COP18 Doha

Frankie's Last Stand: The Thai Islands

Yeah this all happened more than a month ago...

Oh glorious, glorious day – today we head to the Thai Islands, where I shall spend the remainder of my days in SE Asia (July 8-20). We fly from BKK to Ko Samui, where we take a ferry to our destination of Ko Phangan (at this point, let me just tell you that Ko means Island in Thai).

Our resort on Ko Phangan is totally bomb. Infinity pool with swim up bar overlooking the beach. Ocean water so warm you could bathe in it. Swoon.

We are met there by Kevin and Eduardo, the European couple we met in Chiang Mai! Yay they made it! As I slather myself repeatedly with SPF 30, we chill by the pool and befriend Karen, a lovely Dutch woman with two gorgeous 16 and 17 year old blond daughters. A fun Dutch couple (seriously those people are everywhere) are also staying at the resort, so we all 4 groups dine together before heading off to the Half Moon Party. Yes, Karen, we’d be happy to take your stunningly beautiful teenage daughters to an enormous jungle party fueled by alcohol, black light paint, and 19 year old British kids on gap year!

Half Moon Party was pretttty legit, except for the fact that it was NOTHING but trance music. Frankie and I and the crew danced for ages and ages and ages. One of the Dutch girls made out with a few people, I think at the same time (“She just loves black men! She told me cheated on her black boyfriend with another black man last night!” – her mother, the next morning). We drank some buckets and beer. Frankie and I got painted. Et cetera, et cetera. Here are some pictures!

Needless to say, we sleep in the next morning. When we awake, a bunch of us decide to rent motos and take a tour of the island’s road-accessable beaches. Stunningly gorgeous, as to be expected. Everyone makes fun of me for slathering myself in SPF 30, like, every time they look at me. We have an amazing Thai lunch with an open kitchen that Frank claims is the best he had the entire trip. It was rather, rather good.

For dinner we have amazing seafood at a restaurant called Fisherman’s, which is owned and run by a local fisherman and his Irish wife. Nice work bagging the farang, buddy. We call it a recovery night, and I find out what Kelly’s been up to while I was away (sorry Kelly).

The next morning Frank and I depart for a day on Ko Samui, from which we will head to a night in Phuket, on the other side of the isthmus. As Frank gyms it up for the day, I find a nice little spot on the beach and relax with some free wifi, pad Thai, and big bottles of water.

We get to Phuket that evening, and stay on Patong beach. For the record, Patong is the Jersey Shore of Thailand. The beach is dirty as hell, the streets are trashy as hell, there are as many prostitutes and lady boys as there are tourists (many of whom are fat, Russian, or both), and it’s about as commercial as it comes.

Frankie and I get some swim suits and check out a gay bar. Same story as Bangkok and I’m getting a few strange looks. I make my exit, and head back to the hotel to wish my very lovely doppelganger of a niece Hannah a very happy 5^th birthday. Just think it was 5 whole years ago that I was sitting in my sophomore summer mineralogy lecture when I got a frantic Skype message from my sister-in-law in Argentina that they were having the baby and didn’t have time to call anyone before they left for the hospital and it was my responsibility to tell the family. Oh the years, where do they go?

The next day we take the ferry to Ko Phi Phi Don, where Frankie and I will spend our last 3 days together before he heads home and I head back to the east coast islands.

(so vain)

In case you haven’t gathered, these islands are stunningly beautiful, made of dramatic limestone cliffs. It is, however, strongly monsoon season on this side of the isthmus, and we don’t see the crisp greens and blues of the seas that this area is famous for. The streets of KPPD are narrow, and no motorized vehicles are permitted – just people and bicycles and handcarts. There are a plethora of SCUBA shops, and we decide to spend the next day trying out scuba (heretofore not capitalized even though I know it to be an acronym like RADAR)! We take it easy among the throngs of 19 year old British kids on gap year, and pass out early to ready ourselves for our undersea adventure.

Frankie and I get an instructor all to ourselves which is perfect because Frank turns out to be a baby about breathing underwater and having pressure in his ears (jk, Frankie). Underwater I make full use of my sweet new rugged camera, which is waterproof to 12m, just the depth we go to. It isn’t quite as easy catching shots of fishies as you bob up and down underwater, but I managed to get some gems.

After our scuba adventure we climb up to a lookout point on KPPD where you can see the double beaches flanking the narrow strip of land connecting the two large mountains of the islands. Well worth the hike.

