Classy New Year's Festivities and a Visa Run
Trip Start
Oct 17, 2007
1
12
19
Trip End
Mar 14, 2008
Ranong,
Thailand
Thursday, January 3, 2008
The lead-up to New Year's was pretty calm compared to the few days before Christmas and New Year's. We moved to the quiet beach just 10 minutes walk from the party beach so we had the privilege of a few full night sleeps before the big night. We were splitting a whopping 800B/night ($26) so we also had the luxury of a fridge to put our Changs in and a TV. So needless to say we watched a lot of soccer and movies in those few days. Finally the big day came and the two of us along with Nik who joined us from home as well as Matt and Dan decided to get classy and wear matching costumes to the beach that night. So we all picked up some sweet Full Moon Party t-shirts, orange headbands, green wrist-bands and some fluorescent war paint and hit the beach in style. Oh yeah, and I had shaved my goatee into some pretty epic handlebars a few days before to add to the classy factor. The night was another crazy one to be sure, but you can only party on the same beach so many times before it starts to get old. Still though, a great night filled with fireworks, the countdown and all that good stuff. Oh yeah, and my fifth pair of flip-flops bit the dust as well... and they were good ones too.
The next day was pretty much just taking it easy and watching soccer with the other guys before getting ready to leave the island. Our Visas were about to run out so we booked ourselves a trip to Ranong on the Thailand/Burma border so that we could cross, come back and get issued another 30day Visa exemption. Our boat to the mainland left at seven on the third so on the evening of the second we decided it would be best to just not go to sleep since we were already on a bit of a funky sleeping schedule and wanted to have a bit of a tearful farewell with our good buddies Matt and Dan. So we slept most of the 8 or 9 hour bus / boat journey up to Ranong and then as soon as we got there we got thrown on two motorbike taxis, rushed to immigration to exit Thailand, then rushed to the ocean to take a 45-minute boat ride into Burma. When we got to Burma, these two guys welcomed us off the boat and right away started trying to sell us Viagra, "Lady Viagra", guns, and bombs... I'm pretty sure they were joking about the last two though. We walked into the Burmese immigration, they stamped our passports in a few seconds and then off we were back into Thailand through the same immigration who just stamped us out of the country an hour and a half before... All in all a pretty chaotic situation, but it all worked out. The next day we hopped on a bus down to Krabi to get us to Tonsai beach just off of Raileh beach which is a world-renowned rock climbing mecca to meet up with some friends who had left Koh Phangan before us.
Stay tuned for more from Krabi...
