Andy's escape
Text written in: English
Waking up early when I'm away from my usual routine is never a problem. The idea of getting out of bed into a cold house and taking the tube to work just never manages to kick my start motor in quite the same way as waking up in an unfamiliar bed and the realisation that I'm in the middle of an adventure, where even the place I sleep that night is open to the elements of fate, chance and a good dash impulse.
It was 8AM, my Nokia phone was raising a crescendo of insisting beeps, with a solid bass line provided by its vibration causing it to crawl slowly across the carpet next to my bed. My wits are usually slow in the mornings, but I was awake in an instant. I hit a button on the phone and swung open the door to the small balcony outside my room and inhaled the warm cocktail of humid air and city scents which met me. The noise of birds and distant tuk-tuks and a city preparing for another day of bustle and commerce.
I was pleased to find I had had the foresight to pack any loose items of clothing into my tiny pack the night before and - a nice refreshing cold shower later - I was wandering down the road with my worldly possessions perched comfortably on my back and weighing all of 11kgs (approx 23 lbs). I asked a couple of the taxis near the hotel about going to the airport. Eagerly they responded with B350. Did I look like I was born yesterday? I informed them "Korp koon kap, dtair paeng pai noy... lair-o mai pen falang dong kap. Lot noy dai mai?" which raised a chuckle, a show of enthusiasm and a feeble drop to B250. I walked about 50m on to the main road Thanon Sutthisan and grabbed the first taxi that agreed to use the meter.
Taxis and Túk-túks, motorbikes...
Bangkok is a huge sprawling city, and most of the time, you will probably have fairly little idea of where you are and how far your next destination is. Telling people consistently that their fare is too expensive and gettting a small discount is probably a good policy, but the key to bargaining is actually knowing what's a fair price before you start...
Túk-túks... are definitely the most fun, especially if you have the time and don´t mind inhaling a good quantity of city air and fumes. Don't presume, however, that just because they're smaller and slower that they represent better value than taxis. Often túk-túk drivers make a real killing by involving themselves in referral schemes, whereby they take you to an associate's business and take a slice of the profit. This can be relatively innocent (such as recommending a hotel which matches your budget and taking a slice of the first night's payment), through to taking you on tours to various scams. Generally, if you are about to spend a large amount on something - e.g. a few hundred dollars at a bespoke tailor - avoid túk-túks. Smaller risk recommendations, if you have the time, are worth checking out. You can always say no when you get there, and the driver knows that too.
Taxis... represent the best option for those who don't want 'detours' to other locations and probably represent the best all round value. They are a tad more boring than túk-túks, but usually offer air-conditioning. The air-conditioning can be a little overzealous at times, so take a light jersey with you or ask to have it a little warmer to avoid frost-bite (yen-yen pai na). Most importantly, you will almost certainly be offered fix-price fares to your destination. In most instances, you can get a better fare by insisting to have the meter turned on. Just point to the meter and say 'meter dai mai?' (can we use the meter?), until you find a driver that agrees. Of course, as you almost certainly don't know the route, you can be taken for a bit of a tour, but it's much easier on a meter-fare for you to make an official complaint and the drivers know this too. I have never been ripped off on a meter fare so far.
Fares from the airport have a B50 fee added (to avoid congestion at the airport), and the highway is about B40 if you want to shave about 5 mins off your journey from the airport.
Motorbikes... are great if there's a traffic jam (rót dtít) as they will weave between cars and ride up on the pavement to speed your journey. On the other hand, they are a lot more dangerous so avoid them unless you're really in a hurry.
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My taxi driver was a quiet reserved guy who provided a tape of traditional thai music to serve as a soundtrack to the buildings, signposts and wats (temples) whizzing past us as we mounted the motorway to the airport. The music was the aural equivalent of falling asleep during an oil massage and immediately put me in a calm, balanced mood. On arrival at the airport, we had reached a record-low of B125 on the meter (approx £2). I offered B200 which he had no change for. I'm pretty convinced he wasn't playing it for what it was worth - this style of trickery is fortunately less common in Thailand than in other places in Asia. But if he was, he was massively successful as he ended up with the other B75 change. I put it down in my mind as payment for the aural massage.
