Thailand beaches

An account of traveling through Malaysia and Singapore before spending several glorious weeks on a couple of different beaches in Thailand.

Transcript

E12 – Thai beaches

Hey everybody, and welcome back to the dozenth episode of “Goin’ down the road with Randy”. In this episode we will be enjoying the best Thai beaches on both sides of the peninsula. I’m actually going to start in Malaysia, and pick up at the end of the first episode. That way there won’t be a gap. One of these days I’ll post a chronological order list. If you will recall, we are traveling with our Welsh friends, Phil and Karen and an English couple Craig and Sue. 

We’ll start on Saturday, November 23rd, 1991 in Penang, Malaysia where we blissfully sleep in until almost 11 and then spend most of the afternoon at the beautiful beach of Toluk Bahang on the touristy north side of the island where all the fancy resorts are. We come back to check on transport to Kuala Lumpur. We learn that the busses are all fully booked, it is a school holiday of some sort and people are everywhere and on the move.

We decide to take a long-distance taxi. This was our first experience with them but they are pretty convenient. They are more expensive than buses but go when you want. They will accommodate 4 people or, if you have less, you can pay more for the missing fares. It is 30 dollars, about the same as a second-class train ticket and it is faster than the train. We go out for some delicious Chinese food and then Phil and I play a vicious chess match which I finally win, bringing the tally to Wales 4, USA 2.

It was a late chess match, and it is a rough morning but we pack and take the ferry over to Butterworth. It is free going from the island to the mainland, so, yay! There we hook up with our long-distance taxi for the six-hour ride to Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia, on first impression, feels much more modern and slick and up to date than Indonesia. Cleaner, and not as poor, but it is definitely more expensive too. There is a fantastic ethnic diversity here with lots of Indian and Chinese mixed in with the Malays. Most signs are written in four languages.

We roll into KL, as it is known, at around 5 after battling through the traffic jams. The dickhead driver insists on dropping us off at the main bus station rather than driving us another kilometer to Chinatown. So, we have an extremely hot, very crowded walk down Jalan Sultan (street) but, as fate would have it, who do we bump into but Dave from Canada, who we first met in Australia and last saw in Darwin, Northern Territories. He tags along while we find a place, his place, the Chinatown Guest House, is full.

We try many. They are all either full, or too expensive, or the rooms suck. We finally settle for one on Jalan Bandar. A huge room for four is 36 dollars and we get beers at the 24 hour 7-11 across the street. At this time US dollars was a preferred currency in Malaysia. The Malaysian ringgit was still being accepted. We end up getting quite drunk as Dave has to leave on a bus to Penang at 8:30 am and we intend to leave him in a sorry state for his early morning bus ride so he’ll have something to remember us by. He is not traveling with Heidi anymore and has hooked up with a German girl. We hope to meet up again in Thailand.

The next morning I am experiencing severe head pain and nausea, I can’t imagine why. Phil and Karen have sorted us a room at the Chinatown Guest House saving us 14 dollars a night. We wander around Kuala Lumpur, but I am not feeling it in this metropolitan area. We book a bus to Singapore for tomorrow morning.

The bus is, of course, late but not terribly so and it certainly is comfortable. We watch a video on the way and by 7 pm we are in Singapore. I’ve already had enough of these large megalopolis’s and yearn for some Indonesian jungle town. We change money 1 US dollars gets us $1.64 Singapore dollars – and then try to get a taxi but none want to stop for us. When one finally does he tells us that it is because of the luggage – they don’t want to “overload” (air quotes) their car. Like a full backpack is somehow going to harm their vehicle – whatever.

We stop at a few places but they are all expensive – another downside of big cities. We end up at Lee’s Traveller’s Club on Bencoolen Street in a dorm room for 7 Singaporean per night each, so not too bad.

We get a delicious and cheap Chinese meal and then go back to the hostel where we run into Rory, an Aussie who was on our flight from Darwin to Kupang, Timor back in September once again proving that it is a small goddamn world sometimes.

Wednesday, November 27th, 1991

Had a good breakfast at the hostel and then went out to go, what else, shopping! After all, I’m pretty sure that is the national pastime of Singapore. The entire city is modern, clean and gleaming. The subways are immaculate and direct from the future.

Singapore is like a theme park. Multicultural influences are everywhere. British colonial, Chinese, Malay, Indian and southeast Asian all come together here with flashy brilliance and fantastic food.

I am on the hunt for a dive watch because I didn’t have one on the dives we did in Bali and I’m pretty sure that we were off the charts. I find a nice Casio for 48 Singaporeans. I also get a dive mask and snorkel for the upcoming beaches. We go back and find that Craig and Sue have just flown in from Indonesia. We go out for a great and cheap Indian feast. The food here is so delicious and inexpensive.

