Day 7: West again to the beaches north of Patong: Kamala, Surin and Bang Tao, each quieter than the last. We spend most of the day and Bang Tao taking the sun and then head back to Phuket Town. The line of bites along my arm has spread to my back and both of my feet and lower legs, they're really unbearably itchy. After a sleepless night I find out why on the morning of...
Day 8: Bedbugs! One of the bigger ones -- about the size of an apple seed -- gorged himself to death on me in the night and I found his bloated corpse in the morning. Apparently I am severely allergic to bedbugs and now I'm itching like a junky. We check out of the On On -- now I know why Robert Carlyle's character committed suicide in the movie -- and hit the road a la Easy Rider, northwest to Nai Thon where the bungalows are expensive and then further north to Nai Yang where we find a good deal at 400b. per night. The beach is nice, just enough people for company, the girls' age-to-toplessness ratio just right. That afternoon I go for a run shoeless along the beach. I tell myself that I'll just run up to the point I see in the distance. An hour later and I'm still running; the point seems to have gotten a little closer. Half an hour after that and I'm still not there. A shooting pain goes up my leg. I fell into a sort of a trance as I ran, not noticing the growing blood-blisters on my feet until they nearly cripple me. I reinvent profanity when I turn around to see that I've run nearly half the length of the island and am now effectively hobbled by my sheer enthusiasm. So I begin to swim back, soon realizing that that's not going to work, what with darkness quickly falling and jellyfish in the water. I ask a guy with a motor-raft how much he would charge to ferry me back to my bungalow and he quotes me 1000b. Nothing doing. I walk to the nearest hotel and have them call me a taxi, but when the taxi arrives he doesn't have a meter and wants to charge me 500b. Fuck that. It seems that the tourist boom has rung dollar signs into the eyes of all of the Thais it has touched, and even a guy who can barely walk can't catch a break. But barely walk I did, for four hours back down the beach, the monotony only broken by a beautiful sunset in neon pastels and a chance meeting with a Lithuanian girl who gives me a drink of water. I spend my first night in a bungalow, probably the soundest I've slept since I've arrived, but...
Day 9: I've brought the bedbugs with me in my luggage and I wake up itching in the morning like it's my job. Can't take much more of this and so I go on a hunt for poison. At a pet shop I pick up some tick powder, at 7-11 -- Thailand is chock-full of 7-11s -- I grab some poison fog, at a pharmacy I pick up some calamine lotion with H-1 blockers (corticosteroids to stop the itch), but the lotion doesn't work nearly as well as the Tiger Balm given to me by the owner of the bungalows. I use the shotgun approach on the bedbugs: liberally dusting the entire bungalow and everything I own with the tick powder, fogging the shit out of the bungalow and applying a layer of 25% DEET over a layer of Tiger Balm all over my pustule-ridden corpus. That seems to take care of the bedbugs, but now I look as if I have a contagious skin disease and smell as if I'm a geriatric pest exterminator. Risto & I take the bikes to the northeast part of the island where there is a marina. We leave our contact info on the notice board and two hours later we get a call from Tom, a retired long-line fisherman from Alaska and the captain of the sailing vessel Saveke. He wants us to help him sail his boat down to Malaysia on its yearly visa run. Sure, why not? Risto & I decide to celebrate. At the Freedom Bar Risto tries Thai whiskey for the first time -- I still haven't -- and says it tastes like bathtub spirits with some cinnamon and oil of cardamom mixed in. I have a discussion on Tom Waits with a Scotsman. We end up in a bus converted into a karaoke bar and I treat the crowd to the dulcet tones of Dano, singing some godawful Thai song as best I can.
Day 10: We lay on the beach...all...day...long...
Friday, February 25, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Dano's Day 5 & 6
Day 5: Woke up, broke the fast at the tom yum place and met Martin's colleague Tarmo at noon to get the motor scooters. Driving in Thailand is on the left and is done with a sort of devil-may-care disregard for the limits of both municipal code and human physiology. To have the wind in my hair -- and the hair on the back of my neck on end -- as I wove my way through Thai traffic was exhilirating to say the least. I wore a big smile on my face -- I couldn't do otherwise through clenched teeth & my lips flapping in the wind -- for the rest of the day as we zipped around Phuket. A double honk of the horn is heard a lot in Thailand -- I think that's where the tuk-tuk gets its name: an onomatopoeic label for the sound of its horn -- and means, generally, either check your shit because something's wrong with your whip, or else, "Get the fuck out of the way because I'm right behind you and I'm coming through." Whenever Risto would pull in front of me as we rode I'd give him surreptitious double-taps on the horn, or slide up behind him at stoplights with a screeching of my breaks. He never tired of that. That night back at the Roxy Risto and I met up with Shirley and Alex, an LHC alumnus who is taking a TEFL course in Phuket. We made a pretty early night of it, in the course of which bedbugs attacked.
