Thailand: A tale
Foreword: A little bit of a spoiler, but on our second to last night in Thailand, in a remote bungalow near the beach in Ko Phangnan, we left our door unlocked. While we slept, I’m thinking around dawn, someone came into our bungalow, and stole as many valuables as he or she could including my video camera. Thus, all of my recorded adventures, which I hoped to share with you (such as views of Khao San Rd, clips of Ryan sleeping or deeply enthralled in his ridiculously thick fantasy novel, girls we hung out at the club who might or might not have been hookers, a hilarious audio clip of our verbal meanderings while watching the sky after we drank mushroom shakes, etc) were sadly taken from me and are floating around in a market somewhere in Thailand. For this I apologize, I will supplement my recollections with pictures from my digital camera, which was thankfully overlooked by the cat burglar who civilly left our ATM cards and passports with which we could wipe our tears.
Anyway: The Beginning
Charlie and Ryan, two other English teachers from Korea and my dear, dear friends, accompanied me to Thailand. We met up bright and early at Incheon Airport to get on our 10:00 am flight to Bangkok. After our four hour flight, we arrived at the airport in Bangkok and bought bus tickets that took us straight to Khao San road, the central backpacker area filled with knock off (but awesome) Busted Tee shirts, bars, guest houses and weird old ladies who peddle wooden frogs. Like a bunch of noobs, we searched around for a good deal on rooms and were cajoled into renting two rooms (because we have three people and rooms are normally made for two) at a cheap and frightening guesthouse a couple streets away from Khao San rd. We immediately set our bags down and decided to walk around.
The Khao San area is a bustling market that never sleeps. The hippie backpacker vibe battled the intense heat for superiority while Tuk Tuk drivers (basically motorcycles with a death cage in the back) solicited their driving wherewithal with constant badgering and popping of their mouths to signify that they knew where the good ping pong shows were. Around evening time, we came back to our guest house for a cool shower, and set out for a night of heavy drinking. Everybody knows that the first night as a tourist is the worst. We fell into overpriced trap after trap, getting our arms grabbed and caressed by cute thai girls dressed in incredibly tight, spandex like dresses with big beer signs emblazoned over their curves. We finally ended up at a bar which was nothing more than a small cave like room that had just enough room for the bar itself, where the patrons sat on kindergarten style mini plastic chairs ordering bucket after bucket of strong mixed cocktails for 200 baht (a little less than six dollars). After about three of these we were led by a curiously young foreigner who had been living in Bangkok for many a month spending his parents hard earned money to a club that was aptly named “The Club.” I wish I could tell you how nice it was in there, but after so many buckets, a man’s memory takes him only so far. Charlie was immediately grabbed by a beautiful young woman who, after careful deliberation, he decided had to be a hooker. He graciously pawned her off to me, where I gladly (drunkenly) bought her 120 baht beers until I had nothing but my credit card. After realizing I had no more money for the night (I had a strict 1000 baht (30 dollars) in the wallet policy), I waved the credit card toward the bartender. He looked at me with the “are you fucking kidding me bro? Get outta here” kinda face, and I knew my night was over. Thankfully Charlie and Ryan were done getting creeped on by the multitude of hookers in the club and we hit the high road to our mangy guesthouse. First day in Bangkok: (relative) success.
TO BE CONTINUED…
