Live it Love it
Still here in Thailand and lone behold, I’m having a blast. It’s interesting what difference a day can make because here I am loving this place now and finding it growing on me like a weird fungus that appears one morning when you wake up. But anyway’s, I’ll start at the begining of the trip.
Bangkok, baby
So I got into BKK (that’s slang for Bangkok for those who are in the know) on Halloween, jumped on a bus and went into the city. I had researched which busses I needed to take so I preoceeded to do just that. I got into the city and made my way to the second bus station at Victory Monument to look for bus number 88 or something like that but couldn’t find it anywhere. I circled around the place like 3 times looking for it or someone who could speak English but couldn’t find anyone. Finally I jumped into a cab and said Khoa San road, which is were all the foreigners go as there’s pretty cheap accomidation and it’s the place to be (aka the rats next). On the way I had a of a broken conversation with the cabbie and let it slip that I just got in from the airport. When we got to Khoa San the cabbie said the fair was 300baht regadless of what, or what I think was, the meter said. I grudgingly paid him as I was tired and pretty much bewildered with everything going on around me. I later found out that since he found out that I came from the airport that he would charge me the airport fair instead of the city meter fair. Welcome to Thailand.
So I find a nice place to stay and proceed to have one of the best sleeps I’ve had in months. Finally, a room to myself, with a fan, something oh so foreign in Oz. I spend to next two day’s pretty much just hanging around the Khoa San area, eatting the amazing food, looking for a bus ticket, setting myself up, and acclimatizing to the place and simply taking in all the chaos that surrounded me. I met a couple of other Canadians at the guesthouse, a couple from Camrose of all places and a girl from Victoria. From what I’ve seen thus far of other travellers here in Thailand the mindset is very cool and a breath of fresh air from what I left behind. Seems to be really easy to meet people and I think that might be from the lack of English. On the last day I was in town me and the girl from Victoria, Kirsty (I think) were killing some time before our busses left so we went for a walk down the way going down a road neither of us had gone down before. Along the way we ate jackfruit which is this amazing yellow fruit to die for, there seems to be a lot of crazy fruits here that you ain’t never seen and pineapple, lots and lots of pineapple. I don’t think I’ve eaten more pineapple in my life since I’ve gotten here, it’s everywhere. In my rice, in my curry, served on a stick by a vendor. It rocks.
Anyways, we’re walking down the street and run into this English fellow who asks us for directions. So picture 3 white people standing on the corner with a map pulled out trying to figure out where to go; easy target. We get approached by this one fellow who helps us out and proceedes to tell us about how today in Buddha day and how we can get into many of the temples on this specific day, free of charge. Great we say and start to walk off in the direction of the closest temple but are stopped by us and told that we should just take a Tuk Tuk (little motorbikes with a carage on the back), one which by complete coincedince I’m sure, pulls up beside us. Now there’s something you need to know about Tuk Tuk’s in Bangkok, you can either pay around 200baht and go where you want to go or you can pay 30baht and go where you want to go. The catch is, is that when you pay 30baht you proceed to go around to different stores where they try to sell you shit, mainly gems or else to tailors where they try to sell you a suit. In turn the Tuk Tuk driver get’s a 200b fuel voucher from the place. We know about this but figure we might as well go for it and hop in. Pretty much as soon as we get in we realize that the guy who gave us directions and told us about Buddha day and the temples was buddies with the driving. Well played. So we go around to a couple of the temples, see some sights, get pulled over by the cops in which the tuk tuk driver gets a ticket for driving on a no tuk tuk. At the last temple, the Lucky Buddha temple, we start to talk to one of the curators of the place asking him a couple questions. Somewhere in the conversation the topic gets turned to clothes and we’re suddenly being told the best place in the city to get a custom made suit is at Top’s Tailors or something like that. I walk out of the temple and ask Kirsty and the English guy if he was just trying to sell us on buying a suit and they all agreed he was. So we hop back into the tuk tuk with full knowledge that we are going to a store next but insist on only 1 stop, not the usual 3 that many people go on before the driver gives up. Now what’s the shop we end up in? Top’s Tailors. I couldn’t help but laugh. We go in a muddle around for about 10 minutes pretending to be interested so that the driver will get his voucher and we won’t have to go anywhere else. The suits and tailoring there was amazing and at pretty much next to nothing for the price. When I left there I had in my mind that I was so going to go back there and buy a suit. About 10 minutes later I asked myself, “when was the last time I wore a suit?” so the suit idea was quickly scrapped but I am tempted to go back there and see if they could fix me up with some decent shirts in a style that I like.