Since it’s Frankie’s last night with me in Thailand, we decide to go all out for an evening filled with buckets, a fancy sunset dinner, and dancing. We meet a pair of English sisters and party with them all night. Highlights include me finding a pub serving $9 Guinness draughts, an amateur Thai boxing ring, running into JESS LANE (my sorority sister that I had no clue was in Thailand), rediscovering that buckets just do not suit me, face painting, dancing my ass off, watching a Frenchman get a bamboo point tattoo right on the street (“Tu n’as pas peur de hepatitis?”), and Frankie getting his last meal of delicious street food.

We rage long into the evening, and the next morning I wake Frankie up early for the last time and bid him adieu.

Thanks for an excellent trip my dear!!!

Fuck Everything About Bangkok Except the Metered Taxis

(FYI this blog post refers to July 6-7... sorry for the delay)

Frank and I are rudely awakened from our slumber aboard the train by the attendant at 5:40am. It’s cool, it isn’t as if we weren’t due to arrive until 7am, which in Thai time is actually much closer to 8:45. (“Why do you assume the train is going to be late? You’re so negative. I bet we arrive within 15 minutes of when we are supposed to” “Well, Frank, it may have something to do with all of our previous experience with overland travel in this region, and the fact that the guide said to expect it to arrive at least one hour late”). At the train station, the lack of a queuing culture becomes blatantly evident at the taxi line, but eventually Frank and I push our way into one of the taxis. Naturally, the driver has no idea where our hotel is, not even after being told the street name, and we must give up our hard earned taxi.

After wandering around and telling about 3 scamming tuktuk drivers to fuck off, we eventually find a travel agent who is able to communicate the location of our hotel to a new taxi driver. At this point I discover two important things about Bangkok: the traffic is GOD AWFUL and metered taxis are the single greatest thing that the city has to offer. No, seriously, I have never been so happy to not have to fight over the price of something in my life (the occasional fighting with them to actually turn on the meter is a minor annoyance I will overlook). It was something like 60 baht ($2) from the station to our hotel. From here on out no tuktuk drivers were gonna scam me out of an exorbitant $6 to get me anywhere in this city, no way, no how.

Our hotel is located a bit far from both the old city with its tourist ghetto of Khao San Road and the commercial center with its proximity to the SkyTrain, but it’s super nice (thanks Jetsetter!), and because they forgot to make sure the room was clean before we were sent up, Frank was able to finagle a free breakfast out of the very apologetic staff. Granted, he was aiming for an upgrade to a suite for our troubles, but given that a) I would have just let them know nicely and not given two shits and b) I was starving (as per usual), I was quite impressed with the spoils of his whining.

We set a game plan for the day, and ride the SkyTrain out to the shopping centers. The first one we stop by, the Siam Paragon, is ridiculously flashy (read: overpriced Western brands), and even has an aquarium in the basement. Upon investigating, however, I discover there are no free seals and determine that it is not worth my time.

 

We next stop by the MBK mall, a favorite among tourists for its countless knockoffs and fairly cheap boutiques. Frank decides to buy a knockoff Deuter pack and gets in a haggling war over a difference of $2 (respect *fistpump*). After walking off and seeing he’s not going to get a much better deal at any of the other stands, he wanders back, tail between his legs, to fork over the $17 for the pack. “Welcome back, Stingy Man” retorts his adversary, and they amicably exchange monetary instruments for goods.

Frank leaves to go to Babylon, a super gender-exclusive club/spa/funhouse and encourages me to stay at MBK until I find something that will make me look less homely than, like, the 5 days worth of backpacker clothes I brought with me on the trip and have been wearing the entire time. I get a couple dresses on the cheap and head back to the hotel to chill by our insanely nice pool (again, thanks Jetsetter!). The pool crowd is split about 50/50 between scantily clad, sunbathing Europeans and much less scantily clad, all-black, eye-slit-only, Burqa-sporting Arab women, minding their fat male progeny as they flop about in the pool. I’m sorry if I’m coming off as super ethnocentric here, but having those women covered in head to toe all black in the sunny 95-degree heat is just about the most inhumane thing I can think of. For those of you present at Dartmouth’s 2008 graduation, with those black robes in the record heat – imagine that… every. day.

