Hot And Cold Water

(PICTURE: Hannah trying to flee the fleas...)

On the sixth day of our trip Hannah and I checked into Ban's Diving Resort on the other side of Ko Tao. Ban's was highly recommended to me by my buddy/blog fan Steve who took a dive course with Ban's a couple months ago. Hannah and I were originally going to take a course with Ban's too (Hannah to get her open water and me to get my advanced) but we opted not too. I'm glad we made this decision because frankly, the diving wasn't that good. I'm sure normally the diving on Ko Tao is great but the visibility this month was terrible. Out of all the dives I've ever done, these two were probably the worst.

Hannah was battling a cold and I told her she couldn't dive. Rule 1 in diving is not to dive if you're congested or sick. Hannah didn't put up a fight and decided to snorkel instead. She came out on the dive boat with me and went snorkeling while I was under water. She was also disappointed with the visibility and marine life and after freezing our butts off on the boat after, we decided to hit the mainland the next day.

That said, this blog entry isn't about the cold water in Ko Tao. This blog entry is about the cold water everywhere in Thailand. Besides our first night here, we haven't had hot water once in our hotels/guest houses/bungalows. For those of you who know my sister well, she isn't exactly a fan of showering. It's not so much that she opposes being clean but hates when her hair gets really wet since it takes forever to dry. Up until this night at Ban's, Hannah had only showered once (REMINDER: WE'RE ON A HOT SWEATY TROPICAL ISLAND!).

After going in the salt water, Hannah's hair was already wet so she sucked it up and decided to shower at the hotel. Once we were both ready we went and watched another gorgeous sunset. This one was highlighted by a stray dog trying to catch fish in the water. After the sunset, Hannah and I went for a walk along the beach to find a restaurant. While strolling, I noticed something strange: a thousand bugs were flying above Hannah's head. There were no bugs anywhere else except above Hannah's head. I pointed this out to Hannah and she said it must be the gel in her hair. She tried to shake the bugs by sprinting along the beach. I'd say she lost roughly half of them. The sad news is that this really just gave Hannah a reason NOT TO SHOWER AGAIN. It's been a week since that night...and no shower (although Hannah claims rinsing in a waterfall we went to counts!).

(PICTURE: A pretty picture of a dog trying to catch a fish at sunset. Oddly, this dog had less bugs on it than Hannah.)

Ko Tao

(PICTURE: On our private beach in Ko Tao)

Hannah and I have talked about hiking the Appalachian Trail together for quite some time. We have a grand vision of our journey from Georgia to Maine ending with the publication of a book entitled: "Hiking with Hannah. Backpacking with Ben." Depending on how you hold the book you can read about our trip from my perspective or from Hannah's. You know, a classic "he said/she said" type of book. And yes, only our parents would probably buy it.

Well, those dreams came to a crashing halt on the island of Ko Tao. When Han and I arrived on the island we decided to start off on the east coast which we had read was the remote side of the island. After docking on the island we were immediately confronted by a dozen taxi drivers all asking us where we wanted to go. We told them the name of the beach (Ao Leuk -- it's pronounced Ow-Lock...I think) and they instinctively all laughed. We had no idea why they were laughing and they didn't exactly elaborate. We chose one taxi driver and got in the back of his pick-up truck. (On a side note, most taxis here take some form of pick-up truck form where the passengers sit in the bed). The taxi driver told us he would take us close to the beach but couldn't go all the way there because "the road was bad." After about a seven minute drive we realized two things:

1. We had paid too much for our ride since it was really close and easily walkable (Again, bad job by Lonely Planet).

2. The road was really bad.

Here's a picture of Hannah after she slipped on the road:

As you can see the road is pretty broken up. After this first little fall I took Hannah's bag (big brother points!) so she could go slowly down the incline. While Hannah inched her way along -- and sometimes purposely used her butt sliding technique -- I had an epiphany: this road is no Appalachian Trail! At the rate we were going on this road, we would need at least a year to finish the trail.

Eventually we got to the beach and paid $12 for a bungalow. Besides us, only one other bungalow was occupied (late in the night a couple also came). There were so few people actually staying at the resort that we were actually outnumbered by stray dogs...and one took a shining to us.

Odds and Ends

Here are some other odds and ends from Ko Phanang:

1. I woke up one morning and Hannah was doing pilates on the beach. That was roughly 9 days ago. She's been complaining she was sore up until yesterday.

2. For the most part Lonely Planet has been a pretty poor source of information. Many of the time tables are wrong as well as nearly every quoted price in the book. We've also had much more luck finding tastier food on our own compared to their recommendations. However, they did recommend a kick butt place for sunsets -- Amsterdam Bar. Every night on Ko Phanang Hannah and I would drive up this hill to a bar overlooking the west coast of the island. The place not only had a beautiful view of the sunset but also amazing fruit shakes.

