Goodbye Koh Tao!.. Hello Koh Phagnan… Again!
Woken by the alarm for a second day running, its a hard life… I leave Georgie to hit the snooze button while I dash out for the coffee’s and check the bus times from Koh Tao to Koh Phagnan. Luckily I still have the little moped we used to explore the day before so that makes the 50 yards to the nearest seven eleven even less of a hassle, I pop into a travel agents and enquire about the tickets, he tells me there is a boat at 9:30 and another at 3:00 I take a long hard look at my watch… Which reads 8:15 and the chap informs me the taxi leaves for the pier at 9am… I have every confidence that the feat of packing and giving due attention to the mornings first coffee can be achieved in 45 minutes. Rush back to the room only to find Georgie up and about but also packed and ready!!! We are at the travel agents early and have time to take some last minute snaps of things that we should probably have given a little more time to.
We are dropped at the pier by our pick up truck just as the boat is skimming around the headland, then everyone is lined up down one side of the pier while the unloading passengers get their bags and stroll off all eager down the other. Whilst we are waiting to board a row breaks out between a couple next to us which was pretty funny, not serious but pretty stern and that is followed quite sharply by a short but cold flurry of rain sweeping off the hills and out to sea via us.
A little soggy but still full of beans we find a seat on the boat, fetch some coffee’s and attempt to watch the in boat film… My sassy girl.
Just as we pulled into Koh Pagnan port the film was coming to a drippy climax when a tannoy went off and ruined the ending… Oh well. We had jetted across the sea in little more than an hour and it had rained intermittently but when we pulled alongside the large new pier at Koh Phagnans port the sun was beating down, and its times like that when we feel most like seasoned travellers, everybody around is clutching lonely planet books or maps, checking and re checking tickets and directions… And it all goes to shit the second they hit the pier and all the touts thrust fliers upon them and persuade them to go with them. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with it because we were in exactly the same situation all those months ago but as we elegantly stride past the touts and off up the pier I definitely notice several people following us based on the fact we look like we know what were doing. Sure enough a minibus is soon filled with people for Haad Rin (full moon party beach) and we are on our way. There’s a little chat about places to stay in the bus but nothing much more and as we climb up the steep winding hill and glide down the other side the Haad Rin’s are framed below by vivid blue green waters and white gold sand… Instantly Georgie and I feel justified in cutting our Koh Tao visit well short and instantly we feel like we should also have done it a few weeks ago…
We are dropped off at a spot as close to where we wanted to be as possible and got our hike on, the beach was practically empty, the sand as white as we remembered and the sea as clear and beautiful as ever. We glanced up to the mellow mountain bar where our last awesome hut had been only to see the heartbreaking signs of people already staying there… So we enquired about a hut on the sand, slightly more upmarket and sturdier built also sided by the palms that fringe the beach, with only 20 white metres of sand between us and the sea. Done… After seeing inside we snapped it up, slightly more money than our last one on the hill but I suppose that’s what you get if you don’t want 30 steps between you and the sand. We cut a deal with the lady running the show and booked it for the duration of our stay until the 6th of Nov at a discounted price.
We went for some grub at our old favourites Mr K’s restaurant where a letter of approval scribbled on some paper and stuck to the wall last time we were here with Toby and Laura still hangs proudly.
Back on the beach at our hut Georgie unpacks every single thing she has into the provided wardrobe thing and makes the place good and homely whilst I grease myself up like a Christmas bird and plop a deckchair into the sand.. Again a massive sense of having done the right thing coming here instead of getting to know Koh Tao washed over us…
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