thailand: part 7

may 6 - 12, 2005

Friday was my first morning back in Chiang Mai after returning from a three-day hill tribe trek. I got up early, headed to a travel agency to figure out where to travel to next. I had been considering heading to Cambodia to check out Angkor Watt, but when I learned from the travel agent that it would take me at least three full days of travel to get there from Chiang Mai, I decided to stay in Thailand figuring it would be a better use of my remaining six days! I ended up deciding to head to Koh Chang, a mellow island in the northeastern part of the Gulf of Thailand. After booking my trip, I emailed all the guys that I'd been on the trek with, told them that I was heading to Koh Chang and to hit me up if any of them were heading that way. Friday, May 6th After my reservations were squared away, I headed back to the Libra Guest House and ran into Tom. He wanted to check out Doi Suthep and I told about my scooter adventure there a few days earlier. He decided to rent a scooter and I decided to do the same and go check it out again because I'd had so much fun riding up the mountain on my scooter the first time! Here we are gassing up before heading up the mountain. By the way, the warnings on Thai cigarettes are no joke. So on my way up the mountain for the second time, I dumped my scooter! Boooooo! I was going around a hairpin-turn that was really steeply inclined and while I had my wheel cut to navigate the turn, my scooter started to stall. I overcompensated and revved my engine too hard and the bike shot out from under me sideways, dumping me on the pavement. Luckily, I was only going like 20mph and didn't get banged up too badly. Just ended up with some roadrash here... ...here... ...and here! Hahaha. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Having had already seen Doi Suthep and photographed the shit out of it, I don't even think I took my camera out of my backpack! Later that evening, I checked out of the Libra Guest House (which is the best place ever and if you're going to be in Chiang Mai, you should stay there!) and headed to the train station to begin my journey to the island of Koh Chang. I didn't have time to grab a proper dinner, so I stocked up on some snacks and risked the "12-hour train ride with diarrhea" nightmare in order to sample one of the... ...local delicacies. Some sort of weird, homemade sausage served in a plastic bag filled with chili sauce. Hey, you only live once, right? Bag of treats? Check. Sack of meat? Check! Time to board the train and settle in for my SIXTEEN HOUR TRAIN RIDE BACK TO BANGKOK! Hoo-ah! So here's a map to give you an overview of the geography involved in the last leg of my trip. I started out in Chiang Mai up there in the upper-right, caught a 16-hour overnight train to Bangkok, from Bangkok I hopped on a 6-hour bus to the city of Trat, and from Trat I took the 30-minute ferry out to the island of Koh Chang. (So I pretty much lost an entire day traveling!) First class was all sold out, but there was still room available in 2nd class. At first I was worried, but it turned out that 2nd class still had air conditioning and these neato seats that converted into beds with a privacy curtain so you could sleep and read. After the sun set, I converted my seat into a bed, buttoned the curtain and settled in for many, many hours of reading. In between catching cat naps, I managed to polish off two books. This one that wasn't very good. Meh. And this one that ruled my night! Nelson DeMille is pretty much the best "I'm on vacation and want to read a Hollywood Blockbuster" writer ever. Saturday, May 7th Sixteen long-ass hours later, I made it to the train station in Bangkok. I had a few minutes to grab a quick meal... ...ok, and a doughnut... ...before catching the 5.5 hour bus to Trat. I got on the bus, grabbed a seat, and when I looked around I realized that I was the only person traveling to Koh Chang that wasn't part of a couple. Wait, let me clarify: I looked around and realized that I was the only person on the bus not traveling to Koh Chang with a hooker from Bangkok! WTF? For seriously, the entire bus was filled with (mostly English) dudes in their late forties that had hired hookers (who were mostly in their late-thirties!) in Bangkok to accompany them on multi-day vacations to a tropical island! After an excruciating 5.5 hours of having to overhear awkward "first date" type conversation between hookers and their multi-day Johns (made only all the more awkward by the fact that they didn't share a primary language ), we finally arrived at Trat... ...where we all boarded the ferry to Koh Chang. I spent the 30-minute ferry ride trying to decide where I wanted to stay on the (relatively large) island...and finally settled on the cheap, back-packer friendly area in the southwestern part of the island called "Lonely Beach." At the ferry port in Koh Chang, I hopped onto a songthaew and ended up having to endure another (totally terrifying) hour-long