departure from normalcy

The following entry is a brief summary of a period of about 12 days. Day one and 12 involved crying, and sandwiched in between was Laughing, Cracking Up, and a fresh slice of I Just Peed a Little.

The trusty guidebook recommended reserving train tickets out of Bangkok at least a week in advance. We basically crumpled up the advice and tossed it in the garbage, showing up at the train station to purchase tix 2 days before our departure. This was a grave error in judgment. A week before the advent of Thai New Year celebrations, our only option was to book tickets in third class…for the overnight journey.

We figured that hey, it couldn’t be that bad. Our confidence slowly eroded by the reactions of people we told. Travelers laughed at us and wished us luck, Thai people gave us funny looks and retorted “Why you go third class?”. We boarded the train and were met by the same confused looks. Seating in third class is grim…basically two straight-back benches facing each other designed for 6 passengers. Six short passengers. We crammed our bags on and settled in, with both our hips and knees in constant contact with someone else’s hips and knees. This arrangement lasted approximately 10 minutes, and JR discovered the food & beverage car, where we hung out sipping Singha beers with a techno-banger German guy who kept recommending we try LSD and a few male employees who launched a fashion show with a sarong down the catwalk/train car aisle. The fun & games ended at midnight and we returned to our cramped uncomfortable hot seating arrangement for another six and a half hours of hell. Nine hours later, the train was broken down 5 miles from our final destination. The woman directly across from me (whose legs were constantly touching my legs) began a very high-pitched speech at around 3am… and was still going strong. (Literally she didn’t take a breath for over 6 hours) I was imagining ways to gag her, and finally resorted to saying “STOP TALKING. PLEASE STOP. CEASE. QUIT.” On the verge of a complete possibly violent breakdown, we decided we had to get the heck off the train immediately.

Loaded up with our 55-pound packs strapped on, we hopped off the train and began trudging through a cow field to the road. The field was basically a huge booby trap of potholes covered in grass, and 10 steps in I was on my back like an overturned beetle flailing my scraped up and bloody limbs. JR almost fell over trying to heave me back to a standing position. I took two steps, and fell again. This is the bottom layer of crying bread in the sandwich. It was hot…like 94 degrees hot…we were dirty, I was bloody, exhausted from spending 14 hours on a straight back bench while chatty-Thai-Kathy recited War and Peace at a supersonic decibel. Swearing and sweating was my only reprieve. Our timing was right on though, and we arrived at the roadside and quickly hitched a ride in a pickup. The truck continued on and eventually transported a total of 22 passengers. After 2 more bus rides we arrived at our destination, Kata Beach on Phuket Island.

Friends from Chicago Mary & John were scheduled to arrive the following night, and we were planning on lazing about the beaches in a tropical paradise. Luckily we arrived in Kata early, and quickly discovered its striking similarity to Daytona Beach Florida. Plan B was hatched out, and we picked Mary & John up from the airport the next night.

As most people know, we’ve become accustomed to accommodations that are a tad spartan. The Crystal Guest House was clean by our standards, and luxuriously featured air-con and televisions (all for $12!). So we booked a room for us and a room for our friends. The front desk informed us that only one of the rooms had hot water, which we humbly conceded to our arriving guests. When we brought them back, after their 22 hour flight…lets just say it didn’t exactly meet their expectations. JR and I realized how drastically our standards have adapted to our on the cheap nomadic lifestyle, as our friends poked around the room with sour looks on their faces. Luckily for them the night was short and we were on a ferry the next morning to the island of Koh Lanta.

The next eight days we abandoned our $30/day budget and lived large with our homies. We sipped fruity drinks and stuffed ourselves with delicious Thai cuisine, lounged about in pools and on the beach. It was a blast. One fateful evening we were graced with the presence of an island expat, an Englishman named Graham. Graham was somewhere between the ages of 40 and 70, and had lived in Koh Lanta for 5 years sailing around on his big o’ boat. He drank about 14 G & T’s and entertained us for hours at a beach bar. Unfortunately our timing wasn’t right, or else we could have boarded Graham’s watercraft for a few days of sailing fun. He advised against another expat sailor in the area, a French guy who is known for removing his clothes once he’s .5 nautical miles from shore. Our one night stand with Graham was a conversational buoy in the following days, regardless of the topic at hand we were never more than 5 minutes from a “Graham” reference.

Another highlight of the week was the day-long Thai cooking class that Mary and I attended. For two people who ranking cooking & eating as a religion, we were in heaven. The cooking school Time for Lime was right on the beach, a breezy open air kitchen where we were made privy to the secrets of tasty Thai cuisine. The menu of the day was curry paste, fresh spring rolls with peanut sauce, green curry with chicken, steamed white snapper with herbs and a spicy sauce, and vegetable fried rice. The class was part hands-on, part lecture where we discovered the finer things in life like quality fish sauce. By the end the two of us were itching to get back to Chicago to spend hours perusing the aisles of Asian markets…I can only say that our friends are in for quite a dinner party. Eat your heart out Rachel Ray.

Our last day we boarded a private long tail boat for a long tail journey to the nearby island of Koh Phi Phi Leh, where Leonardo diCaprio’s epic film The Beach was set. When our captain fired up the engine, we erupted in laughter. What sounded like a cruise ship boiler had the horse power of a riding lawn mower. For 2 1/2 hours we shouted to strain our voices above the noise. We also watched John (aka the tallest man on the island of Koh Lanta since 1978) lay in the sun and procure himself a bitchin’ sun burn. Koh Phi Phi Leh is a protected island free of inhabitants, but not free of fellow tourists. We snorkeled in the turquoise bay framed with looming limestone cliffs, with hundreds of other tourists. The actual “Beach” or Maya Bay was tourist central. Literally 100 boats were parked along the shore, so many that a “swimming area” had been sectioned off. In the face of extreme natural beauty and the corruption of nature by curious farongs, we made a bee line for the snack bar. (We are American for chrissake) JR asked for a menu, and the men laughed and pointed to the table. Two flavors of Pringles, Coke and beer. That’s all. I mean, the island is already ruined so they may as well just slap down a cafe and sell overpriced cheeseburgers, right? We later planted the seed with the bartender at Time for Lime, Daew. Hopefully he’ll be taking advantage of the throngs-of-hungry-tourists-on-a-deserted-island quandary soon, and be slinging overpriced chicken skewers over the side of his boat and raking in the baht.

Finally after spending a night at the Crystal Guesthouse, two nights at Relax Bay, three nights at the Sri Lanta, and another two in the bungalows at Time For Lime…it was time for our friends to leave. I still can’t believe that they had traveled roughly nine thousand miles to visit us. This brings me to the other slice of Crying in the Emotionwich. The hour after one of my favorite people ever left for the airport, I broke down in tears just walking down the street. So ladies and gentlemen our schedule is wide open…and if anyone is up for a 9000 mile journey book a ticket and come to Asia. You’ll get two eager tour guides, one of which will probably weep on your arrival and departure.

So now I’ll go drown my sorrows in a huge pile of squid pad thai and figure out where to go next.

www.flickr.com More of PEARSB’s photos tagged with Koh Lanta

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Thailand, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.