OK Phan Ngan

September 2nd

Well, lying here in the romantic little tent of my mosquito net having slept for nearly 10 hours, the whole place doesn’t seem quite so horrific. My book is getting better, the food last night was certainly better than the stuff I ate when I got here and the atmosphere in the bar/restaurant was quite friendly and pleasant.

Yesterday, whilst I was still feeling like I was trapped in Tenko, I was offered the chance to get a lift to Hat Rin, where the party is to see if I could get a hotel there, which I accepted. But it was with 4 boys from Southend who I then found out called themselves things like “Boozer”, “Gigsy” (because I look like Ryan Giggs), “Tank” (because I like to tank ‘em down), and ... I can’t remember the other one’s name but it was equally dreadful. I then realised that they had been drinking since 7 am, so I was, in the end relieved the jeep rental man said only 4 people only, so that I didn’t have to extricate myself from the situation myself. I’d already decided that I’d rather stay here in a shed forever than go with them.

Soon after that I decided this place wasn’t that bad, the hotels round Had rin are loads more expensive and there is a taxi service from here to the party, so I can go, but come back when I want and be able to sleep.

Anyway, the sun has come out, my hut is heating up, and so I shall pop off to breakfast and beach!

****later*****

Had breakfast and walked, clambered, crunched my way along the coast a bit, huge smooth orange rocks and bitterly crunchy dead coral testing my rubber shoes... broke them a bit, but glad I didn’t wear trainer as there was a bit of wading.....over to a few beaches down with Kerim my new acquaintance here, to see if anywhere else than here had anywhere nicer to stay, but everyone is full for full moon. I’m definitely stuck in the shed for the next few days.

Stayed on a much nicer beach about 3 bays away all day though, but it’s quite rocky to swim everywhere here (the beach at the hut is artificial, but not quite as good as it could be, this one was natural, but it doesn’t get deep very quickly so knee gashing whuil is a potential problem, and the tide is fairly strong despite it being so shallow. Had lunch, beers, lazy floated around in the warm waters, then clambered back round the coast again, which was wetter as the tide has come in, so went and had a swim in the pool at sunset looking at hugest horizon I have seen in a very long time.

Absolutely superb.

Power is intermittent tonight so am I not going to try and connect to the internet of share hardware, and of course no wifi. So this will be another belated entry.  And this was in my bathroom last night.

Just to give you an idea of scale....

Had a nice dinner with Kerim and a gloriously chilled evening listening to the sea. Might try and convince Kerim to explore the island with me as he has a moped, as it looks like tomorrow may not be that sunny as we have not had rain tonight.