trip all the way around the island... ...starting at the northeastern tip of the island, and then traveling counter-clockwise along the windy coastal roads down to where the road ends down in the southwestern part of the island. Koh Chang caters to a lot of tourists who don't want to have to travel too far from Bangkok - so a lot of the island is really over-developed. But the southwestern part of the island is still pretty low key and has a bunch of cheapo, bugalow-on-the-beach type places that cater to the backpacking crowd (instead western-style high-rise hotels that are on the rest of the island). All of the British guys and their hookers got off at the more developed resort-style towns, leaving me the lone-passenger to be dropped off all the way at the southern tip of "Lonely Beach." From the road, I had to walk a few hundred yards through the woods to get to the water, then from there I had to follow a twisty, wood-planked footpath that ran through all the resorts. After a few minutes of walking this weird path and not seeing any other signs of civilization, I came across a hostel/resort called The Treehouse. Check this place out! Pretty wacky, right? The place seemed right out of the movie WaterWorld or something. I wanted to stay at place called Nature Beach (I think?) because it had received the best reviews in the guidebook I had with me, but it was all filled up, so I continued walking north and finally found a vacant hut at a hostel called "Siam Beach." Check out the rad stilted-hut I got that overlooked the beach! I dropped my bags off and headed for the beach to take a swim and see if there were any neat people to hang out with. I'd been traveling alone for over three weeks at this point and was starting to get pretty bored with myself. The beach was empty, so I went back to my hut to read and nap. I woke up later that evening, found a place to check email, and emailed Meredith to complain about how lonely "Lonely Beach" had turned out to be. I figured I'd go grab some dinner at a restaurant a few resorts down and then call it a night. The restaurant turned out to be pretty quiet too. I ordered dinner, had a few beers and watched whatever American movie they had playing on the big screen TV. The movie was just about finished when this drunk Irish lady wandered over to my table and wouldn't leave me alone. Chalking the night up to be a total disaster, I decided to abandon my half-finished beer (and the scary lady) and head back to my sad little hut and go to bed early. As I was walking home along the beach, I passed dark bar where a bunch of female voices began yelling incomprehensible things at me. I decided to investigate! It turns out, it was a group of five Swedish girls who saw my blonde hair and figuring me to be a Swede started yelling all sorts of stuff at me in Swedish! They quickly realized I wasn't Swedish and asked me where I was headed. I told them about my long day of travel and being harassed by a crazy, drunk Irish lady and that I'd had enough and was on my way to bed! They told me that I was the first guy they'd seen that wasn't on the island with a Thai Hooker and insisted that I join them. Hahaha. Who am I to argue? They announced that they were going to finish their (bucket) drinks and then we were all going to go to The Treehouse (the bar I'd passed earlier in the day) and go dancing! Sucking down the buckets! True to their word, when the girls finished their drinks, we all headed along the beach to the Treehouse! Here's Cecilia leading the way! So besides Cecilia (whose left boob you can almost see if you look real close in this photo...woo!), I can't, for the life of me, remember any of the other girls' names. I had a little piece of paper with all of their names and emails tucked away into the little travel journal I had with me, but it's long since disappeared. Also, I never figured that almost 20 months would go by before I'd get around to writing up this diary entry. So, I'm sorry to the other four girls! It's not that you weren't memorable, it's more that I'm a moron! There wasn't much dancing doing on at the new place, but it was definitely a better atmosphere. We decided to order a few more buckets and get lifted. As I got to know the girls, one of the first things I learned was that two of the girls (the ones circled in pink) had boyfriends. Since I can't remember their names, and because calling them "the ones that had boyfriends" is too long, how about we just call them the "Unfun Ones." Hahah. Here's one of the Unfun Ones sharing a bucket with one of the Fun Ones. I keed, I keeeeeeed. A few buckets later, and we're all chilling like JoDeCi. (By the way, did anyone else notice that at this point I've already pussed out and stopped drinking the buckets in favor of a beer? Hahaha. Hey, call me whatever. Those buckets are for crazy people! They make you pass out on the beach!). Hahah. Oh yeah, did I mention I was already pretty drunk? Here's me and Cici. Hahah. End of the night. We ended up