It's Good To Be King

My friend is either pregnant or Thailand's first swine flu victim (not sure which would be worse), so Phuket was kind of a bust. I was looking forward to going out with her, but she only joined me for short bursts of time. She was even going to drive me around on a motorbike! Despite the nausea, she was able to impart some wisdom onto me before taking to bed. I learned a few new Thai phrases, and I got a kick out of hearing her speak Thai. It is really funny to see people's reactions when they address her in English and she responds in Thai.

She also explained Thailand's plethora of pale yellow polo shirts. They have some script on them, sometimes striped trim, and always a small embroidered design (usually the royal crest) on the chest. Apparently, these are "king shirts" worn to show reverence for the royal family. As far as I know, the king is a figurehead, but the prime minister holds all the political power. You can wear your king shirt whenever you please, but Mondays are most popular. Some employers (such as my friend's school) require staff to wear king shirts on Mondays. The shirts are also available in pink, but yellow is most popular because it is the "king's color." I don't understand if this his is personal choice or what. Instead of the royal crest, some shirts are embroidered with some of the king's favorite items. Saxophones or puppies, for example. Seriously.

I am not mocking these shirts; I am simply reporting the facts. Laissez majeste (criticism of the king or royal family) is a serious crime in Thailand that carries a maximum penalty of 7 years in prison. Lips zipped! The king's face is everywhere here... I will never forget him. He is pictured on giant billboards along the roads and posters in every restaurant. With 60+ years on the throne, he is the world's current longest-ruling monarch. He is very well-liked and respected by the Thai people. Then again, I guess you don't really have a choice??

During the recent political protests in Bangkok, there was a lot of speculation that the trouble would come to an end if only the king would speak up and ask for peace. He didn't say a word and hasn't been seen in public for some time, so now people worry that he is ill. Inquiring minds want to know!

Monkey Bay

Like this monkey, I am loving Thailand's abundance of fresh watermelon and pineapple. Dragonfruit and papaya... not so much. Those fruits manage to taste bad and taste like nothing.

Patong Beach, Phuket Island

From Phi Phi Island, Kelly and I took the ferry to Phuket on Monday. Phuket is Thailand's largest island, sometimes referred to as "Bangkok on the Sea" (yuck). It is connected to the mainland by bridge, and it feels like any other big Thai city. It definitely doesn't have the mellow island vibe of the other beaches we've visited. Kelly stayed long enough to catch the sunset on Patong Beach, then she headed to the Phuket airport to fly to Bangkok and start the long journey back to Boston.

I said goodbye to Kelly at 9pm and greeted my friend Caroline at 10:30pm. Caroline is an Irish girl that I met in NZ. She lived in Thailand for a few months in 2007 and now she's back for another year to teach English. I was hoping her visit and Kelly's visit would overlap a bit because I think they'd enjoy each other. Alas, Caroline's arrival was delayed by 6+ hours due to... what else... a motorbike accident! Her friend's tire blew during the commute to the pier. No one was injured, but she missed the morning ferry to Phuket. Some directional miscommunication also contributed to the delay. Who knew there were 2 guesthouses named "Lucky's" within a one block radius??

Caroline planned to show me the "real" Phuket, but for a variety of reasons, we haven't left the Patong Beach area in the last 2 days. Patong is a relatively small section of island, but it is one of the biggest tourist areas in Thailand. Never come here. It is gross. The streets are like ThaiVegas and the beach is like Wildwood. Bangla Road is lined with flashing lights, discos, dancers, etc. There is Hard Rock A Go-Go, Sexy Lady A Go-Go, Anything You Want A Go-Go... Other than Pattaya, this is the main tourist sex spot. The place is teeming with old, fat Western men with very young Thai girls. It makes my stomach turn. Although I have to admit it makes for good people watching.

The beach itself is just okay. It's big and very crowded (and this is the low season). You can rent a lounge chair for 100 baht ($3 US) a day, but they are crammed together like sardines. The water is brownish compared to the crystal clear seas on the other islands. You're also hounded by touts all day. They walk up and down the beach saying, "buy something, buy something." Sunbathe at your own risk because parasailers fly dangerously close to your head.

A man approached Caroline and I last night and asked, "Do you girls like to party and listen to rock 'n roll music?" He was trying to sell us tickets to a party at the Phuket Rock Bar. AC/DC and Bon Jovi were going to play (cover bands he clarified, lest I think the real Jon Bon Jovi was hanging out in Patong). He promised us a "completely westernized bar... no ladyboys, no chicks with d***s, no dudes with boobs, no one tapping you on the shoulder trying to sell something." The price of the ticket included a group photo. He showed us a copy of the previous night's photo to prove that the place admits only drunk white people. Riiiight... isn't this why everyone comes to Thailand??