After that I pretty much said cya to the people I was hanging with and went to the bus off to Krabi and Hat Ton Sai. Bangkok is a hell of a place; I don’t think it’s great nor is it beautiful but dam is it cool. I’ve often complained that everyone is OZ seems to be selling you something and the same thing can easily be said about here but at a times 10 scale. The thing that makes it tollorable, actually funny thus far at least, is the way they go about doing it, like in the way I had explained about. I read this book called “Video Night in Kathmandu” before I left to here and it really goes into depth about the cross culture that is occuring and puts a lighter spin on the whole thing making fun of much that’s going on. I think reading that has sort of made it a lot easier here, I now look at a lot of things that seem just off the wall and very un-Asian to be quite humorous now and just sit back and laugh at it instead of getting upset about a lost cutlure like for instance Ronald McDonald giving the Thai greating, the weird rice paddy buns and the microwavable curry and rice you can buy at 7-11 instead of microwavable burgers and nachos. I reccomend the book, it was a funny read.
Krabi
So after an overnight bus I get to Krabi, from there I took a longboat to East Rai Lai, which is the mid-range accomidation and over to West Rai Lai which is the expensive accomidation side. I walked through there and made my way to Hat Ton Sai, the poor party of the area. The area is basically all beach resorts and simply range in price. I had to march over this little mountain thing to get there which was a bit fun with all my gear and Mike’s climbing rope and equipment. It was crazy, along the way there I see this group of guys and ask them which way to Ton Sai. One of the guy’s in the group had had his blog of his travels in Asia posted on Crossfit.com and whom I coresponded with a little on travel in Asia. Small world.
I found my way over the little hill/mountain and through the jungle to Hat Ton Sai no problems. I could have taken a longboat I guess or waited until the tied went out and walked around but didn’t. I found a very rustic little bungalo for 150b a night and crashed there. The first day couple days I hung out with Meoard from Isreal and just sat on the beach chilling out. On the 3rd I went on a tour of the local islands, snorkeling along the way. At this point I started to get really really borred and felt extremely exhusted for no reason. I began to think that being on the road for a year was starting to take it’s toll on me and maybe I should cut it short. I went out to the full moon party that night and pretty much kept to myself, feeling very tired and confused. The next day I headed into the next town over Ao Nang. There are no roads to Rai Lai or Ton Sai and everything gets in by boat. Like I say, it’s a beach side resort and I think that was one of the problems; I went from busy ass BKK to a resort with no in between and it hit me. After spending the day in Ao Nang and heading back to Ton Sai had a work out, a great meal and felt re-newed. I went to the local bar at our guest house and met a great group of people and chilled out with them. One of the guys, Glen from England saw me working out earlier and dubbed me Private Joker ala Full Metal Jacket so for the rest my tenure there we were yelling military orders at each other. Also met some really cool guys from Sweden, one of which was here with his Thai g/f who used to live on Ton Sai and run a scuba shop before the tsunami took everything away. From there things just seemed to get better in Ton Sai and the place really started to grow on me.
Climbing
So finally Mike shows up and we get together one morning for some climbing, which was pretty much the main reason I went there. Mike came here with his g/f Susan and her parents who flew into England for a quick visit with her and to meet Mike for the first time. This place is a mecca for climbing with amazing limestone rock all over the place and hundreds of carved routes all throughout the islands. I had done a little indoor stuff back home and went once with him in Sydney but had never been outdoors so this was all new to me and I have to say it was amazing. I went out twice with Mike and once by myself roping up with other people and each time had a blast. On the last day there I was fighting with myself wether I should stay, but a bunch of equipment and climb more or take off. I decide on taking off but I must say I think I am hooked now; I couldn’t stop thinking about it when i wasn’t doing it and could help myself from stopping along the path I was walking and watch people climb. The other climbers that I met and climbed with were al great and super friendly. I met a girl from back home who trained out of the UofA climbing wall and worked at MEC so that was pretty cool. She said there’s definately a gread following back home with lots of excursions in the Rocky’s during the season so there’s a bonus for when i get back. I had a great time climbing that I’m still sitting here wondering if I should jump back on to the boat, head over back to Ton Sai and go climbing more but alas, for another time. I think now that I’ve gotten a taste for it I have another reason to come back here and hve already in my mind to get some more experience under my belt and come back here for a full season like so other people that I met here were doing but I guess that’s for another trip down the road.
