THAILAND - Travel to Ranong

Our alarms went off at 5 am but Eve didn't even budge. Moni and I packed our bags and I drank the rest of the coconut milk in the fridge since we couldn't bring it with us. The taxi was supposed to pick us up at 5:30 in front of our bungalow but it never showed and we decided to walk down the road to the resort in hopes they thought we were staying there. The roosters were crozing and it was dawn so the sun was not up yet but it was very peaceful walking at this time of day. I had to make some calls to my bank since the time difference made it possible. I was on the phone for a while and I think I made it possible to use my credit card to get money out of an atm! But I wouldn't be able to test this theory until later the next day. The taxi came finally and we got in with our headphones preparing for the long jounrey ahead. The drive was beautiful seeing the sun rise on the mountains and rivers. The minivan we were in had to pay to cross a big bridge on a car boat thing which was cool to experience. Along the way the van picked up some nicely dressed local ladies that looked as if they were commuting to work, which was 2 hours! When we came closer to Krabi, where we had to go to the bus station to transfer onto a large bus to Ranong, all the ladies in the car helped direct and translate to the driver where exactly we were supposed to go. They were super nice. We got to the station at 8:45 which was 15 minutes late for the 8:30 bus, so we had to wait 4 hours for the next one unfortunately. BUS STATION YOGA! We laid out our mats and I tried to strech but I ended up passing out so tired. After I woke up I noticed that the men sitting next to us were giving us looks and Moni and I made weird faces and picked our noses to make them uninterested. Sort of worked. But they kept looking at us streching which made us uncomfortable so we moved inside to get some food and hide from them. In the actual bus station we got some food and charged our phones. Monica got stir fried rice on a plate but after a while I saw the bus outside our gate so I told her to either throw it away or take it with us so we wouldn’t miss our bus. She hasn’t even started eating and it would have been a shame to throw the food out, so I gave her an empty plastic bag and she poured it into there. We got our bags and ran to the bus before it left but it turns out we still had to wait 45 more minutes. So there we were standing looking ridiculous with our stuff all over the place and a plastic bag of food. We laughed at ourselves and sat down to relax. Monica pulled out the bag and started eating which made us look even more like hobos, and a local lady even looked at us like we were weirdos eating from bags. A good laugh it was indeed. Finally we boarded the bus and we had the whole back seat to ourselves, there was probably less than 10 people on this huge bus! We watched anxiously for the creepy guys to see if they had the same bus as us but they didn’t, thank god. The bus was descent but very very hot and there was no air. We had a six hour journey ahead of us. A young lady was sitting near us and kept looking back at us, she was of Muslim religion because she wore a headdress. She finally got the courage to come seat in the seat in front of us and introduce herself. Her English was good and she understood a lot. She was studying to be a doctor and has to commute everyday about 4 hours to her school. She taught us words in Thai and help us with our pronunciation. My favorite was learning how to say "I love you" which is "Pom rak khun". But talking was making us very sleepy. I kept looking at Moni and seeing her eyes close slowly then open up if she was asked a question. Her sentences were starting to slur together and the heat was unbearable. The lady continually talked about her entire life and what she did before she studied medicine. It was sweet how much she wanted to practice speaking English with us, but I couldn't here myself think with the heat. The bus stopped 2 times to let us go to the bathroom. We bought some fresh fruit and veggies in the market at one stop to snack on. Green grapes are the best! And also the carrots are huge. Back on the bus there was also a little boy that was being playful with us... or I should say mean? He kept making faces at us and hitting us when we walked by him. And then to top it all off he flipped us off with his middle finger! All we did was made faces back and tried to make him understand that hitting and flipping us off was bad. We yelled "Pom rak Khun!" and made hearts with our hands, but sadly in return we got the finger... After a long journey, and our bladders full, we were gettting really anxious to get off the bus. We smelled like feet, ass, sweat, and any other smell you could imagine. We were trying to not laugh at the fact that we might not be able to carry our bags without peeing ourselves! But we got off and scurried into the toilets were we had to squat down low. Unfortunately, Moni forgot to keep her pants from falling in the hole... always a struggle. We sat down on our bags to brainstorm our next move in order to get to our guesthouse we had booked. We planned on walking to it because our maps said it was