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10:30 a.m., 1/18/01
Leave house, pick up Todd, drive to airport, leave Jeep with Todd
11:00 a.m.
Check in for 1:00 flight; find out that we don’t have seats together. Tell old Japanese man behind counter that we’re honeymooning; he says “Sure, sure, everybody honeymoon.” He keeps our tickets in case anything opens up. Bev is irate, having confirmed our seats (which were, in fact, together) months ago.
Noon-ish Nice Japanese lady at other counter calls us up and gives us new seat assignments…together. She overheard us with the other dude and took over. Bev is happy.
1:00 p.m.
Flight leaves for Tokyo, on time. No veggie meal on board for Bev, but apologetic steward finds her a peanut-butter sandwich from a kiddie meal.
4:00 p.m., 1/19/01
Arrive Tokyo a little early, check for our connecting flight to Bangkok, which is supposed to leave at 6 p.m. Sign says 22:25. Do math. Frown. Do math again. Listen to ugly Americans yell at polite Japanese ladies behind NW service desk because the incoming flight from Detroit is 4 hours late. Settle in for naps. Find out later that Narita airport has dayrooms you can rent for $8 an hour – with showers! Make note for next time.
10:30 p.m.
Flight departs for Bangkok. We sleep for much of it. Hooray for inflatable neck pillows!
3:00 a.m., 1/20/01
Arrive Bangkok, slog through customs, exchange $$ for baht at the automatic exchange machine, find cab to downtown.
4:00 a.m.
Pull up in front of Shanti Lodge. A surly Thai woman informs us “We full – come back later!” Stuart knows the owners of this place and very much wants to stay there, but there are other guest houses nearby so we walk around a bit to see if anyone is about at any of them. No luck. But since it feels like one in the afternoon to us and we are both fairly awake, we decide to hang out and wait for things to open up. There is a fair bit of activity for that time of day, and the 7-11 on the corner is open so we can get water. We settle in at a little table and watch the neighborhood wake up.
7:30 ish At last we find out that Shanti will have a room for us…in a few hours. Meanwhile, the woman who runs the place across the alley comes by and says she’s got a room with private bath for 400B (<$10) that we can have essentially right away. Sawatdee guest house is owned by relatives of the Shanti folks, so we figure it’s close enough. We shower, drink yummy iced coffee, have breakfast and get ready for our first day in Thailand!
Over breakfast we meet several of the other guests – this place caters to backpackers (as do all of the places in this area) so there are 20- and 30-something visitors from all over the world milling about. Definitely more fun than a hotel, where folks don’t tend to interact with each other much. We start talking to Birgit, a German woman in her 30’s, about our plans to go to Ko Phangan the next day, and end up spending much of the day sightseeing with her.
But first, we have a mission: Stuart wants a custom-made tuxedo. He had a suit made here last time, but we can’t find that tailor so we get a recommendation for another and head over there (3 blocks away). Half an hour later, he’s been measured and the order is in, for pickup when we return in 2 weeks. For $200.
We then set out in the Bangkok heat (probably 90, with 90% humidity) to see a few sights. We catch a boat down the river to Tha Chang, near the Grand Palace. Walking through the marketplace just off of the boat, Bev discovers sticky rice with coconut custard, served wrapped in some sort of big leaf. YUM. Most other foods in the market are either (a) unidentifiable and/or (b) egregiously meat-like. We vow to learn how to say “stick rice with coconut” in Thai, but only get as far as “rice” (which is “kaao”).
We are not attired to visit the palace (which requires that knees and shoulders be covered) so we admire it from afar and meander our way back toward the guest house. In one park we see more pigeons than I’ve ever seen in one place. There are also many colorful monuments to the president and his wife, and some puzzling ones regarding the queen of Denmark.
Bangkok is grimy but tidy, with lots of traffic that we have to battle to cross the busy streets. Pedestrian walkways that should lead to crosswalks…don’t. After about 20 minutes of death-defying traffic-dodging, we come to Kho-San Road, the main touristy-shopping area. We browse a bit but are too hot and tired to feel like shopping. We catch a tuk-tuk (open-air cab) back to the guest house and have a nap. We force ourselves to wake up for dinner and a brief evening of socializing at the guest house, then pass out for a much-needed night of sleep.
