Travelogue Ten: Not So Lost Meanderings
January 4th, 2004
It seems that longer we wait to write a travelogue the more difficult it becomes to put one out. So today being the fifth day of the calendar year 2004 we have decided to stay in bed, look out the window and the ocean and bang away on this little machine travelogue for all of you freezing back home, and for those of you lucky to live in a better climate.
but wait... Andrew needs coffee, so it’s all me, Stephanie. "How can I write a travelogue without coffee", Andrew. "Ooh get me a som (orange) shake", Stephanie.
I think that we when we last left off we had departed Melbourne and landed back in Kuala Lumpur, where due to the black hole of KLCC and the promise of sushi (mmmm shushi), books, and high speed internet we stayed on for two more weeks. We also met Jonathan who has been a fantastic addition to our trip, not to mention that he himself recently acquired a Stephanie as well, so now there are two of us, me and Steph prime.
After leaving Kuala Lumpur (and sadly Jonathan) we headed North back to Thailand, choosing to stay in the Southern region as we had plans to meet with friends on Koh Phan Gan for xmas. I chose Koh Lanta as our first destination. It was touted as being less busy and developed then Koh Phi Phi (where the Leonardo diCaprio’s film the Beach was made) yet still beautiful, chock full of jungle and beaches.
As anyone who has travelled in Thailand can attest it takes much longer to get a short distance on a map then back home. Why? you many ask? well for one thing you generally have to switch transport multiple times. Our journey from Had Yai to Koh Lanta looked suspiciously close on the map, yet we were given an arrival time of seven hours away, and you get what you’re promised. It started with our mini bus pick-up showing up one hour late. We were loaded in and driven approximately three blocks and ceremoniously unloaded. Even after ten months we cannot figure out how we get where we are supposed to go as it always involves handing off many pieces of paper written in Thai to people that we’re dropped off at and receiving new papers and sometimes stickers, but somehow it all works. We were then loaded into a bemo or mini pick up truck style cab and driven about thirty blocks and unloaded again, at least this time we had acquired two rather stocky Swedish boys who were also heading to Koh Lanta. We felt instantly superior, at least we had paid an extra 100B for our tickets!
We finally make it into the mini cab that was supposed to take us all the way to Koh Lanta, no stops. Of course we are deposited in Trang, about half way there. We wait another hour and then enter negotiations with the mini bus company once we are loaded as to why we cannot nor will not add a fourth person to either our row of three seats or the Swedish boys row of three seats as we are full with three in each row already. The Thais don’t seem to care that us larger farang barely fit into the seats as it is, and we were headed for another three to four hours on the road. Finally four French kids travelling together decide to squish and we are off again for round four of travel on what could have been a finished trip back home.
We did finally make it after taking two short car ferry trips and bumping along the crazy roads in Koh Lanta. We weren’t impressed with the place we randomly selected off the boat so I hiked up and down the beach looking for something better. I can boastfully tell you I found perfection! It was the BeeBee Bungalows Little Village. So quaint, so charming, so clean, so original, so full of grace! and we got the bungalow named "Heaven". Vaulted high into the coconut palms our bamboo bungalow on stilts was just what was required to turn our planned one week stay into three. We were also able to lure Jonathan up to come and play with us there and journey to Koh Phan Gan with us (okay well maybe it also had to do with Steph prime heading North after they met in the Cameron Highlands, but we’ll just gloss over that).
***where is my orange shake??? has my husband gone for a massage? is he off snorkeling? has he been abducted by aliens or the thought police for his challenging views on planetary and conscious evolutionary direction? oh there he is, break time!****
Andrew here: Jonathan was more than just a mere plaything; he allowed me to release some pent-up intellectual pressure from my head (he is a brilliant software engineer and perhaps one of the geekiest people I have ever met), but he is also very charming and cool (although in a geeky sort of way). Like Steph, he liked to play with fire, and she also found in him a latent sense of fluffy evil style dying to get out. With Jonathan in our lives, we had found a perfect middle ground for our dinner conversations and late night drinks - for Bee Bee’s Little Village Bungalows also happened to have the most fantastical bartender in southern Thailand: the renowned "consider-your-alcohol-budget-blown-to-bits-Mr. Son". Jonathan, who happened to have a heart transplant 10 years ago, advised me on what to expect when the surgeons come to replace my liver.
