Koh Chang: Motoscooter mayhem, a king cobra and barbecued barracuda
Sawat di krap!
So my trip has started off with a bang. An actual bang. The bang of my knee hitting pavement.
Yes indeed, yesterday I crashed on the rented motorbike I was riding around here on Koh Chang. It’s monsoon season and it’s been fairly well monsooning, but that’s not why I bailed. Nope, I fell only because I’d just gotten on the bike, didn’t know what I was doing, and on a downhill slope somehow hit the gas and hit the brake at the same time, which caused my tires to fishtail — and me to eat it. I messed up my left knee pretty good, it’s all bruised and scraped up and I got a bandage on it. Nothing broken or anything, thankfully — I just limp around like Johnny McTourist. Because you do see all these backpackers around who have bandages on knees and elbows and ankles, and it’s clear that the regulations for operating a motorized scooter in this country are pretty lax.
Oh yeah, also my camera was in my pocket at the time and the fall broke the display. Yeah. So that’s really the worst of it. Too, I got a real nice strawberry on my hip — so maybe the camera broke my fall a bit and helped prevent any serious injury…. ??? Well, that’s what I’m telling myself anyway, so I don’t get too pissed about losing my ability to monitor my photos. How spoiled by digital-ation I am! But it’s true — it’ll be a pain to deal with as-is, so I’ll probably look into getting a new camera once I go back to Bangkok.
But hey! I’m all right! TANBE! (And isn’t this a good story?) Well, wait. The really good part of it comes after the spill, when we took a long, 50km ride around to the east, less touristic side of the island — and it was just awesome. We found this bayside seafood restaurant that was off the charts — I had a stupendously superduper fried snapperfish in sweet&sour, while everything else was dyno-mite, as well. Just very fresh and tasty and great. On the way back from that side, those monsoons I mentioned earlier decided it was time to start really dropping water on us. This moto ride through the pelting rain was truly fantastic, in a way. Sure at the end of our ride back, I was soaked and beleagured (and, uh, injured), but my body tingled too, as if just accupunctured. Felt good.
But we’ll see how this little tumble will affect me for the next few days, as we’d thought about going on a trek to one of the island waterfalls today, and I’m really pretty sore and don’t want to walk around all that much. Kinda sucks, because walking around is a big part of, you know, life. But we’re hungover and it’s raining, so it’s a quiet day anyhoo.
But hey! Let’s rewind real quick. Hong Kong was okay, just really expensive and not all that exciting for a backpacker. I did meet a couple cool folks there — like the night this Aussie guy and I randomly wandered into this random beauty pageant in some random bar. It was fun and funny, to not be able understand a word (it was all in Cantonese), and to just be there. At a beauty pageant. In Hong Kong.
Then Bangkok was kookycrazy for a day or two — was able to meet up with Oscar and Jme, and we’ve all been hanging together since. (Hence the preceding “we’s”). First thing we all did was to go to this ginormous, awesome weekend market called Chatuchak, where you can buy anything and everything you could ever want. For instance, a King Cobra.
Yes, indeed. Okay, so the one picture I took of it is really crappy — my camera was fine at the time, but the cage deflected the light — and then I got yelled at by the snake-seller lady, too.
“No picture!!! No picture, mister!!! You just looking, or you want to buy?”
Oscar: “We’re… somewhere in between.”
Yes, we miiiight be in the market for a two-month-old extremely dangerous snake that is really, really, really freaky to look at, even if it is on the other side of a glass cage. We’re thinking about it. Yep. We’ll consider it. Oh, by the way, it costs 5,000 baht, or around $120, if you want your own King Cobra. But you could probably bargain them down from that. Get it for like $110. Hey, something to think about.
I also have this neat picture of a display of all sorts of creepy, crawly insect and bugs and spiders and things. They were all super gnarly and rad (I’ll upload my photos someday), but the best was this one mosaic, made entirely out of butterfly wings — a mosaic of two elephants humping. Made out of butterfly wings. Yes. That’s right. Did I mention you could find everything you could ever want there?
And Koh Chang has been fun… went on an elephant trek. Elephants rule, by the way — “chang” is Thai for elephant, with “koh” being island. There was the wild and crazy moto ride. Grilled barracuda (dyno-mite!) every night at our bungalow barbecue. Swimming in the Gulf of Thailand. Getting drunk last night at this really strange bar where everyone had to dance with a barstool, for some reason, and a small, wild-eyed hunchback kept whispering to people in Thai. Who knows what that guy was saying.
Jme takes off tomorrow, while Oscar and I will stick around here for another couple days and hopefully get to the waterfall and maybe try to get to some kayaking and snorkeling in as well.
Assuming I don’t fall off any motorbikes again.
Tags: Cobra, Hong Kong, Koh Chang, Thailand
ismateo
Yesterday I banged my knee on my coffee table. I had to pause the movie I was watching and put my head in a pillow for a second while I cursed. Then I took a shower and ordered Chinese food. It’s kind of like we had the same exact day, except yours was way cooler.
Matt and Oscar sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.
Not that you are really kissing, though did oscar kiss your booboo? sorry to hear about the fall. did your life flash be for your eyes, or was it more of an “oh shite” moment.
sounds like thailand is awesome and hong kong sucked. Given that HK got about a sentence. Bring me back a cobra – or just have oscar do it for me.
and stop humping barstools
-JV Kicker
Sounds like a blast, ja! Too bad you won’t be there in late November for the Lopburi Monkey Festival http://www.discoverythailand.com/Lop_Buri_Lopburi_Monkey_Festival.asp
It’s a big buffet just for monkeys that they do every year at this temple north of Bangkok. My favorite quote from the brochure: “Entrance is 30 Baht and you are given a stick that will help you ward off over inquisitive monkeys.”
Anyway, I hope your knee heals up quick, traveler, so you can get right back to spreading Scientology’s message all over the world! Clear the planet! Xenu be praised!
Matt,
This is your, what? Cousin-in-law? I’m Kristen’s fiance. Anyway, I’m glad we got the link to your blog. Your trip sounds very cool so far. We just heard about it at Joe’s wedding, so I’m curious about how this all transpired in the first place.
We can’t wait to see your photos. Have fun, and don’t forget to write!
Jay
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