The next day is American Thanksgiving. We wander amongst the gleaming malls and go out for a reverse Thanksgiving dinner of Indian food again. Later while sorting through slides to mail back we discover that the dive watch we were sold is not actually rated for scuba diving so we’ll have to try to return them tomorrow.

We get breakfast and then go return the watches. It was early afternoon when we got there. We ended up arguing and hassling with them and they flatly refused to give us a refund or find another suitable watch in our price range. They offered a true diving watch for 50 dollars more. We pointed out that that was more than the actual watch we bought.

We said no and they said no and we were at an impasse. So, we camped out in front of the store for two hours, telling all the shoppers that they would be ripped off if they go in their store. They finally come out and offer to upgrade the watch to a true scuba diving watch for 20 more Singaporeans. We know that is the best we’re going to get and take it.

To treat ourselves we head to the Raffles Hotel. Established in 1887 it has hosted such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham. It absolutely reeks of Victorian British colonialism. We walk around and vow to come back tomorrow for a proper drink. We eat Chinese and go back to the hostel and sit around the kitchen table drinking beer and talking with other travelers. The subject turns to the economy and the breakdown of the family. Greta took exception to one Aussie guy’s view of the proper place for women and stormed off while the Aussie’s traveling companion and I tried to sort him out and he goes off spouting anti-Semitic, Japanese and Mason Society philosophy that reminded me of Sid Goodman at the Lazy G Ranch back in Queensland  - heard in episode 5 of this podcast. But I flat out ask him and he doesn’t know Sid which means this viewpoint must be widespread.

He eventually starts talking about white aborigines. These are, supposedly, white people who lived in Oz before the black people and all white people are descended from them. Their existence is supposedly confirmed by something called the Sandover footprint. Very weird and out there. This is the final entry of the first volume of my journal. I’ll get a new one tomorrow.

Saturday, November 30th, 1991

Another late morning. We get breakfast at Pisces Center – a giant friend rice with eggs and veggies for $2.50 Singaporeans. Then a hop on the subway at Dhoby Ghant to Raffles at City Hall where we mail packages home including the fat first volume of this journal overflowing with tidbits taped inside. We try to get malaria tablets but they are out.

We go back on the subway to Chinatown where I spend 2 hours in the Singapore General Hospital to have them check out this thing on my back that I am afraid is skin cancer but they say is some weird virus or warts, they don’t know which but they say it is not cancerous. Cost 15 Singaporeans. We buy a dozen rolls of film. We finally do get our malaria meds. A cheap Indian feast rounds out the evening.

We are up early and have breakfast at McDonald’s made cheaper by discount coupons. I call Mom and Bob and wish them a happy belated turkey day. Then we take the #171 bus out to the Singapore Zoo – the zoo for zoo haters. It is quite good and very modern, of course, all the enclosures are an open design and beautifully landscaped. The animals seem active and, if not happy, at least content. My favorite are the polar bears.

We leave Phil and Karen there and take the 171 bus to the 67 bus and then the MRT station and the train to Jurong East and the Singapore Science Center. We only get to spend an hour there, but it is very interactive and would be great for kids.

It is a rather long train ride back and we spend the evening talking about where to go from here. We had been planning for some time with Phil and Karen about doing a very intense trek across the island of Borneo and Kalimantan and if it was going to happen it would have to be now. After extensive discussion we decide to head north towards Thailand. The Borneo trek remains on my bucket list but the likelihood of that particular dream being realized is slimmer every day. I sometimes regret that decision because it would have been an epic trip, but, oh well.

 Monday, December 2nd, 1991

Our last day in Singapore. We have booked a bus to Malacca for tomorrow. Leaves at a reasonable 11 o’clock and arrives at an equally reasonable 4:30 pm. We spend the day getting last minute essentials in the last big city we expect to be in for a while.

This includes getting spiffed up to enjoy a cocktail at the Raffles Hotel. And, what else to order but a Singapore Sling which was concocted on the premises. It is best enjoyed in the Long Bar which is renowned for the peanut shells littering the floor in such fancy surroundings. It is very un-Singaporean but we can check that one off the bucket list. It was an expensive indulgence but well worth it to play jet set tourists for a moment. Craig and Sue join us for a second round and then it is back to the hostel.

The bus leaves promptly at 11 the next morning. I’m pretty sure that nothing is late in Singapore. There must be a law, or something. We arrive in Malacca at precisely 4:30 in the afternoon to be greeted by the usual crowd of touts each armed with a photo album depicting the special qualities of their respective guest houses.

