It was raining buckets when we left Phuket.  Our hotel took us down to the bottom of the hill because the minibus we had booked couldn’t make it up the hill.  We felt like we were back in Central America.  The bus went around picking up people from all over the city before finally departing, packed to the gills.  A few locals got dropped off along the way so we got some breathing room before finally arriving in Don Sak to take the ferry out to our next island adventure.  Unfortunately, this would be one of the the absolute worst experiences of our entire trip, and hopefully we never have to go through something like this ever again.  A word of warning though…If you’re eating lunch or something, don’t click the jump ahead button…

We went back and forth about wether or not to talk about this on our blog and in the end decided that….why not.  We talk about the good and the bad and this is at the very end of the bad.

We only had to wait about 15 minutes after we arrived in Don Sak before it was time to board our boat out to Koh Samui, our fifth island in Thailand.  It had been a long travel day already and we were ready to get on the boat and relax for the two hour journey out to the island.  You have the option on these boats to sit up top, out in the sun, or inside on comfy seats where you can peer out the window at the ocean.  We opted for inside as we usually do so we’re not burning up in the sun.  We sat down and the boat left the dock.  After about five minutes, Mandy turns to me and says she thinks she got bit by a tick.  I don’t think anything of it and then she tells me she thinks something bit her again on her lower back.

Suddenly, there was a commotion in the front of the boat and people were jumping up out of their seats swatting at something.  Right about this time, I notice the first bed bug on my hand and swat it away.  We jump up out of our seats, and retreat to the top deck where we find no less than three more bed bugs on us.  The people up top are sort of freaking out looking at us and we feel pretty embarrassed….until we’re joined by every single person that had been sitting below all swatting away like crazy at the bed bugs.

We knew they were bed bugs because more than a few backpackers had actually seen these bastards in their natural habitat: beds.  If your skin is crawling, just imagine sitting on the side of a boat and your wife looking at your with huge eyes as she sees one of these things crawl up your neck.  Yeah.

I told you not to click if you were eating!

Luckily, our bags were out back and very far away from all this madness and when we finally got settled, we spent about two hours going through every piece of clothing we owned to make sure none of them hitched a ride.  I’m happy to report that the rest of our trip was bed-bug-less.

Anyway, after the boat docked there was a large group of people waiting to board the boat after we got off and I thought for a second about warning them about what awaited them once onboard, but I decided I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

Our ticket out here included transportation to the bungalows where we would be staying.  It’s a bit of a cluster as the drivers all figure out how best to pack their vans and drop us off around the island.  Ours didn’t do a very good job at this ‘triage’ because it took over and hour and a half for us to get to our hotel for the evening and it was dark by the time we got there.  After what we had been through, we ate dinner at the hotel and passed out.

We spent the next day relaxing on the beach, which took about 30 seconds to walk to.

This island is just big enough that it’s hard to get around by anything less than riding a scooter around, so that’s what we did.

Mandy made me ride around the town by myself for about 15 minutes until I got the hang of it.  It was easy but she was nervous the entire time she was back there and I got more than a  few shouts of “SLOW DOWN!” in my ear.  I went faster.

I got a haircut while on this island.  Haircuts on the road are a very strange affair.  I was used to getting my hair cut by the same woman who’d been cutting it for years.  Back in Nicaragua, I had to get one and there at least I could speak the language a little.  Here in Thailand though…well…

It was without a doubt the strangest haircut of my life and it took an hour (compared to the guy who cut my hair in Australia in 6 minutes flat).  Mandy thinks the lady thought I was going for a lady-boy haircut.

More beach!

It was here, while walking around before we picked up our scooter that we ran into a few locals who broke the curve for the rest of the country as far as the “nicest people in SE asia’ title they hold.

One day, we passed a young man standing on the side of the street who began asking the usual, “How are you, Where you from, You like Thailand?” We’re good, from the states, and we love it here.  And then he hits us with his best sales pitch for a finely tailored suit.  No thanks.  And that’s the end of it.  Or so we thought.

The next day walking along the opposite side of the street, same guy, same spiel, except this time we decide to just ignore him.   If we stopped and talked to every person on our trip who wanted just a bit of our time/money/whatever we’d have never got to see anything.  I guess that pissed him off and he starts screaming and cussing at us.  It was strange, we’d never seen a Thai freak out like that.  They’re usually so reserved and calm and nice.

The next was when we were on the hunt for saline solution for my contacts.  We passed a pharmacy that had some cute cats sitting in the window and a whole bunch of comic book figures and transformers.  Sweet, we’ll just run in here and see what they have and look around.  Eh, no.  We didn’t like the solution they had, so we were on our way out and got scolded for trying to pet a cat.

Our gulf of Thailand trip was starting to wear on us.

Someone asked us about downtime while traveling.  You absolutely cannot be going, going, going all day and all night long.  At some point, you need to take a break and just hang out, away from the bars, restaurants, clubs.  Our favorite way to do this was power up the laptop and watch a movie.

Our friend Matt, whom we met while in New Zealand, had a bunch of files he let me transfer to one of my USB drives.  As you can see above, one of these files contained a perfectly legal, non-pirated version of The Martian, which we’ve now seen 127 times.   We also saw the last hunger games movie, The Revenant, and a James bond movie.  I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.

After a few days of puttering around Koh Samui, we’d move on to our next island, Koh Pha Ngan, where we would attend a half moon party.  Stay tuned!