We left Koh Pha Ngan on Friday morning and got on a boat to the coastal town of Chumphon where Cherry, a Thai woman who is kind of a family friend, would be meeting us. The travel company had told us that it would ve a 4 hour boat trip, we ended up being on the boat for 5 and a half hours. On the first leg, from Phangan to Koh Tao we sat on the top deck as the boat was packed and despite using sun cream, still managed to get burnt. There were only a handful of people going to Chumphon so we sat at the bottom and I had a nap- all the sitting is incredibly tiring!
We finally got to the pier and Cherry picked us up, after a smll mix up- we'd ended up at the wrong pier- and took us back to her place. She lives in a resort and put us up in a really nice bungalow that we'd never have been able to afford! We were staying right by the beach and there's not too much going on. It was so relaxed and I really appreciated that after the craziness of Koh Phangan! We went out for dinner, the menus are mostly seafood but there's still a few options for non-fish eaters, and then slept for 12 hours.
Our full day in Chumphon began on the beach, there was noone around, so we had this huge beach pretty much to ourselves. We chilled there for a while, then went for a walk along the rest of the beach and saw a few more people before returning to our spot on the beach where we stayed until it started to get dark. Cherry gave us a torch to use when we were walking to the restaurant in the dark. This came in handy as there is a ridiculous amount of wildlife roaming about. We came across frogs, oxes, a snake and too many insects to name. Once again, we just ate and slept, but this time had to be up early to start our southward journey out of Thailand!