I had a little time to kill before check-in, so browsed some books on Thai cookery and language in the book shop. Feeling cheeky, I decided to make some notes from the language book in my travel diary. I would have bought the book, but there was only about five pages I really needed and the weight would have been excessive. Besides, I told myself in righteous justification, I had already bought quite a few books from that particular shop.
Delaying the check-in and procedure through the departure gates turned out to be unnecessary, as the other side was comfortable, light and pleasant. There were lots of shops around and the departure gate itself offered free internet access, as well as tea, coffee and some delicious snacks consisting of sweet sticky rice with sweet coconut core wrapped in moist leaves that went excellently with the otherwise sub-average coffee. The only thing that let down the sunny, relaxed atmosphere was the growing number of obnoxious, loud middle-aged French tourists who were congregating around the departure gates, rubbing their pot-bellies and making pushy demands of the petite little Thai girl from Bangkok airways who was doing her best to serve them with a smile. Some sported sunburns and sour, surly expressions others were joking in over-exuberant growls and slapping each other on the back. I sat down, and turned my eyes to the sky to avoid the glare of their white tennis socks and flouro-pink Adidas shorts.
The flight was fairly short and I managed a few glimpses out the window from my aisle seat. My guide book suggested there were several beaches which were supposedly all quite developed but popular and very pretty. The problem with guide books is that they were usually written about seven years ago, and feebly updated every few years. Given my present company, I had a strong desire to take the well-built highway north towards Khao Lak, or anywhere which would get me off Phuket quick - maybe the Andaman islands. Phuket is the richest province in Thailand and it has a relatively well developed infrastructure, and a relatively well developed mafia. Both excellent reasons to take the high-road rather than lay low.
At the luggage carousel, I waited for my pack and a boisterous looking guy approached me with a smile, asking me where I was going. He had a northern-European accent, which was hard to place and a Beer Chang t-shirt on. Before leaving me a chance to reply, he explained that he was taking the taxi down to Kata beach where he always stayed and that the fuckin' criminals had raised the price of the taxi to B600 and that if I was heading that way we could share a taxi and he could show me these great bungalows where he was staying. This was just the kind of twist of fate I had decided to follow, so we piled into the taxi, which turned out to be a swish gleaming late model car with a slick looking driver who wore shiny mirror shades and reminded me of something from a Bond movie.
My new friend Anders turned out to be from Sweden, and he radiated manic glee and excitement at being back in Thailand. "I went back to Sweden but it was just fuckin' cold and dark, my girlfriend was calling me all the time asking when I come back to Phuket you know she's pregnant and I think you know 'What am I doing here?' - so I'm back! this time for six months, yeah not holiday, to live but I have to take it easy, easy, not so much spending, you know 'chaa chaa' slowly, so that it all lasts longer, maybe I get a job here, but my boss paying me sick leave, last time I was here I got salmonella, some uncooked chicken in Isaan - you know - I was not sick long, but it came up in the test at work - and I work as a manager in McDonalds, so I get this money more than enough to live here - but ahhh yes this is the life - can't wait to have a beer..". I was a voyeur on a moment of return 'home' back to his thai girlfriend and potential future resting place. He didn't strike me as the resting type, but he was fervent about Phuket and what a great place it was. His energy was infectious.
The road wandered down the coast, but never close enough to the sea to actually see the coast. I later found out this was because the entire coast is built up with resorts, shops, streets and beaches that make Copa Cabana look like a beach on a dessert island.
