Day 90

Sunday 30^th January 2011

We woke feeling fresh and sober which is a rarity since hitting South East Asia. This was good as we had to pack the bags for the penultimate time as we were heading to the next island, Koh Pha Ngan for our last stop of the honeymoon. The plan was for more R & R on the beach but the sun was still refusing to make an appearance. In fact when we arrived at Big Buddha pier to catch the ferry torrential rains started.

The crossing was horrendous. I’m not usually sea sick but the swell was huge and the boat pitched and lurched its way across the bay. Looking out of the window I could see the sky one minute and the swirling angry sea the next. I thought the honeymoon might be coming to a watery end. I think all the passengers were of the same opinion as no one said a word for the duration of the 45 minute crossing – it was a white knuckle ride all the way!

I took this as we boarded, the smiles soon diasappeared when we hit the open water!

Fortunately we did make it – although you should have worked that out since I’m clearly able to write about the experience! We disembarked at Had Rin pier and were collected by a driver from Palita Lodge to whisk us to our hotel.

We were soon there and were greeted warmly by the hotel staff who informed us that they had upgraded us to a pool side villa. We skipped off to the room…. To discover that whilst on the face of it this looked like a lovely big room the bed was damp and the sheets were positively yellow. This might explain the list of rules we were given on arrival. Seemingly on now account were we to go to bed in body paint. For those of you who don’t know Had Rin is the site of the famous Full Moon Party. This monthly event sees tens of thousands of travellers descend on the little island once a month for the Mother of all parties. We, however, had missed it and were just expecting a nice beach resort for the last 4 days of the honeymoon.

We were hungry as lunch was overdue so decided to head out and explore. Palita Lodge was located right on the beach.

I must confess I’ve been to Koh Pha Ngan before, 4 years ago in October I spent 5 nights here with Gemma and we had a fantastic time. I remembered it as a beautiful little island that was far less commercialised than Koh Samui. There was no chance of finding a McDonald’s here. We’d also had many a great night out drinking at the beach bars on the very beach on which I was now standing 4 years later with my husband in tow. I could scarcely believe my eyes. It was horrible. It wasn’t helped by the weather. The rain had stopped but you could scarcely differentiate between the grey cloud and the raging sea. However, this did not account for the fact that the beach was filthy. We picked our way through discarded bottles, glass, straws, flip flops and even a toothbrush as we made our way up the beach. The other end of the beach was even worse. It was dirtier and flanked by a number of dilapidated bars that had closed down.

Thinking things might be better in town we headed up a side road away from the beach. The town was largely deserted. Many of the restaurants and shops were closed. We had our laundry with us and struggled to find somewhere to do it!

We stopped in café that had a few punters watching the Australian Open for some lunch. We had some tasty Thai curries but the food did little to lighten my mood. This was the last stop on our trip and it seemed absolutely awful. I couldn’t see how we were going to pass four days here, especially if the weather didn’t buck up.

We glumly headed back to the hotel in the hope that the weather forecast for the next few days would bring us some happy news. Unfortunately thought the hotels Wi-Fi wasn’t working so we were left wondering. There was nothing else for it but to nap – which we did in spectacular fashion for 3 hours.

When we awoke we decided to head back out and see if the island had any nightlife to offer us. With renewed optimism after a good hot shower we set off again into town.

We walked back down the beach and two of the sordid looking bars now had rough wooden picnic tables out on the beach. There were a number of bucket stalls (drinks are sold in buckets on Koh Pha Ngan) but none of the tables, chairs and rugs that I remembered from years ago to sit, meet new friends and drink the night away. Once in town we discovered there was still no one about and many of the restaurants still hadn’t opened. Those that had were empty.

We came across a restaurant owned by two Danish girls called Same Same that had a smattering of people watching the Arsenal match so opted to eat there. The Aresnal game led into the city game and we sat and discussed our fate. By now we were both in agreement that we didn’t want to end our honeymoon like this and so we would leave and go back to Koh Samui. We spent an hour in an internet café reviewing our options for accommodation back on Koh Samui. We liked the idea of booking into a nice hotel but concluded that the amount we could spend was largely dependant on whether we could get back the money we had spent on the Palita Lodge.

We made our way back down the beach in the direction of home. The two sordid bars now had a smattering of punters but with dance music blaring from speakers that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a festival we didn’t think polite conversation over a bucket or two would really work. We were discussing whether the start watching ‘The long way down’ which I have seen or ‘The long way round’ which Franky has seen to pass the evening when we came across a little bar set up on the beach by our hotel. It only had two punters but the music was at a much more sociable level and so we decided to make the most of our one and only night on the island and join them for a beer.

The two punters turned out to be Jasper, a Dutch lad who was 19 and travelling through Asia for 6 months and Steve, a 32 year old American who was on vacation from his teaching job in China as it is Chinese New Year in a couple of days. They informed us that there ARE in fact people on Koh Pha Ngan and the party is still conducted on the beach. However, nothing really gets going until 1.00am. We were still confused as to what all the people were up to before 1.00am – were they not warming up for the night with a few drinks or even a meal? Steve and Jasper were headed to a bar at the end of the beach called Mellow Mountain and we went along.

We had a few drinks up there overlooking the sea. Sure enough people began to mosey out onto the beach and we could see fire throwers and flags flying down at the bars we had passed earlier. Jasper encouraged us down there to join the party. When we reached the party we realised it really wasn’t our scene. The music was thumping, and I mean thumping. There were maybe 150 people on the beach across the two bars. Most were dancing on tables and I would estimate 80% of them weren’t choosing alcohol as their drug for the evening. The beach was still filthy and we had to pick our way between the litter with slimy wet sand underfoot.

We walked all the way to the opposite end of the beach where the closed down bars were. One still had all its chairs and tables out and was set up above the level of the beach. We climbed up and sat there for a bit surveying the scene. It was really depressing. From what I can gather the party of Had Rin is very much now a drug fuelled party. Consequently the bars are losing money and shutting down. Once the bars have closed no one is taking the time to clean up the beach and so the resort is further spiralling into decline.

We headed back to our wet and yellow bed at the Palita Lodge, happy in our decision to get the hell off the island first thing in the morning.