We end up at Shirah’s Guest House after the one we chose across the road was full. At least we have upgraded to a private room over a dorm, so that’s nice. We settle in and then go out for a street food meal where we chose uncooked meats and barbecue them over a small charcoal fire ourselves. 30 cents a stick and I eat 20 of them! There is a wide assortment of sticks to choose from, fish balls, pork balls, tofu, pork, liver, cockles, cuttlefish, mussels – you name it. It was delicious and great fun and is, apparently, a specialty of Malacca.

In the morning we move across the street to the Traveler’s Hostel where the atmosphere is much more mellow and comfortable. Early birds get the worm and there is only one room, so Phil and Karen stay put. (Did you notice that I reference myself as an “early bird”? I know, funny, right?) We spend the day hanging out in the hostel. I’m reading “Animal Farm”.  I do go out for groceries and make grilled cheese and vegetable soup for lunch. The hostel is making dinner for 4 dollars and it turns out to be quite good. Ginger chicken and fish and spicy veggies. Phil and Karen come over and Phil and I play two games of chess which I win and the score is even at 4 all.

It’s funny how when absolutely nothing is going on, my journal always references the food. We are winding down for the relaxation mode we will enjoy on the beaches to come.

More of the same the next day though we do get out and explore some of the back streets of old Malacca. Malacca was an important colonial trading port and has some unique architecture. In the evening Phil and I have a marathon chess match which I finally win giving me a one game lead in the standings. Check the Facebook page for a photo of a problem that I sketched out.

Friday, December 6th, 1991

It is raining today so another lazy day reading and eating. We go out for a Chinese dinner.

The next day we book bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur so that we will be there on Monday morning to apply for our Thailand visas. We have Indian for dinner tonight. I do not do so well at the chess tonight, losing a game to Bob and then a game to Phil – we are now tied at 5.

We have to get up for the 9 am bus even though it is only a 2-hour trip so we get in to KL early and check back in to the Chinatown Guest House. Craig and Sue are here as well so we all go out for, spin the wheel, Chinese food! 

Monday December 9th, 1991

We get up early to look our best for applying for our Thailand visas. There is a horde to be fought through, but we pay our 30 Malaysian dollars and they will be ready for us tomorrow. That done, we go to the train station to book a 2nd class sleeper on the night train to Butterworth. That’s right people, back in the dark ages before the internet when dinosaurs roamed the planet, you had to actually go to the train station and pay money to get a ticket that was printed out on paper. It will cost 32 Malaysian dollars and leaves at 1015 pm arriving at 7 am. Night trains are a great way to travel as it is a double whammy – you get both transportation and accommodation for one price.

The next morning, we pack our bags but leave them at the hostel and go pick up our visas for Thailand. There is no rhyme or reason to the distribution process, but we don’t have to wait very long. We shop at the Central Market and wander around Malacca before going back to the hostel for a shower and then dinner.

It is a short walk to the train station and before we know it the train comes chugging in. We find our car and it looks good. We have two bunks on either side of the car each with its own privacy curtain and window. We settle in and the train pulls out right on time. We roll on into the night. I sleep rather well but find myself waking intermittently due to the rocking and jerks of the train.

We arrive in Butterworth on schedule at 715 am. We walk over to the bus station but find there are none leaving headed north. The taxi guys want to charge us 25 Malaysian dollars. We go over to get some roti chennai and think it over while we eat. We end up taking the taxi guys up on their offer. We could go for 20 dollars for the 5 of us but we know there is no way 5 of us can get in one taxi.

We have no problem at the border, in fact, we don’t even have to get out of the car and just like that we are in Thailand baby! It is about noon and there is a bus leaving for Krabi at one o’clock. We change money – now getting 25 Thai baht to the dollar. It has been raining all day and doesn’t show any sign of stopping anytime soon. We pile into the van and I try to sleep. There is an American guy in the front with Phil who asks about my hat. I wore an old style – like the kind with the bird on it - Baltimore Orioles hat for the entirety of my travels. Turns out he is an Orioles fan as well. Small world. We finally arrive in Krabi at about 6 o’clock after a solid 21 hours of traveling.

We settle into the Grand Tower Guest House where a room sets us back 80 baht – a little over three dollars. Then we go out for our first Thai dinner. My recommendation don’t order sukiyaki in Thailand – stick with the local favorites. Afterwards we wander thru the night market and buy a bottle of Mekong whiskey, made from rice for 120 baht – significantly more than our lodging. We drink it while discussing feminism and women’s magazines.

