Coastward Bound

Monday, December 6.
After a final couple of hours at the internet cafe (for now), we packed up our stuff and walked with our pack to the bus station. The next bus wasn't for an hour and a half, so we walked back around the bend to wait at a Starbuck's in this big, somewhat intimidating "mediplex." The Starbucks itself was very nice with comfy couches, and the baristas were super friendly, so we all ordered little sandwiches (say what?) and sat down to wait. At 5:30, we finally boarded the bus, and five hours later, we were in the seaside town of Trat, where, after denying several taxis, we walked the two kilometers into town, grabbed "dinner" at a 7-11, and then found the Ban Jaidee guest house, where it wasn't too late to get a couple reasonably-priced rooms (200 baht a room--about seven dollars). As we entered, we met a German guy who said he owned a guest house on Ko Khood, the second largest island after Ko Chang, and the farthest away. He said that if we were looking for a less touristy place, that Ko Kood was the place to go, and he said we'd be able to camp there no problem, although it's outside of the national park. So we changed our plans right then and there, and in the morning the lovely guest house owner booked us spots on a boat to Ko Kood. After packing up our things in the morning, we went to the market to get the rest of our food for the week--mostly veggies, as we'd gotten the rest of the non-parishable items in Bangkok. It was so much fun. You could tell that foreigners don't go in there much, if at all. Along with our noodle soup breakfast, we got these little eggy pods they cook up in something that resembles an open-faced egg poacher. They seem to be made of egg, coconut milk, and sugar. Six for ten baht and they are so delicious. We're hoping to find them later in Bangkok. After shopping and eating, we waited at the guest house for the truck to the boat, at which point we zipped across town to the coast out onto a long pier, and before we knew it, we were lounging in sling chairs on a simple, two floor ferry. We arrived in Koh Kut just a couple of hours later, and rode the free taxi to the Happy Days guest house, where it turned out we couldn't actually camp, but they pointed us to the "resort" down the road (they're more like rustic collections of bungalows on the beach with a central restaurant/shop), and we began the walk with our heavy packs. We asked at three places with flat-out denials and got very discouraged, as most of the huts cost upwards of a thousand baht per night (anywhere from 35 to 70 dollars), and we'd planned just to pay a small park fee and be done with it. But just around the corner, Lacey and I put down our packs and were given a free coconut by the guy who later became known as the coconut man while Austin went to ask one more time, and he came back saying we had two palm trees each right ont he beach, and water to bathe and brush our teeth with for only 100 baht per night, and that the family was happy to have us. And so it was that the coconut grove at Dusita resort became our new home.
Relieved and rejoicing, we set up our hammocks, went for a pre-dusk swim, wondering how we'd ended up in this pristine setting reserved, it had seemed, for computer desktop backgrounds, and then cooked up a delicious dinner of rice and curried vegetables and went to bed. Oh, what a life.