And on the second day….we shopped. On our list: a travel alarm clock; a 128M compact flash card for the digital camera; towels; and a backpack for Bev. For items 1 and 2, we head to Panteep Plaza, toward downtown Bangkok. This place is a huge (I mean, huuuuge) building, entirely filled with electronics and related supplies. Six floors, packed with everything from laptops and camera equipment to bootlegs of every piece of software and recent release movie (and some that haven’t been released yet). We find a clock for the princely sum of 220B ($5), and after shopping around a bit, find the flash card for 11,000B (~$250…and I’m going to stop doing the math for you now), usually $350-400. (Yes, we made sure it worked before we left there.)
Next stop: the weekend market. Did we say the electronics place was huge? Well, the market dwarfs it. This thing covers acres and acres, filled with little booths selling everything under the sun: clothing, food, housewares, Thai silk, tchotchkes of all kinds, you name it. We find the backpack in about 3 minutes: a used but functional pack for all of about $10 (after a small amount of negotiation – probably could have gotten it for considerably less but we weren’t in the haggling groove yet). The towels prove to be more of a challenge. That takes another hour of squeezing up and down crowded pathways, attempting to not get distracted by all the bright baubles, and avoiding the loud hawkers outside many of the booths…and at last we find them, just as we are about to admit defeat and get out before we kill someone. Success!
We return, triumphant but weary, and kill a few hours hanging out until it is time to catch our southbound train. We’d had a bit of a scare earlier on when we found out that it was Chinese New Year’s weekend and thus all the flights and trains were supposedly booked, but it turns out not to be a problem and we procure two bunks in a sleeper car on the overnight train to Thong Sala, from whence we will make our way to Ko Phangan. While waiting for the train to leave, we notice this roving magazine vendor pushing his wares up and down the platform…and then notice that it is all porn. (No, we didn’t bring any back. :-) ) The train leaves on time.
The sleeper car arrangement is pretty slick: along the sides are pairs of seats facing each other, with a pull-down compartment overhead. When we return from the dining car (which we do for the experience of it, even though they will deliver food to us), our seats have been folded down into one bunk, and the overhead compartment pulled down into another. Each bunk has a little light, a surprisingly cushy pillow, and sheets and blanket on the bed; a curtain pulls around to provide darkness and (some) privacy. We snuggle up in the bottom bunk and contemplate fooling around, but decide that the logistics are sub-optimal. Stuart retires to the top bunk.
We awake early on the train, mostly because we don’t have a functional clock and fear that we won’t know when our stop is. We watch the sun come up and in the light of day see that we are now in lush farmland, complete with water buffalo and tons of bright white egrets everywhere. Huge spider webs house enormous spiders between the electrical lines along the railroad tracks, as if the spiders are waiting for insects fleeing the passing train.
At last we reach Thong Sala, two hours late and just in time to make the bus that will take us to the ferry to Ko Samui and on to Ko Phangan. Given that we left on time, we are not sure how we could have lost 2 hours…but it matters not at this point. We file onto the bus with all the other scruffy young backpackers, and in 90 minutes or so we arrive at the ferry…to file on with even more scruffy young backpackers. They pack us onto the boat like sardines, separating our packs into two piles: one for those going to Samui, and the other for those continuing to Phangan. We end up sitting along the little walkway on one side of the boat, arms and legs dangling over the sides around the railings. It feels like a refugee boat bound for Backpacker Land.
More than half of the passengers get off at Ko Samui – except for one guy whose pack turns out to be at the bottom of the wrong pile. Looks like he’s going for a longer ride than he expected. We get ice cream from one of the vendors who climb on board while we’re docked there – our first food of the day. Mmm, breakfast of champions.
We set out again before long, now feeling somewhat less sardine-like, and before long we’re arriving at Thong Sala, the main (only?) city on Ko Phangan. And there to greet us on the dock is our friend Holly, who has been in Thailand for 6 weeks and looks as relaxed as we hope to be before long. We get some lunch at a café near the dock, then pile into the island version of a taxi: a pickup truck with bench seats in the bed and optional roof with luggage rack. After a 45-minute ride along steep, rutted roads, we arrive at Haad Rin, home of the famed Full Moon Parties. This is definitely party central, and is the most touristy part of the island. We quickly set out to find a longtail boat driver (captain?) who’ll take us up the coast to Haad Tien, and after a rather confusing trek across town we succeed and climb into the boat for the final leg of the trip.
At last we find ourselves wading onto the shores of Haad Tien beach, home of The Sanctuary, a yoga and meditation retreat that Holly had found on the web. We haul our packs across a narrow footbridge and up to what appears to be the bar, where a fairly cute youngish guy tells us to have a seat and he’ll be with us shortly. We gratefully collapse into seats in the restaurant/hangout space, happy to be at our destination. After half an hour or so, we notice that cute guy is nowhere in sight. Hmmm. Now a somewhat vapid looking young woman is at the bar, so we go up to her and ask whether they’ve got bungalows available. It quickly becomes clear that it’s her first day on the job (like when she can’t tell us exactly where bungalows 3 and 7 are), but we eventually prevail and secure two bungalows…which turn out to be way the hell up a hill, far from the beach, but at this point we don’t care. We settle in.
