Finally. I finished the malaria meds more than two weeks ago. I’ve dawdled long enough.
While things weren’t drug-addled enough to be called ‘gonzo’ in the sense that Hunter S. Thompson coined, there were definitely stretches of sensory overload during my too-short two weeks in Thailand. Beginning with the damp, scorching heat that slammed into me the second Fonty, Elise and Troy escorted me from the air-conditioned airport, the country felt like a rapid series of over-saturated snapshots. A Lomographic flip book, but invading all five senses.
Bangkok was bonkers. We invited it by staying on the periphery of Khao San Road. I could try to describe things in terms of globalization/tourism/culture flow, but I’m feeling less pedantic (read: less dickish) than usual, so I’ll say it like this: we were on a well-worn path, but one which is renowned for its healthy dose of anarchy. Chaos and knock-off designer goods stretched as far as the eye could see.
My first full day in the city was spent taking in the two opposite ends of its spectrum—the royal palace and its neighboring multitude of gilded monuments in the afternoon, then a ping pong show come night. The least depressing moments of the latter involved my cohorts being hit with flying objects. The rest was pretty tragic. (The pussy tricks, not the sacred royal treasures.)
36 hours after I landed in Bangkok, we flew south to Krabi. From there, a boat escorted us a half hour west to Railay Beach, which would be our home for the next four nights. ฿2000 ($62) per night got us an air-conditioned room and a spacious bathroom with a flushing toilet. The price—split four ways—was by far the most we would spend on lodging in Thailand. We were royalty! There was a pool 30 feet from our door! There was a busty Swedish girl sunbathing topless at the pool every afternoon! We tanned, we snorkeled, we ate, we drank, and we (well, Fonty) made friends with some of the rock climbers who flocked to Railay for the vertical limestone walls jutting from the ground all around us. We flirted with cheap Thai whiskey and took pictures of our butts in empty restaurants at 2:00 in the morning. Later, after a six hour pool+beer marathon, we slept for a few hours, hurridly packed our crap, and caught a boat back to the mainland at dawn.
From there, we took a ‘VIP bus’ (filthy, beat-up minivan) five hours south to Pakbara. Following that was a speedboat which sprinted us two hours west to the island of Ko Lipe. The island could be crossed with a 15 minute walk and was surrounded by the bluest, most beautiful water I have ever seen. We ate more cheap, awesome food, we snorkeled more (with equipment rented from Porn Resort), we drank in bars cobbled together from driftwood, and we spent many hours laying on white sand in the crystalline sunlight while young boys alternated between fetching us cold beers and sneaking ice into our bathing suits. One afternoon, as we read our books on the porch, rain fell so furiously that my first reaction was laughter. After what felt like an eternity of lazy, sun-drenched days, we headed back, opting to fly out of Hat Yai, which was only two hours’ drive from Pakbara.
Once back in Bangkok, we shopped. It was intoxicating—a helpful exchange rate paired with manufacturing abilities light years ahead of other tourist countries like Mexico. The knockoff Wayfarers and Burberry duffel I secured from Chatuchak market have yet to cease entertaining me. We all got massages ($12 for 90 minutes, natch) near Siam Square, which was full of trendy teenagers, complete with competing boy bands. We also trekked out to Kanchanaburi to see Erawan Falls (seven tiers, yo), and the tour included a tiger-petting stop. The day before our departure, the girls and I took a lengthy cooking class from an energetic woman whose maniacally type A personality had spawned four successful restaurants in Bangkok.
To get back to California, I first had to backtrack to Auckland. This meant two twelve-hour flights in as many days. Troy and the girls, on the other hand, got bumped to business class. Bitches.
