water and I noticed they had parked the scooter in the field across the street and piled palm boughs around the base as though they intended to burn it. I thought to myself, "No way, they must have just moved it out of the way until they could get it to a mechanic." When Jodi and I walked to dinner we saw a water buffalo eating grass next to the burned remains of the scooter. We laughed for the next three days thinking about why in the world they would have burned it, how much use we could made of that scooter and what a waste it was to do that.
The Cambodia Lonely Planet: In Koh Samui they had a plethora of used book stores that had books in English and German. While browsing I discovered a Cambodian Lonely Planet with a print date of August 2005 making it the most recent publication. I asked the store owner how much and she said, "200 baht ($5USD)." Since it normally sold for $21USD new, I figured I was getting a bargain. When I returned to our "little home" I started reading it and I noticed some subtleties that did not seem quite right. The color pages were in color, the cover identical to the one I saw at Amazon but the pages were a little lighter in places as if they had been photocopied. I had heard they photocopy LPs in South East Asia but I envisioned a stack of white pages all binder clipped together instead of an exact replication of the book. My version was bound, just like a normal book but it is definitely a copy. I don’t feel too terrible about owning a copy of the publication since the "opinions" offered by LP to me are a problem and I wonder if its’ writers receive perks for favorable write ups. Many times on this trip I have visited places they totally dogged and I went to them thinking, "Oh crap, I hope this next town doesn’t suck" and found the town among the best I visited.
They also don’t even mention some of the smaller dots on our map which have definitely been worth some recognition.
Leaving Koh Samui: We planned on going from Koh Samui, to Koh Phangon to Koh Toa and then onto Chumpon, but learned the ferry companies do not allow bicycles on the Koh Toa or Chumphon ferries making it impossible to do as we planned. We asked if we could ride the ferry from Koh Samui to Surat Thani with our bicycles and were told "yes" and we needed to take the only ferry at 1:30PM. We laid low that morning taking our time packing and started riding to the terminal at about 10:30AM. It was in the heat of the day but we figured it was a short ride and we would only have to do a short ride in Surat Thani to some accommodation. We arrived at the ferry terminal and were told that we could not take our bicycles on the Surat Thani ferry and we should take the Don Sak (a.k.a. Don Suck-o-rama) ferry that leaves in 10 minutes. Confused and dazed we bought tickets to Don Sak and assumed we would figure things out on the mainland.
Don Suck-o-rama: Dan Sak sucks! It is a big hole where they dump western tourists off ferries and charge them what I call "the white skin tax" to climb out. It is 80km from the nearest major town and most people ride the "aircon buses" to Surat Thani to make connections with the train and bus systems. Since it was the heat of the day we could not ride 80km and were left with the choice of riding a bus or waiting until evening to ride. I asked several bus and share taxis for prices and one "jackal" tried to convince me that it was 200km to Surat Thani and it would cost 1400baht each because of our bicycles. As I watched the stream of western tourists unload from a bus and collect their twelve pieces of luggage before going on the ferry. I became very annoyed that they could bring so much crap for free and I had to pay extra for my bicycle that only weighed 11kg (not to mention most of the people were carrying more than my 11kg on their western well fed bodies). I began to feel trapped by the conditions and location of my situation. Jodi negotiated with a bus driver and convinced him to take us for 150baht each. I still thought this was high since the cost for just the passenger was 80baht We decided to have some lunch and not do anything impulsive. We figured at worst we could ride two hours in the evening if we could not find a bus driver to give us a good rate. As the hours past, the day became hotter and things became more uncomfortable. I negotiated with another bus driver and he said he would take us for 350baht total, 50 baht more than the rate Jodi negotiated but we took it anyway. We broke our bikes down and I think they learned just how much they were ripping us off when they saw how little space the bikes consumed in the cavernous luggage bay. We boarded the bus and were told we would leave at 2:30pm (we would wait 20 minutes). We didn’t leave until 4:00pm and during the wait the driver put some really annoying talking book tape in Thai on the cabin stereo at a high volume for everyone to listen to. I looked over at Jodi and she was wearing sour face and said, "If I have to listen to this all the way to Surat Thani I am going to cry". Luckily I had my minidisc player handy and we listened to it at extremely high volumes to cover the background noise.
Surat Thani: The bus dropped us in Surat Thani at what I would call a "non location" (a busy street with no transportation alternatives other than the "jackals" that wait there to collect westerners and charge high fees.) Walking off the bus the Thais ahead of me received little attention but when they saw me I was bombarded with calls of "hey, where you go, I take you". I told them repeatedly "I do not require transportation, no transportation, no." Even while I assembled our bikes and was loading the panniers, they still didn’t get that I did not require their services. It seemed the only thing that changed was the price of transport.
Jodi and I rode our bikes a short distance to find a restroom and a place where we could talk and read the guide book. Jodi suggested we find a place called "Ban Don Hotel" that had a decent write up in the book. I talked with several young women and they were not able tell me exact directions but were able to convey that it was close. So I suggested we make a loop of the next block and found it on the first turn. What a find, the room was clean, cheap and across from the night market, I couldn’t have asked for more.
Our guide book describes Surat Thani as follows: "Uninspiring Surat Thani....is generally worth visiting only as the jumping-off point for the Samui archipelago..." That to me is not a very nice review and we read it thinking that it was going to be a bad stop in our travels, but we found Surat Thani very enjoyable. The city had a nice buzz with the best night market of any city we visited on our way up the peninsula. We enjoyed a nice dinner along the river where I sang some Thai kareoke, had a few to many beers and a fabulous time.
The next morning: We awoke at 4:00am to ride 50km to Chaiya on the old Surat highway. It was a route suggested by Mr. Pumpy. We covered the distance quickly and we were in Chaiya by 8:30am. The only hotel in town looked dismal so with the day being cloudy and cool we decided to press onward. We covered 153km of the most beautiful roadway I have ever seen. We seldom saw cars and most of the time we were alone with only the sounds of the environment to keep us company. At times I was concerned that we were lost but the occasional signs always indicated that we were heading in the right direction. We saw so many things and I can only describe it as the Anti Pole. It was everything the pole isn’t...full of life, color, light, fun and beauty. We saw undeveloped beaches with blue water and long stretches of white sand as well as landscapes of rice fields among mountains and palm trees. It was as if we were traveling in a dream and several times I expected to snap from my sleep and still be in Don Suck-o-rama. We eventually arrived at Arunothai Beach and found some nice beach bungalows to spend a couple of days.
Notes: The ride had several bail out points along beaches with beach bungalows. It is not necessary to stop in Chaiya and possible to find nice accommodation along the way. Jodi and I saw three locations that were not in our guide book or on our map.
posted by Kirk & Jodi Roberts at 7:42 PM
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