Day 6: Up early again, scratching like mad at a row of five red bites on the back of my left arm. I don't think much about it at the time and work a lather of DEET onto myself before I go out. Risto & I head for the southernmost tip of Phuket to start beach hopping. Rawai beach has a fish market with squid, all manner of fish, conch and a cornucopia of shells. There are some sea gypsies there, their muscles like steel cables taut underneath their skin, tanned a coffee brown by the tropical sun. They ply and mend their nets and sit in the shade of the coconut palms. On to Nai Harn beach with loads of Frenchies soaking up the sun, a beautiful wat (Buddhist temple) and a lagoon; it's one of my favorite beaches on Phuket. North to Kata Noi beach, a Russian hangout. Risto teaches me some key phrases in Russian, e.g. "You are very beautiful, what is your name?" Quick swim in the turquoise crystal waters of the Andaman Sea and then north to Karon Beach. More Russians and the best swimming beach on Phuket as there are no damn buoy lines (yet there are dippy girls zooming around blindfolded on jetskis). On to Paradise Beach just southwest of Patong where we are caught in a rainstorm that begins in an instant, battering the tiny beach with fist-sized droplets driven by a howling wind. Half an hour later and it's stopped as quickly as it started. Next stop, Patong Beach. Patong is the main tourist drag, and what a drag it is. Shop owners practically grab your hand as you walk by, shaking your arm out of your socket and working the only English they know: "Where you from? You come and see (insert worthless trinket, bauble or dubious-quality suit here). I make it cheap for you!" Everyone is grimly determined to enjoy themselves within their two-feet-in-diameter personal space and they all jostle and elbow their way along as if there were someplace to go. Risto tries to contact his friend who lives here, but he's not home and so we head back to Phuket Town. Once there we meet with Shirley, Alex, and an Indonesian girl named Ratih. Shirley tells me that my tattoo -- the one I've had for many, many years and still was not exactly sure what it meant -- is a traditional Chinese ideogram and that, although she is Chinese, she can only decipher half of it. It starts, "Piercing. Power..." something something. Sounds pretty good to me. I'll have to wait until I meet a Lithuanian before the rest of it is translated for me. So, our diverse little band of travelers is joined later on by three Thais, an Austrian, an Australian and a Cuban-Ojibwe from Timbuktu. We all go out dancing and I go Travolta on them, at one point even doing the chicken dance. Ratih and I head back to the On On for a traveler's powwow. She tells me about Indonesia and I begin considering travels further south...
Day 6: Up early again, scratching like mad at a row of five red bites on the back of my left arm. I don't think much about it at the time and work a lather of DEET onto myself before I go out. Risto & I head for the southernmost tip of Phuket to start beach hopping. Rawai beach has a fish market with squid, all manner of fish, conch and a cornucopia of shells. There are some sea gypsies there, their muscles like steel cables taut underneath their skin, tanned a coffee brown by the tropical sun. They ply and mend their nets and sit in the shade of the coconut palms. On to Nai Harn beach with loads of Frenchies soaking up the sun, a beautiful wat (Buddhist temple) and a lagoon; it's one of my favorite beaches on Phuket. North to Kata Noi beach, a Russian hangout. Risto teaches me some key phrases in Russian, e.g. "You are very beautiful, what is your name?" Quick swim in the turquoise crystal waters of the Andaman Sea and then north to Karon Beach. More Russians and the best swimming beach on Phuket as there are no damn buoy lines (yet there are dippy girls zooming around blindfolded on jetskis). On to Paradise Beach just southwest of Patong where we are caught in a rainstorm that begins in an instant, battering the tiny beach with fist-sized droplets driven by a howling wind. Half an hour later and it's stopped as quickly as it started. Next stop, Patong Beach. Patong is the main tourist drag, and what a drag it is. Shop owners practically grab your hand as you walk by, shaking your arm out of your socket and working the only English they know: "Where you from? You come and see (insert worthless trinket, bauble or dubious-quality suit here). I make it cheap for you!" Everyone is grimly determined to enjoy themselves within their two-feet-in-diameter personal space and they all jostle and elbow their way along as if there were someplace to go. Risto tries to contact his friend who lives here, but he's not home and so we head back to Phuket Town. Once there we meet with Shirley, Alex, and an Indonesian girl named Ratih. Shirley tells me that my tattoo -- the one I've had for many, many years and still was not exactly sure what it meant -- is a traditional Chinese ideogram and that, although she is Chinese, she can only decipher half of it. It starts, "Piercing. Power..." something something. Sounds pretty good to me. I'll have to wait until I meet a Lithuanian before the rest of it is translated for me. So, our diverse little band of travelers is joined later on by three Thais, an Austrian, an Australian and a Cuban-Ojibwe from Timbuktu. We all go out dancing and I go Travolta on them, at one point even doing the chicken dance. Ratih and I head back to the On On for a traveler's powwow. She tells me about Indonesia and I begin considering travels further south...
