Begin the Begin

Western New Year, Thai style

Travelling in Thailand requires the following four things:

1. Tolerance – the kind usually reserved for saints and coaching tiny soccer players
2. Low expectations
3.  High pain threshold
4. An iPod with volume capabilities that far exceed what the human eardrum can handle

See, no matter how meticulously you’ve planned your journey (or in my case, didn’t plan, but strung together at the last minute and hoped it wouldn’t implode), things will go to hell.  Quickly.  You need that tolerance to prevent you from going completely ape shit on everyone around you – it reflects poorly on you as an American, and they can’t understand you so it’s useless anyways.  The iPod is necessary because no matter which mode of transportation you take, the driver will answer his phone five hundred times and speak louder than you thought possible.  Also there will always be Thai music blasting from every speaker in the vehicle, and Thai music – how shall I describe just how bad most Thai music is?  It’s not quite as bad as eavesdropping on an orgy but definitely worse than slamming a large bag of cats against a wall. 

Buses never arrive on time.  It’s best just to make peace with that as early as possible, because it’s a fact of life in Thailand.  If you assume from the start that 3:30 really means 4:30, life will be much easier.  Also, you will be transported like livestock, people literally sitting on top of one another.  In my case, I’ve discovered that riding bitch-seat in the front of a minibus with one butt cheek on a giant water bottle and the other on an upholstery-covered slab of concrete, tailbone on a metal rod and a useless seatbelt poking the kidney is probably a more effective means of torture than waterboarding.  Gitmo take note. 

None of this was especially traumatizing of course.  I just made it that way.  My stress levels were through the roof even though I know that there are things which cause people legitimate stress like fighting fires or performing open heart surgery or riding a Humvee in Afghanistan.  I was freaking out only because I am incapable of travelling alone without turning into an anxiety-ridden mess imagining nothing but worst-case scenarios. 

After six vehicles and 21 hours I arrived in Koh Chang in mostly one piece.

Here is my journey (click to enlarge):

It's a little difficult to see, but the purple
is the path I took from Krabi to Koh
Chang via Surat Thani and Bangkok.

I arrived on the island in the early afternoon on New Year’s Eve and met up with other OEG teachers who I haven’t seen since orientation.  It was fantastic to see everyone again, and there was a large group of us staying at Cliff Cottage – little cliff-side bungalows on the tip of Koh Chang in an area called Bang Bao.

The cottages were really fun, but not something I ever thought I’d be experiencing – which made it a hilariously fantastic adventure of course.  Ours was up some dangerously steep dirt steps, and the view was spectacular.  The bungalow was nothing more than a tiny room with a bed, a chair and a fan – and mosquito netting!  I’ve never used mosquito netting, but on this trip I discovered that it makes the sleeping environment rather hot despite the best efforts of the oscillating fan. 

Bungalow #15!

The view from our porch to the restaurant area and water below

View to the left of the bungalow

The tiny inside of our bungalow

Also of note:  As we were checking out the Lonely Planet guide to Koh Chang, one of the girls announced that it is one of the few malarial areas of Thailand.  There was this depressed chorus of “Oh crap, I stopped taking those pills…” as we all calculated our chances of contracting the disease.  “Don’t worry,” I reassured everyone, “George Clooney has gotten malaria four times and he’s still fine.” 

My revalation wasn’t met with as much relief as I was anticipating.

Thick, pink mosquito netting!!

The bathrooms were separate from the bungalows, and rather than go down there too often, Rochelle and I brushed our teeth on the porch of our bungalow.  We’re super-classy like that. 

The bathrooms were a simple row of toilets and showers which were said to have been cleaned four times daily.  They were actually quite clean in the grand scheme of Thai bathrooms, but the shower water was of course freezing.  I can’t say it was the worst shower I’ve had here – that distinction goes to the shower in our old house – but it wasn’t pleasant.  I showered just as my dad tried to get me to at home for years:  Water on, get wet, water off, suds up, water on, rinse, done.  It was necessary to avoid violent shivering.  Monday morning, I was so anxious to get out of the shower that I actually washed my body with the suds from my shampooed hair!  Is this a new low?

The wonky transportation and cold showers aside, Koh Chang was a paradise I am glad I made the long trek from Krabi to experience and I would go back in an instant – if only an instant was all it took to get me there!

New Year’s Eve was chilled out and wonderful.  We OEG-ers sat on the porch of the large gathering area of Cliff Cottage watching the sunset and sharing teaching war stories.  As much as I would never wish misery on any of these wonderful ladies, it was refreshing to know that they were all going through the same frustrations as I am.  We laughed at our shared difficulties with our students and administrators, marveling out loud at the quirkiness of the Thai education system. 

Talking around a Thai-style table

Basking in the glow of the last sunset of 2011
From left:  Ellen, me, Sam, Sarah, Mary and Jenna

Rochelle had been eyeing this hammock for hours.
Thankfully it vacated at night :)

We got dinner at a lovely place on Lonely Beach.  We could hear the waves crashing on the rocks below us as we ate and drank and toasted the New Year.  Our dinner was briefly interrupted by a cushion fire. 

True story. 