Note: These pictures make Patong look better than it is. I'll try to post more accurate pictures later.

Warning

These Thai signs are the type of thing I would expect to see in New Zealand. Slow, slow, slow your boat, or you may end up kissing a fish!

Phi Phi Viewpoint

We climbed 1000 feet and many hundreds of stairs to reach the Phi Phi Lookout. It was HOT. The funny thing is that we started the morning being very lazy. The walk from the breakfast buffet back to our hotel room to retrieve our towels sounded too taxing, so we decided to buy new sarongs on our way to the lookout. You can see that all of the development on Phi Phi is on one very narrow strip of land. From this vantage point, it's easy to visualize how a tsunami could wipe the place out.

From the lookout, we then hiked down the other side of the mountain to a more remote beach area called Rantee Bay. I would not have done this if I knew how strenuous it would be. There was not much of a path and bikinis and flip-flops were not appropriate attire. It was really steep in places and there wasn't much to grab onto. We walked through clouds of mosquitoes and piles of ants. If I end up with a tropical disease, it will have been contracted there. When we finally reached the beach, we jumped right into the water.

There was no way we were climbing back up that mountain so we took a longboat taxi back to the "town" pier. This is the main mode of transportation on the islands... a cheap and easy way to get from point A to point B and it's also very scenic!

*Illustrated* Island of the Living Dead

By popular demand, here is a pictorial version of the previous blog post.

We had a lovely afternoon snorkeling trip to Koh Phi Phi Leh, including Maya Bay - site of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "The Beach."

Returned to the hotel and rocked out to our synced up ipods before the post-snorkel party.

Oddly enough, Kelly's fire limbo was not the source of her injuries.

The Phi Phi Hospital Trio in happier times

Light at the end of the tunnel... we've finally found the Phi Phi Hospital!

The good doctor

4 stitches and still looking good!

We found this directional sign the next day, but it did us no good in the middle of the night.

Kelly having her bandages changed in the "emergency room."

A contemplative pose makes you look smart and it conceals a chin injury.

Island of the Living Dead

Thailand takes a toll on its tourists. You're lucky if you make it out alive! A few examples:

• The British kid I told you about with 2nd degree burns from the Ring of Fire
• The British kid's friend with his finger in a splint for a reason I can't recall
• Severe sunburns in unnatural shades of pink and red
• Mosquito bites the size of silver dollars
• A girl on our Phi Phi snorkeling trip who was bit by a monkey when we visited (where else?) Monkey Beach
• A guy on our Phi Phi snorkeling trip who stepped on a sea urchin and had ~20 spikes embedded in his foot
• A child on the beach had bandages wrapped all around his head.
• Scrapes/scratches from coral and rock. I have cuts on my foot, finger, knee and left butt cheek. A girl on the snorkeling trip had an alarmed look on her face and asked if I was alright. I thought that was kind of weird. I looked down and saw a stream of blood running from my knee to my toe.
• (secondhand story) A Thai man with a knife sticking out of his leg was wheeled to the hospital in a luggage cart. There are no vehicles on the island of Koh Phi Phi.
• Everyone and his brother has a motorbike injury. My leg burn is mild compared to the people who have bruises/scrapes all up and down the left or right side of their body from being thrown onto the sidewalk. I've come to learn that these motorbike injuries are commonly known as "Thailand tattoos." The island of Phuket has 300 motorbike deaths a year.

Kelly had her initiation into the Club of the Walking Wounded at approximately 4am on Saturday. After a night out with new friends from our Phi Phi snorkeling trip, we all ended up at a makeshift slip 'n slide. It was basically a big basin lined with plastic. Don't ask... it seemed like a good idea at the time. In reality, the night was was pitch black, and even after adding buckets of water, it wasn't that slippery and the slide down wasn't that smooth.

Kelly patiently waited for me to complete 2 slides before she matter-of-factly stated, "I think I need stitches." She looked just fine to me, but little did I know that she had already cleaned up all the blood. She lifted her head to show me the gash under her chin. I've heard that you're supposed to play it cool in these situations so as not to alarm the victim. Thus, my reaction was something like, "AAARRGHH!!" This response was surely inappropriate, but I was not prepared for the gaping wound in front of me. I've never seen anything like it. No further discussion necessary. We set off in search of the hospital... just as soon as I located my shoes. That process was much more involved and time-consuming than you might think.