3. Hannah is a slob. Yes, a slob. She has the unbelievable ability to dump out her bag all over a room. This is a picture of a hotel we stayed in just for a night before departing the island. Notice my bag in the foreground versus hers in the background.

4. It seems to me that every place Hannah and I go to Bob Marley's voice is pouring out of the speakers. On Ko Phanang there is even a Bob Marley village near Sallad Beach...and about twenty dudes (Thai and foreign) who look like Bob Marley. This is just a general question: at any given moment, how many beach/island resorts/bars around the world are playing Bob Marley at the same exact time? My guess is at least 10,000. On Ko Phanang alone there are probably 75.

Waterfalls and Crocodiles

Despite my tender ankle, Hannah and I decided to go on a hike to a waterfall. If my injury wasn't enough to turn us back perhaps something more dangerous would. I don't know, maybe something like five guys in Army uniforms carrying M-16 machine guns at the start of the waterfall hike.

Yeah, when Hannah and I arrived at the park and started to hike these five or so guys with freshly polished guns crossed our path. Normally this might be a reason not to go hiking in unfamiliar woods but these guys seemed really friendly as they smiled and waved at us. A smile can really be disarming (although in this case I wish I had the arms).

So, Hannah and I ventured into the jungle. For the record, the voice in my head had spoke out earlier when I told Hannah we wouldn't go on another hike to the highest point on the mountain unless we had a guide. This hike we were told was easy enough to do on our own.

The hike was quite pretty with two different waterfalls and a well marked trail. When we got to the top of the mountain we discovered a sleeping hiker in a hammock and a great view of the island.

As we rested, I asked Hannah what animals were in the jungle. She opened up her Lonely Planet Island edition (thanks for the book, Steve!) and began to read. I forget all of the animals she said except one -- WILD CROCODILES.

Frankly, this scared the crap out of me. I can't remember if I blogged about it earlier this year or not (I'll search in a minute) but I have had FOUR dreams of a crocodile eating either a friend or a family member of mine so far this year (I usually have this dream after eating salty hot pots).
Each time the dream is about me and X (one time even my sister) walking through the woods when a croc jumps out and devours X. I try to fight off the croc in my dreams but soon am chased by it through the woods. When Hannah told me that there were crocodiles in the jungle I had a slight moment of panic. A minute later this appeared from under a rock:

It's hard to tell from this picture but that lizard is at least two feet long. It was a big boy. This lizard didn't scare me so much but it made me start to think, "What if some bigger reptiles are near." Hannah and I soaked in the view for another minute and took off...

Being A Good Big Brother

(PICTURE: this picture was taken at around 7PM on the beach. That's the beach restaurant. To get to this restaurant/our bungalow you need to traverse down a hill which is a heck of a lot darker...)

My ace travel adviser Adam Cooper told me that I had to go to the Ko Phanang night market to sample the "greatest chicken on a stick anywhere in the world."

After watching a beautiful sunset one night, Hannah and I drove to the night market. Unfortunately the chicken stand Adam recommended was out of out of chicken. All they had left were two pork sticks. I tried them and they were delicious. The sauce was really sweet and only peaked my interest on how the chicken would taste. The next night Hannah and I went back again an hour earlier...but the chicken was already sold out. All they had left this time were the chicken innards. I tried them...and they weren't so good.

But that isn't the point of this blog entry. The point is about me trying to be a good big brother. After the night market, Hannah and I rode carefully back to our bungalow. It was dark out but we managed to make it home without a problem...well, almost home. The only problem with the Ocean View Bungalows is that there is no driveway. At night I had to leave my bike parked on the street. From the street down to our bungalow is a treacherous step path with NO LIGHTS. Hannah and I didn't know there were no lights and thus didn't have a flashlight with us (Hannah was given a travel light as a present by a friend and I had my cell phone which handily has a flashlight built into it).

Those that know Hannah know that she's a klutz. A big klutz. She's had many falls in her time including one back in college that had left her with a recently discovered broken bone in her foot (this was discovered AFTER she ran the D.C. marathon). Well, I didn't want any sprains/broken bones on my watch so I told Hannah to wait by the bike (again making her wait alone on the street) so I could go fetch some light. I should tell you now that if you ask my Dad, there are two klutz's in our family. Hannah is one and I'm the other. I made it about four steps down the pitch black path before I twisted my ankle and fell. Whoops. The ankle is broken but it is still sore...a week later.

The Voice In My Head

(PICTURE: Hannah and I were one of only four people I saw who wore helmets.)

When I was a little kid I used to play on a boulder in our neighbor's backyard. That "boulder" I'm sure is no bigger than a Mini Cooper but as a kid it felt huge. Well, my father used to tell me not to play on the rock because I might get hurt. Being the young adventure seeker I was, I didn't listen to him and sure enough eventually fell of and had to get stitches above my left eye.

