Life Is But A Beach Chair

Sweet glorious Thai beaches. They lived up to the description, I’ma just say that straight out. They kill the beach scene dead.

After 2 consecutive nights of “sleeping” on trains, Sarah & I roll into Chumphon, this dirtball coastal town at 1 am, thinking we’ll get a hotel and just sleep til 1 pm to catch our boat to Koh Tao the next day. We were hilariously mistaken. After roaming around the train station, a couple wrong turns and a run-in with a straight up cat-sized RAT – all the while carrying Sarah’s MASSIVE rolling bag cause she’s moving to Australia after the trip – we come across a sight for sore eyes. A beacon of light in the shady, dank streets of Chumphon…. sweet 7-Eleven baby. Stopped in for a Coke slurpee and a pack of gum and we were on the road again.

Unfortunately this particular Sev proved less fruitful than originally hoped since everyone inside pretended not to understand “taxi” and my (frankly, spot on) gestures to CALL ONE PLEASE.
This brings up a related tangent about a common occurrence while travelling in Asia: sometimes you need to ask someone for directions, advice or miscellaneous info of some type so you approach was looks like a competent Thai/Vietnamese/Cambodian/Whatever. No big deal.
It’s at approximately 3 words into a semi-complicated request such as “Is the bus station somewhere on this street?” that you realize this person has NO idea what the sounds coming out of your mouth mean, let alone where to find the Royal Taj.
Unfortunately, you can’t just stop talking 3 words in and walk off, since this would obviously be rude… plus Asians, being the hospitable people they are, will never just tell you they don’t know but instead smile and nod, all the while giving themselves away with this distinguishable glazed look in their eye. so I’ve taken to just changing the question mid-sentence to something simple like “When is your birthday?” and then acting like this is what I really wanted to know all along. Of course I walked all the way across Chumphon to ask you, yes YOU, where and when you were born. And just like that, I disappear like a thief in the night. No sense wasting my breath and your time. We’re all better off this way.
So after asking Palawa where she’s from, how the weather is this time of year up in Chiang Rai and how many siblings she has, I realize this conversation is getting me & Sarah no closer to a bed on which to lay our weary heads. Luckily a toothless moto dude rolls in to buy some cigs at a key moment and offers to take us, 60-lb. rolling bag and all, to the boat office somewhere else in town. Money. You may not be a real moto driver, hell, you may not be sober but we’ll take you son.
Dude hauls us off somewhere, wakes up his friend at a hotel to ask where the boat office is at and we get there only to chill on the luxurious plastic lawn chairs and listen to ridiculously bad Thai karaoke from 2 til 4 am. Longer story shortened – we find a room above the office at about 4:30 when it opens for a hefty $5 and sleep like babies til noon.
First stop was Koh Tao and it was the business. Small, but way chill and just had a good vibe. Good food, good people, and the water. Man, I never seen anything LIKE it. Crystal clear and the most gorgeous shades of turquoise. No wonder people come from all over to dive here. Ballin.

We rolled deep with another Canadian we met on the way to the island, rented motos and explored the island on our own for once. Sweet freeeeeeedom from annoying taxi/tuk-tuk drivers. The sun was setting so we rode off into the dusk over dirt roads and under a palm-framed sky painted a myriad brilliant shades of oranges, pinks and reds.
This place is gon be allllllll riiiiight.

Next day(s) were filled with snorkelling (or snorking as I prefer to say now that I heard it called that like a dozen times by Thais) and loungin’. We came across a beach volleyball court and played a couple sets with some locals and I can proudly say this time was more successful than my first experience back in Cambodia… then again the bar was set impressively low.
Rolled to Koh Phangnan next, which was to be the site of my ultimate downfall. Cruisin ‘round on rented motos, we see an elephant farm on the side of the road and naturally pull over to have another look. Elephants are impressive as usual, munchin on some palm leaves in their stalls, but there’s this monkey. He’s on a leash, hangin around the owner and ooohee, look how cute he is. I take a few pictures of the little critter but he’s gettin a little tired of havin his leash yanked about by the Thai guy and begrudgingly hops on this Swedish dude’s head for a photo op by dude’s wife.

Out of nowhere, monkey reaches the end of his pitiful rope and decides to take it out on my right pointer finger. 2.4 seconds later I’m dead and bloodied, army crawling along the roadside calling desperately for an ambulance. The best part is that the monkey chomps on my digit, and absolutely nobody is even a little concerned. When can a person get some compassion in the world today if not after being bitten by a rabid primate. The Swedish wife was obviously cracked out and had already picked the monkey up to scratch his belly. DID YOU NOT JUST SEE WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?!!?!

I think the owner just tried to pretend he didn’t notice until I hold up my bloody wound and he gives me a less than concerned “oh”. Wound cleaned up with some mysterious brown stuff that may or may not have been iodine, I’m out before the seizures set in so bad I can’t drive. And that’s the way it ends. A little anti-climatic cause I never did get rabies or anything else… but me and Sarah thought we should probably show the minimum level of concern and responsibility and ask a pharmacist how worried we should be about me becoming a fingerless wonder. She didn’t seem as amused about the situation as I was (after I reminded myself every 5 mins for the next 3 days that I GOT BIT BY A MONKEY IN RURAL THAILAND, it got a little funnier) and said to ask the owner if the monkey had had a rabies shot. According to him, “It’s ok, it’s ok. No problem”. He definitely didn’t even pretend to understand the question but hey, if I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that from everyone from taxi drivers to well, monkey owners…
The rest of Koh Phangan was more of the same glorious beach living except for the random hairy black hog we saw chillin’ on the side of the road outside this mechanic’s shop one night. It kinda seemed like he was a pet or something but it was random and hilarious when the mechanic dude throws his young son up on piggy’s back for a ride. Similar to bulls, pigs don’t like being touched or ridden.

Last but not least was Koh Phi Phi on the other side of Thailand on the west coast. Getting there was rather an involved process and we had to take a boat to Koh Samui, fly from there to Phuket and then take another boat to Koh Phi Phi the next day. Hmm, that’s not interesting at all. Sorry for that.
Koh Phi Phi was just as rad as the other islands and maybe even more beautiful which I didn’t think was possible. It’s where they filmed The Beach so since my pictures of the place capture neither the beauty of the surroundings nor the beauty of 90’s Leo DiCaprio, go watch it and appreciate.
The one day it poured down rain we did an AMAZING snorkelling trip (still haven’t dived since Sarah in her delicacy can’t go deep as a result of childhood ear surgery… I’m not even bitter Sars don’t worry! Just kidding) and I can confidently say I’m not as scared of fish biting my feet off as I was before. I’m now more scared of monkeys.

We met some cool Swedes who confirmed what I have been told at least, yup, every time Asians try to guess where I’m from, that I look Swedish… even to Swedes. I’m in! I had the brilliance to try to ask them after this that if I was speaking Swedish would they think I was Swedish… Sarah tried to stop me mid-sentence from saying what is one of the dumbest questions anyone has ever uttered but luckily they got what I meant and my credibility as an idiot blonde only went up slightly.
Sarah has now since left me to go back to Australia to be with her man and I’m now kickin’ it with my moms in Malaysia. Actually we’re done with Malaysia, on a flight to Bali right now. More on that later.