We arrived at 6am which meant we had at least had an ok amount of sleep. So we all got off the bus to hang around until 8am for the boat. The Phuket guy was still asking to make sure they were going to get him where he needed to go and then after that he carried on chewing the ear off a fellow traveller. Eventually the Phuket bus turned up first soon followed by everyone elses and by now there was plenty of space. So still no boat and we drove to Don sak only to wait around some more. I bought a banana and a fried chicken breast from a vendor stall for breakfast. A woman went round to people waiting for the boat and did good business selling us transfers to our hotels for 200 baht (150 was the normal price I found out later). Then the boat came it was pretty empty so I sat near the front with more space but it was a bit cooler because of the air conditioning. I tried to use the usb on the tv to charge my powerbank but it didn't work and I looked over a free guide to Koh Panang I'd picked up. Like Andrea had said to me on the bus it was wet season there with the rainfall in November being double that of any other month - great! The boat was slow and so I got bored later and moved to some other seats where I lay down and slept a bit. When I woke up and looked around things looked ok until I realised the boat had stopped so I grabbed my stuff and went to the back of the boat where the bags and cases had all been moved and they had started loading more on. There was a crowd of people waiting to get on the boat and others already across or on the walkway. I looked around for my bag or someone who knew where it would be but nothing so I stepped across next to the walkway onto the land and pushed through the crowd and found my bag. Then I headed down the pier and managed to catch up with the others from the boat and get the minibus which would take us to our hotels. One couple's place was only about 10 minutes away so if they paid the same price they got ripped off. Mine was the joint last place and it was after 12 as I expected. I checked in to find lots of Germans in my room and the weather was good so I grabbed my stuff and went to get some food before heading to the beach. I had to walk through a hotel to get to the beach which was annoying but the beach was decent, maybe a bit narrow with the hotels and the bars sun loungers taking up space. I'd just eaten so instead of swimming, I walked along the beach first a decent distance and then decided to swim to an island. I thought about my stuff being stolen as in research I'd done for Koh Samui there was a lot of mention of crime, so I decided a bit like in the film the beach I would carry my bag to the island. Originally I had wanted to take my phone and money with me into the water but that was how I broke a camera in Rio, but when I wrapped my money in an airport bag and double bagged with a plastic bag but after a brief swim water had got in and I couldn't find a waterproof bag they all had holes in. So I plastic bagged up my rucksack and carried it over my head while swimming my back which wasn't so easy especially when seaweed got in my way, I was spluttering when I found that I could walk again and walked the rest of the way to the small island. Then I went swimming only for it to start raining very soon but I carried on swimming while most people on the beach packed up and left. There were 2 people jet skiing in the distance as they had probably paid for an hour and didn't want to waste it and meanwhile the rain started pelting down, but I decided to swim for 20 minutes until thunder, lighting and constant strong rain made it not at all enjoyable so I got my bag and walked back across.
The beach was deserted now and there were not many people on the main road when I got to it. I'd come a long way so I had to walk the same distance back along the road and checked out some restaurants, but the prices were pretty expensive compared to Bangkok with some lobster, steak and other places charging 1,000 baht for a meal. I made it back as it stopped raining and I went to get a couple of hours internet from a travel place which I followed with dinner. Then back at the hostel I was resting and the Germans were there as well as an English girl called Sarah. I convinced her to have a drink so we got some drinks from the 7-11 and sat downstairs. She was from Wrexham but worked for a bit in Manchester. When she went to bed I decided to check out the area to see if there was anything going on, but the main drag was too far away so after 10 minutes walking and nothing interesting I called it a night.
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