Entries about thai

I'm in a pretty woody area.

Granted, there's a fairly busy road about 20 meters downhill from me, but it's all trees behind.

So far, my animal spotting has been pretty rubbish, and I'm quite happy about that! All I've seen so far are lizards of all sizes (though only one much bigger than your hand), loads of moths and butterflies, bats and bloody mosquitoes. Oh and I seem to have another cat. She's pretty scrawny though, which I think may be linked to her rubbish attempts at catching lizards as far as I've seen.

I'm not sure what I think about the new place yet. It's very pretty, but at the moment my biggest worry is about breaking the damn bungalow. I'm not sure it's meant from an adult male, it creaks a lot when I walk on it. I spend a fair amount of my time thinking about weight displacement.

I arrived pretty late in the afternoon and by the time I'd had a kip it was about 5pm, so I haven't had a chance to look around. I'm only a couple of km away from where I was staying before, so if the worse comes to the worse, I can always just head back to familiar territory, but that's not really the point of the trip, which is to explore, right?

I'll rent a moped for a couple of days (It's a few quid a day) and really explore the island. I need to do something, I only finished the scuba 9 hours ago and already I'm feeling a bit lost. But then I also need to learn to switch off. To really relax. So, I'll have a day or two of doing that as well. I also found a leisure park round the corner with large screen sports, a 24 seat cinema (showing the original Star Wars this Sunday!) and a giant mini golf course!! I'm gonna have to give that a go.

Fast forward a few days and it's now Thursday. I really like this place. I've done pretty much nothing for two days but get some washing done by a woman round the corner, eat and relax. It's been great. I've arranged my travel on to the next place (Khao Sok National Park on Monday) and the only other beasties I've seen have been a bigger lizard with an enormous tail and what I think was a praying mantis, but it was very small and when I tried to get in closer the dumbass tried to fly away straight into my head.

Last night I went out to eat, I wanted a Pad Thai. I went to a busy cafe (always a good sign) down the road and ordered my dinner. And waited. And waited. And waited. I waited ages to get a menu, but when I ordered I waited at least another 45 mins. A guy had come in after I ordered, got his menu, ordered, got his food, eaten and paid and still I was sat there with nothing in front of me. I had asked the waiter a few times where my food was and he just kept saying it was coming. In the end I left before it came out. I walked to another place down the road and again ordered a Pad Thai and was told that it would take 45 mins so I left there too! At least he told me, but why does Pad Thai take so long to make there?? I've had it before and eventually had one at the pier last night, both of which only took 15 minutes and the lady last night gave me a free banana. Winner!

My winning Pad Thai. It was almost worth the wait

This morning I went out to rent a scooter. This is a very easy thing to do on Koh Tao, but also a very easy thing to do wrong. You hear all manner of horror stories about people getting charged loads of extras, or getting charged for non existent scratched when they bring it back, that sort of thing.

I asked the manager here for a recommendation and she suggested Oli's Motorcycle Shop back at the pier. I looked them up and while they're a little more expensive, they have a great reputation for not conning people, always good. To be honest, it was a little too easy! I turned up, gave them my money and driver's license, which is standard, some ask for your passport. No chance! I took photos and a video of the bike's existing scratches (there are many) and then I was off. Barely any training (Here's where you open the seat, here's where you put in fuel) and I was allowed to leave.

My history with bikes isn't great. When I was a kid I had a couple of pretty bad accidents on a bicycle and didn't sit on one again for about 20 years. I tried to have a go on a friends dirtbike in my 20s and was thrown one way while the bike went the other. But I did ride a moped around Goa for a week, mostly with my friend on the back and at one point drove on the motorway there for 45 mins each way (although I was following a taxi with my friend in as I didn't want to risk that. I did have a minor accident that ended up costing me a fair bit, but mostly it was alright.

So on this bike I get, driving around like an 80 year old but enjoying it immensely! I'm being overly careful, and I'm not great at doing a U-turn yet, but it's opened up the island for me!

But I'm sitting here typing this out as it's too damn hot! Seriously, it feels like my butt is on fire every time I sit on the damn thing. I'll go out a bit later and put a wet towel on it to calm the seat down, but I think I'll just sit here and drink coffee while watching a movie this afternoon. One thing I've found with this travelling lark, is that you're far less bothered about rushing around seeing everything when you don't have a time frame.

My ride