So other then climbing for a couple days, I spent my time checking out the area, hiking around and chilling out. The day before Mike came, me and another guy from Oz decided to go on a jungle treck to Ao Nang, the next town over. The main way to get there was by longboat but I had heard rumors that there was a train there so we went about our way to find this mystical trail. We asked around some of the locals where it was, most said you couldn’t go, others blankly pointed in the towns general direction so we headed off into the jungle with the tidbits of info we had. We searched for like an hour bush wacking and trampling through some heavy jungle finding some pretty cool stuff like an old guest house bungallo village close to the top of the his that had been abandonded for quite some time and surrounded by an opium and weed crop, just kidding it was surrounded by bananas. As we were trampling through the jungle the topic came up that if this was anywhere else in South East Asia, walking through the jungle on unmarked paths would probably mean certain death or at least a loss of a limp from all the unexploded mines and bombs in place like Loas, Cambodia and Vietnam but fortunately we were in safe and sound Thailand so we marched on. We headed back down to Ton Sai and manged to find someone with better info and took it from there. The hike/scramble itself wasn’t too bad, the worst of it being all the mosquitoes that completely ignored the bug spray I used, probably because I just sweated it all off, and I think the aimless walking through the jungle we did was even worse. On the other side of the little cliff we had to hike there was this amazing 5-star restort they’re building with it’s own private beach so we snuck onto it and jumped into the ocean. The water is rediculously warm here so it didn’t do too much to cool us down but still felt rad.
What else now that’s worth mentioning. Oh yeah me and Mike climbined down into this cool hidden lagoon one day. I’ll mention that Susan came along with us but didn’t go all the way down to the lagoon a she didn’t want to bother using her incredible climbing skills on such a measly decent and climb. As I mentioned before this place is broken up into different beaches and areas, West Rai Lai, which is the expensive area, East Rai Lai, the moderately priced area and finally Ton Sia, the cheap area. Again, to get to Ton Sai it’s either through the water during low tide or a hike/scramble through the jungle or a longboat ride. Each night I would usually go and meet Mike, Susan and her parents for dinner and climb my way back in the dark with my flash light to lead the way. It’s a bit of a tricky scramble in the dark but not too bad and was pretty comfortable with it after a couple treaks up untill one night I was going through when I crossed paths with a big huge ass snake about 4-5″ diameter at it’s thickest point. I’m pretty sure it was a python and was wrapped around a big rock. It slowly slithered away into the forest and that was the last I saw of it. The only thing I was thinking when i saw it was, “Holy Shit. Holy Shit. Holy Shit. Holy Shit….”. After that I swear every root and branch looked like a snake. To further my jungle explorations the next night that I was making my scramble back home my flashlight started to die and about 30m into the jungle I realized I was screwed if I didn’t turn around right then and there and go back the way i came. When I got back to the side I started my flashlight was pretty much completely dead and I was stuck in West Rai Lai for the the night. My plan was then to borrow one of the mats they had laying on the beach and camp over night on the beach untill morning. I was pretty mcuh set on this plan but then met a couple who were in the same seat as I and wouldn’t hear of such things. They tried to convince me to try and find new batteries in one of the local mini marts but they didn’t seem to understand that we would all need flashlights to walk through and one was only enough for one person. Finally they managed to find a longboat to take us over to Ton Sai so I grudgingly accepted to go along and pay the outrageous night time far.
Well I think I’ll cut ‘er off there as I have to get on the bus for an over nighter back to BKK and from there up to Chaing Mai for cooking school. Thus far I’ll use one word to describe my time and stay in Thailand; Magical. There’s still so much shit that I’ve left out ranging from the amazing food, to the amazing people to the rats in my bungalow but all those stories will have to wait.
I posted up a bunch more pics here and Mike will be dropping off more that he took of us climbing and hanging out.
Keep Safe
Troy
Tags: Thailand
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