After yet another long night of sleep, I caught the ferry back to the mainland and bought a minibus ticket to Krabi, the jumping off point for the island of Ko Phi Phi. According to the lady who sold me the ticket, the minibus left in half and hour, but as anyone who’s traveled through a developing country knows, departure times are meaningless for minibuses. They leave when they’re full.
Unfortunately for me, this one didn’t fill up until the second ferry arrived at the mainland, two hours later. And to make matters worse, half way to Krabi the minibus driver pulled into a bus station and said, “OK, minibus finished, you take big bus from here.” But the whole reason I had bought a direct ticket to Krabi was so that I could go directly to Krabi. If I’d wanted to change halfway, I could have taken a minibus that left sooner. Grrr.
I didn’t reach Krabi until nearly 5pm, and by that time the ferry to Ko Phi Phi had stopped running for the day. So I dropped my pack in a cheap guest house and headed into town to find an ATM, eat dinner, and get a shave. The first two items on my list went fine, but the shave was a half hour from hell. The lady couldn’t have done more than two other shaves in her entire life—her hand was shaking the whole time, she kept cutting me, and when she was done she had missed about seven spots on my face and neck. Once again I vowed never to let my beard grow so long that I couldn’t shave it myself. And once again I knew I’d never keep my vow.
I bought a ferry ticket to Ko Phi Phi for the next morning, and after a few chapters of The God of Small Things I hit the sack.
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