New Year's Eve dinner :)
Clockwise from left:  Rochelle, me, Sarah, Jenna, Ellen

Someone had left a lit cigarette on one of the floor cushions and suddenly there were flames piercing the darkness and there was a bit of chaos.  One brave waiter picked up the flaming cushions and then seemed to have completely blanked on what one should do with live fire.  He ran back and forth between the wooden porch and the concrete walkway (any guesses as to which would have been the smarter place to drop the flaming cushions?), looked for a moment like he was going to run into the kitchen and finally tossed the cushions into the ocean some undisclosed number of yards below the restaurant deck. 

Breakfast at the Bang Bao market

We split up when it got later, and I chose to head back to Cliff Cottage to ring in the New Year on the hammocks with a shot of tequila and fireworks and sky lanterns let off from the beach below us.  It was the perfect atmosphere to welcome 2012!

New Year’s Day morning, we walked around the floating market on the Bang Bao pier and refused to buy anything since it was all so crazy-overpriced.  These Thai salaries we’re making have completely erased any dollar-conversions our heads used to do.  Now we think in baht and things are expensive! 

Our little group had breakfast at the market and then headed to the Khlong Plu Waterfall.  It was the first waterfall I’ve seen in Thailand and it did not disappoint!  After hiking twenty minutes through the jungle, we came to the base of the waterfall – a swimming hole! – where we stripped to our swimsuits and jumped in off the rocks.  The water was FREEZING!  I’m talking freezing like opening Grandpa’s pool in June and the water is nearly frozen freezing.  We loved it though and hung out at the waterfall until we made the executive decision that the beach would be far more comfortable. 

We thought we could walk to Khlong Prao Beach, but after 45 minutes we were only about a third of the way there so we caught a sawng-taew the rest of the way.  We passed the afternoon lazily on the white sands and splashing in the warm ocean water.  We discovered that by simply digging our fingers into the sand, we could come up with any number of beautiful treasures.  We found countless live sand dollars which was a thrill for us since we’ve only ever known the dried-out white sand dollars.  We forgot that they were living creatures first!  There were giant, shiny clam shells that looked like they’d been through a rock polisher, and tiny, intricate snail shells.  We collected everything on a blanket, and when we realized that we probably couldn’t keep them without a serious stench, threw them back in the water.  Although they were probably already dead by that point.

We ran into a baby elephant on our walk to the beach.
They're only adorable from a distance.

New Years on the beach.  

Playing like children in the surf

Treasures of the sea

When the sun started its decent into the west, we walked about a hundred yards to a restaurant.  The tables were literally on the beach, so we ate fried rice and watched the sunset with our toes in the cool sand.  It was a perfect end to a perfect day. 

After dinner we spent the rest of the night at Cliff Cottage with desserts, drinks and lively conversation.  We aired more teaching-related grievances and laughed as we all told stories about our more spirited students and our most frustrating lost-in-translation moments.

Something strange we all shared was that we had the most difficult time communicating to anyone where were going.  Our conversations all went something like this:

Thai person:  Where you go New Years?

Us:  Koh Chang!

Thai person:  Where?

Us:  Koh Chang.

Thai person:  Where?

Us:  Koh Chang?

Thai person:  OHHHHH!  Koh Chang!!

Us [grumbly]:  That’s what I said.

We have no clue where we went wrong with the pronunciation, but our best guess was that it had something to do with the tones.  Either way, all of us had the same ludicrous problem.

Flat Garrett with some very cool sea creatures...

No one wanted to leave the porch to sleep because that meant parting from people we were only too happy to spent the rest of our Thailand time with in a place we never wanted to leave.  But when we started falling asleep at the table, we figured it was time to go to bed and said our sad goodbyes.

 

Some of the girls are teaching in Bangkok and could stay an extra day, but as I had 21 hours of travel ahead of me, I had to leave Monday morning.  The adventure wasn’t over though as the sawng-taew from Cliff Cottage to the ferry pier took over an hour!  The driver (who was already overcharging us at a ridiculous 100 baht/person) decided to stuff on as many foreigners as he could.  The sawng-taew was meant for ten people and there were TWENTY on this one!  Those of us lucky enough to have a seat had our hip bones ground down by the hip bones of the people next to us (Thais forget that others actually have hips when shoving us like sardines into their pickup trucks) and the unlucky six without a seat were literally hanging on to the back.  It was the single most hilarious ride of my life.

...and basking the the warmth of a very
hot New Years in Southeast Asia

I made it back to Bangkok with the help of Ellen and Rochelle who I was SO glad to have travelling with me since I would never have made it to the correct bus station if I was by myself.  I probably would still be curled up in the fetal position crying at the base of the Victory Monument.  The overnight bus back to Krabi was uneventful and didn’t involve any stressful changing of buses.  The only thing of note was that the seats recline so far that the people in front of me were basically in my lap.  I could only move side to side and the only way my legs fit in front of me was if I slouched and shoved them under the seat.  I was fine as long as I was curled up and didn’t move.  Thankfully the seat next to me was empty so I made a sort of bench of the two seats and slept for a good portion of the ride.

It was a blissfully perfect New Year’s holiday and I cannot wait to see what 2012 has in store.  I know it will bring some excitement – namely the unexpected rest of this crazy Thailand adventure and eventually seeing all of you wonderful Americans again in April!