Our slip 'n slide friend Chris volunteered to join the march and he quickly took charge of the situation. None of us had any idea where we were or where we were going. The streets were rather empty at 4am. We found our way by piecing together the half-directions and pointing hands of the few people we encountered. Chris would ask them very complex questions like, "Excuse me, but do you know how we would find our way to the hospital from here?" I usually followed this up with a simplified, "Doctor??"

I'm grateful for Chris's help because I wasn't in the mood to lead the mission. The only other time I spoke up during our almost hour-long trek was when we veered off the footpath into a jungle area with shrubbery up to my knees. "Come on you guys! This can't possibly be the right way!!" By this point, my feet were blistered and bleeding. I really wanted to whine, but I thought it best to keep my mouth shut considering that Kelly was holding her face together without complaint. She's a real trooper! She didn't even ask for extra tissues, but she accepted them when I remembered to offer.

Lo and behold, we stumbled across the Phi Phi Island Hospital at 5am. The only reason we knew it was the hospital is because it had a sign taped to the window that said "Hospital." It looked like it had automatic doors, but you had to pry them open with your hands. It was very small and very dark and very quiet. Chris headed towards the sign that said "pharmacy." There were 4-5 wrought-iron bed back there; one of them occupied by a man in a full body cast. He asked the patient's friend if the place was open, but the guy didn't know or didn't understand the question.

Meanwhile, I headed toward the sign that said: "Duty Room. Please Knock." I knocked on the door, and like a cartoon, approximately 6 pajama-clad personnel came RUSHING out of the room. I've never seen such a fast reaction! It looked like some of them were still sleeping, but they hadn't even had enough time to jump up from their beds. "What's wrong?" someone asked. Kelly stated plainly, "I fell." Seeing that the situation wasn't that serious, all but 2 of them went back to bed.

We were then led to the "emergency room." Kelly was laid out on a table and given injections into the face by a grown man (presumably a doctor?) in Casper the Friendly Ghost pajamas. I kid you not. It was at that point that I thought, "Oh my god. I hope I haven't just delivered Kelly to death's doorstep." She must have been thinking the same thing because she started to shake on the table. I assumed the night caught up with her and she was crying. I didn't exactly want front-row seats for the procedure, but I knew I should walk over there and hold her hand. Turns out she wasn't in tears... she was shaking because she was trying to stifle her laughter. Nevertheless, I held her hand through all 4 stitches. She gave me some pretty tight squeezes.

The rising sun lit our long walk home along the beach. We arrived at our hotel at approximately 6:30am. Kelly thought we might wake up in time to catch the end of the free breakfast buffet at 10am. Yeah right... I'll see you there.

A few days later, Kelly has had her dressings changed twice (they bandages get less bulky each time) and she has been instructed to have the stitches removed in the US on April 30. In addition to the chin laceration and butt bruising, we are fairly certain that she has whiplash. I've been campaigning pretty hard for her to get a neck brace (partly for her health, mostly for my entertainment), but she has refused. A girl has to maintain her dignity, after all.

Pictures to follow :)

Koh Phi Phi

Here is the view of Phi Phi from the balcony of our hotel room! Phi Phi is the island that was most affected by the 2004 tsunami. Most everything has been rebuilt by this point and the tourists have returned in droves. Still trying to recover financially, Phi Phi hotels/restaurants charge the highest prices of anywhere in Thailand. I've also heard that electricity on Phi Phi costs 3 times as much as electricity on the mainland. It is still very cheap by Western standards, but it's a bit of a shock now that I've become accustomed to paying $15 for a night's accommodation.

Passage to Phi Phi

After returning from our boat tour, we went back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and secretly use the outdoor showers/bathrooms. We are sneaky! This was our only opportunity to clean up before our overnight journey to Koh Phi Phi island on the Andaman (west) coast. I only travel under the cover of darkness now. The conditions of these overnight journeys really do get worse each time... I should have done this trip backwards.

We took an 8 hour overnight (10pm-6am) boat trip from Koh Pha Ngan to Surat Thani. It was like a slave ship! The boat appeared to be about 100 years old and we boarded via a wooden plank. Then you went up a 6 step ladder/staircase to the upper level sleeping quarters. The ceiling was too low for us to stand up straight. There was a narrow walkway flanked by 2 rows of very thin sleeping mats and very hard pillows... probably 50 on each side. Luckily, the boat was only half full so everyone could spread out a bit. Otherwise, you'd get to know your neighbor pretty well! There were a few fans scattered about, but we had to keep the windows open to get the sea breeze. This made for a loud journey and the boat was a-rockin! I didn't get sick, but I didn't get any sleep either.

