A Good Day.

All-

Since we last updated you with any information on our travels, we've moved from the grimy but lovable city of Bangkok, to the beautiful Gulf of Thailand. We opted out of flying to get here, and instead decided to take the night train. So, on the afternoon of the 3rd, we headed over to the Bangkok train station and got on what we expected to be a 12 hour ride to Sura Tani.


Within an hour of getting on the train, we noticed something strange. We werent moving. At all. Our 12 hour trip turned into a 14 hour trip right off the bat. Bad news, right? Well, it turned out that wasn't the only problem. As we tried to go to bed in our pull out beds we each realized something distinct. For Nico it was that his bed didn't have blinds to properly shield the light - and they never turned the lights out like in a night flight. For me, it was that my mattress, made out of folded down vinyl seats, was not at all breathable (who would have guessed). Needless to say, we were ecstatic to hop off at 8 in the morning... even though we were just about to get on the 1 hour charter bus and 3 and a half hour boat ride to Koh Phangan.


Getting here was clearly worth the wait. Koh Phangan is beautiful. While it is clearly a tourist draw, we somehow managed to book one of the only places on the island that is not filled with drunk people all the time. Instead, our 50 room bungalow resort is sitting on a private beach, with bungalows built into the surrounding hills, costing each of us a whopping 8 dollars a day. Awesome. Needless to say, after arriving yesterday afternoon all we wanted to do was zone out. So at around 4 o clock, we started the stream of mixed drinks at the pool bar (infinity pool looking out at the beach) and just relaxed.

While it wasn't too early, we woke up around 9 this morning and decided to explore. What Nico does best. What Max attempts to do awkwardly. "You mean, you can't just pay for that?" Despite my ridiculousness, we opted to explore using the best method of transportation on the island has to offer, moped. Note: This past line will infuriate my father, despite the fact that he knows I ride dirtbikes and was planning on doing this regardless... so Dad, I love you anyways, but let me just say Moped Moped Moped.

That being said, we took off to look at the beach home to the infamous full moon party. You see, once a month people flock to Koh Phangan to throw a rave / techno / bash, filled with acts illegal in most countries and more booze than can be imagined. As Nico and I will be partaking in this party when we return from a small excursion to Koh Tao, we wanted to check the area out. Tourist central. We ate lunch and took off as quickly as we could back down the windy road that took us from our secluded half of the island to a veritable metropolis of Aussie and European vagrant students.

Lucky for us we took a wrong turn and ended up going north directly at the southern tip of the island. For those of you familiar with volcanic islands, this is much the same. Despite not being large, the island has 3 huge moutains in it's center. The road we wound up on twisted its way through the valleys in between and dropped us off in a remote northern part of the island after getting a full hour of spectacular views and rolling hills. Though I was not at all impressed with the island after departing from party central, my faith was restored after seeing miles of untouched jungle, winding up at a Wat (hundreds of years old) tended by a single monk, taking a 2km long dirt road through shacks to a damn in the middle of nowhere, etc.

We slowly found our way back home, and are taking the rest of the night off. All I can say, is that it was a good day.