Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me

Please ignore the fact that it says 2012.  Some things
come without an explanation 

“All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.”    – Paul Fussell

While I can’t claim that I’ve not repeated success (Monday marked the fifth time we’ve been to Railay Beach…), I can be sure that I’ve tried countless new places already, a good many of which I feel comfortable not repeating.  Ever.

Full Moon..although the eclipse that happened
later really confused  everyone.

The Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan was one of the craziest things I’ve ever experienced, but it definitely goes on that list with Patong of things I am content never to do again.

The journey to Koh Phangan was a long one, and our plan from the beginning was a bit ridiculous:  we would head out on Saturday morning, party through the night, eschew any type of accommodation (read: we would not be sleeping), and catch the 7am ferry back on Sunday morning.  If it seems like a crazy plan, that’s because it was.  No question about it, we were playing with fire.

We started at 9am at the Krabi bus station where we were told that the total cost of our trip to the island would be 750 baht.  This after we had chosen not to buy the ticket from our favorite travel agent lady for 650 baht because we were sure we could do it for cheaper on our own.  We could not.  We managed to talk the man down to 650, but we had to wait for an hour at the bus station before the bus would take us to some other bus station. 

An hour at the Krabi bus station is not a pleasant experience.  All the foul smells of Thailand join together here.  As we sat half asleep in uncomfortable plastic chairs, smokers blew carcinogens in our faces, stray dogs wandered past smelling like parasites and neglect, expired chicken grilled over an open flame, and flies buzzed around the smorgasbord of nastiness that was the overflowing trash can.  It is really all I can do to not to taste my breakfast again.

Swirly night-shot setting of the full moon

We boarded a local bus which was to take us to the other bus station where we would get a bus to carry us part of the way to Surat Tani where we would get yet another bus to the ferry which would complete the journey to Koh Phangan.  The local bus bumped us along jungle roads and over mounds of dirt to a part of Krabi we had never seen before.  Or at least that’s what we thought. 

After sitting at this remote bus station for an hour and a half, we boarded a bus and finally were on our way.  We wound our way out of the jungle and this was our exact conversation:

Me (noticing the back of a familiar building):  Hey, don’t we drive past the other side of this on our way home?

Stacy:  Uhhh, isn’t that where we saw the fire yesterday….?

Carlyn (completely oblivious to Stacy’s and my observations):  Oh my god, DO YOU SEE WHERE WE ARE??

View from the ground of the ferry.

Turns out the “remote” bus station we had never seen before was literally a ten minute walk from where we live.  Thailand never stops surprising me.

After what seemed like forever, we boarded the ferry at Don Sak Pier in Surat Tani for the two and a half hour ride to Koh Phangan.  We had made some Australian friends on the bus with whom we passed the time on the deck of the ferry alternately dodging the suffocating black smog pouring from the smokestacks and the stifling heat spewing out the wrong end of the air conditioning unit next to us. 

***[A few hours of uninteresting getting to places, speaking with people, and eating]***

Buckets for sale

On our way to meet some fellow OEG teachers in town for the party, we stopped to buy our first “bucket.”  This is the most affordable and logical way to purchase alcohol for events such as these.  They are literal sand-toy-buckets filled with straws, ice, and whatever other poison you choose.  Most of them were disgusting mixtures of cheap vodka/rum/Thai “blends” and Coke or Red Bull, but we did have a tasty one that included pineapple juice and, thankfully, no Red Bull (it seriously ruins every drink). 

Phase 1 of painting: complete

Buying a drink bucket granted us permission to use the free paint laid out under the table of buckets.  The body paint is part of the ambience of the whole affair and as such, quite necessary.  We did a bit of face-painting and headed off to meet our OEG friends who then continued the painting process by covering our arms (and some of our legs as well) with colorful abstract designs.

After a sufficient amount of paint was applied and buckets imbibed, it was time to make our way to the beach.  The road on the way to the beach was peppered with t-shirt stands, bucket-sellers and more Western food than I’ve seen since the Minneapolis Airport (what else do you sell to a bunch of drunk twentysomethings but pizza and fries?).  It was a crazy mess of people dressed in neon, covered in paint and spilling unidentifiable alcohol all the heck over the place.  This was the kind of party you had to be plastered out of your mind to really enjoy and I’m certain that I was far to in control of my faculties ifyaknowwhatimsayin’ to truly appreciate the beauty (?) of it all.