Bungalow 7 (400B/night) has a double bed (ok, a thin mattress on a platform) with mosquito netting over it, a small bedside table, some shelving, and a typical Thai bathroom: squat toilet, spray nozzle instead of T.P., shower head, mirror. This one is kinda cool because it is built into the hill, with natural boulders forming one wall. We also have a porch with a hammock, and a nice view of the ocean – though the mosquitos keep us from enjoying it much.
Our impression of this place is that it is a bit too “serener than thou”…but we will give it a shot for a few days so that we can take advantages of the yoga classes and spa services. We also notice, down in the restaurant that evening, that everyone here is slender, attractive, and has excellent posture. Yoga-bodies, everywhere. Perhaps this place is not so bad.
This is when the days start blending together. We do yoga, we get laughably inexpensive facials and body wraps, we drink pineapple juice and iced coffee, we read in hammocks, we hang out on the beach, we meet people. We descend several levels of Chill.
Some notable events:
After three days at the Sanctuary we are ready to head to Thong Nai Pan, the beach Stuart fell in love with on his last trip to Thailand and where Holly had been rooted earlier in her trip. We ask about the semi-regular boat service and are told that if the boat comes down from the north in the morning, it will go back up around noon. The weather looks calm, so we cross our fingers and hang out at the beach to look for the southbound boat. Sure enough it passes, so we gather our gear and wait for its return. Around 1 pm it pulls into the beach in front of the Sanctuary and we pile in with the others, some of whom have come all the way from Samui on this same boat. It is a beautiful morning, and the view of the beach from the boat as we sail away is breathtaking.
An hour or so and several stops later, we arrive at Thong Nai Pan. It is a long, narrow beach lined with thatched-roof bungalows and their associated restaurants and shops, but it is not the least bit commercial. We wade ashore, hoist our packs, and start wandering in search of lodging. Holly shows us where she stayed last time, but they have only one room and we wish to stay together so we end up at Pingjun “resort” – the resort aspect being that in addition to bungalows, it provides a restaurant, laundry service, and taxi service, among other things. All places here similar, and all expect you to eat most of your meals there – which in fact is more convenient anyway since they just run you a tab.
We snag one of their larger shacks, right on the beach. It is again 400B/night, and has the usual accoutrements: bed, mosquito netting, bathroom, porch. It is not quite as clean as the other places we’ve stayed, but…it’s 30 feet from the beach! And it turns out that Pingjun makes about the world’s greatest banana shakes, not to mention the totally addictive pineapple juice (recipe: take 1 chilled pineapple; peel; put in blender; puree; serve). Holly moves in around the corner and we settle in for a long stretch of…nothing!
Now the days get completely blurred together, so let’s just describe a typical one:
7:30-ish Start to wake up as sun rises over water. Smile.
8:00-ish Go to breakfast. Drink iced coffee, pineapple juice, coconut shake, banana shake. Eat banana pancakes or toast or traditional Thai breakfast (fried rice)
9:00-ish Do yoga on the grass in front of the bungalow.
10:00-6:00 Lay on beach. Float in water. Swim. Read. Nap. Get massage from one of the old Thai men who walk up and down the beach with their big straw hats on. Snooze in hammock. Walk to store and buy munchies and bottled water. Check email. Sit. Lie down. Play in the soft white sand. Smile a lot.
6:00-ish Have dinner. Maybe go up the beach for some fresh seafood BBQ.
7:00-?? Go to Chai Bar or Game Bar and listen to music, maybe have drinks. Go back to beach and look at stars.
10 or 11-ish Go to bed.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Notable events:
We discuss chartering a longtail boat to take us to the good snorkeling spot up north one day. This proves to be too much like Doing Something, and we instead succumb to gravity. (Gravity, as it turns out, is exceptionally strong on this island. We do not fight it.)
At last we tear ourselves away and gather our things for the trip back to Bangkok so that we can meet up with two more friends, Taylor and Melanie, who are arriving tonight. Holly stays on one more day and will meet us there tomorrow. We plan to take the longtail boat all the way to Samui, but we linger over breakfast and miss it. We convince ourselves that we really wanted to take the taxi to the ferry anyway – our flight from Samui isn’t til evening, so we have plenty of time to kill.
