New month, new city/island, a new post! I am happy to say we have arrived in Ko Phan Ngan Thailand. WHEW! I think this overnight + ferry journey has been the most tiring so far because we had to sit in a bus seat for 12 hours :-( There was also a coughing Australian girl who sat right behind us, offering her germs to us about every 5 minutes :P Yes, mom, I already used your Wallborne :-))

After arriving in Surant Thani, we had to wait for two hours at dawn ( from 6am to 8am) to board the ferry. The port was very foggy, and was a thatch-roofed hut which had wild orchids growing around it. Lots of bugs, mossies, noseeums, and other various stinging kinds. Thankfully we had two full bottles of natural repellant.

The ferry was not like the ones in Greece, mind you, but rather an old 40 footer ( kind of like Clemens' first boat; the one he bumper-boated on Thankgiving) with seats installed. I tried to not think about the ferry which sunk killing several because they didn't have enough life jackets and packed too many people onboard. Actually, the boat was supposed to have three stops, but after the first at Ko Samui, they said we all needed to change boats, so that's good!

They had a squat toilet with a dish of water on the boat, too. These are traditional asian toilets, no paper, no soap, just go man. I am already getting a little used to the squatting toilet deal, but was a whole new ballgame this am as I went to hold the wall to support myself and almost grabbed two geckos which scurried away. I think the thais thought I was crazy, because after I screamed ( the geckos) they were all smiling strangely at me :/

After arriving in Thong Sala, which is the port town of the island, we endured a 45 "ride" from the port to our bungalow on Thong Nai Pan. It was the worst road I have ever seen! Troy said it was the second worse..He said Wayne took the old van with no powersteering down into an old river bed when he was young hehehehe. Troy and I almost peed our pants several times ( me looking at him and him looking at me). We were both crammed into the bed of a tiny nissan pickup which had a tin roof hammered on-you can imagine Troy's 6'5 frame into a 2ft metal ceiling, hanging on to the edge of the bed to avoid hitting our heads into the tin roof , or worse being thrown out of the truck. It was clear our " chauffeur" was comfortable gunning this haggard vehicle into the 2-3 foot potholes and mud pits, because he did not seem to flinch as we were flung half way out of the vehicle twice :-0

It felt very similar to riding a mechanical bull, but for 45 minutes! It was funnier than I can possibly try to explain...

Anyway, now we are here, and I am thoroughly exhausted. We had rice, coconut milkshakes and tom ka gai, and now we are going to lay in our A/C bungalow and get some winks :-)

Tomorrow we are going to rent a longtail to check the rest of the island....Not to our surprise, our hotel manager assured us everyone travels this place by boat, because it is dangerous to use the roads--MMHMMMM, YES WE KNOW THAT-

We also found a little puppy which we could not leave on the side of the road. She looks to be about 4 weeks old, and I am getting food for her right now. Although Troy and I have no idea what we will do with her, I just knew she would die if we didn't bring her in. There are many older strays here that were messing with her, and Troy came to her rescue...

Hopefully we can get the pic thing worked out

The pics are not loading :-(** I cant figure it out...have tried two internet cafes so far--