Mike painted my wonderful tattoos! 

L-R:  Stacy, Sumi, Morgan, Patty, me, Mike, Alex

With the girls, ready to go!

OEG takes on the Full Moon Party!!

You can guess what the blue handprint is from...

Tribal warrior paint

We lost our OEG friends barely an hour after hooking up with them and in madness such as this, it would have been an exercise in futility to try finding them again.  Instead we did find the Aussies from the ferry and danced the night and early morning away at the water’s edge.  If this sounds like a wholesome good time, I assure you it was not.  I was half expecting to step on a used syringe sticking out of the sand, and I actually punched a guy in the jaw at the beginning of the night for grabbing my butt.  A perfect stranger copped a feel, and I was so not having it, so I turned around and socked him on the mouth.  It felt pretty wonderful.

“I don’t think I deserved that,” the idiot told me. 

“I think you did,” I shot back. 

His friend (another brilliant mind) said, “If I grabbed your ass, would you punch me too?” 

I put my face inches from his. “Try it and find out.” 

They both walked away. 

Minutes after this, I learned that if I was planning on coldcocking every guy who groped me (intentionally or otherwise), I would probably break my hand.  It was that kind of night.

There is a beach under all those people believe it or not

No syringes were stepped on, but there was plenty of bottles, broken glass, trash and lost flip-flops littering the surf.  I’m glad this was all taking place at night because to see what can only be described as unholy beach-rape during the day would have been too much for my beach-loving soul to bear.  Plus – and this is as depressing to write as it is to think – I actually felt too old to be there.  The party felt like it was more appropriate for coeds still sitting comfortably in that chunk of time where you do a million stupid things without expecting any real consequences than for someone approaching the quarter-century mark, closing in on that golden hour where a legitimate job is becoming compulsory.

*End of depressing, time-is-fleeting digression*

No, wait.  It’s not:

Okay now it’s over.  (Madness really does take its toll these days)

There was, of course, the obligatory fire show and also a fire jump rope and fire limbo – hilarious to watch drunk people attempt to not catch their hair on fire while they screw up six other people’s rhythm on a flaming jump rope.  I tried neither of those on account of the simple fact that I like my hair intact and unscorched, but I did go down the water slide.  The slide was set up on the roof of one of the buildings and to get there, I had to scale a large rope ladder.  Once at the top, I realized that it was not just a slide, but a water slide….into the sand.  Not the brightest idea, but it was an absolute blast.  The slide was super-steep so between that and the water gushing from the top, it shot you down pretty swiftly onto a plastic pillow thingy before bouncing you into the hard sand.  I left the area wet and sandy, but it was totally worth the adrenaline rush.

Epic water slide!

Flat Garrett makes the obligatory appearance

A human pyramid is the universal indicator of just how
out of control everything has got.  Ps.  It was my idea for
the pyramid but somehow, Carlyn's bright idea for her
to be on the bottom!

Around 5am, we dragged our exhausted bodies away from the beach to prepare for the nearly seven hour journey back to Krabi.  We survived, which is really all any of us could ask for.  No one was drugged.  No one got sick.  No one got lost (at least not for an extended period of time).  No one was assaulted or killed.  It was a success to be sure, but not one we will never again repeat.

My Favorite Mistake

On the bookshelf of my life, there is a section labeled “Glad I did it, never going back.”  These weathered tomes sit out of reach, gathering dust, their relevance long since expired.  My weekend in Phuket is up there now, somewhere between freshman year of college (LOVED it, but who wants to be THAT clueless again?) and watching The Maltese Falcon (I know it’s a classic, but I seriously just don’t get the appeal).

Maybe our expectations were too high, I dunno, but I do know that Phuket was a shock to the system in more ways than one.  It was a crazy experience, equal parts wonderful and disturbing, and I have zero desire to return. 