Thursday, December 12th, 1991

We wake up in Krabi, Thailand but we don’t plan to stay long. We hire a boat to take us to Phra Nang Bay and Railay Beach. It is 40 baht for the 40-minute trip to the picturesque peninsula which, although it is part of the mainland, is accessible only by boat due to the difficulty of constructing roads through the surrounding karst typography. I say, all the better to keep the traffic down. This is a magical place.

The boat is a traditional Thai “longtail” boat which is a large wooden canoe with what looks like a Chevy 327 V-8 engine balanced over a pivot point on a pole that stretches 20 feet behind the boat with a 2-blade prop on the end. It is expertly manipulated by our boat driver and allows him to beach the boat on the sand. Phra Nang peninsula has beaches on either side going out to a giant limestone tower with, we later learn, has a water-filled cave inside and then the best beach out at the headland. It is a ten-minute walk between the beaches on either side going out and another ten minutes out to the beach at the headland.

I have never, to this day, visited a more gorgeous beach. Limestone pillars tower over a cobalt blue sea and literally drip over them. It is, in a word, breathtaking. We search around for a bungalow finding offerings from 400 to 80 baht a night. We go middling at Queen Bungalows for 150 baht a night with a bathroom. (The 80-baht huts have no bathroom.)

We go suss out the diving situation which is cheap at 600 baht for a regular dive, 800 for a cave dive but they are not able to take credit cards which may be a deal-breaker for us. On our way to the beach we also suss out the local weed situation which is, stop by the Swamp Shack after 6 and get a bag for 100 baht.

The path to the beach goes past an obviously expensive 5-star resort and under the dripping limestone formations. We learn later that the resort wanted to make this beach private only to their guests but locals prohibited it. The sand is fine and the water is warm.

It rains and we go hide under the big roof in a cave full of totems shaped like penis’. We learn that there are several “penis shrines” in Thailand. This one is to honor the spirit of Phra Nang, or the Princess Goddess, who is believed to reside amongst these wooden penises on Thailand’s coastline. The princess was killed in a shipwreck near where the shrine sits today. Locals will come with offerings with the belief that such gifts will bring about a fertile womb and the possibility to successfully conceive. In addition to fertility, locals visit in hopes of having good karma and to ask for things like success.

We see people rock climbing and go check them out. It is 4 Swiss who show us that there is a guidebook to the routes. The routes have all been bolted. I had no idea there was climbing here and I have sent all my gear back home – I don’t even have shoes to go bouldering. This beach must be heaven on earth, scuba, clear water, climbing, delicious seafood, cheap living and weed. I think I have found my happy place. (On a side note: I have returned here a few times since and every time it gets more and more expensive and commercialized. Same thing happened at our honeymoon beach of Alona on the island of Panglao in the Philippines. When we were first there it was cheap, uncrowded and magical. Big hotels and tourism have since ruined it.)

We make sure to be at the Swamp Shack after 6and as a result are late meeting Phil and Karen for dinner. Which is excellent – a fresh prawn coconut curry and veggie fritters. It is a hopping place out here and the music doesn’t go off until after 3 a.m.

The next day is Friday the 13th but I am not feeling unlucky. Quite the contrary. I am sitting in a bungalow on the most fantastic beach in the world and there is not one damn thing that I have to do. After a lazy breakfast we go to the beach by the penis cave again, sheltering from rain in the cave as necessary. It is really quite convenient. And that is all we do all damn day. This place is paradise, it really is. Shangri La.

We go back for showers and dinner and then get a bucket of Mekong. So, what they do in Thailand is, you get a bottle of Mekong whiskey, a bucket of ice and a 2-liter plastic bottle of Coke and as many glasses as you need. They keep the Mekong, ice, or coke flowing as necessary. It is a recipe for sure fire drunkenness.

Phil and Karen have never smoked marijuana before and want to try it out. So, we take a bucket and bottles down to the beach where we are soon comatose in the sand watching the stars swirl around the sky. What, you never saw the stars swirling? I barely remember staggering back to the bungalow at 230 in the damn morning.

The next couple of days are more of the same, the weather is spotty but I am in no way complaining about the weather. We venture out to the Hillside Bungalow because we have been informed that they serve up a mean fish dinner and they do – as long as you order the barracuda and not the shark. We drink less tonight but smoke a bit more and sit around outside the King’s Head Bar – and, I really like that name by the way and should I ever own a bar that will be the name for it – and we watch the people stagger by and pass out – “Hey man, I’m with you brother! Party on!”