closing this place out around 5am. Ooof. Sunday, May 8th I woke up on Sunday hurtin' in a big way. After breakfast and a swim, I walked back over to Nature Beach to see if any huts had become available yet. It turned out that they'd have a vacancy the next day, so I booked a room! The room I was in wasn't so bad, it was just way up on the northern-most part of the beach that was sort of empty and desolate. I mostly just kicked around all day. Walked up and down the coast exploring... ...hey, the Treehouse again. I even ending up making the big 25-minute trek out to the fake 7-11 (called 7-Day!) out on the main road to buy more sun block and a phone card. Saw a smooshed gecko that had been run over by a car on the road. (Sad!). And then met up with the ladies (who were all also wicked hung over) for a light dinner, then it was off to bed! Monday, May 9th On Monday morning, I packed my bags and headed down the beach a ways to check into my new bungalow at Nature Beach. The outside wasn't as neat-looking as the place I'd left.... ...but the interior was a lot nicer and had a much cleaner, more-modern bathroom. Oh, and towels with my nickname on them. After checking in, I took a swim, napped on the beach, had lunch in the hotel's gazebo and while I was sitting there reading...guess who showed up? This guy! And... ...this guy! Jon & Sean! They'd gotten my email about heading to Lonely Beach and decided to swing by and check it out on their way to Cambodia (or wherever they were planning on going next, I forget!). They asked me what I'd been up to and I was like "Oh, I met these five really cute Swedish girls. I've mostly been hanging out with them." They looked around at the empty-save-a-few-dirty-hippies gazebo, laughed and were like "Yeah, sure dude. Whatever." Rather than try to convince them I wasn't kidding I just dropped it. They decided to order lunch and I was like "Enjoy! I'm gonna go to the beach up there and hang out with the Swedish ladies." There laughed again and were like "Riiiiiiight." So fast-forward an hour or so later, I'm laying on the beach with the five Swedish girls, three of whom are topless, by the way - no I didn't take any photos! What kind of perv do you think I am? (Answer: The not-sneaky-enough kind!) and Sean and Jon wander over and see me and realize that I wasn't kidding! They waved to me from like 20 feet away, hoping that I'd wave them over (because everyone knows that you just can't approach topless girls on the beach! Someone needs to wave you over! Otherwise you have to keep your distance), but I just laughed and pretended I didn't see them! Find your own topless Swedes, O ye of little faith! Later that night I met up with the guys and we all went to some beach restaurant to meet up with the girls. Having fully recovered from two nights ago, we agreed to order some buckets and see if we could round up a big enough group of people to actually make good on our original plan to get a dance party going. One bucket down! Starting on number two! The buckets make things happen pretty quickly.... ...in a very short amount of time, everybody was pretty drunk. The resort we were all staying at had the fattest, oldest, sleepiest dog any of us had ever seen. CiCi and FatDog. Hahaha. He was so fat even had rolls of fat on his FOREHEAD for fuck's sake! Check it out! While we were over petting FatDog, we ended up talking to another random group of guys that were traveling together and we invited them over to join us. There was this guy... ...and these two. Names? Yeah, right! At this point in the night, I guess somebody else picked up my camera and started snapping away because suddenly, I'm in a lot of the photos! Sean, Cecilia and me. This one and that one! CiCi and Sean kick off bucket number 4! Me and that one! (Boy, I forgot how long I hung out with all these girls. What a bummer that I don't remember their names. I suck.) But then again, this photo should give you an idea of my mental state at the time and all should be forgiven. A few buckets later and EVERYONE decided it'd be smart to switch over to beer! We were having so much fun hanging out, that we decided to put the dance party off for just one more night. In fact, our party was raging so hard that even... ...FatDog managed to sit up and see what all the noise was about. Or maybe he was just interested in some sweet... ...sweet pussy! Tuesday, May 10th Tuesday was my last day on Koh Chang - I'd be leaving the next day to head back to Bangkok, and then soon after, to head back to New York. I got up nice and early, had myself a tasty Nature Beach Thai breakfast and then my entire day was pretty much about only two things: This. (How fucking insanely gorgeous are the Thai beaches?) And this. (I'd read everything they had by Nelson DeMille so I had to move onto to another thriller beach-read). I just chilled on the beach allllllll motherfucking day. Soaked up the sun and just relaxed and enjoyed my last beach day. Had lunch with the three fun ones. Cecilia ...and you know, the other two. This one... ...and that one! Yay! We avowed to meet up later that night at the Treehouse and have a dance party in honor on my last night on the island. For real this time! No excuses! A dance party! After the sun went down, I went back to my room to read and relax and nap. Oh, I forgot to mention! A few times I was scared awake by what sounded like someone ringing a muffled cowbell and then saying "GET-GOOOO! GET-GOOOOO!" right outside of my bungalow! I'd wake up in a panic and open my bungalow door and there'd be nothing! After like the third night in a row of this happening, I mentioned it the girls and they were like "Oh, you have a gecko in your room! That's what they sound like! And that's why they're called geckos because it sounds like they're saying 'geck-goooo!'" While I was reading in the evening, my critter revealed himself. Look how cute he was! I was amazed to discover that something so tiny could make such a huge noise! If you haven't ever heard what a gecko sound like, click here to listen to a recording of what I'm talking about (otherwise the whole "banging on a muffled cowbell" thing doesn't sound very believable). Later that night I headed over to the Treehouse to meet up with the boys... ...and the girls. Everyone was all relaxed and taking it easy...worn out from being in the sun all day. The rest of the place was totally empty. Chance of a dance party breaking out? Not likely. But....fast forward a few hours (ok, and a few buckets later!)... ...and what do we have here? Yep, that's right! A dance party! We promised the guy DJing that if he played something other than reggae, that we'd all start a dance party! Yay, danceparty! Yay, singing (er, screaming) along with the lyrics! There was even a "dance-off" between these two! When we all declared my man "green shirt" the winner of the dance-off... (Boo-yah! Take that, little nine year old Thai kid!) ...this one wanted to break herself off a piece of the champ! (I mean, nothing gets girls hotter than seeing some skillz on the dancefloor). Kissy kissy! And then the dancing got DEERRRRRTY! Aw, snap! Check out who's getting the ol' "rubbing your luggage with my knee" move! Hahaha. And that's how, against all odds, we managed to have our danceparty after all! Wednesday, May 11th I got up early the next morning, packed up, checked out, and stood by the road waiting for a songthaew to come by so I could hop a ride back to the port to catch a ferry back to Trat and then a bus back to Bangkok....where I'd then be catching a late night flight to Korea and then New York. While I was waiting for the songthaew, the biggest dog I've ever seen in my life wandered over to say hi. Thank god he was friendly! Seriously, this was a big dog. To give you an idea of just how big, take a minute to realize that that's a VOLLEYBALL he's holding in his mouth. So the rest of these pics are pretty much going to be all about the two-day travel-blur home. Here's the ferry from Koh Chang back the mainland. Mmmm...breakfast. Back in Bangkok, I headed back to Kao San Road to drop off my bags at D&D Inn so that I could spend my last few hours in the country wandering around unencumbered. I stopped by a bookstore to pick up a few more paperbacks for the two long flights home... ...and then hit an off-the-beaten-path restaurant that was a few blocks outside of the Kao San area for one last tasty Thai meal. And before I knew it, my Thai adventure had ended and I was on a plane headed for Seoul. I shit you not, this is the bag of snacks I was handed while flying to KOREA on KOREAN AIRLINES. WTF? They actually film everyone when they hand them out - if you laugh or snicker, they don't let you through immigration. I had a several hour layover at Incheon in Korea and I decided to hit a bookstore and buy another book for the last leg of the trip! While browsing, I decided to see if there were any good comics (for my friend Vin), when I stumbled upon this gem! It's a Korean cartoon history book about America. Without a doubt, this was the funniest page in the book! Hahahah. Not like you really need this page to be translated...but I'm still sort of dying to know exactly what's being said here. If anyone that understands Korean reads this, please, please, please post a translation of this comic into the comments section below. Thanks so much! Thursday, May 12th Then it was time for the last leg of the trip. Goodbye Korea! I was just starting to feel bummed about my trip ending when I realized I had a double-whammy of my two favorite things... ...airline bi bim bab! And a Nelson DeMille book that I hadn't read yet! YES! Hahaha. Over Alaska. Sixteen hours after leaving Korea, I finally landed at JFK. And guess who was there to greet me? Awwwwww! Home, sweet Houston St! Well, there you have it: my trip to Thailand. 31 days, 7 diary entries, 13 paperback books and 1,000 photos! Hope you enjoyed it!   (added on 01.15.2007)

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