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Another million dollar idea brought to you by Dan Heil
I've heard a lot of country music since arriving in Thailand, and not shitty country either, but some really good music: Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Hank Sr. & Jr., Chris LeDoux, etc. I've also seen a lot of Thais wearing western shirts, Wranglers, old Levis, Tony Lama boots and gigantic silver belt buckles. Asking a few of them where they get all this western gear they tell me that a lot of it can be found in second-hand shops, except for the belt buckles. The Thais who are into the cowboy look would ride a bronc bareback to get their hands on a massive belt buckle and some esoteric country music. I think this may have something to do with not only the enduring mystique of the Old West, but also, here in Thailand at least, with the sheer foreign-ness of the big sky country, saloons, sheriffs and gunslingers. The counterpart of this veneration of the foreign is clearly visible in the very common fascination in the West with the customs and imagined goings-on of the Old East, e.g. samurais, I-Ching, yoga and martial arts. So, the million dollar idea: import belt buckles and hard to find western gear, e.g. peace pipes, Native American beadwork, old rifles and pistols, to the East and export hard to find eastern gear to the West. Just another wonderful idea from the mind of Daniel Heil, bringing cultures together since whenever.
Friday, February 11, 2011
the continuing saga...
Day 3: Up early and I'm down to a local joint for some Tom Yam and a fresh pineapple shake. Meet up with Risto and we walk down Sukhumvit Road where, at night, the Lonely Hearts Club come in droves to the Patpong area to drink, be milked of their baht, and perchance get lucky with a person of indeterminate sex. We see an unbelievably intricate Hindu temple and stop at a fruit vendor for some mangosteen, rambutan, lychee, mango and something that looks like a red bell pepper but tastes like an apple. I eat a garlic sausage from a street vendor and get a thankfully quick bout of GI distress. We walk to the Chao Phraya River and are accosted the entire way with calls of, "Tuk-tuk?" and "Where you going?" The Chao Phraya is big and muddy like a lot of rivers. Back at the guesthouse Risto and I treat ourselves to the famous Thai massage, which involves a lot of contortions and cracking of joints. It loosens me up nicely for the bus ride to Phuket. At the bus station we hear the national anthem announced with a blast of static. Everyone stands, including those on the buses. Side-note: the Thai people are inordinately fond of their king who, it must be said, sounds like a genuinely good & intelligent man, and is a jazz musician and composer as well. His picture is everywhere. We get on the bus and ride into the Thai night.
Day 4: We step off the bus in Phuket Town at eight in the morning and are immediately queried as to where we are going and if we should desire a tuk-tuk. The answers are, to the latter: no, and to the former: we are going to the Phuket Grand Royal Hotel to meet with Risto's friend Martin who does a good bit of business in Phuket, renting motor-scooters, taking people SCUBA diving and helping run the Rumblefish Hostel. He takes us to Kata Beach where I have heard of a hostel (Martin's place is full). The owner of said hostel asks us for 1200b per room, up from the 600b listed on hostels.com. I smile and say, "No, thank you." I'm really getting the hang of that. We drive back into Phuket Town where Martin turns us on to the On On Hotel, the place where Leo finds the map in "The Beach". I'm intrigued, not because of its Hollywood associations but because it's the cheapest place in town. For 180b how can you go wrong? Answer: bedbugs. It turns out that that big can of poison fog on the door frame is meant to be used on a daily basis. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We wandered around Phuket Old Town, checking out the cool old architecture, found a great place for Tom Yam and wound up the night at Roxy's, an expat bar where I get to talking to an Alaskan who teaches English at the University of Phuket half the year and runs a setnet site in Alaska during the summer. Through him I meet Shirley, a Chinese couchsurfer who will figure in my story later.
