Stilted

Ko Panyi from the long tail boat, Thailand.
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Surprise, surprise, rain again!  I had a 9:30am long tail boat to catch.  The good thing was that the boat left from the east beach where I was staying, the bad thing was that the tide was out, way out.  So, traipsing through the mud for quite some time hearing shrieks from fellow travelers losing flip flops that were breaking I was quite impressed with my $3 Target flip flops that I really had only intended to wear if the room and shower weren't too nice.  Finally made it to the boat.  We all piled in, 14 adults and 5 children and all the luggage and one double stroller!  I was sure we were way beyond maximum capacity, but we made it safely to the drop off and another lengthy trip back to the pier.  After some confusion as to what next (there seems to be a common theme about lack of communication), I was shuffled off to a minivan.

The market at Ko Panyi, Thailand.
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A couple from my hotel and their 8 year old son was in my van and the mother and I started talking only to find out they were from Seattle.  Turns out their son is autistic although I was not able to tell from seeing them at the pool where he seemed to talk a lot, but I figured he was a kid that was trying to keep himself amused as the only kid there!  This was his first experience out of the country and was doing really well, much to his parent's happiness.  The mother said that in the States he gets a lot of negative feedback, especially when he stares, but apparently in Thailand, the Thais stare quite a bit, so it has been no problem at all!  The biggest issue so far has been the lack of seatbelts which usually upsets Austin a bit and she wished she had realized this and had brought a luggage belt or something to at least have the pretense of being buckled in.

Evacuation sign at Ko Panyi, Thailand.
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We parted ways at our second stop as they were heading onto Kuala Lumpur.  After sitting around for about 40 minutes, it was into another minivan along with 4 Brits (2 couples) from Brighton.  After a 2+ hour ride, we arrived at Phang Nga.  My intention had been to stay in Phang Nga, and doing a day trip to Ko Panyi (or Koh Paynee), but the town didn't seem to be all that pleasing, and since the Brits were doing an overnight stay at Ko Panyi, I asked if I could tag along.

I had a couple of hours to kill before leaving at 4pm, just enough time for lunch and to track down a towel for a swim the next day.  I found Bismilia, recommended in LP, not too far from the bus station.  As I sat there waiting for my lunch, I heard this awful meowing, like a cat was being strangled or something!  Turns out the cat was getting a shower and apparently was not too thrilled about this, which was even more apparent when he emerged soaking wet.  It reminded me of when Dave and I, covered from head to toe to avoid the scratches, tried washing Jules a few times.

Ko Panyi village, Thailand.
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Taken to the pier, we piled into a long tail boat heading for Ko Panyi, a Muslim village entirely on stilts.  After a half hour boat ride we arrived and were taken to our accommodation, Water Village Home Stay, which consisted of 5 rooms in a row, separated by thin walls that didn't reach the ceiling.  With my good luck, I ended up with the room that had door issues.  It was funny to see the cleaning staff try to make it work and their solution (well not really a solution) was to lock it from inside and then climb out the window to the neighbor's tin roof and then back, like I was going to do that!  Eventually, I learnt that if you slammed the door hard enough, it would kind of shut.

A makeshift jetty at Ko Panyi, Thailand.
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We had a couple of hours before dinner, so I wandered around the village that consists of about 200 houses, all of them on stilts.  It just amazed me why the effort to build something that would be so much harder than building on land.  The houses were separated by concrete walkways with kids on bikes and cats roaming around.  There was also the market in the middle of the village. Apparently, this is quite the tourist attraction by day, but at night I was only one of 7 tourists, which made it a very pleasant experience.  As you walked by most of the houses were open with kids laying on mattresses on the floor watching TV as the mothers were outside chatting with other villagers or preparing dinner.  One thing I noticed were the evacuation signs, wondering if they were put up after the 2004 tsunami.  I did see a marker that showed how high the water got, which was above the pier.

The nicer side of Ko Panyi (one of the restaurants), Thailand.
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After dinner, I opted to rest in my room with not many options of things to do and of course, there was no drinking.  The four Brits were nice enough, but as two couples they pretty much kept to themselves and I didn't want to intrude.