The Life and Times of Jenna Loeser.: Adventure

This past weekend, Becca and I decided to get out of town and see someplace new. Our friend Tom recommended an island not too far away called Koh Sichang, and we decided to check it out. For 40 baht (approx. $1.40) we took a bus from Jomtien to Sriracha. Once we got off the bus, we had absolutely no idea where to go. We had to find the beach, and then the ferry to take from Sriracha to the island of Koh Sichang. It was about noon at this point, and blazing hot. We started to walk in the direction of the ocean...and attempted to ask people along the way if they could tell us specifically where to find this ferry. After many failed attempts...and an hour of walking around aimlessly...we finally found the right pier and the right ferry to get us to the island. Unfortunately we were one of the first few people who boarded the ferry, so we had to wait almost an hour and a half for the entire boat to be filled with people and cargo. I think I fell asleep. Anyway, half hour later, we finally arrived at the island. There were a group of crazy tuk tuk drivers all competing to take customers to their final weekend destinations on the beach. Koh Sichang only has one beach on the whole island, so we found a driver and headed there. Not knowing anything about where we were, or possible hotel options, we took the driver's suggestion and requested a bungalow on the beach. Sounds fancy huh! Just wait.

Our driver's name was Wurr (at least that is how it sounds...) and he spoke English pretty well. I was so excited to finally ride in a tuk tuk! But on the way, a weird bug crawled up my shorts and bit me. Ugh. Anyway, the tuk tuk took us to the other side of the island and dropped us off at the bungalows. The owner tried to make us pay 800 baht for a tiny room....and Wurr bargained it down to 650 for us. What a man! Without even looking inside, we threw our bags down and headed for the beach. The water was crystal clear and amazing. The only downside to the beach were the sharp rocks in the water. After floating for awhile, I headed back in to shore and managed to get 5 deep cuts on my left foot on the way in. The rocks were as sharp as daggers and my foot was bleeding everywhere. Becca attempted to find me something to clean my foot with, but all she came back with was a bandaid. My foot was in so much pain, but there was nothing I could do about it so I cleaned the cuts the best I could and covered the biggest one with the bandaid. By this time it was dinner time and we were starving. We ordered some kow pat guy (fried rice with chicken) and had to get it to go (take away, as it is called here) because the hoards of flies swarming around us was too disgusting to bear. With our food, and cups of ice for our (unfortunately warm) beer, we decided to sit at the table outside our bungalow. Soon after, Becca discovered that our beds were infested with bed bugs. G-R-O-S-S. On the verge of vomiting, we crammed all our stuck back into our backpacks and went to find the lady who sold us the room. She spoke zero English and there was no way we could convey to her that her beds were full of bugs; that, and she wouldn't have been able to do anything about it even if she could understand us. Instead, I motioned to her that I was sick (made some puking sounds and held my stomach). She understood, and refunded us only 350 baht for the room because we had "used" it. That's all she could say. By this time, it is 8pm and the last ferry back to the mainland had left at 7. We were doomed! We called a tuk tuk driver, in hopes that we could find another place to stay, and to our luck, Wurr showed up! Finally someone who could understand us. He explained that the only other options were way more expensive and we were basically out of luck. Going along with our previous story of me being sick, we hoped he'd hook us up with something sweet, so I just kept playing on that. When we got back to the other side of the island, he told us that his sister's "healing house" had a room available for 200 baht each, and we could stay there if we wanted. He also added in that his sister was a nurse so she could help me if I was sick in the middle of the night (I was dying inside and felt bad for lying to him...but whatever). The healing house was AMAZING. His sister gives massages there, has her own garden full of mushrooms and herbs, and she makes her own shampoo. The entire place was made out of bamboo shoots and palm fronds. The bathroom and shower were outside...as well as the room we would be staying in. It felt like we were in a movie or something. The healing house saved us for the night!
When I woke up the next morning, my foot was infected and hurt like no other. This is when Wurr's sister (the nurse) became my savior. She cleaned out my cuts, and put some organic salt on them to hold me over until I could get back to Pattaya and get some neosporin. It was quite the weekend and I'm glad to be back in my apartment, sans frogs and geckos.