Around 9:30 we get into the back of the truck that will take us to Thong Sala to catch the ferry, and are pleased to see that we are the only passengers – except for the large oil drum and the big cooler in the middle. And then we make more stops, and pick up more people…and more people…and eventually we have 11 people in the back of this tiny pickup, and 3 more in the cab! It is an exciting ride, bumping along dirt roads, up and down hills, and more than once it seems that the little engine might not be up to the task…but it prevails, and with a brief stop to let folks buy fresh-caught frogs from a teenage girl on a bicycle, we make it to the ferry at 10:20 or so.
Once there, we find out that for a bit more baht, we can take a highspeed boat to Samui right away instead of having to wait for the ferry. We decide to go for it, and yet again are herded onto a boat with far more passengers than comfort would dictate. But we get decent seats up front, and pass the time chatting with a young British couple. We get to Ko Samui and have lunch while studying the guide book for an appropriate beach at which to pass the afternoon. Samui is a more touristy island, mostly northern European families and couples from what we can see, so we opt for Bo Phut, a beach that’s described as quiet rather than one of the two most popular areas. And this way is on the way to the airport anyway.
We catch another taxi-truck and manage to figure out when we have arrived at Bo Phut. Walking down the main drag, we stop in at a shop advertising diving and snorkeling trips to get a recommendation for a place where we can snorkel, since we brought our masks and snorkels but have yet to use them. We are directed up the beach a ways…that turns out to be rather a long ways, so we stop short of the suggested goal and set ourselves up on the beach to do more of what we’ve gotten good at: lying about on sarongs on the sand. We each make a brief sojourn into the water to see if there’s anything to be seen…which there isn’t. Oh well.
After a few hours of lassitude mixed with fending off the extremely tenacious beach vendors, we rally, have an early dinner, and hail a taxi to take us to the airport. Since we are the only passengers, he wants the outrageous sum of 100B (yeah, $2.50) to take us there. We are indignant, but we relent…since we don’t have many other options. We arrive 2 hours early for our flight and end up on an earlier one, after a fair bit of confusion. By 8:30 pm we are back in Bangkok.
Taylor and Melanie are due to arrive at 10:45, so Stuart remains at the airport while Bev catches a cab back to Sahwatdee Lodge to check back into good ol' room 6 and take a much-needed (though cold) shower. Taylor, Mel, and Stuart show up around midnight and we have drinks at Shanti til 1, the latest we've been up since the night of our arrival. They marvel at how brown and relaxed we are.
Now we are tourists. We prepare to visit the Grand Palace by wearing our convertible pants (that zip off above the knee to become shorts) and bringing short-sleeved shirts to wear over our tank tops. We take the boat again, feeling much more at home than the last time we had done so, eons ago. We stop for sticky rice with coconut custard on our way, and it is as yummy as it was the first time.
We file past the guards outside of the palace grounds, hoping our attire will pass muster. Once in, we follow the various crowds of tourists with their guides - German, Japanese, French, American. We opt to explore un-guided, and make our way to the booth where we purchase tickets to enter the palace. There are throngs of people everywhere, but there is an aura of respect that you rarely find at tourist attractions - perhaps due to the rules about proper dress, or maybe the armed soldiers you see everywhere.
It is impossible to describe the palace in words; there are many stunning temples with gilt towers and elaborate mosaics covering every surface. Gorgeous demon-statues of gold and bright-colored glass ring the columns outside of one temple.. Murals line the walls that encircle the grounds, depicting the Thai mythology - we pore over them for some time, pointing out various demons and monkey-men and maidens. Remarkable. We enter the temple containing the great jade Buddha, which requires that we remove our shoes and kneel silently while taking in the utter splendor of the room: it is entirely covered in gold and jewels and paintings of the Buddha, and filled with breathtaking artifacts. We come away with a desire to know more about Buddhism.
After satiating ourselves at the palace, we zip down to shorts and set out walking back toward Kho-San Road for some shopping. Bev buys Thai pants and some silk sarongs. Stuart drinks a beer and runs into a woman we met in Thong Nai Pan. We return to the guest house for dinner and a mellow evening with Holly, who has arrived from Ko Phangan.
Today we split up: Stuart stays with Taylor and Mel, while Bev goes with Holly to explore Ayutthaya, the ancient capitol of Thailand. Bev is writing this, so you get to hear about her part of the day. :-)
Ayutthaya is an hour and a half north of Bangkok by train, so we get an early start and head to the station to catch the 9 am. Holly buys the tickets, and has 200B ready to hand to the agent (since $5 seems like a reasonable guess for that long a ride). He asks for 30B. She asks him to repeat that. 30B. For both of us. Wow.
