Last Thoughts on Thailand: 7-Eleven's, How I hate Roosters, and A Fancy Dinner

The last few days have been a bit hectic. I finished off my advanced certification and caught a boat back from Ko Tao to the mainland, and then a 7 hour bus ride back to Bangkok. Although I had good luck going down, coming back was not so fun. It was during the day, so I could not sleep through the whole trip. Also, I was stuck on the lower level of the bus, right next to a Swede who hand not showered in a few days. So, that was a blast.

As a wallow away my final hours in Bangkok, a few minor quarks about Thailand will always stick in my mind:

Thailand is chock full of 7-Eleven's. No, really. Every town I went through, big or small had one. Unfortunately, no Slurpee's.

Also, if you want people to quit smoking, putting pictures of people with huge facial tumors or in the throws of dieing from lung cancer on the front of the packs really helps. Trust me.

Transvestites here are really convincing. They put the NY ones to shame. Apparently, most take hormones and have their adams apple removed. Its enough to frighten you off Thai women for life.

Roosters suck. You get all of these wonderful loony-toon visions of roosters waking up people on a farm for a hard days work. Unfortunately, when they are crowing repeatedly at 5 in the moring when you are trying to sleep off a Chang-over (a particularly nasty hangover caused by drinking too much Beer Chang), they start to get on your nerves. I usually have a strong desire for fried chicken the next day.

You can find anything in Bangkok. Iron Man DVD? Got it. Illegal Computer Software? 2 for 1. Armani knockoff suit? Hand tailored my main man. Fake International Press Pass? Just bring a passport photo.

My final dinner in Bangkok was at this wonderful place called Eat Me. Amazing meal at Thailand prices. Did a very interesting thing with ham and melon by adding a sherry based sauce. The whole meal was amazing.

Anyway, Bangkok has been a blast, but its time to head to Bali. Will write shortly.

Cousteau ain't got shit on me...

Ko Tao is quite a beautiful place. Although I don't like it as much as The Sanctuary, there is a lot more to do here besides just sit in a hammock. Not that there is anything wrong with being lazy, but 5 days is enough to let me relax and get into a swing of things. I have been a little more active here.

Diving is the real industry here on Ko Tao. Every other storefront is a dive shop, making it one of the cheapest places in the world to get your diving certification done. Not to mention that the dives around here are great. I have spent the last week weaving in and out of beautiful coral reefs.

I just finished my basic diving certification two days ago, and today started my advanced course. Tomorrow morning I have a big dive that I have been looking froward too. Until now, the deepest I have gone is 12 Meters. The dive tomorrow is down to 30 meters, at a place called Southwest Pinnacle far out from Ko Tao. After that, I have another dive in the afternoon, and then one more on Sunday to finish my Advanced Certification.

Diving is quite a peaceful thing to do, floating weightless above the coral. At first your body thinks its drowning, and you want to suck in air as much as possible. After you fight your instinct to panic and reach the bottom, everything is effortless.

Ko Tao is a nice place, a little crazy at night though. Apparently in the last year there has been a great influx of Thai Lady-boys who have set up a cabaret in town. You cant go anywhere without a transvestite handing you a pamphlet. There are also the standard bars you find in any big backpacker town: reggae, posh, surfer (diver here) and old hippy. I have been hanging out in the bar run by the dive school I am attending. It is right on the beach, and serves great Thai food.

I have developed a great liking to Thai beer. Beer Chang, which has a really cool double elephant logo, seems to be the preferred beer around here. Singa and Tiger are tied as good backups. The only other beer they serve seems to be Heineken, and nobody drinks that. For less than 3 bucks you get a big bottle of Chang, equal to about 3 standard beers. However, Beer Lao, which I have not been able to to get a hold of yet, by general consensus is one of the best beers in Asia. Unfortunately, its hard to find outside of Laos. I have to find a bottle in Bangkok before I head on.


Having a great time here. I should be back in Bangkok on Monday. My flight leaves for Bali on Thursday.

Gary's Bar and the Animal Kingdom in my Bathroom

Friday night was my last night at The Sanctuary, although there was not much sleeping involved. Every Friday there is a large party up the beach at this place called Gary's Bar, where the music goes until around 8am, and it is so loud that even if you wanted to go back to your room and sleep, you would be kept up by the music. I went out with a bunch of people who I had met, and it was a pretty good showing, with the usual Ko Pha Nang fire spinners and neon painted dancers. I ended up leaving around 4am, to sleep two hours before I started packing.

On an side note, I might not have mentioned that the Sanctuary is really in the back end of beyond. Like, in the jungle. This leads to a lot of interesting animal life that tends to hang around the premises. The first night I was there, the usefulness of my mosquito net became very apparent. As I am so tall my feet stuck out the end of it, I woke up with feet covered in bites. I learned to curl up in a ball after that.

The family of lizards living below my hut were quite nice. They had sticky fingers that they used to run up and down the walls of my bungalow on a regular basis. The biggest one was over a foot long.

But in the craziest things always ended up in my bathroom, which was out behind the bungalow. Always there was some type of bug running around. They sprayed the entire area for Mosquito's the day after I arrived, and this caused a mass genocide of little moths lining the floor. At first I thought they were leaves, and then I was thankful that I was wearing flip flops. One morning I went to the bathroom to find a very large spider sitting on my toilet seat. I sprayed it with the shower head and off it went. The last morning I was there I was greeted by a bullfrog the size of a softball.