Creepy face (?) painting on the wall of Ally and Morgan's hostel

A four hour van ride from Krabi let us off at the bus terminal in Phuket Town.  From there we needed to get to the hotel, to which we only sort of had directions.  Basically, we needed to get to Patong Beach.  One of the local buses said “Patong” on the side, but at that juncture we didn’t actually know we needed to go there.  People knew we didn’t quite know what was going on and took advantage to the fullest.  The driver of the local bus said he didn’t go where we were headed, then a taxi driver offered us a ride for 50 baht (ridiculous) into town where we could get another bus to Patong.  We lied and said someone else had offered us a ride for 30 baht so he lowered the price to 40.  Either way it was stupid because when he let us off, he pointed us towards the very same bus that rejected us in the first place.  It was definitely going where we were going, but the drivers worked together to get another 40 baht from each of us.

Let me take a minute to explain how Thailand works.  Foreigners get ripped off constantly.  Even when you aggressively let them know that you know they are ripping you off, they will laugh in your face and continue to rip you off.  Even when you say you are a “kru” (teacher), they laugh and still rip you off.  The laughing isn’t cruel (normally) it’s just how they respond to pretty much everything. 

They’ll work together to rip you off as I have described.  Even the people you think are kind will do this.  It’s not a conscious effort to strip you of your dignity though.  First, they all seem to labor under the misconception that our white skin means we are rolling in money, so they don’t really see a problem taking more from those who have more.  Second, it’s just a culture.  They look out for their own. 

For example, the hostel we stayed at the first time we came to Krabi Town was run by a man with whom we are still friends.  Nice guy. Helped Stacy cure some nasty bug bites swelling up her leg.  I played soccer with him and his friends.  We even bring him business by recommending his hostel to our friends.  But this cool guy ripped us off so badly that first night that had we been in America, we wouldn’t be speaking to him any longer. 

Desperate for a sure way back to the bus station at 5:45 in the morning so we might make it to school on time, we asked him to ask the bus driver who brought us to the hostel if he couldn’t arrange for him to pick us up.  We didn’t know then what we know now: mainly, that there is a van within walking distance that will take us right to our school.  He sensed our desperation and knew we knew nothing of the van, but rather than tell us, he managed to get us to agree to pay 150 baht each for a bus ride that normally costs 15 baht!  No doubt he got a kickback from such an outrageous markup, but we aren’t holding a grudge.  Everyone’s got to pay their dues, and we know better now. 

So anyways, back to Phuket.

Eventually we made it where we needed to go, and met our OEG friends Ally and Morgan in Patong.  Patong (and Phuket Town also) could not have been further from what we expected.  Of course travel websites and brochures can be deceiving (and honestly, we probably relied more on random preconceptions than those anyhow), but it was pretty much a mini-Pattaya. 

Tuk-tuk rides were crazy expensive!

For some reason, there was a bit of a tiger obsession here.

It was King Rama IX's 84th birthday on Monday so
we all had off school for the national holiday :)

Probably the only Christmas tree I'll see in Thailand :'(

We spent the afternoon at the beach, and after having been spoiled by the pristine and desolate beaches of Krabi, this was a wake-up call.  I’ve never in my life seen more people on one beach!  Lounge chairs lined the sand in rows almost clear down to the water.  They were of course three baht to rent – nothing here is without cost.  You’ve even got to pay to use a public toilet that you wouldn’t go into wearing a Hazmat suit at home!

The people density is so intense,
you can't even see past the first line!

Water sports of every kind were going on all over the place.

  

Children created an endless, chirpy chorus of gibbrish. 

This was about thirty seconds before their soccer ball
came flying at us.  Not the brightest kids playing
in a crowd of people this dense.

Creepy old western men got rubbed down with oil by young, barely-consenting Thai women.  And the Speedos – oh the humanity!

It's always the ones who can least afford
to be wearing something so skimpy.

This was the icing on the cake:

You. Are. Welcome.

The night out was a wild one, staring with some harassment from locals shoving menus in our faces on our way to dinner.  Almost made us not want to eat anywhere.  But hunger won out as it always does.  Once when we stopped to look at a menu, a woman came up to us a put another menu on top of it!  It’s really quite unappetizing.  Shoving menus in our faces was nothing though compared to the people shoving adverts for ping pong shows (I’ve elaborated on those in the past).  In what universe does a group of well-dressed western girls look interested in seeing that?!  Know your key demographic, people!

