March 27
Today we got up pretty early and Annie and I headed out to
the “early” bakery to try to locate the fresh doughnuts and we were
successful!! Luckily! We returned the hotel to share our delicacies
and to rouse everyone awake with the wafting aroma. Once up, we packed up all of our stuff and
headed down to the restaurant for pre-departure coffee. We are sad to say goodbye to our friends at
In Touch and we take some photos to remember them by. All of a sudden, we realize there is a guy
climbing the coconut tree near the restaurant and he is scaling the tree and
chopping off huge bunches of coconuts.
It is very cool to watch how quickly he can climb up the tree. We snap a few photos and then pile into our
waiting taxi to the Catamaran Pier for departure. I stand in line and when I finally get to the
counter, I am told to go stand in a different line….which I do. After procuring our physical tickets we stand
in yet another line to wait for the arriving ferry to empty all of the newest
inhabitants to Koh Tao. We board the
boat and are shortly underway. After
about an hour, we arrive at Koh Phanghan where we stop for about an hour while
waiting for a smaller boat to take us to Surat Thani. We pile onto a bench in the meager bit of
shade they have and wait for the arrival of Boat #2. We manage to purchase fresh fruit and
popsicles while we wait which makes everything much nicer. Once the “new” boat arrives, we get
re-settled into our new chairs for a 2 ½ ride.
We pass the time pretty well by reading and dozing. Once there, we reclaim our bags and depart
the boat to be loaded onto two very large buses. We get comfy and settled for the 3 hour bus
ride to Krabi. We soon meet the nicest
couple from England – Sarah and Lee – and the time flies by as we get to know
them. After about an hour, the bus stops
at a Seven-11 which we assume is for a potty break and snacks……but we are
wrong. We disembark the bus and are told
we have 5 minutes to get back. Once we
re-emerge from the toilet our bus is gone and in its place stands a pick-up
truck with an open back waiting to take us to another bus…..hmm. Well, Paulie has left his book on board the
previous truck and the boys have left their tickets there as well. We are driven to a small restaurant across
town and told to wait. Since we cannot
locate the tickets, we are forced to purchase new ones. Poor Paulie…..he was so into his book and
kept talking about how great it was L. We purchase two new tickets (yea) and board
the bus that will hopefully take us to Krabi.
We are in the same boat (er, bus) with Sarah and Lee so we enjoy the
company while we have it. The time flies
by and we arrive in Krabi around 7pm. We
are dropped virtually in the middle of nowhere and are given extraordinary
quotes to get a taxi to almost anywhere.
Sarah and Lee have booked a very affordable hotel in town and much to
the disappointment of the two women who are trying to get us to book some over
priced hotel rooms, we opt to follow along with our new friend. The women, in a last ditch effort to
discourage us from leaving, pretend to phone the hotel and are pleased to
announce that the hotel has no more vacancies for us……we’ll see about
that. If they don’t we will find another
option nearby. Sure enough, the hotel
has plenty of rooms and we get a fabulous deal to boot. We unpack and are told about a buffet
restaurant nearby so we agree to give it a try.
Sarah and Lee are vegetarians so they can only have salad, which the
restaurant agrees to let them have for free.
We, on the other hand, have a wonderful meal of cooked meats, chicken,
shrimp, veggies, fried rice and plenty of ice cream for dessert. Yum. We
return to the hotel after a quick Seven-11 run (for Mentos, of course) and settle
in for a very restful night.
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