On Monday we hire a boat to take us to Koh Poda or Chicken Island. A 20-minute boat ride takes us out to a deserted beach under a blazing hot sun but the coral reef is only a few meters off the beach and it is absolutely spectacular. The run back to the mainland was quite rough with some violent waves. We have dinner at the Hillside again and we’re a bit sad because we plan to leave tomorrow morning to travel to the opposite side of the Thai/Malay peninsula, past the islands of Koh Samui and Koh Pha-Ngan to the isolated island of Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand.

Why leave the best beach in the world so soon you might ask, and it is a valid question. Number 1 answer is, I plan to come back, and indeed I have been back twice since then. Number 2 answer is, time. The clock is ticking on our 60-day visa in Thailand. Sure, we can extend, leave the country and come back, yada yada, but then the larger question is we have goals beyond Thailand and the clock is ticking on those as well, so, ultimately once we have been somewhere a week or so, it is time to think about leaving. Or settling down and working. The traveler who stops traveling becomes an expatriate. And I’m ok with that, and have been both, but it is an entirely different mindset. Currently we are still in travel mode.

Tuesday, December 17th ,1991

We are leaving paradise today. We catch a longtail boat back to Krabi. The captain is a man possessed and drives that boat through the waves like he is late for a date. We get a room back at the Grand Tower Guest House - again and have a scrumptious Thai dinner of giant prawns in a green coconut curry. Yum, yum!

We are up again and packed to get a bus, train something, out of Krabi to the islands on the other side of the peninsula. We finally opt for a ‘joint ticket’ – I mean…why not, right? No, it’s not that kind of joint. It is a combined bus / ferry ticket to Koh Pha-Ngan leaving at 11 and scheduled arrival in Koh Pha-Ngan at 6 p.m. for 250 baht. We could probably save 70 or 80 baht by going on a public bus but who knows when we would get there? And, after all, we’re on vacation. The only question is – “Why did we get up so goddamn early?” I smoke a joint for the road. The only thing worse than a bus ride in Asia is not being stoned or drunk for a bus ride in Asia.

The bus is comfortable enough. The A/C works and the seats are ok, though mine does not seem to be securely attached to the floor. The bus takes us right to the ferry dock and drops us off onto the waiting ferry which promptly leaves. This is definitely the way to go! The water is pretty rough and the boat goes slower than usual. We stop in Koh Samui at 5 thirty and Craig and Sue are there waiting for a ride to Koh Pha-Ngan so then we were six. We finally get into Koh Pha-Ngan at 7. We spend the whole trip huddled in a heap on deck.

We get off on Koh Pha-Ngan and head to the Moonlight Bungalow where we get a cozy little hut on stilts on the beach for 50 baht a night – 2 dollars! We have dinner here also, too tired to venture very far. We meet an Israeli couple, Helite and Etan. He is an Army officer and she used to be in his unit but is now a waitress. They also plan to go to Koh Tao for scuba diving. 

Koh Pha-Ngan is infamous for its full moon parties on the beach featuring live music and light shows all fueled by magic mushrooms, Mekong whiskey, and weed. Unfortunately for us the planets are not currently in line which may just be a good thing.

The next morning after breakfast I send a note for AJ to the General Post Office, Koh Samui telling him to come to Koh Tao for Christmas. We buy our overnight train tickets to Bangkok on January 3rd – it seems like a lot at 1000 baht or 40 bucks and the bus would be a bit cheaper, but you never know what’s going to happen on a bus and I might be able to actually sleep on the train. Then, we get on the boat for the three-hour ride on rough seas to Koh Tao.

We arrive and tie up alongside two other boats already at the small dock. We have to crawl over one boat and then the second one which is full of coconuts, so it is like walking on, well, a pile of coconuts, before plopping onto the dock itself and look around.

We are in a very small village with sand roads and a few dive shops. We all pile into and onto a taxi which takes us the 2 and a half kilometers to Rocky Resort on Ao Luc Bay on the south side of the island. Koh Tao is only 21 square kilometers and has a population of just over 900. The edges and the numerous bays around its circumference are dotted with bungalows and resorts, the interior and literally every square inch of the island is covered by coconut plantations.

We get a comfortable bungalow with a nicely situated rock as a front porch for 40 baht a night. The front desk sells us weed. The view is over Ao Luk bay facing southeast. We settle in, then have dinner. This will be home for a while.

Friday, December 20th, 1991

We sleep in until 10. We have decided to hang out here until the New Year so might as well start chilling immediately. Breakfast, then the beach, where we swim out and around the point to the next bay over to the north and then we walk back on the sandy road through the coconuts. I give Phil a snorkeling lesson showing him how to clear his mask, equalize his ears and how to dive down and clear his snorkel.

