BigIdiotStick: Day 60- Look The Staff Are Handing Surprise Bags And Free Cocaine! Wait, Those Are Barf Bags And Smelling Salts...

Waking up, it was fair to say that we were slightly excited to get out of Chumphon and head out to one of Thailand's (and arguably the world's) most famous islands, Koh Phangan . We arranged a van shuttle through our hotel to get to the catamaran-ferry port. Now, if you are anything like me, when you hear that word catamaran, you don't think of monstrous boats a few hundred feet long that hold hundreds of passengers, but that is exactly what these were. When our shuttle bus driver dropped us off at the ferry terminal, we handed him 300 Thai Baht ($10 Canadian), as we were told to pay the driver by our hotel. We couldn't figure out why the driver was looking at us and the other couple who had taken the shuttle with such a delightful look on his face when we handed him the money. I'll let you guess. A few minutes later while we were purchasing our tickets for the ferry we were informed that we were supposed to pay them (the ferry company) for the shuttle. Naturally my complaint that we had already paid the driver fell on deaf ears and I was forced to pay again for my glorious van ride. I can only assume the van driver's family was going to be eating steak and lobster that night at my expense, or at the very least some fine ass noodles!

Within a few minutes of boarding the ferry, it became quite clear to Colleen and I that it was going to be a rocky couple of hours on the high-speed catamaran. Almost the minute the boat left the dock, the staff were handing out barf bags and smelling salts to any and all takers. There was an older lady sitting in front of us who was physically sick and was sweating like I imagine people perspire after they get some weird ass disease from the bugs in Africa. Add to this that Colleen and many of the other people in our vicinity were holding on to their barf bags for dear life, and well, you get the idea. Colleen repeatedly kept saying that she wasn't going to make it, to which I loving replied "you've got nowhere to go dear, we are in the middle of the FUCKING OCEAN"! True love is a beautiful thing. I kept encouraging the wifey to hit the smelling salts as if it was pure Peruvian coke, and before you know it we eventually reached Koh Phangan with our stomachs barely intact.

Offloading at the ferry dock on the island was another adventure unto itself. Seconds after we got off the boat and collected our luggage we were swarmed almost instantaneously by what felt like hundreds of taxi drivers, tour operators, hotel staff, etc that were all vying to get a piece of our Western wallets. The whole thing was quite overwhelming and we eventually stumbled upon some guy who was holding a sign with our hotel's name on it. While we had no idea what his taxi rate was or if he secretly liked to kidnap white folk, by this point we just wanted to get away from all the other annoying vendors outside. Fortunately, he was a van cab driver who was rounding up people who were all staying at hotels on the same part of the island. Since we were staying quite a distance from the ferry terminal, we got a first-hand look at the beautiful, windy roads and gargantuan hills. Oh, and we also got to pick up our van driver's kids at some random bush house along the way!

Haad Salad Beach aka Colleen's idea of Thailand.

Slightly nicer than Chumphon. Ever so.

After what seemed like an eternity, we finally arrived at our destination, Salad Buri Resort that was located on Haad Salad. Instantly, it was fair to say that the views were the best we had seen on our trip so far! The resort was nestled into the northwest corner of the island, which was one of the quieter areas on this notorious party island. Most of the rooms, were actually small villas that appeared to be balancing rather precariously in the hillside. Ours was naturally at the top of said hill, and over the next few days we would have many a good walks up and down the European-inspired cobblestone steps. Once we were settled in, we decided to just have dinner along the beach at our resort's restaurant. Unfortunately, the staff were the most over-bearing/obnoxious waiters I had ever experienced and we couldn't eat our food fast enough. Eventually, we were able to shake our waitress and made our way down the beach to one of the other local beachside restaurants where we nestled in for some drinks with a view. Despite almost barfing her intestines out earlier on the day, it all seemed worth it to Colleen now, as she remarked, "this is my idea of Thailand". Slightly more expensive than my idea, but hey I won't complain!