Day 72: Koh Phan-gan - Full Moon Throw-down

Neon paint smeared on skin, glow sticks encircling necks and wrists, cheap plastic hats and ketamine coursing through veins - they danced on picnic tables, bar patios and the midnight sand. A never-ending, undifferentiated thub-thump coursed from bar to bar in time with one’s heartbeat. At the water’s edge intoxicated males, recycled water back to the ocean. Bumbling, pale-haired girls let themselves be dragged along the beach, hand in wrist, by equally bumbling brown haired boys. I sipped from my plastic bucket filled with cheap rum, soda and M-150 surveying the human wreckage. The British teenagers sullying this Thai beach where getting on my nerves. Beside me, my compatriots (a British couple from Newcastle) put their eyes together with mine and collectively frowned a disproving 25 year old glance towards them immature teenagers. We were ready to go.

As easy and fun as it was to get in (10 people, back of a pickup truck chucking water bottles at the prostitutes along the strip), Hat Rin was another getting out. We moved from the beachfront to the clogged backstreets of restaurants and knick-knack stands, pressing through the zombiefied crowds. Dodging revelers, scammers and addicts we made our way to the main road. That symbolic sight of Thailand greeted us – lines upon lines of tuk-tuks ready to take this dross back to hideaways across the island. Their Thai drivers lounged in small groups chatting and smoking cigarettes waiting for the dawn. We were early – only four in the morning after all, but us tired and wanting to shed whatever collective regret for whatever we had become a part of, pushed on.

My acquaintances sidled up along the waiting drivers looking for one going our way. Not hard to find, but he wasn’t leaving for an hour and was charging 300 Baht. Ridiculousness, we knew what the local price was - a cool 55 Baht and we weren’t going to be swindled! Next driver, 250. Next 250, then 250 again. Next 300 – we weren’t getting anywhere, they were organized and we were their suckers. My friend Tom tried out his arguments, “hey man we took a taxi on Tuesday from here it was 55.” He flashed his spread hand twice for effect. “We’ll pay 150 that’s a fair price.” One finger, five fingers his hand said. “Go. Go. Good luck find driver 150,” the tuk tuk driver responded, waving his hand away. “No one give that price.” My friend kept up. “Man don’t play us like that, we know the score, we’re not dumb tourists you can rip off. We’ll give you 150 each. That’s 450 you’d be making.” The argument didn’t go down well. “No, out, out. I don’t want. You no pay. You walk.” This is point where the Madam got involved and when I say Madam, I mean a 300 pound, filthy talking middle-aged women covered in fake jewelry. Bringing forward her posse of tuk-tuk drivers she got in my friends face, poking him in the chest. “You drunk. What you say. Have one more drink.” She mimed tilting back a beer and guzzling it. “You drunk farang, you pay. It not much money.” Stubbornly my friend kept up. “Your driver wants us to pay 250 that’s a bullshit price, that’s dumb farang price. We’re not going for more than 150.” With that the Madam pushed my friend sending him off by saying, “you drunk you go.”

As on cue her band of tuk-tuk drivers pushed in surrounding him, one taking a stab upwards trying to connect. He responded with a drunken flurry that led a couple more drivers throwing him on the dirt road. His girlfriend at 5”10 and stick thin, forced herself in. The rest of the drivers committed throwing her on the ground, putting their boots to the both of them. It was now or never. I’d known these people for less than 12 hours. Yea, they were drunk and being unreasonable, sticking up for themselves, but now they were on the ground, massively outnumbered and being kicked into submission. Engage ridiculous reach. Time to time, being 6”5 with broad shoulders comes in useful. Especially when you have 5 or 6 pissed off, iced-up, Thais raring for a chance to knock up some representatives of farangs they had to take shit from night after night.

I knocked them off of my friends allowing them to get up and us to flee around the corner. But we didn’t get far. The same group or different group of drivers (it’s hard to tell at this point) pushed us up against the wall on the side of the road. We’re shoulder to shoulder with our arms extended warning them meth heads to come get some. They get it. We break through their encircling ring, and in the middle of the street I have two come out of nowhere and tackle me sideways into a standing motorcycle. Quickly I getup throwing out some damage - enough to make them hesitant about moving forward. Furiously I gather my compadres and flee around the corner and down the street, hopping into the back of a truck with a covered awning. It’s filled with foreigners waiting to leave. A short time later the driver comes around asking where we’re heading. He says 250. Without hesitation I get out my cash and pay it - all. No negotiating this time.

                                        

Day 68: Ko Phan-gan - Get it while you can

The road is much freer with the wind in your hair – and also with it on your bare chest and between your toes. Little winding concrete road, jungle covered hillsides with the odd shack and a little Chinese made scooter between your legs – perfect for a cruise around these empty roads. I stopped at a lean-to and dropped a couple Baht for a coke bottle of what I hoped was gasoline. The road doubled back on itself getting higher and higher, finally depositing me on a dirt parking lot, with a solitary sign marking the trail’s entrance.

The path was steep and dry, the sun hot and unfriendly. The sweat came out like the waterfall before me, emerging mysteriously out of the skin of the earth to dribble down the valley. Nobody here but me and a cool spring water pool at the bottom, to reward a sweaty climb.

As I climbed down the path to the pool, my private walk was interrupted by two pairs of legs emerging from below the foliage on the path. As I got down lower the legs went up and up, and the golden brown skin with it. The skin finally petered out just below the hips, as the skin tight shorts left nothing to imagination. Her hair hung in long, waves down over the same golden brown shoulders, framing large almond eyes and a wide cheeky smile. Her friend beside her wasn’t bad either. I tried to discreetly slip past with a polite nod, but was met with the requisite questions fired at every farang. “What your name? Where you from?” “Andrew, from Canada,” I said. This was met a constant stream of giggles, groans and chattering in Thai leaving me unable to get a word in. Finally, I managed a, “your English is good, did you learn from a Canadian?” “Yes,” she replied. “Last boyfriend was Canadian, but Canadian boy no good, meet many woman, say he only need one.” What can I say I thought, Thailand was filled with sleazy expats and probably a few on them were Canadian.

Before I could reply she said, “I like you, you look honest. Let’s go in the water.” With that she took my hand and led me over the wet rocks and over into the small wading pools below the falls. I tugged at my shorts trying to keep them up as we slip slided over the rocks. “What wrong,” she asked. “Oh my swimsuit keeps sliding down on me,” I replied. “That okay, you can let them down,” she suggested with a smile, tugging on my waistband. “Ahhh you never know who you’ll run into up here, so I’ll keep them on,” I said grabbing her wrist and pulling away her hand, with a thought of regret. “Let’s sit down here,” I said. We were sitting in our clothes in a small wading pool together. Tiny minnows swirled around pecking at our feet, eliciting little gasps from us every time they chewed off a little bit of skin. She cupped her hands trying to catch them, showing me their slim, silvery bodies wriggling in her palm. I had a brief thought, instantly suppressed, of myself in her hand, wriggling back and forth. I splashed water, it falling almost inevitably in her eyes, she trying to keep her fake eyelashes on, me feeling sheepish. No bad. She splashed back; completely soaked we headed back to our scooters in the parking lot. She asking for a promise to stop by her workplace on the main road, he promising to stop on his way back from the beach.

Promises fall by the wayside as the bikes speed through the jungle, past temples, rickety shacks selling gasoline, outdoor restaurants and gogo bars. Another day in paradise. 

For the road - Andrew.