THAILAND - Koh Phayam - Part 3

Super tired from not sleeping, due to the endless amount of dogs barking, I woke up early but I was so sore from the bike ride yesterday. I went out to do yoga on the platform and a little run down the beach. I collected some seashells down there and also found some dog bones.... After that I had some breakfast as I waited for Moni to wake up. This day we planned on riding our bike to the other end of the island but ended up renting a motor bike instead because we were so sore, tired, and lazy to do that again. Moni tried a cashew nut shake at our bungalow for breakfast and it actually wasn't that good. We saw these trees all over the island and its a strange bright red fruit with the raw cashew nut at the end. Very little were on one tree which made me understand why the nut is so expensive. We got on our bike and climbed a giant hill, which we knew we couldn't get over on our bicycles, and made it to the highest peak on the island. Once we descended, we rode through a beautiful dense forest with trees. We didn't have an idea of where we were going but we followed the road straight and came to a dead end, which looked like a trail led to a meadow or something. But we turned around and went down another road that came to an end at a resort so we parked our bike and took the trail down to the beach. It was still very early in the morning and no one was there. A whole beach to ourselves. We laid out our towels and started dowsing ourselves in tanning oil. I read my book and Moni listened to music as the small waves went back and forth. We had to get up every 30 minutes to dip in the water since it was so frickin hot. We heard monkeys in the distance, jumping from tree to tree howling at each other. Around 11 some couple came down to snorkle but that was it. Given that no one was here, Moni and I thought it was alright to tan naked.... Our stomachs started to growl and we walked up to drive back and get some food at mama's restaurant. We had to dodge some stray dogs here and there, but otherwise the drive was beautiful. We kept seeing signs for the Hippy Bar but they were pointing in the opposite direction of where it was supposedly at, so confusing. But we barely made it back alive coming down the hill because our brakes were a little iffy. At the restaurant we calmly relaxed and watched the boss ass mama make our favorite dishes. After we went back to our shops to buy the things we didn't have money for the previous day. Next we took the bike to a new road to go see some temple that was out on the ocean. Next to it was a bug Buddha statue and a monk temple. Many monks were walking up and down this road and they seemed to have a connection with the stray dogs that lived on the beach. They would follow the monk, but also respect them in some way. Before we got to the water temple, we climbed up these massive stairs to see a big Buddha that watched over the entire sea. Surrounding it was a huge circle of smaller golden Buddhas. The stairs had 2 dragons on each side of it leading up to the main platform. These statues never lose their beauty no matter how many times I see them. We finished looking at the statue and continued our way to the pier where the temple seemed to be floating on the ocean surface. I was not feeling good at that moment so I told Moni to go see it without me and I waited on the beach with a pack of stray dogs. I watched the monks pass me and the dogs follow them instead of stick with me. There was a big group of tourist wearing all matching shirts and kept taking pictures of everything and being very disrespectful of the sacred place. When Moni came back we were both tired and wanted to go back to the beach. While we were walking, I noticed a girl we saw early in the week talking to the local policeman. We made eye contact and the policeman basically told the girl to go ask us for help instead. Moni is a true believer that she was sent here to help others through trauma, so she was open to helping this girl out. Her name was Lucy and she was quite an interesting character. She went straight from telling us her name to questioning the meaning of life and her journey on this island. I thought this talk was only going to take a few minutes but we ended up sitting on the beach until almost sunset talking to her. I had to get up and buy a ginger-ale since my stomach still was not feeling good, and talking to Lucy for so long didn't help. I was mostly quite listening to them talk it out and occasionally shared my opinion. But this girl was very lost and she needed help, later on I found out she was actually bi-polar. This scared me a little bit considering she seemed a little unstable, but I just wanted to make sure she got off the island okay because she kept talking about trying to leave but missing the ferry and losing all her stuff. She didn't even have her shoes, yet even know where they were... During our talk I mostly focused on the stray dog that came up to us. For some reason I felt a strong connection with him and petted him for an hour. He was so calm and nice compared with the other strays. At the end of the talk I was seriously considering taking him home with me. Moni asked Lucy to join us for dinner, without crossing it by me. I was getting a little annoyed but tried to push on since it was only one day out of my life that I could give up to help this girl, or at least just listen to her because I had no idea where to even start to help her. She mentioned that she had a ferry booked that day to leave for Bangkok but she missed it, along with 2 other ferries she had booked in the previous days. I was worried she would run out of money and not be able to get off the island! Also she said her iPod was stolen so she had no phone and then she thought that was a sign for her to live on the island forever... The list goes on... But we decided to walk to mama's restaurant and sit down for dinner. Moni and I got our favorites while Lucy got "No name". Literal translation on the menu. I think it suited her perfectly though. What she got was basically minced vegetables dipped in batter and then deep fried, with a side of spicy sauce. We talked all through dinner non stop and I was exhausted. Afterwards, I just wanted to go home and sleep but Lucy still need to find her bags and shoes. Funny thing is she was actually staying at our same bungalow a few nights ago but then got kicked out for being to weird... Moni invited her to stay the night with us which made me immediately text her on my phone saying it was not okay with me. Mostly because she might be unstable mentally and we could get kicked out of our bungalow! We parted ways after dinner and they walked off into the darkness on a mission to find all her shit. I went home and fell right asleep. Shortly I woke up late in the night to Moni setting up a bed for Lucy right outside our door on the deck. I wasn't too mad because Lucy was outside and not in our room with us. Moni came in and said that she had booked a ferry for tomorrow early in the morning and that it was her last chance to get off the island before she ran out of money. I just hope we convinced her to leave... I was making sure to get up early and walk her to the ferry though.