After lunch, a nap in the hammock. We decide to walk into town for dinner – about 2 kilometers. The water is cheaper there but we have to carry it back. We check out the dive shops and make inquiries about a Christmas dive.

We settle into a delightfully lazy, beautifully dull, routine. Breakfast at 10 sharp-ish. Have a chat. Go for a swim. I have decided to learn to juggle here and I have found 3 small baby coconuts to use as juggling balls. Go for a swim. Have a shower. Have lunch. Have a nap. Have a swim. Eat dinner. Have a shower We have been traveling more or less non-stop since leaving Sydney and it is nice to just sit and not have to catch a bus to the next best place.

We are all here, Phil and Karen, Craig and Sue, Helit and Etan, and we have an informal wager on when AJ will show up. I say tomorrow, Greta says she hopes he never does.

Monday, December 23rd, 1991

I wake up feeling shitty which is odd because I didn’t even drink last night. I try to eat and cannot stomach it. I try to shit and only squirt. I go up to the bungalow to hide. My temperature is 102.4. I cannot get out of bed except to go to the toilet and squirt some more. Phil gives me some antibiotics for dysentery that he still had from Africa. I puke. I sleep.

Weird. The next day I am 100% better! I have a huge breakfast and hang out. Still shitting water but no fever. Now Greta is not feeling so hot. They are having a big Christmas Eve barbeque, but I decide to pass. AJ makes his appearance in the evening. We hang out catching up on travel stories and smoking doobies. We have to go to bed because we are going diving tomorrow!

Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho! We’re up early for breakfast and then take the taxi into town by 8. Etan, Helit, Craig, Mike, Greta and I are going diving. AJ comes along to snorkel. It is a very reasonable 1,000 baht - 40 dollars - for a two-tank dive.

We motor out to Chumphon Pinnacles for a 41-minute dive to 20 meters. Visibility is very poor due to the large amount of plankton in the water. Of course, these are ideal conditions for a whale shark sighting, which is what we are there to see. I’m sure that some were around, but we don’t see any. I see fishing net covered rock outcroppings and not much else other than a big jellyfish that looked like it came up short in a battle with a propeller.

The second dive is at White Rock to 12 meters for 49 minutes. The visibility is much better until 12 meters and below that it is terrible due to the plankton. I see a big crown of thorns starfish and use a giant barrel sponge as a throne. On the way back we ogle Nan Yuan Island and vow to come back to spend a day there.

Nan Yuan is a set of three little islets connected by two narrow sandbars and they combine to create, without a doubt, the most picturesque little islands you could ever hope to lay eyes on. The north and south islands are wooded and rocky, the middle island is the smallest and the flattest and there is a dive resort located on it. The viewpoint from atop the south island is probably an Instagram favorite these days.

It is a fantastic way to spend Christmas Day, which, of course, in Thailand, is really just another western holiday that, as Buddhists, they don’t celebrate.

We have lunch in town and then walk back to Rocky Resort where we chill out and have a little partying after dinner and we teach everyone how to play Cosmic Wimpout.

Thursday, December 26th, 1991

Another lazy day in paradise. We have breakfast and then get totally stoned before embarking on the great shark hunt. Phil, AJ, Etan, Helite, Greta and I take out the dugout canoe into the bay and anchor it. The resort has given us some meat scraps to use as chum and it is not long before a 5- or 6-foot blacktip reef shark shows up. Phil sees it first and nearly shits himself. It is beautiful. I wish I could take a picture of it.

We go back for lunch and hang out in the hammock. I practice juggling. I am determined to learn how to juggle over the holidays. I am getting better every day. Like most things that appear difficult initially, persistence and practice will pay off.

I go back for a shower before dinner. The shower here is outdoor and it is, technically cold water from a large drum, but in reality, it is merely cool and is quite refreshing. I love showering outside and I feel like that should be the norm whenever possible.

Dinner followed by mellow partying. The pace here is so slow as to be unnoticeable as anything resembling a pace. We talk about arranging another dive trip for New Year’s. AJ plans to do his introductory course. AJ beats me three straight games at chess which extends the losing streak I have – which goes back to Malacca – at 7. I blame the weed.

Friday is again, another beautiful day in paradise. The weather is especially gorgeous today without a cloud in the sky. In Colorado we called it a bluebird day, but in Colorado that usually means there was snow on the ground. Wake and bake. For those unfamiliar with that term, it means smoking right after you wake up.