Day 4: We step off the bus in Phuket Town at eight in the morning and are immediately queried as to where we are going and if we should desire a tuk-tuk. The answers are, to the latter: no, and to the former: we are going to the Phuket Grand Royal Hotel to meet with Risto's friend Martin who does a good bit of business in Phuket, renting motor-scooters, taking people SCUBA diving and helping run the Rumblefish Hostel. He takes us to Kata Beach where I have heard of a hostel (Martin's place is full). The owner of said hostel asks us for 1200b per room, up from the 600b listed on hostels.com. I smile and say, "No, thank you." I'm really getting the hang of that. We drive back into Phuket Town where Martin turns us on to the On On Hotel, the place where Leo finds the map in "The Beach". I'm intrigued, not because of its Hollywood associations but because it's the cheapest place in town. For 180b how can you go wrong? Answer: bedbugs. It turns out that that big can of poison fog on the door frame is meant to be used on a daily basis. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We wandered around Phuket Old Town, checking out the cool old architecture, found a great place for Tom Yam and wound up the night at Roxy's, an expat bar where I get to talking to an Alaskan who teaches English at the University of Phuket half the year and runs a setnet site in Alaska during the summer. Through him I meet Shirley, a Chinese couchsurfer who will figure in my story later.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Blow-by-blow, day-by-day
Here is the story thus far, abbreviated though perhaps not a supreme example of the laconic style.
Day 1: Risto & I step off the plane, having been seated next to each other on the flight in from Hong Kong. He is ditched by the sex-touring Finns he was meant to go to Pattaya with, so I invite him into Bangkok. Outside the terminal he is shoe-horned into an unmarked, unmetered cab and I don't speak up fast enough about not taking it. An agreed-upon 500 baht suddenly turns into 1500 as soon as we are on the freeway out of the airport. As the cab, with two Thai men long used to milking baht from tourists, turns into a dimly-lit car lot I get the evil feeling that my stay in Thailand has come to an abrupt halt. However, we simply change cars and are on our way again into Bangkok, this time with one driver who seems harmless in a developmentally challenged way. I wonder if he will be able to find our hostel. He does and I check in. There are no beds left available and so Risto finds digs down the road. Back at the hostel I begin talking with two beautiful, blond Danish girls -- how I love a coffee and Danish in the morning -- who've been, on this trip, to Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia and of course Thailand. They advise me that the surfable waves are all in Indonesia & particularly Bali. They leave in the morning back to Copenhagen and I miss them already. I talk also with a Swede who is here, I gather from a somewhat one-sided conversation on sex, to join the Lonely Hearts Club, by which title I will henceforth refer to those who come to Thailand to get their kicks below the belt, so to speak.