a 2 minute walk, but then looking up at the clouds it appeared to us that a huge rainstorm was coming. But we realized this after we shooed away all the tuk tuk drivers. But after waiting a bit with a stray dog and cat in the bus station, we ran over to a tinted car with some men hanging around it and asked if they were taxis. And to our luck they were so we hoped in with all our stuff, which basically suffocated me in the back of this truck, and headed to the guesthouse as the rain was pouring like large pellets with a whole lot of force. This truck made me smile though. It reminded me so much of my Grandpa's truck back on our farm in New York. It was low to the ground and smelled like car oil and a life's worth of hard work. I has buried underneath all our bags in the back jumper seats. I think both our bags were 4 times my weight combined. And I didn't think it was possible but Moni's bag was bigger than mine! And it looked like a long green caterpillar on her back when she walked, which always put a smile on my face in hard times having to trek in the heat with them. Towards the end of our short drive I started feeling light headed and very dizzy because of the fumes of the gas building up in the closed cabin. I thought I was going to pass out! But we got out in the rain in front of the guesthouse called "The House of Happinezz". It looked very nice and peaceful with a few dogs waiting to greet us out front. When we checked in I was asked for a small white card that had my visa number written on it, as well as my passport. I remember getting handed this paper as I entered Thailand and I was almost positive that I had kept it safe in my wallet. I was wrong. The lady didn't speak much English and she made it seem impossible that I could stay without the card. So I was getting a little worried but then the owner, who was German and spoke good English, came out and said it was fine but that I would have to pay extra when I left the country. Just another bump in the road but no biggy! We signed some papers and then got checked into our room which was really cool because the bathroom consisted of levels and it had a plastered tree with branches as the shelves. It was super inconvenient but very cool looking. We got dressed into our bathing suits because a 2 minute walk down the road was public natural hot springs! But first we had some dinner downstairs which was the best Pad Thai I will ever remember in my life. I was so full from snacking all day on the bus but this Pad Thai had thick noodles that were so comforting and the sauce was made beautifully. My stomach was about to explode because it was so full but it was definitely worth it. Tonight was the full moon so when we walked outside we didn't need to use a flashlight. Usually it is very famous and common to be at a big full moon party in Thailand, but hot springs sounded better to us. I was following Moni as we came to a bridge that crossed over a river. We couldn't see what was down below but we both assumed the hot springs were down by the river. Instead of being patient and finding the pathway down we cut through the bushes and trees down a steep slope. We slide into mud piles and got poked and prodded but branches. Somewhat unpleasant.  We got to the river finally with twigs in our hair. The river was a bit chilly on our feet but we walked on top the big rocks up a ways. It was very slippery with the mud on our feet. I fell and stubbed my toe really hard. About 5 minutes walking in the river we looked up and saw light in this area behind a fence. We called it quits and decided to make our way back up the hill to civilization. The mud was so thick going up. My foot sunk up to my knee! We got to this fence and had to climb over it covered in mud. Once we got over we realized we were in the hot springs area... All the people sitting in the tubs looked at us covered in mud and twigs in our hair. Lets just saw we looked like savages... But the tubs were not what we expected. They were nice hot tubs, it looked like a bunch of public swimming pools, not like the natural ones I had in my mind. But we were happy we arrive and felt like total dip shits because if we had just walked 1 more minute down the road we would see the entrance to the fancy place. We rinsed off and put our feet in the scolding hot water. IT WAS SO HOT! 55 degrees!!! But once we acclimatize it felt good on our every aching muscle. All the locals were here, even though it was 9 at night. They were all relaxing in there cloths and head caps. They all looked at us strangely in our bikinis. Later I learned that it was not common for people to show much skin in public and that it was best advised that we stayed covered. But we had a tub all to ourselves and it was nice to have the steam clean our sinuses and pores and to glance up at the bright full moon above. Magical. After we rinsed off and stretched a bit under some trees that had hibiscus flowers on it. We slowly walked back to the guesthouse in quiet. We were so relaxed there was nothing to say. Back in our room we rinsed off and went to bed early. We were exhausted from doing nothing but sitting in heat all day. But tomorrow we would be heading off to a yoga retreat... for free!