We board the train and find seats, noticing a few minutes later that we have neglected to buy water to bring with us. Within about 30 seconds, a vendor strolls by selling water. An auspicious sign for the day. The trip goes quickly as we chat away for most of it, and some nice Thai folks (including the ticket-puncher guy) let us know when our stop is coming up. We exit the train and are immediately approached by men offering us tuk-tuk tours of all the ruins and historical sights. They seem puzzled when we insist that we wish to walk: "very far, very long to walk!" Doesn't look like more than a mile to us, so we shake them off and set out on foot, happy for a chance to get some exercise.
The city of Ayutthaya seems pretty small, certainly compared to Bangkok. We pass through the market as we head west toward the river, stopping to buy some fruit that turned out (we think) to be durian. Weird texture and taste, but not too unpleasant. At the river, we board a ferry for the short ride across and pay our 1 baht toll at the other side. We walk for maybe 20 minutes more and eventually reach the historical park area, home to probably a dozen different palace ruins and other significant structures.
Again, these places are hard to describe without seeing them in person. One wonders what they must have looked like in their heyday, before the Burmese came and trashed the joint in the 1700's. The grounds are open to tourists (well, after you pay your 30B fee), with nothing to keep you from climbing all over the ancient structures. We take full advantage of this, clambering up steep stairways and taking in the views from all angles - not to mention taking tons of pictures. We pose with a giant Buddha statue.
Tired from the heat, we buy some pineapple juice and then find a lovely spot by a pond in the park to rest a while. We observe that some fruit would be great to snack on...and yet again, a vendor appears out of nowhere to satisfy our wishes. We buy fresh pineapple and watermelon and wonder what else we might be able to manifest on command. Dancing girls?
Eventually we press on, toward yet another ruin...but are thrown completely off track by the sight of Japanese tourists riding elephants. Elephants! We can ride elephants!! Like 5-year-olds, we race toward the spot where the rides originate and are greeted by a greedy baby elephant looking for bananas. We pay our 400B (totally blowing our budget for the day) and, clutching our tickets proudly, climb up the platform from which one mounts the great beasts. We climb aboard, giggling and delighted, not caring that we are the only Caucasians among dozens of Japanese tourists throwing money at this particular attraction. We don't care - we are on an elephant!
Toward the end of the 20-minute ride, we agree that there is no way the day can get any better and that we should just head back to the train station afterwards - there is a 2:55 train we think we can make. But of course there's no tuk-tuk when you really need one, so we miss that train and have an hour to kill before the next. We eat ice cream, and Holly goes to check email. Even in Ayutthaya, there are Internet cafes.
We reunite with the rest of the gang back in Bangkok, and decide that our trip to Thailand is not complete without a trip to the sex district, Pat Phong. Holly has been there, so she will guide us. We have dinner at Shanti Lodge, then pile into a cab at around 9 pm.
There is not much to say about the sex district except that it is very crowded, very hectic, and very sad. The sex clubs line both sides of a wide alley; the alley itself houses the night market, hundreds of booths all selling the same crappy souvenirs and knock-off goods. The sex clubs send men out into the crowd with "menus" of what you can see inside, trying to lure you in with promises of a "free sample" - free until you sit down and they hit you up for 300B (which gets you one drink). The women look bedraggled, unhappy, and utterly bored with what they are doing - except when they are fighting with each other, which is the most excitement we see all night. We see tricks with birthday candles, magic markers, dart guns, screw-top bottles - all of which might have been entertaining if not for the perfunctory air with which they were performed. Pretty depressing.
We had intended to stay out into the wee hours since we need to be at the airport at 4 am anyway, but our interest wanes and we head back around midnight to finish packing up. Stuart manages to stay up; Bev naps for an hour. The pre-arranged airport transportation comes at 3:30, and turns out to be the old man who hangs out around Sahwatdee. His puts our bags into his rickety old car, and we climb in, fingers crossed. It is good that we have plenty of time, because he rarely gets above about 30 mph. We get to the airport right at 4 am.
Our return is uneventful. No major delays, no seating problems. But yet again, no veggie meal for Bev on the Tokyo-Seattle leg. We will not fly with them again. We arrive into Seattle early, fly through customs since we have only carryon luggage, and emerge into a very cold Seattle morning at about 6:30 a.m. BRRR! Todd is there to take us home to two very talkative cats and a big old pile of mail. Home again!
THE END