Day 2: Up with the sun. Excellent coffee (some of the only of that quality I'll see in a long while) from a street vendor, shower, and then Risto and I grab breakfast from an alleyway-turned-lunch-counter with several vendors and a lot of locals eating there -- always a good sign. We take a tuk-tuk to the Grand Palace where a friendly guy with excellent English explains that at that particular moment there is a Buddhist prayer session going and, anyways, Risto is wearing shorts which is considered disrespectful to the Buddha -- the former is a lie, the latter, true -- and thus we will not be allowed entry. Instead he shepherds us into another tuk-tuk which he says for the low-low price of 30 b will take us to see the lucky Buddha -- which was pretty cool though unphotographable -- and a silk manufacturer where we can price some uncut silk and also perhaps clothe Risto's shameful legs. I agree as I want to price some silk anyways. Two hours later we have seen three silk suit hawkers, each pushier than the last, one gold & precious stone merchant and, above all, the fabled Thai runaround. Fuck, we've been duped. But in the end it was only 30 baht and we got to see a bit more of the city than we might've just bumbling about on our own. As the tuk-tuk driver drops us back at the Grand Palace all I can think about is buying my bus ticket and getting far and fast away from the noisy hustle of Bangkok. When I go back, however, I'm going to see the inside of the Grand Palace if I have to storm it medieval-style. So, the first cab driver -- a convenient friend of the tuk-tuk driver who's just carted us around to be baht-baited -- offers to take us to the bus station for 500 baht. I say no thanks, smile, curse his mother under my breath and begin to walk away. Risto keeps talking to him. I won't be had again and I intend to walk until I find a metered taxi with a mute driver. Risto gets the picture and catches up with me after about a block. We hop into a cab and get to the bus station for a metered 110 baht. Tickets to Phuket are 628 b for 1st class, including meal service, water, snacks and a coffee in the morning. For 928 b we could've traveled VIP class, which means a wider, fully-reclineable seat without a neighbor. I find out later that both 1st class and VIP ride the same bus, the former on the top level and the latter on the lower of a double-decker bus and, further, that while on the bus you can upgrade to VIP status if you slip the cute stewardess 50 baht. The buses are faster & cheaper than the trains here in Thailand, but the trains offer all passengers sleeping berths & are almost assured not to crash. So, we're ticketed and have one more night in Bangkok. Risto wants to see the spectacle of Khao San Road and I'd rather sleep, but he drags me out anyways. We meet two Estonian girls and an Englishman at a backpacker's bar and go Chang for Chang -- the budget Thai beer -- with them while listening to a spot-on cover band and doing intermittent push-ups (long story). Thence to a dance club where we see some guy getting a blow-job just off the stage. We dance until four in the morning and then it's back to the New Road Guesthouse to grab 40 winks.
Day 1: Risto & I step off the plane, having been seated next to each other on the flight in from Hong Kong. He is ditched by the sex-touring Finns he was meant to go to Pattaya with, so I invite him into Bangkok. Outside the terminal he is shoe-horned into an unmarked, unmetered cab and I don't speak up fast enough about not taking it. An agreed-upon 500 baht suddenly turns into 1500 as soon as we are on the freeway out of the airport. As the cab, with two Thai men long used to milking baht from tourists, turns into a dimly-lit car lot I get the evil feeling that my stay in Thailand has come to an abrupt halt. However, we simply change cars and are on our way again into Bangkok, this time with one driver who seems harmless in a developmentally challenged way. I wonder if he will be able to find our hostel. He does and I check in. There are no beds left available and so Risto finds digs down the road. Back at the hostel I begin talking with two beautiful, blond Danish girls -- how I love a coffee and Danish in the morning -- who've been, on this trip, to Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia and of course Thailand. They advise me that the surfable waves are all in Indonesia & particularly Bali. They leave in the morning back to Copenhagen and I miss them already. I talk also with a Swede who is here, I gather from a somewhat one-sided conversation on sex, to join the Lonely Hearts Club, by which title I will henceforth refer to those who come to Thailand to get their kicks below the belt, so to speak.
Day 2: Up with the sun. Excellent coffee (some of the only of that quality I'll see in a long while) from a street vendor, shower, and then Risto and I grab breakfast from an alleyway-turned-lunch-counter with several vendors and a lot of locals eating there -- always a good sign. We take a tuk-tuk to the Grand Palace where a friendly guy with excellent English explains that at that particular moment there is a Buddhist prayer session going and, anyways, Risto is wearing shorts which is considered disrespectful to the Buddha -- the former is a lie, the latter, true -- and thus we will not be allowed entry. Instead he shepherds us into another tuk-tuk which he says for the low-low price of 30 b will take us to see the lucky Buddha -- which was pretty cool though unphotographable -- and a silk manufacturer where we can price some uncut silk and also perhaps clothe Risto's shameful legs. I agree as I want to price some silk anyways. Two hours later we have seen three silk suit hawkers, each