Say no to the old man

Trust yourself
Waking up at 5:30 every morning for the past seven days has been hard, were we not on a vacation? Well we must be, we are in Thailand there is no denying that, the heat itself is giving it away.

We had been washing ourselves with cold water surrounded by ants and slept with a crocodile in front of our window for the past week. But now it’s time to move on to a new adventure. We look at the map and Google our way to our new destination. The train stops at Chumphon, we grab our backpacks, jump out and start walking.
The town is old and not very touristic. People look at us with a question mark on their faces; we don’t mind them and just continue our journey. An old man tries to stop us and sell us a boat trip to Koh phangan, ,,good price” he yells. Obviously he is not happy when we tell him “we’ll think about it” It is tempting but we decide to stick to our plan.

The town itself is nothing much and we think maybe we should have taken that man’s offer. There are a lot of run - down hotels there; we choose one. After a good night’s sleep we head out, we decide on checking out Thung Wua Lean Beach. The staff at the hotel gives us a map and a few words. We start walking and make our way to the bus station. The bus does not leave from there. We ask around and find out that there is a yellow bus leaving in a few minutes, it is close by. We find a yellow pickup. Our bags end up on top of the car and we hop on. The bus is small and mostly schoolgirls on it and no space for your butt so you better have a small one. 30 minute drive, we are there!

It's beautiful. We see a bungalow just by the beach. We should check that out; 700 bath for air-condition, hot shower and Wi-Fi, not bad. On our 2 months of travelling we have not yet found ourselves bathing in the ocean. Being foreigners we expected the ocean to be cold but it was not; it was warm! After loving the water we look up and find ourselves alone on the beach. It must be time for dinner.

We wash off and get dressed for a night out. Spaghetti carbonara and a beer at Pirates Terrace, simple and cheap; that’s what we backpackers love. We walk and find another bar by the beach with a patio. “One virgin sunrise please” no alcohol? ,,add vodka?” I ask. Of course the sweet bartender adds it in for the silly girl that thought virgin was a part of the name.

We sit outside, watch the stars and witness star shootings and sip on our ice cold drinks. Who would ever want to leave this place?