Frankie comes home to me, and we head out to SkyBar, which overlooks Bangkok from the 50-somethingth floor (roof) of the State Tower Lebua Hotel, where the Hangover 2 was filmed. I get dolled up in my new digs from MBK in preparation for their super strict dress code. As we get to the elevators we’re informed that they have a no flip flop policy. Fuck. On the fly I come up with “I recently broke my ankle and have to wear flats!” which they aren’t buying without the proof of an ankle brace. So Frankie and I run across the street to a pharmacy, buy a $4 ankle brace, and smoothly make our way in this time, with Frank totally playing up my injury fallacy: holding my arm, telling me to watch my step, etc. Savor the sweet rewards of our success:

We have $18 mojitos (consider it the pricetag of the view) and meet a family from New Jersey (“We’re from New York” “Oh really where do you live in Manhattan” “Well we live across the river in New Jersey”) who remark on how third-world Bangkok was compared to their other vaca destination of Singapore. Needless to say, they weren’t heading to Laos this go around.

Next, we head to Patpong road, famous for their numerous ping pong shows and general seediness. For those of you who must have heard absolutely nothing of Bangkok, in a ping pong show, women perform tricks with their who-ha’s; as you may have discerned from the name of the show, one of these tricks involves ping pong balls. As Lonely Planet carelessly omitted their recommendation of ping pong shows (much to Frank’s dismay and surprise… really), we stop in one of the first ones we come to, offering no cover and one 100 baht ($3) drink minimum per persons. Too good to be true? Just you wait.

After having an oiled up banana launched directly at us out of a very, very forlorn looking vagina, Frank and I determine the ping pong show is not the playful novelty we imagined it to be (read: is gross and depressing), and decide to pay and make our exit. We are immediately halted by some sort of surly madam, who informs us that we cannot leave and have to talk to the money manager. For the record, if you find yourself in a situation involving a money manager in Bangkok, the next 5-20 minutes of your life are bound to be pretty shitty. As the money manager was currently occupied with a very pissed off looking Middle Eastern couple, we tried to shove the 200B for our drinks at the madam and make our exit. Out come the very, very mean lady boy bouncers, who inform us that we are, in fact, going to be waiting to speak to the money manager. When we get to the money manager, we discover that the entire thing is a scam (surprise!) and that they want 3,000B ($100) out of us for the show and the drinks. Fuck that, remarks Frank. A rather heated, 3-minute long, *screaming* argument between Frank, the madam, the money manager, and the lady boy bouncers ensues. As Frank screams to the entire audience “get out of here it’s a fucking scam” and threatens police involvement, they finally give in and accept our 200B for the drinks and tell us to get the fuck out. Happily we do, but before we get completely out of the place, we are able to warn the next crew of helpless saps that “this place is trying to fucking scam you don’t go here it’s a scam they are trying to steal all your baht,” much to the hawker’s chagrin.

As his paychecks make their exit behind us, the hawker trails us briskly into the street. I notice that this pissed off fella is following us, so I grab Frankie and we weave quickly between the street stands. Unable to completely evade him we seek solace in a 7-eleven and head straight to the back. In walks the hawker. Between us is a 7 year old girl playing in the aisle. The hawker looks at us, looks at the girl, and looks at us again, and walks out. We wait 2 or 3 minutes before making our own exit.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the only time I felt unsafe the entire trip.

After that completely effed up experience, we head to the gay red light district, adjacent to Patpong, where we meet up with a couple from New Zealand that Frank had befriended earlier in the day. We spend the evening hopping from gay bar to lady boy cabaret to gay bar. For the record, the gay bars of Bangkok are not like the ones I’m used to in the States. They are, as far as I can tell, completely devoid of straight chick friends of gay dudes who just like to dance in a super energized, non-threatening environment. Except when I’m in town; then, they have one. Let’s just say I got a lot of strange looks from old sexpats and young Thai boys throughout the evening, but I danced my ass off just the same.

The next day we ride a river taxi up to the old city of Bangkok to see the sites. I’m not going to bore you with the details on this one. Basically we saw the extravagant Royal Palace, where Frank nearly melted in the heat of the sun until he was revived by the water of a single coconut, and stopped by Khao San Road, which was, as expected, a tourist ghetto.

 (look Thai Ronald!)

Oh and for all you fans of that annoying rainbow spacecat, I give you:

At this point in the afternoon, I’m pretty done with Bangkok. Like, probably for the rest of my life, unless of course Tom wants to take me and show me the side I must have missed. I head back to the hotel for some pool time and itinerary-izing for the rest of our trip. Seriously, though, fuck everything about that place except the metered taxis.