Steph again,
In the interest of getting this show on the road I’m going to skip us to Koh Phan Gan and just tell you that we had a brief but expensive and busy stay on Koh Phi Phi for two nights and then magically here we are again at Haad Son. The best thing I can share is that our friends rock! Dwayne (aka Grooveboy) and his friend Brian arrived from San Fran the same day as we did having made reservations several months ago. We still had Jonathan with us and were excited to see Sunny and Monika and their entourage of five friends and family the next morning and somehow everyone got a bungalow! My thirtieth birthday was on December 24th and it was only the second time I have ever had a large gathering of friends celebrate on my actual birthday as the most common excuse is usually family obligations. What an incredible gift to watch the sunset from high up the hills in a lovely restaurant surrounded by friends. I even had cards that mom had sent months before to open thus bringing a little bit of home here. The food was fantastic, although we missed Mr. Son and the birthday cake, although tasty, had the incorrect date (November 24th - hopefully not the consume by date). Extra cool was that Jonathan was celebrating his tenth rebirth day as he received his new heart on the same day as my birthday. Randomly enough there was a woman named Holly sitting in the restaurant when we arrived celebrating her thirty-second!
Andrew continues: After a couple of days of random fluttering, we got everyone organized for a beach burn. Steph and I - with the help of Ang, a staff member of the bungalows - collected a large pile of wood from the jungle land behind the beach and started the assembly of an effigy. Using our in-depth knowledge of the original Burning Man designs, we hammered, tied, wired, and otherwise cobbled together a wide variety of flammable materials into a ten foot structure. Then we stood back and admired our work: it was impressive, but missing a certain something. We scratched our heads, feeling sand on our scalp, and looked up and down the beach at the sunbathers. "Tits, Steph said. "It needs tits. We took a coconut, sawed it in half, and attached a rather impressive set of melons to the man. Viola! Our Man would not be a man; it would be a Ladyboy! We had discovered the Thai essence of the BM spirit.
Later that night, we placed tea lights around the dark, imposing structure, and sat on the beach having a few drinks. Attracted to the light, people gathered and chatted. Jonathan and Stephanie spun fire - and then it was my turn. Not having the coordination to spin poi or staff, I had instead purchased a large mortar style cluster rocket of fireworks. These were the biggest units that were sold over the counter here; in other countries, they are sometimes shoulder-launched at incoming enemy aircraft. I set up the mortar about 30 feet from the crowd, banked it ten degrees toward the ocean, and lit the fuse calling out "Fire in the hole! at the top of my lungs.
The first charge rose 200 feet into the sky and exploded spectacularly, the loud shockwave amplified by the natural parabola of the beach. Unfortunately, it also blew the bottom out of the mortar, causing it to tip over. The next thirty seconds were pandemonium as charges exploded past people into the jungle and over the ocean before exploding. Miraculously, there were no serious injuries - other than some psychological scarring of a 13 year old Swedish girl.
The noise brought the last of the people to the beach, and Steph lit the Ladyboy. It was a spectacular fire, and we each in our own way offered our fears, sadnesses, joys, and demons to the flames. More fire was spun - ironically by Jonathan’s ex-girlfriend and her new lover (also drawn to KPN by the social black hole that envelopes Steph) - and alcohol consumed, until the crowds dispersed at about 2 am.
Steph returns,
I’m in the midst of packing again. Lucky for me our we have chosen to travel in an unhurried manner, usually spending at least two weeks in a place before we head off to another destination. When we leave Haad Son tomorrow we’ll have stayed fifteen nights. There was much revelry to be had, a lot of Regency (Thai brandy) to be shared with the staff, more friends to arrive, some we knew already like Mel from Toronto and some we were to meet for the first time like John and Eric from L.A. Most of the crew have headed North and we’ll join them on the ninth in Bangkok for more debauchery as we plan to check out the infamous Patpong area. For those of you who believe that you’re unfamiliar with what goes on there I’ll just say ping pong balls and girl parts and you can fill in the rest. After that we’ll have one last week of beach time on Koh Samet and we plan to visit the ancient capital city of Ayuthaya that contains wats (temples) that are centuries old.
We’ll be flying back on January 20th from Bangkok. After eighteen hours in the air and thirteen hours time between flights we’ll arrive in Toronto on the 21st. Seeing as how I now put on a sweatshirt when we reach the cooler temperature of 27C I don’t know how I am going to survive, I’m hoping that lots of wine and great conversation will distract me. Can’t wait to see many of you very soon!
Big hugs and many blessings for the New Year!
*steph & andrew*
