Koh Phangan (Or Where People Go to Die From Partying)

The next morning we took the ferry over to Koh Phangan. It was a short trip, but a crowded ferry.

Lots of noisy Americans were on board with us, drinking Chang beers. When I got on the boat the crew immediately grabbed my bag and threw it in a giant pile outside on the front of the boat. I wasn't sure what kind of plan they had to get it back to me, but I would worry about it when we got there. Well, when we got there, they just started throwing them from the boat to the dock, over a several foot gap to the water. Amazingly, no luggage was lost. But there was a lot of shoving and yelling as everyone tried to make there way to the pile of luggage on the pier.

As soon as I got my hands on my bag it was immediately taken away from the man driving us to our destination. Luckily mine was small enough to fit under the seat in our songthaew. The other bags had to sit on the roof, with no straps to hold them down as far as I'm aware. We took two of these trucks to our hotel. Our tour guide warned us it would be a bit of a bumpy ride, but nothing could prepare us for this trip. We had a 45 minute Indiana Jones ride to our hotel on the beach. We literally rode in the back of a truck holding on to dear life as the truck bounced along a narrow dirt road with ravines on either side at 80 mph. We could not have been rewarded better for our life endangering ride though:

This was the view about 10 steps from my room:

This picture is framed by the doors of my room.
Gorgeous. Which was lucky because as one might imagine, it was pretty much impossible to catch a taxi from the hotel back to the town on the Indiana Jones trail. There was a boat taxi that would take us to the neighboring beaches, but I didn't see anything wrong with ours so I stayed put.

For lunch, I desperately wanted a cheeseburger, so I finally caved and got one. It was strange but edible. I wasn't planning on getting another one. Then, while we were still eating, they announced that there would be a trek to the top of the neighboring mountain to see an amazing viewpoint of the island. It left in half an hour. I am out of shape. I had just eaten a weird burger. But I was going to climb that mountain because I was never going to be here again. So half an hour later, stomach feeling slightly off, I grabbed a water and bug spray and started up the mountain.

I was informed it would be a short 15 minute hike. I didn't know that was if you were sprinting which the guide proceeded to do. I also didn't know that the hike would be completely vertical, making it more of a mountain climb than a trek. I was clinging to tree roots as dirt slipped out from under me and jumping from one large rock to another, none of which were entirely stable. I might have been able to do it if we weren't sprinting at the same time. I might have been able to do it if I hadn't eaten the bizarre Thai version of a cheeseburger. But that didn't happen. I didn't make it. As I was gasping for breath, I yelled way up to the guide that I was turning back. "No! Only 10 more minutes!" "Yeah, that's okay. I'm gonna head back anyway." "Do you want me to carry you?" "Oh God, no. I'm good. I'll just look at everybody's pictures". So I fell/ran back down hill and collapsed in the chair in front of my room and rested. The rest of the group informed me that just around the bend ahead of me it flattened out and was a nice stroll the rest of the way up. Whatever, I got to see their pictures which was good enough.