Our Boeing was delightfully Austin Powers themed. The colour-coordinated mania began when we were handed our fuschia and purple boarding passes and opened into a sort of crazed hysteria when the cabin was revealed. Each seat was either pink, yellow or dark purple and patterned in different variations of stripes, swirls or spots. Even the passenger blankets and tray tables were bright purple. The whole thing was delightful – and appealed to my inner six year old, and worryingly, my awareness of it’s comparison to a cheesy porn flick.
When we arrived in Bangkok Airport – newly renovated for our traveling pleasure – I quickly found out that the mass hysteria my friends and family had put me through with regards to prescription drugs was entirely unwarranted. Before leaving, I had visited our family doctor, and had her write me letters excusing my possession of all manner of perfectly normal medication; paracetomol, antibiotics and The Pill included. Having passed through preliminary customs, I solemnly took out my little medicine pouch and attached letters, and waited in line for a small Thai man to receive me. He took one look at me, asked if the medication was for myself, and upon my earnest affirmative answer, waved me through. It seemed I could easily have had crack cocaine in there “…for myself,” and confidently sauntered on by.
After taking an unmarked mini van to our hotel (which was apparently the professional transport we had booked from home) we had our first experience with both hand waving and verbally emphatic communication with non-English speakers, and using a toilet-shower. Toilet-showers, for those accustomed to life at home, are rooms little bigger than a cubicle, with a shower head pointing at a small floor drain in one corner, a toilet bowel, sink and open-topped bin for used toilet paper in the other. Showering without flooding the room and drowning yourself is a challenging, as is using a toilet slippery from the previous person’s attempt at not flooding the room and drowning themselves. It is basically a wet room for rinsing and shitting. This, coupled with our thirsty initiation into not being able to drink tap water (via discovery of complimentary water on our bedside table) was a lot to take at 1am…particularly as we had to be up again at 5:30am to catch a bus back to the airport for our flight to Phuket. And so we slept.
At 4:30am, we received a call from reception. Our bus was an hour early. Time to leave. Again shuffled into an unmarked vehicle – this time a small car, the whole thing would have been stupidly suss had it not been for the logo-ed tee shirts – we took to the roads to discover many things: traffic lights in Thailand are governed by a countdown timer system (telling drivers how long they have to wait for the green light), taxis come in all flavours of the Starburst rainbow, and dogs sit nonchalantly on the road and do not move for anyone, not even a lime green taxi. The driver’s companion began giving us a lesson in Thai, the basic premise of which was to elongate your vowels to a huge extent (“Sawasdee-kaaaaaaaaaaa”) and then laughing at us as we tried!
We spent our morning in an airport gate which looked like a steel ribcage, which became more friendly as the sun rose behind it. Gradually, people began arriving around us: couples sleeping their last few minutes entwined in airport seats, one family with small children, some older couples, and a group of 20 something guys (“Douches!” said Anita) exclaiming delightedly over an article entitled 2007 Sex Diaries via the FHM bible. 7:30am is too early for that.
We were in Phuket by lunchtime, and in our room by 1. We were beginning to become accustomed to people expecting us everywhere (“Miss Walton?”) and to the knowledge that we were too chicken to ride a motorbike taxi, though it looked cheaper and far more thrilling than the unmarked cars we were now catching on a regular basis. Having arrived in our new rooms, had the shower (in a shower box, you know, like you have at home!) we’d craved for 36 hours, we unpacked our things on our beds and discovered the sheer amount of clothing we had brought. And how much we’d matched our individual wardrobes without even meaning to. And – how different our things were. I had brought all earth tones, and Anita had stocked up on candy pinks and sea greens. Perhaps excited by the opportunities for clothes swapping and makeovers awaiting us, she then unwrapped her toiletries bag to reveal a shining pair of scissors, “We can use these scissors if we want to cut our hair too!”
After spending a good half hour trying to rig a clothes line (feeling responsible, I had brought string) and washing clothes with shampoo in the sink, we headed out to Patong Beach.
A week later, we’ve completely left the island parts and are now well and truely on the mainland, heading up to hotter and hotter country. Last week we moved from Samui to Phagnan – the land of the Full Moon parties – where we stayed for four days in a prison cell. I made the mistake of launching myself at my bed when I first saw it (as it was a double, and I was excited!) and pretty much ended up with a cracked arse and compressed spine because the mattress was a rock. The room was desolate and cold and 20 metres from a Pink Lady Bar from where we could hear tinkling female Thai laughter and manly grunts all night long. Our shack was so…words fail me…that if a crazed murderer had barged through our door in the wee hours brandishing something heinous, I would have just thought “…Yeah, we’ve been expecting you,” and gone back to sleep.
But we loved Phagnan. We weren’t there for a full moon, but caught a Half Moon party which was really fun. And funny! Just a great big bush doof with ye olde fluro decorations, black lights and blissed out podium dancers. Just days before the party, we’d braved our fear of taxi motorbikes one night when the taxi buses wouldn’t take us home for more than 600B…and after we’d stormed off in a bitchy huff, this random crazy-eyed Thai boy chased after us on his little bike and told us he’d take us both. We were such girls, making him show us his taxi licence (as he really could have looked more sober) and why his skills on a bike should stretch to dinking two girls. In the end, we stopped squealing with fright – and yes, excitement – and loved the ride over the mountain. It’s a bloody trecherous road, full of blind corners and huge hills that rise and fall out of nowhere and convienently sit right on a cliff. The cars have to beep twice when they’re going over a hill, as zippy little bikes coming from the other side are fond of overtaking and have no idea who’s coming the other way. Or if it’s going to be a semi trailer that greets them.
We also went through Angthong, a series of 40 odd rocky gorgeous mountains and islands with little inlets and caves. It’s the kind of stuff that apparently inspired The Beach(Oh Leo, you were cute once) and it’s absolutely stunning. We were on a day trip which other than us was made up of a tribe of Bulgarians: tanned, anorexically thin, G-string clad girls and their fat, hairy men. It’s certainly a sight to see a bobbing G-stringed arse climbing up a steep mountain a metre from your face.
Yesterday we braved a 17 hour boat/bus trip to get to Bangkok where we stayed for a day and a night before starting our tour this morning. The tour group’s really good – everyone’s under 26 and fun so it should be a really good time. Our leader’s name is Dream. Yep. I know.
I heart Bangkok. It’s amazing. Thrilling. You escape death every few seconds as tuk tuks and mad 12 year olds on motorbikes drive (or rather, fly at the speed of light) past you. I have never seen so much food and had no idea what it actually is. The shopping is dirt cheap – finally!!! And the place is teeming with ridiculously attractive tourists, often with ridiculously attractive accents.