Realizing that the slave ship comparison might be a bit harsh (they probably didn't have fans), I instead thought of myself as a young Irish widow fleeing the potato famine in search of a better life in America. I could barely last 8 hours on that damn boat, so I have a newfound respect for my ancestors and happier than ever to have been born in the United States.

When we arrived in Surat Thani, we took a sawngthaew (pick-up truck taxi with benches in the back) to an open-air travel agency. We spent 45 minutes watching Jackass 2 before a bus picked us up for the 2 hour ride to Krabi. We ate breakfast at the Krabi pier, then took a 2.5 hour ferry ride to Koh Phi Phi island. This was one of the nicest pier/ferry combos I've seen in Thailand. It had AC! I was just beginning to think that this leg of the journey could conceivably meet American standards when a little girl in the row ahead of me vomited. Mother and daughter took turns holding the plastic bag of puck for the remaining hour of the journey. The bathroom is 20 feet away -- get up and dump that!

Upon docking in Phi Phi, we were met by hour hotel's long boat water taxi. They were waiting to transport Mr. Maureen C and guest to the resort. I was happy to play the role of Mr. if it meant a bed and shower.

D-O-Double G

We had to check out of our hotel at noon on Wednesday even though we weren't planning to leave the island until later that night. For the 3rd day in a row, the ever unhelpful "concierge" told me it was too windy for any of the island's boat tours to set sail. "So there's nothing we can do today?" I asked. She said no. Desperate to kill some time, we walked into town and easily booked ourselves on the afternoon Snoop Dogg boat tour. You have to rely on yourself in Thailand. I often wonder whether people don't understand me or if they are outright lying to me.

When we bought our tickets, the agent gave us a "tour warning sheet" that included the following information: -

• Be aware that this is Asia. Most tours and guides operate with little concern for safety.
• Don't expect too much from the snorkeling. It is normally short and often visibility is limited.
• On fishing trips, you are not guaranteed to catch fish and often use drop lines instead of fishing rods. Don't expect too much!
• On tours with waterfalls - these are seasonal and sometimes in the year there is little water. Don't expect too much!

Chalk it up to lowered expectations, but I thought the tour was a fun way to spend the afternoon. True - the waterfall wasn't very big, but we swam/climbed through a narrow cave and Kelly jumped off a cliff a la George of the Jungle. We visited some of the island's more remote beaches and did a bit of snorkeling. And, yes, the boat was named Snoop Dogg for the exact reasons you would expect a boat to be named Snoop Dogg. Expectations exceeded!

Full Moon

Koh Pha Ngan's Haad Rin beach is the site of Thailand's legendary full moon parties. This is the place to let loose in southeast Asia. Haad Rin has capitalized on this success by celebrating the half moon, black moon, crescent moon...

Our visit to Koh Pha Ngan did not coincide with any special lunar events, but Hadd Rin was still party central. Big crowds gather on this small beach every night of the week. Thai kids roam the shores selling leis and glow sticks, an essential item in any raver's toolkit. Oceanfront bars compete to see who can play the loudest music and produce the biggest flames. This includes fire twirlers, fire limbo, fire jump rope, etc. We met a British kid who walked through a burning ring of fire. This is no Johnny Cash metaphor -- the beach as an actual burning ring of fire. He suffered 2nd degree burns on his legs attempting to dive through the flaming hoola hoop. Someone saw my motorbike burn and I asked if I also jumped through the hoop.

Without a doubt, the most entertaining part of Haad Rin's nightlife are the rows of stalls crammed between the full-service bars. You can't walk within 20 feet of these stalls without being accosted to buy a bucket of booze. They sell plastic pails (like a kid would use to build a sandcastle) filled with a can of soda, a bottle of Red Bull, and a flask-sized bottle of liquor. Be careful to check the seal on the bottle because some stalls are known to replace the brand name stuff with the cheap stuff. Upon purchase, the "bartender" dumps the contents into the bucket, adds a handful of ice, and pops in a few straws. I was initially wary of the ice (don't drink the water in Thailand), but then I decided the ice was probably the least likely thing in the bucket to make me sick.

These stalls all sell the exact same thing for similar prices. To differentiate themselves, they decorate their tables with painted signs of nonsense. As you'll see from the pictures, they're very fond of the F-word and the promise of every late night male party animal: "I love you long time."