Fat and Greedy: ko phangan

So after devastating ko phi phi with astounding displays of greedery and fattiness, Yair and I left the Andaman sea and took off for ko phan gan, an island in the gulf of Thailand, which is due west. Just getting there was an adventure. The Thai have -- how do I say this delicately -- lets just say they are very much opportunists. Some times this opportunism is self-created. For example, we're rockin' a bus across Krabi, which is on the southern tail of the mainland, when all of the sudden the bus pulls over at a travel agency. Everyone dutifully follows instructions and gets off, starts ordering food, rockin the internet, etc.

But my spider sense is tingling. Somethings not right. By my calculations, we have 45 mins to make this ferry, and this pit stop is cutting it close, to say the least. I go to ask the lady whats going on. She says that we already missed the ferry and that the bus will take us to get the next one. Instead of getting in at 7, we'll be getting in at 9:30. I tell her that the ferry hasn't left yet and that we want to get to the earlier one. She offers to find us a cab for 1,500 baht -- about $40. Convenient. Even more convenient was the fact that the "cab" was actually the travel agencies pickup truck, idling outside. As I'm arguing with the Thai lady, I meet this British couple on vacation, and we decide to figure it out together. Even though we knew we were being ripped off, we decided to rock the cab (good thing we did, too -- I later met someone who was on that bus, and they got in around 11 -- too late to find a decent place, and they all got overcharged. Of course, we ended up staying in a guesthouse run by the Thai mafia, so who knows. We were quiet, respectful, and BOUNCED so quickly the next day they didn't even know what was up.) Anyways, the British dude offers to pay 1,000 of it, because, as he said, "I'm only on vacation for a short time. You guys need to save your money." Mad chill. Only, he didn't say it like that. He said it all British. So I guess that was a paraphrase.

The next day, Yair wakes up early, rents a motorbike and finds this ridiculous place called Family Bungalow, right on the water. WOW. When I get at a computer next, I'll post pictures. Maybe a video. Don't get too greedy -- that's my job. Anyways, we had our own semi-private beach, a bungalow and a big shared bed. Nice and romantic. We cuddled. Obviously.

The next couple of days we just chilled: Went for a shabbat dinner

at a local Israeli guesthouse, which was awesome, explored the island, found some (more) ridiculous beaches,

checked out some waterfalls... There's this one place called Coco Hut -- I swear, its just like the Tayelet in Tel-Aviv: Lots of Israelis and a couple random tourists. Unbelievable. Phan gan is like Israeli central, which is nice for me because there isn't another American (at least none that I've found) for miles, and its nice to have a little bit of common ground.