AJ and I walk into town along the sandy road under the coconut trees. I tell AJ that I read that 12 people per year are killed by falling coconuts in Thailand. Now, while I cannot testify as to the accuracy of that statistic, I can attest that as we walked along discussing the possibility, with AJ claiming that he would hear a snap, or some noise before being hit, when a coconut smashed into the sand not 3 feet from where we were walking, bounced and left a significant indentation in the hard sand. We stopped in our tracks and stared at each other and then scanned the treetops above suddenly on high alert. Walking down that road, and indeed, being under coconut trees in general, has never been the same for me since.

We are going into town to book a dive trip for New Year’s. AJ wants to arrange his dive certification which he will start on the 29th and then he can do his open water certification dives when we dive on the 31st. We take the taxi back through the suddenly treacherous coconut plantations with another load of tourists and several bottles of water.

We get some lunch, I shower and shave and do some much-needed laundry. I could give it to the resort to do but I’d rather save the money. The others go into town for dinner but I’m not gonna walk that path in the damn dark and besides I simply must annihilate AJ at chess and I do! We say goodbye to Etan and Helit – they are leaving for Bangkok in the morning.

1991 is ticking away and we are marking it off on the shores of this island paradise. Mountains of fruit and pancakes for breakfast – I wish they’d leave off the sickly sweet condensed milk though. Fold laundry, go snorkeling, see a bigger shark this time. Shower, dinner and a cosmic wimpout session rounds out the day.

Sunday, December 29th, 1991.

We move bungalows today, leaving the rock to one by the water’s edge, indeed, over  the water on stilts in between AJ and Phil and Karen. We even get the bonus of a brand-new mattress and only had to wait an hour while the carpenter enlarged the bamboo bed to accommodate it. AJ has gone to do his dive course and I spend the afternoon lazing stoned in the hammock over the water. AJ comes back and say they couldn’t do his course because they didn’t have enough tanks? I’ve never heard of that being a thing at a dive operation but, he’ll try again tomorrow. I win the chess game again tonight – I’m on a roll!

The next morning AJ wakes up with the stomach bug that we have been passing around to each other so he is a scratch for his dive certification course and guess who gets to walk in to town to tell them that? This is the 1990’s people, today you’d just pop out your cellular phone and it’s done. Back then, you had to actually talk to people to their face – this so-called resort has no phone by the way. I’m not in a hurry though. I hang in the hammock until early afternoon, reading, writing and smoking doobies. 

Then I hike into town and talk to the dive folks. He can do it tomorrow if he feels better, or the first and we can dive the second or he can blow it off and we can dive Sail Rock on the 1st as planned. I ask around about magic mushrooms for the New Year’s party but I think they are all being hijacked at Koh Pha Ngan before they make it out to us.

We hang out at the resort chilling for the evening.

The next day is New Year’s Eve and AJ is feeling better, but the weather has turned for the worse – rain. AJ and I go into town again, dodging rainstorms and falling coconuts. We actually catch the taxi in and he tries to do his course but it gets cancelled due to the weather. In fact, the New Year’s dive to Sail Rock is also cancelled due to lack of interest. It is beginning to look like we won’t dive here again.

So, we have breakfast and hang out hoping the rain will blow over before hiking back. The rain kind of cramps our style but we begin the New Year’s celebrations at 7 pm, ringing it in from the dateline. The top of every hour brings more toasts and fireworks and bong hits. Still, the party last year in New Zealand was probably a bit more epic as parties go.

Happy New Year’s Day! Our spirits remain undampened by the shitty weather maybe because they are buoyed by a fresh shipment of some fine Thai buds. AJ goes into town to sort out his refund for the dive course. The rest of us who are not currently down with what we have come to know as the Rocky Resort flu spend the day quietly chilling and playing chess.

Thursday, January 2nd, 1992.

Almost everyone is leaving today, catching the ferry to Chumphon. Phil and Karen, Craig and Sue, AJ and us catch the boat over to Nan Yuan island just off the northwest coast of Koh Tao. Ever since we saw them on our Christmas dive, we have been wanting to go out there. Again, this is the 90’s – I’m sure nowadays they are trending on Instagram but we did not know they existed until we saw them.

We spend the day hanging on the sandbars, snorkeling and hiking to the viewpoint at the summit of the southernmost island to take the Instagram picture. I finally get the juggling down. We get caught in a rainstorm, but we could care less – we are wet anyway. The boat picks us up at 4:30 to go back to town and we hike back to Rocky’s. We have to leave tomorrow morning – we have tickets on the night train to Bangkok.

The next morning begins about 24 hours of non-stop traveling. We get on the 9 o’clock boat. AJ goes with us as far as Koh Pha Ngan where he gets off to explore the party scene. We say goodbye for now as our boat continues to Surat Thani where we arrive at about 330. We meet up with Mike who is going to Bangkok as well but he is going on the bus.