The Sanctuary was very relaxing, but I am off on Ko Tao now to try SCUBA diving.

Paradise Lost and Found

First, the bad...

9 Hours on a night bus, finally arriving on the coast. I boarded a high speed catamaran for the 2 1/2 hour trip to Ko Pha Nang. I was sitting downstairs, and suddenly the sea started to pick up. I realized that I needed a breath of fresh air, so I went up to the top deck. The problem with this was I had forgotten my sunscreen in my bag that was checked below. Ooops.

So I look like a giant tomato.

The good is the place I am staying is so laid back, I can just hang out and slowly recover.

The Sanctuary, where I am staying is just a 10 minute longtail boat ride from Had Rinn, a town on the southern peninsula of Ko Pha Nang. More famous for the full moon parties they have there, Had Rinn is a wild town with the usual backpacker bars and beach parties. The Sanctuary is completely the opposite. Low key to an extreme, I have a bungalow high on the slope of the hill above the bay, with a great hammock. The place is almost completely isolated, with a few small hotels in the adjoining coves. There is a great vegetarian restaurant right on the beach which has a great family vibe. Its exactly what I needed to chill out.

Most likely this weekend I will hop a boat to Ko Tao to start doing my Dive training. It seems that Ko Tao is a very popular place, and I am sure I will have a good time there.

Jet lag sucks, but its not as bad as getting kicked in the head...

So, I have fought over the last few days to get my sleep schedule caught up to Bangkok time, and I have finally made it. Unfortunately, I am leaving tonight on a night bus south, so I have missed a lot of the nightlife while I was here in Bangkok. I will try to go out when I am back in town before my flight to Bali.

However, waking up between 2-3 AM most nights has had a few benefits. One of them being ending up going for breakfast at 6am, and running into the people who have been drinking all night. They inevitably invite me over for a drink, which leads to pretty interesting conversations. Yesterday morning, I was talking to a drunk Aussie for over an hour about comparative legal issues and whether the alcohol the place was serving him was bootleg Jagermeister. Eventually he joined his friend at the next table who was with some interestingly dressed Thai ladies, and I went back to my cornflakes.

I have gotten out, as the weather has been good (well, not raining. The heat is a bitch). Saturday I ended up going over to China Town, which has some interesting markets and good Dim Sum. Yesterday I went to Chatuchak, a huge market. I must have seen everything sold at Crate and Barrel, at about 1/8th the price. The food stalls there are great, amazing Thai food of all types. Unfortunately, the more interesting tourist attractions are a little busy due to a holiday that is going on right now that has something to do with the harvest, so I will try to hit them on the way back.

Last night I ended up going to the Muay Thai stadium to see a few matches. Most of the fighters are between 100-120 pounds, not a ounce of fat on them. It is pretty impressive to see these guys go at it. The most interesting fight of the night was between Rungroch from the Loogphorpoojedeehak Gym (try saying that five times fast), and Nong Mike from the Por.Saengprapia Gym. Both weighed 127 pounds, the heaviest fighters of the night. Late in the first round, Nong Mike put a heavy kick into Rungroch's stomach, causing him to double over in pain and start to fall to the mat. Before the ref could get in between them, Nong Mike landed a knee to the face that sent Rungroch's mouth guard - and likely a few of his teeth - into the ringside crowd made up mostly of tourists. Needles to say, they brought out a stretcher.

(BTW, whoever runs that stadium must have been to Madison Square Garden, because the charge just as much for a beer.)

I am on a overnight bus tonight to Chumphon, and a boat tomorrow morning to Koh Phangan. I will try to write when I get settled in there.

NJL

The Japanese stole my Single Malt and the (thankfully) missing cows

Well, here I am, all alone in Bangkok.

First, the flight..
I had to fly through Tokyo, with a nice 3 hour layover for sushi and beer. Unfortunately, I didn't know that you could not bring Duty Free from America onto a connecting flight and I had picked up a nice bottle of Single Malt on my way over. It was either give it up or go through customs and then have the bottle (by itself) checked as a bag. I think that 40 bucks is not to much to pay to avoid customs, so now some Tokyo airport security officer is drinking my scotch.

I feel like an idiot.

Besides that it was your standard 24 strait hours on a plane cramped between crying babies and old Japanese men snoring.

After landing in bangkok, I hopped a cab to Koh San Road, the main backpacker drag. Needless to say, it is a lot like the main backpacker ghetto in Delhi, except for a few, key differences...

1: Large quantities of booze, and the drunk people the usually accompany it.
2: A lot cleaner.
3: The touts are much less pushy.
4: The absence of cows.

You have to understand, the 4th point is a big deal. The Indians let the cows run wild, and they end up eating all the plastic bags lying around. This tends to kill them, leaving rotting Cow carcases all over the place. Not pleasant at all.

Anyway, you could see Koh San coming with the presence of Europeans everywhere, and then suddenly your on something that is like a mix between a Hong Kong back ally and the Vegas Strip. Drunk people everywhere, food stalls selling all manner of goodies, neon signs painting everyone lurid shades of green and pink. After finding a place to crash for the night, I went out side for a beer and crispy pork wantons. I had a nice conversation with a pack of Swedes, who were telling me about their exploits up in Cambodia. From what I hear, although a little wet, it is a blast up there.

I, however, am heading south first. The next few days will be just adjusting to the time change and checking out the sights. I think by Monday I will try to hop a train south to the islands.