pushier than the last, one gold & precious stone merchant and, above all, the fabled Thai runaround. Fuck, we've been duped. But in the end it was only 30 baht and we got to see a bit more of the city than we might've just bumbling about on our own. As the tuk-tuk driver drops us back at the Grand Palace all I can think about is buying my bus ticket and getting far and fast away from the noisy hustle of Bangkok. When I go back, however, I'm going to see the inside of the Grand Palace if I have to storm it medieval-style. So, the first cab driver -- a convenient friend of the tuk-tuk driver who's just carted us around to be baht-baited -- offers to take us to the bus station for 500 baht. I say no thanks, smile, curse his mother under my breath and begin to walk away. Risto keeps talking to him. I won't be had again and I intend to walk until I find a metered taxi with a mute driver. Risto gets the picture and catches up with me after about a block. We hop into a cab and get to the bus station for a metered 110 baht. Tickets to Phuket are 628 b for 1st class, including meal service, water, snacks and a coffee in the morning. For 928 b we could've traveled VIP class, which means a wider, fully-reclineable seat without a neighbor. I find out later that both 1st class and VIP ride the same bus, the former on the top level and the latter on the lower of a double-decker bus and, further, that while on the bus you can upgrade to VIP status if you slip the cute stewardess 50 baht. The buses are faster & cheaper than the trains here in Thailand, but the trains offer all passengers sleeping berths & are almost assured not to crash. So, we're ticketed and have one more night in Bangkok. Risto wants to see the spectacle of Khao San Road and I'd rather sleep, but he drags me out anyways. We meet two Estonian girls and an Englishman at a backpacker's bar and go Chang for Chang -- the budget Thai beer -- with them while listening to a spot-on cover band and doing intermittent push-ups (long story). Thence to a dance club where we see some guy getting a blow-job just off the stage. We dance until four in the morning and then it's back to the New Road Guesthouse to grab 40 winks.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Onwards, downwards
It's been an uncounted number of days now since we stepped off the bus in Phuket Town and got the motor scooters (hereafter referred to as "the bikes") from Risto's friend Martin who runs a dive shop/hostel in Kata Beach. We explored Phuket Town -- interesting colonial architecture & not much more -- and spent a few days beach hopping the entire west coast -- the east doesn't have many beaches, and at those few there are vicious riptides -- until finally settling four days ago on Nai Yang in bungalows on the beach. The On On Hotel in Phuket Town was infested with bedbugs, giving me my first Thai souvenir, a line of terribly itchy bites down my right arm along with a now-abating insomnia caused by a DT-style psychosis: "there's fucking bugs crawling all over me!" So we left Phuket Town and settled in Nai Yang. It's fair to say that we traded up. The price? 1200 baht for 3 nights. Not bad considering that those without my inborn parsimony -- thanks Dad -- are paying 1000 baht per night.
The night before we left Phuket Town we painted it red with an Indonesian girl, a Chinese girl, two Thai guys and a girl, one Australian, one Austrian, and a partridge in a pear tree. My particular brand of flailing about on the dance floor is much beloved by the Thai people and I am now revered on a level second only to the King and/or the Buddha.
The beaches are very beautiful here, with crystal clear aquamarine water and soft sand that whistles/squeaks when you walk on it. It's only too bad that Phuket is filled with unsmiling tourists, the influx of which has caused the Thais to become mercenary and equally unsmiling. Yesterday I took off on a long run down the beach, falling into a sort of a trance as I ran, not noticing the growing blood-blisters on my feet until I felt a shooting pain go up my leg. I reinvented profanity when I turned around to see that I had run nearly half the length of the island and was now effectively hobbled by my sheer enthusiasm. So I began to swim back, soon realizing that that wasn't going to work what with darkness quickly falling and jellyfish in the water. I asked a guy with a motor raft how much it would be to ferry me back to my bungalow & he quoted me 1000 baht. Nothing doing. I walked into the nearest hotel and had them call me a taxi, but when he arrived he didn't have a meter -- always, ALWAYS make sure they have a meter or you'll end up paying whatever astronomical price they can imagine -- and so again I declined. The tourist boom has rung dollar signs into the eyes of all the Thais it has touched and even a guy who can barely walk can't catch a break. But barely walk I did, for four hours back down the beach, the monotony only broken by a beautiful sunset in neon pastels and a chance meeting with a Lithuanian girl who gave me a drink of water.
Two days later Risto and I decided to explore the northeast part of the island. We pulled into a marina to look at the boats and on a whim decided to leave our contact info on the notice board. An hour later Tom, the Alaskan owner of the S/V Saveke, gave us a call and asked if we could help him sail his boat down to Malaysia on a visa run. We decided to meet with Tom first to find out if he was enough of a psychopath to make the trip interesting. He is a retired long-line fisherman and seems like a nice guy, so in one week we sail for Malaysia. Until then we travel to Phi Phi island, then Koh Lanta, Krabi, Ao Nang, and back around to Phuket.