We get the bus for the hour-long ride to the train station. We have plenty of time to get dinner and snacks for the train ride. The train is very different from the Malaysian one. There are two seats facing each other that combine to create to a bed. The top bunk then pulls down like an overhead compartment on a plane, but it is a bed! There is a ladder on the side and curtains for a semblance of privacy. We sit for a while then they come and make up our beds and we settle in.

I order a dinner of Tom Yom soup and when they ask how spicy I say, Thai spicy! I shouldn’t have done that as I fear the chef has taken it as a challenge. When it arrives I can barely eat it. It feels like fire going down my neck. But I am hungry and I am not going to pay for something else – I swallow every excruciating drop.

The train ride is actually quite comfortable and we arrive in Bangkok at 6 am feeling quite alive, if not truly refreshed. It is pre-dawn. The monks are out carrying their bowls of donated food back to the monastery. We see this a lot in Bangkok because the city is so big and we tend to stay up until the wee hours but it is a nightly ritual for monks to carry a large bowl around the streets before dawn, knocking on doors and getting donations of food. The monks are not allowed to buy food and they can only eat from dawn to noon. They fast eighteen hours a day. This is known as “Tak Bat” and is not seen as charity, it is seen as virtue. Giving alms to monks, who devote themselves to Buddha, is about showing goodness to others and being a good person. They walk in a line carrying a large, covered metal bowl, the most senior monk first clad in saffron robes and barefooted to keep close to nature and the earth.

We make a beeline for the traveler’s ghetto of Khao San Road for the first of many nights as we rotate in and out of Bangkok, exploring Thailand. We run into Mike again and Canadian Dave who is looking very ragged after a late-night bus down from Chiang Mai. We go with him to get a room at the Merry V Guest House and they think they will be able to get us into one at about noon.

In the meantime we attempt to figure out the Bangkok transit system and go in to AMEX and the post office, where we expect to get packages but it is closed – Saturday, who knew? Going back to Khao San we meet up with Phil and Karen who took the bus up and then we go claim our room.

We get a double and then Dave shows up and we end up getting a triple so he doesn’t have to share a room with strangers. We go have dinner at a really nice, and a little expensive, Indian place and then sleep early – it has been a long day.

Khao San Road is abuzz with the news that on January 1st Vietnam opened up to independent travel. Previously if you wanted to visit Viet Nam you had to go with an organized group with a guide. The new rules allow independent travel with a travel permit and no guides or groups needed. Because of the old rules we had not imagined going to Viet Nam. Now, we simply had to go. The next several weeks will be spent planning the trip over there and back to Thailand, but in the meantime, we still had places to go in Thailand.

The group from the holiday island, Helit and Etan, Phil and Karen and Mike too – they all are interested in Viet Nam. The group we end up going with a few weeks from now was not that group. But a whole lot of Mekong whiskey is consumed in the effort of working things out.

Monday, January 7th, 1992

And now we’re hung over and have many errands to do. The list gets longer when we go to the post office and get our Christmas package and there is only wrapping paper inside along with a few chocolates and candy which we throw away because they are probably drugged. For a moment I wonder if they might be any good, but, naaah, best not try.

So we go to complain about it and the runaround begins. They say it was opened by Customs and send us to the Bangkok mail center to talk to them. When we get there they are all sitting around watching tv – it is their lunch break and they don’t do anything until 1 o’clock at which time one dude saunters over and says, “No, it wasn’t opened by Customs because they would’ve put a stamp on it.” I argue that they wouldn’t put a stamp on it if they were going to steal the contents, would they? That does not go over well and he sends us upstairs to talk to someone else – the post office again.

We show the package to three different people on three different levels of this massive building and each one examines the box and the wrapping paper like it is a goddamn moon rock or something. Finally, we end up talking to a very nice lady who speaks great English and she makes several phone calls. It was all very nice, but in the end it wouldn’t get our stuff back and it took forever and it is late afternoon before we get out of there.

We go to AMEX for mail and to check tickets to Viet Nam. We go to the train station to book a night train north to Chiang Mai for tomorrow. The traffic is horrendous and it takes almost an hour to get back top Khao San Road where we almost miss Dave who is leaving for the islands. We make a plan on how to contact each other then we wander around looking at tailor made suits that are incredibly cheap.

The next day is taken up with planning the Viet Nam trip with Phil and Karen but we have to get on the train at 6 so we leave it hanging.

And I’m going to leave you hanging right there people. Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you next time, goin’ down the road. Take care. Be kind to one another.