11-2-10: Lonely Beach, A Step In The Right Direction

I didn't get a chance to write yesterday, kor thoad (sorry). I will
write two bits today.

Yesterday: We traveled from White Sands to Lonely Beach, same island,
just more south. We got breakfast (pad Thai for me and and pork noodle
soup for Robert) and oh so tasty coffee before we left. We asked the
truck taxi to drop us at Paradise Cottages, chosen because it has
hammocks and was cheap. Granted it is the low season, so most places
are offering a deal. Low season continues until the middle of November
it seems, then rooms get considerably more expensive. Our rule for
ourselves was that we had to look more than one place before we chose
our lodging, since haste led to poor lodging the night before.
But...we looked at one room, heard the price and we couldn't say no.

The room is a cement-walled cottage with screened windows, private
bathroom, fan and giant bed. It was impeccably clean and for only 400
baht/night (12 US dollars). We booked it and headed to the hammocks at
the restaurant, where we lost a few hours. Where did they go?
Eventually we tried their marginally over-priced food. I was pleased
to see to-fu on the menu and even more pleased when it was perfectly
fried.

We seem to walk everywhere these days, yesterday was no different. We
went exploring to find the beach proper as there is no sand at
Paradise Cottages, just rocks on the bay. As we walked around town
here, we realized that we wasted our time going to see the "amazing"
beach at White Sands. Although it is too soon to declare a favorite,
Lonely Beach is a step in the right direction. It is less touristy
here with way fewer visitors and the people that do come here are of a
different sort than those at White Sands. The visitors here are
younger, more budget-driven and out to explore rather than exploit the
locals.

Next we used our feet to get to the next beach, Bailan Bay. This was
maybe not the smartest plan because we had to walk along the road with
traffic zooming by and there were some monster hills to cross. Bailan
Bay was another bust, just a grouping of shady looking resorts with
far less charm than those in Lonely. We hoofed it all the way home,
excited to use our clean and private shower ---- with hot water! A far
cry from Independent Bo, indeed.

The shower. Um. Not as pleasant as I had hoped. I used our Dr.
Bronners, which has a unique feel typically, but this time it was
different. The water made me sticky and the soap struggled lathering,
and my hair...oh god...ROPE. Seriously. It wanted to dread, badly.
Even after ripping all the knots out, I still couldn't run my fingers
through it, let alone put it in a pony tail. What a cruel joke. Robert
was next up and echoed my complaints, thinking the water was brackish
or crazy minerally. We thought that this maybe was the norm around
here, but we met a Brit who ran a bar here and he told me, no. If you
go swimming in the ocean and then shower in ocean water, are you
clean? People get water from the mountain. Water like that is not
good. Our lovely lodging isn't looking so lovely.

Dinner was a noodle bowl for me and mama noodles for Robert. Extremely
tasty. Best of all, we found a BananaCrepeMan!! Explain. In White
Sands we saw a street vendor making these banana filled crepe pockets.
We passed him about four times, gawking, but we had just stuffed
ourselves with papaya salad, soup and noodles, no room for a banana
crepe. This time, we indulged. We ordered a chocolate one, which sadly
wasn't filled with bananas, walked ten paces, tasted it, walked ten
paces back, and ordered another one, filled with bananas this time. I
told the man a-loi, delicious, but he already knew. If you can't think
of another reason to come to Thailand, come for the BananaCrepeMan!

Today: We took the day off to do nothing more than sit about, swing
about rather, in our matching hammocks. We ventured out for breakfast
though and had rice soup, which we think is typical Thai breakfast
fare. It was delicious and the place was excellent. Nice owner, clean,
but not fancy, good book selection and mmmm, great food. We order
everything spicy now, because I think they tone their dishes down for
falangs, which is not what we like. This was great- I even got tofu
again, Robert of course got pork.

Next we went looking for Internet. Wi-fi to be exact so that I could
post from my pad. We ended up wandering a fair bit and ended up at
Little Eden (they have a facebook page if you want to see pictures!).
We killed most of the day their. It was another western-Thai
establishment, meaning a western guy married a local woman and
together they run cottages and a restaurant. I heard the guy speaking
German, so I sent Robert to find the toilette with the phrase: Wo ist
die toilette? The man didn't understand Robert's german at all,
finally catching "toilet" and pointing him in the right direction. The
man was British. He was also a little kooky in an excellent way. We
hung out there until early afternoon, eavesdropping, blogging,
writing, etc. Everyone else we saw there was German, I enjoyed trying
to piece together their conversations. It got dramatic when they asked
the proprietor to help them call the tourist police, which
dishearteningly was quite difficult despite all the signs posting the
number. There was some dispute about a rented motorbike, leading to a
ransomed passport. I didn't hear either side in full, so I will
reserve judgement, but eventually the police showed up to straighten
things out.

Next we killed an hour and a big bottle of Chang (beer) whilst
hammocking at our place. Then on to wander the beach for a while. On
the way home, we stopped for an excellent croissant and even found
BananaCrepeMan, ordering both a banana and choc one for Robert and a
mango and honey milk one for me. Sugar low, solved. Sunset at home and
writing this...