Probably since that day I've had a voice in my head -- my parents' voice. And well, I always hear the voice ("Be careful", "You can get hurt", "Is that safe", etc. etc.) I don't always listen to it. Traveling with my sister these last couple weeks I've been hearing that voice louder and clearer than ever...and reading it in email form: "Take care of your sister."

Well, the first time I chose to ignore the voice on this trip was when Hannah and I arrived on Ko Phanang. Being an experienced motorbike driver I decided Hannah and I should get a bike to explore the island. I made a compromise with the voice which was yelling at me, "DON'T DO IT!" The compromise was this: I'd get the bike but wouldn't allow Hannah to drive it. Hannah told me she wanted to try when we first got the bike but I said I wouldn't allow her. This is a girl who rented a bike when she lived in Belgium and only rode it one time because, "I can't ride on cobblestone."

Well, Hannah and I got a 125cc Honda Dream and took off for our bungalow. As we pulled out of the bike rental shop I immediately heard a strange noise coming from the motor. I decided to ignore it. A few seconds later I heard another noise -- a screetching from the brakes. I also ignored this too. What I couldn't ignore though were the GIGANTIC hills that we had to climb to get to our side of the moutain. Between Hannah, myself and our two backpacks, our bike had no chance of making it. Within the first ten minutes, Hannah had to get off the bike three times and walk up steep hills. Oh yeah, there was one other thing I couldn't avoid -- Hannah's bear hugs around my stomach. Hannah had never ridden a bike before and was pretty scared. I could tell exactly how scared by how hard she squeezed me...and man, she was squeezing pretty hard. After just a few minutes of fear she told me she didn't want to try and drive the bike anymore.

The problem with going up big hills is that you also have to go down big hills. After starting to go down a huge hill I realized that our brakes were really crappy. I heard that voice in my head and decided to pull over. I dropped Hannah off and rode alone back to the the bike shop we had gotten the Honda at. I complained to the owner and then went with him to the repair shop where two mechanics quickly did a maintenance check on the motorbike. After oiling the gears, tightening the brakes, putting more air in the tires and who knows what else, I took off again and picked Hannah up. I'd liked to say that the bike was good as new, but it really was still kind of crappy.

That said, Hannah LOVED the motorbike. Without the bike we would have been marooned on our isolated beach. With the bike we were able to expolore nearly the whole island (although had to quit a few explorations for lack of decent roads).

Two small funny anecdotes about the bike. In my 7 months of riding a bike in Vietnam I have run out of gas exactly ZERO times. In my three days of riding a bike in Thailand I ran out of gas TWO times...both while going up steep hills. Twice I had to leave Hannah on the side of the rode(by that point I had left her on the side of the road about six times) as I coasted back down to the bottom to get more gasoline.

The other funny story is this: When I first brought back the bike to the owner he told me it was my fault and I didn't know how to ride a motorbike. Well, when I brought the bike back on our last night I paid the owner's assistant money to drive me back to the other side of the island (again having left Hannah so she didn't have to ride the bike with me in the dark). After about two minutes the owner's assistant turned to me and said, "Bike is very bad." Two minutes later he dropped me off on the side of the road because the bike wasn't strong enough to get him and I up the hill.

Ko Samui to Ko Phanang

It turns out that the bathroom at the Ko Samui airport was our favorite part of the island. The rest of the island, although beautiful, felt like a spring break spot. After checking into our hotel Hannah and I went for a walk around the town. The main strip of the town was filled with fast food joints (there were two Burger Kings and two McD's in four blocks), loud bars, and even louder bar girls/hookers/tranies trying to get our attention. This wasn't the island paradise Hannah and I were looking for and quickly decided to head to Ko Phanang the next morning.

We made the most of the night though and ate our first pad thai (one of now dozens), shared our first mango shake (first of dozens) and ate a thai street pancake for dessert (also first of dozens). We ended the night by dipping our feet in the ocean.

The next morning we went to Ko Phanang, an island highly recommended to me by a few people. One of the people who told me about the island is a guy named Adam Cooper who I met in Cambodia back in March. Adam, a California Jew, was traveling with his sister...who also happened to be named Hannah. The Cooper siblings are definitely in the upper echilon of cool people I've met this year and thus I took Adam's words of advice as solid gold. Adam told me to go to Ko Phananag and stay at Ocean View Bungalows on the north side of the island. Hannah, my Hannah, and I rented a motorbike (this will be tomorrow's blog) and drove to the bungalows. Adam Cooper was right -- the place was paradise. The bungalows were on a secluded beach with amazing views and barely a soul in sight. Hannah and I stayed in a bungalow about forty feet from the breaking waves and loved every minute of it. Here's us on a rope swing by our bungalow:

The other reason Cooper told me to stay at the Ocean View Bungalows was because the food at the restaurant was "killer." Well, again he was right. Hannah and I ate nearly all of our meals at the beachside, open air restaurant. The food was simply amazing and still the best food we've eaten on this trip. Equally amazing were the looks we got from the waiters when we ordered enough food for four people.