Everything "a-go-go:

After dinner we headed back to the hostel for a bit where we met some British dudes on holiday in Thailand for a few months.  They too were passing though Phuket and so were our party companions for the next 48 hours.  Our first stop was a line of non-descript bars where we had some drinks and got to know the Brits.

Please excuse the British guy licking my
face.  That's Barrie.  He's harmless.

At some point, a random Aussie joined the group.  He was not a welcome addition.  He was easily ten or fifteen years older than all of us, and those years had not been kind to him.  For some reason, he thought we would be interested in a bar were each patron is gifted a paddle (it could have been Styrofoam stick, I don’t really pay attention when someone talks that close to my face) with which to smack the asses of the strippers.  “Don’t worry,” he said when we all looked appalled.  “They’re allowed to hit you back.”  Oh well in that case, sign me up!

Sounds like a barrel of monkeys, amiright?

Despite all his intense planning (read: no planning at all), we did not end up in the smack-happy bar, but we definitely ended up in a strip club.  I’ve never seen that many bajingos in my life and I hope I never have to again.  The girls all wore these little lace skirts that as they danced, rode up and revealed everything.  Classy ladies, obviously.  Unfortunately photography was not allowed in this joint, so no pics of the strippers.  Trust me, it’s better that way.

The naked writhing women didn’t make me uncomfortable, but supporting the exploitation really did.  And don’t even try telling me they were enjoying this, or that they chose this particular line of work.  My impression of strippers was that they’re all cheery and bouncy, but these girls couldn’t even hide their displeasure.  Slightly disheartening.

Also, y’know that awkward moment when you’re attempting to have a normal conversation in the middle of a black-lit strip club only to realize that there is a nasty old American man getting dry humped by a 17-year-old stripper not five feet from you? 

No, that’s just me? 

Moving on.

After the wonderful experience that was the strip club, we wound up at a night club called The Factory where we danced until we were so sweaty we stuck to each other.  After spending so many nights dancing in bars in Cleveland, getting all sweaty and then immediately freezing the moment I stepped out of the bar into the lake-effect winter wind and shivering on the sidewalk until a cab came, this was a new experience.  The sweat doesn’t freeze-dries on you…it never goes away. 

Naturally we were craving French fries at 2am, so we found an amused waiter at a restaurant on our way home who satisfied our hunger before we finally made our way to bed.

Just waiting for a little snack...apres partying :)

Breakfast the next day was a bagel and latte from….Au Bon Pain.  For reals guys.  An Au Bon Pain in Thailand!  Ca-razy stuff.  

Also, we found a Starbucks.  Score!!

Mmmmmmm

We were going through some serious withdrawal, yo.

We were hit with a typical southern Thailand-style sudden downpour, so we did a little shopping while we waited out the rain, and then headed back to the beach for the afternoon.

That night was again spent crawling through the seedy underbelly of Patong, but unfortunately I (wisely) chose not to take part in the bar part of the festivities and instead spent twenty minutes sitting in a steamy bathroom hoping that my ability to breathe would return before I passed out.  Turns out there was a lot more smoke in all those bars the night before than I anticipated and my lungs had their typical reaction (Jenna:  Remember that time you insisted on taking me to the hospital and then my fingers went numb in class?!  Good memories.).  It was awesome…..and almost a week later I’m still recovering!

Clockwise:  Morgan, Carly, Stacy, me, and Ally
 totally cheating at an Italian restaurant.  The pizza and
garlic bread was amazing though!!

Playing some games in the hostel with our new
friends Catherine (Canada) and Barrie (England)

Looking pretty with Carlyn and Ally\

Some of these people we hung out with for two days,
others I've never seen before in my life :)

We picked up a stowaway for the trek home in our friend Morgan who had the whole week off from school.  The four of us, exhausted to our core, endured the torturous local bus up and down the mountains back to the station to catch the real bus to Krabi.  Four hours later we were home.  It was all we could do to eat dinner before collapsing into bed.  We did get to see some fireworks in honor of the king's birthday off our balcony before we went to bed!

They're no Zambelli show, and they lasted about
four seconds, but they were still pretty!

The king's birthday is also Thai Father's Day :)