Update, February 6th: Phi Phi island is paradise, if paradise had a landfill's worth of garbage shipped in with a bunch of drunks from around the world. Sewage in the streets and emptiness in everyone's eyes. In other words it's a fucking nightmare and we left as soon as possible. We're now on Koh Lanta and it's much slower paced, although the beaches aren't as nice as those we've seen. I'll be glad to get back to the Saveke and help Tom bend his sails on. First we hike around Krabi and Ao Nang. Innocent out.
Post-script: a note on annoyances. "Tuk-tuk?" and "Where you going?" are two phrases you will hear on nearly a daily basis if you visit Thailand, the latter being simply an elongated version of the former. A tuk-tuk is a sort of three-wheeled open-air pickup driven at high speeds without regard for human life. It seems as if half the population of Thailand has tuk-tuks, and they all want to know where you're going. Take one once for the experience, agree on the price beforehand, and then buy a t-shirt with the phrase "No, I don't want a fucking tuk-tuk, a massage, or a suit, thank you very much," written on it in Thai.
The night before we left Phuket Town we painted it red with an Indonesian girl, a Chinese girl, two Thai guys and a girl, one Australian, one Austrian, and a partridge in a pear tree. My particular brand of flailing about on the dance floor is much beloved by the Thai people and I am now revered on a level second only to the King and/or the Buddha.
The beaches are very beautiful here, with crystal clear aquamarine water and soft sand that whistles/squeaks when you walk on it. It's only too bad that Phuket is filled with unsmiling tourists, the influx of which has caused the Thais to become mercenary and equally unsmiling. Yesterday I took off on a long run down the beach, falling into a sort of a trance as I ran, not noticing the growing blood-blisters on my feet until I felt a shooting pain go up my leg. I reinvented profanity when I turned around to see that I had run nearly half the length of the island and was now effectively hobbled by my sheer enthusiasm. So I began to swim back, soon realizing that that wasn't going to work what with darkness quickly falling and jellyfish in the water. I asked a guy with a motor raft how much it would be to ferry me back to my bungalow & he quoted me 1000 baht. Nothing doing. I walked into the nearest hotel and had them call me a taxi, but when he arrived he didn't have a meter -- always, ALWAYS make sure they have a meter or you'll end up paying whatever astronomical price they can imagine -- and so again I declined. The tourist boom has rung dollar signs into the eyes of all the Thais it has touched and even a guy who can barely walk can't catch a break. But barely walk I did, for four hours back down the beach, the monotony only broken by a beautiful sunset in neon pastels and a chance meeting with a Lithuanian girl who gave me a drink of water.
Two days later Risto and I decided to explore the northeast part of the island. We pulled into a marina to look at the boats and on a whim decided to leave our contact info on the notice board. An hour later Tom, the Alaskan owner of the S/V Saveke, gave us a call and asked if we could help him sail his boat down to Malaysia on a visa run. We decided to meet with Tom first to find out if he was enough of a psychopath to make the trip interesting. He is a retired long-line fisherman and seems like a nice guy, so in one week we sail for Malaysia. Until then we travel to Phi Phi island, then Koh Lanta, Krabi, Ao Nang, and back around to Phuket.
Update, February 6th: Phi Phi island is paradise, if paradise had a landfill's worth of garbage shipped in with a bunch of drunks from around the world. Sewage in the streets and emptiness in everyone's eyes. In other words it's a fucking nightmare and we left as soon as possible. We're now on Koh Lanta and it's much slower paced, although the beaches aren't as nice as those we've seen. I'll be glad to get back to the Saveke and help Tom bend his sails on. First we hike around Krabi and Ao Nang. Innocent out.
Post-script: a note on annoyances. "Tuk-tuk?" and "Where you going?" are two phrases you will hear on nearly a daily basis if you visit Thailand, the latter being simply an elongated version of the former. A tuk-tuk is a sort of three-wheeled open-air pickup driven at high speeds without regard for human life. It seems as if half the population of Thailand has tuk-tuks, and they all want to know where you're going. Take one once for the experience, agree on the price beforehand, and then buy a t-shirt with the phrase "No, I don't want a fucking tuk-tuk, a massage, or a suit, thank you very much," written on it in Thai.
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