Koh Phra Thong

I know I need to get out more during the week when the most exciting moment of my week so far was finding a Winnie the Pooh numbers 1-10 counting poster in a cupboard in the Pre-K classroom next door today.  I really can't tell you how excited I was.  Winnie the Pooh in Thailand!

On another note, this past weekend I went off the island of Phuket again - this time to another island up north called Koh Phra Thong, one of the first islands of the Similian Island chain.  Koh Phra Thong is also known as Golden Buddha Island and is named after a local legend. The story tells of a precious stolen golden buddha statue buried on the island by pirates which was never recovered. It was a pretty last minute trip and I actually didn't know where I was going until I got there but it was better that way because I didn't have to do any of the planning and I didn't have to worry beforehand about things going smoothly.  My friend Amy from school invited me to go with her and eight of her friends from South Africa that are also here teaching English and I didn't have any plans for the weekend or our day off on Monday (Teacher's Day) so I said yes.  After waiting at the bus stop for an hour and twenty minutes and then a MISERABLE five hour bus ride that was only supposed to be three where there were no seats and I was sitting on the floor in the aisle, I was starting to doubt my decision to come.  After getting to the bus station in Kuraburi, the owner of the place where we were staying - Mr. Chuoi, pronounced "Chewy" came to get us and we hopped in the back of his pickup truck and headed to the pier.  Then we sat on a longboat for another hour and finally we were there.  There being a deserted island in the middle of the ocean that turned out to be a hidden gem. 

Our accomodations were grass huts in the sand a few hundred feet from the ocean.  Pretty awesome.  Amy and I definitely got the best of the four huts as one had large bugs, one had spiders and one had wasps.  We only had frogs so I was happy about that.  This was definitely a place where snakes were plentiful and since there was only electricity from 6pm to 11pm, walking in the dark wasn't my favorite thing to do. 

There was actually a need for this sign

Our hut for the weekend

Saturday when we got there, we walked the beach and sat down for dinner at Mr. Chuoi's place.  We actually thought there was no one else on the island beside Mr. Chuoi, his sister the cook and her son named "Boy".  Mr. Chuoi was a character to say the least but I guess you have to find ways to amuse your self when you live on an island.  His favorite word was "technique" - don't know who taught it to him but he used it for everything.  We came to find out that Mr. Chuoi's was pretty much the only place on the island to serve food so there were a couple of other people that came from the other "resort" to eat, either couples or scuba divers.  Apparently, the area we were in is one of the best scuba places in Thailand.   One guy we met had arrive three days prior and was staying on the island for seven weeks to get his scuba certificate.  He came directly from Manhattan where he had been living for ten years and somehow ended up on Koh Phra Thong - talk about a serious culture shock. 

Sunday, we got up and walked the beach right in front of our place that we did the day before and then decided to see what was around the bend and we found an even more beautiful beach!  Then went around the next bend and there was another even more beautiful than that last two. 

Mr. Chuoi in a nutshell

Boy

Monday, we decided it would be a good idea to try to swim to one of the islands that we could see from land.  Maybe not the smartest decision but we actually made it there and back.  We got eaten alive by sea lice, which are like mini jellyfish that pinch your skin and it stings for a while, so that was no fun but the swim definitely woke up us.  We explored the island for a bit, got bitten by hoards of red ants, found a shirt buried in the sand and made a flag with it to mark our territory and headed back to mainland.   

The island we swam to - it was actually way further than it looks

We headed out after one because we didn't know how long it was going to take us to get back and we didn't really believe Mr. Chuoi that the bus came at 3:20.  And it didn't, 2:30 and 4:30 - he must had just picked a random time and thought it was funny.  We made it back to Phuket fairly quickly and for $65 total including round trip bus, taxi and boat, two night accommodations, snacks, meals and drinks - I'd do it again for sure....