Day Eight, continued:We get to the ferry pier and order some fried rice while we wait for the boat (hoping that the chapter in Saving Fish from Drowning about dysentery will not apply to us).
We get on a car ferry after about 45 minutes, thinking we'll be on the island in 10 minutes. We can see it, right there on the horizon. Wrong.
An hour later, we disembark into an empty lot with some small shops.
me: "Excuse me, where can I get a taxi to BangBao?"
lady working at a shop: "Taxi? Forty [?] minutes."
me: "uh, they don't come until 4-0 minutes from now?"
lady: "uh. [nod]"
me: "shit."
About this time we run into a girl who also happens to be going to BangBao, and she's got a little flyer for the same hostel we're staying at. She'd already assessed the situation, and came to the same conclusion: too far to walk, we might as well wait. So, we wait.
Finally a truck pulls up, and we go over to the driver with some of the Europeans we were on the boat with to negotiate. He agrees to take us all if we pay him more than the usual fare, so that we don't have to wait until the next ferry comes. Five minutes later, the eight of us are sitting in the bed of a pickup truck with our bags on a rack above us, climbing up and down the steepest hills I've ever been on. There are no seat belts, we're just hanging onto poles and praying our bags (and our bodies) don't fly off the truck and into the jungle/ocean as this guy careens up and down and around hairpin curves.
We drop off the first group as the sun sets, and then it's just Matt and I and our new friend Michaela. We get to BangBao about 45 minutes later, and Michaela calmly walks over to the nearest parking lot to vomit. Luckily, she's got a flashlight, and when she comes back, we start our trek to the hostel in the dark.*
*Note: If it occurs to you that walking through the jungle in Thailand at night with only a flashlight as a guide seems to be a recurring theme on these vacations, give yourself 5 points.
This time is different, however. I have directions to the guesthouse, courtesy of their website! They say quite clearly: take a right at the pier, walk 10 minutes, go over the bridge, pass Remark Puzi resort, pass Nirvana resort, arrive at Cliff Cottages.
We started walking, and the path forked. Eenie, meenie, miney, mo, we take the left one. This was the correct choice, luckily. We arrive at the "bridge." Remember, it's nighttime, and you have your 20-pound backpack on, and you've been traveling for about 13 hours now.
This is your other option:
Somehow we made it across without the damn thing collapsing. There's no turning back now. We pass Remark Puzi, and wander down this muddy path some more until we see lights. It's a Karaoke bar/restaurant with a few locals around. We ask for directions, but they just point down the road. So we keep going. Finally we get to some shacks that look like bungalows. Still not it. More pointing down the road. Ok, ok, it's secluded. We get it.
A sign: "Cliff Cottages this way. Beautiful! -->"
We arrive, finally! And it is beautiful, from what we can tell. The guy lets us choose which bungalows we want. Some apparently have better views than others, when you can see 10 feet in front of you. He doesn't understand much English, and we don't really follow what he's saying, but this is what we can gather:
"How do we know which bungalows are available?"
"The doors are open."
"Oh. Got it. Where are they?"
"Up there. (more pointing)"
This way.
We haul our crap up the stairs and pick a bungalow. Michaela picks one near ours, and we go back down to check in. We were too tired to eat dinner, so we just showered and passed out under the mosquito net.
We woke up in heaven.