We finally reached our destination, which turned out to be a group of houses off the side of the road. Anders called out and a Thai lady came out, they obviously knew each other pretty well. She was friendly and wanted to know who his friend was. I introduced myself and the lady, Katai, turned out to own the local motorbike rental place. Anders got his usual long-term rate of B100/day and I paid a reasonable B150 for a day. Both Anders and she encouraged me to rent and stay several days in advance, but I was reserving my right to leave at the drop of a hat, and just asked for a day in advance. Anders was going out of his way, he was saying he's organise everything for me and I'd love the place. He went off to find the bungalow owners and secure his usual pad. I couldn't see any bungalows around, and the sea still seemed quite far away. The nice lady invited me to sit down, she spoke excellent English and had been to Europe several times. Eventually Anders came back and said that he got his room but it was the last they had. He didn't think this was a problem, there were others nearby that were just as cheap. I told him I didn't really care that much about the price as long as it wasn't totally unreasonble. He had secured his pad for B4000 per month (work it out, it's very cheap) but that I might have to pay B250 or B300 per night because I was just here for a night or two. No probs, I appreciated the effort that he and Katai were putting into this. I felt a small pang of regret that I hadn't just gone to somewhere in the guide book and checked in, I didn't want to put these guys out.
Some of the neighbours didn't have rooms in their concrete houses either - all full - but they kindly called around on their mobiles to see if anyone else did. This also brought no results, and so Anders and I jumped on my motorbike and he drove me down the road a little and turned left into a dirt path which lead into dense overgrowth. After a winding path through the bushes, a few small buildings hidden in the greenery appeared, with about a dozen or so motorbikes parted in front.
The place, the Orawan Sauna - turned out to be a retreat for people from various resorts around who would brave the mid-day heat to pile into a small room heated to about 50 degrees with mildly aromatic steam. The dehydration process was augmented by the occasional beer in the sun by the pool. All in all, it was more pleasant than it sounded and almost seemed refreshing compared with the raw daylight heat. They also had rooms.
Anders bounced up to reception and got a warm welcome from the people there who obviously knew him and wanted him to stay. He explained he was bringing a customer to the girl who eyed up me suspiciously. The room was characterless and stuffy, but had the basics including a fan which I switched on as soon as I went in. I thanked Anders, who had really gone out of his way, and he suggested we get hellishly drunk that night. This sounded like a superb idea, and my only reservation was negociating a motorbike home. This was apparently poof-talk and everyone drove around drunk as a skunk.
I decided to get a head-start and headed for the reception / bar, carefully stepping around a snooty French couple draped across the path near the pool who, during the process, managed not to meet my eyes once. There was a slight air of "We were here first". At the reception aka bar, I ordered a beer and sat down next to a wirey old Dutch guy and a Swede - whose eyes were bloodshot and glazed with drink and dehydration. The conversation was fairly easy - if one sided - and they explained that they had been coming here for almost a decade now, and that even though it had changed, it was the people here that made it worth while. I could see what they meant, my beer was a good 30% more expensive than theirs - repeat custom had its advantages. I presumed their rooms were also significantly reduced. Of course, they explained, the place had changed completely. It used to be untouched paradise and now it was over-developed. They continued, confirming my suspicions, that everything here was a matter of who you knew. If you knew the right people, everything was cheaper and easier. If you didn't know the right people, or got on the wrong side of the wrong people, you might wind up dead. The mafia was apparently quite a powerful force in Phuket. They talked about some falang (westerner) guy who had come and bought himself a boat. The day it was due to be ready to pick up, he asked about it and was told that his brand-new outboard motor was being hired out to someone. A little shocked, he asked fror an explanation and was told to come back in a couple of days. Keen not to 'rock the boat', as it were, he decided to take their advice, after all - he had time. When he came back a few days later, the same person said "it's over there" and pointed to his boat several miles out to sea. "Go get it". Eventually he went to someone 'connected' to get help, and it turned out that he was the guy's brother. In the end, he was told to behave or he'd lose more than his boat. Listening to this story, I took a swig of beer and decided to take a drive and book my ticket out of Phuket for the day after. I thanked the guys for the fine conversation and grabbed my bike.
Riding out through the greenery, scaring the chickens slightly and wizzing out onto the open road, I felt the wind cool my sweaty back and the freedom of doing things on my own agenda again. I decided to go check out the beaches, Kata, Karon and see what the deal was. A little further down, the first signs of shops and general ugly overdevelopment became apparent. Everything was quite large, the hotels were big and there were none of the small thatched bungalows I had grown used to thinking of when I thought of southern Thai tourist spots. Signs struggled to dominate more of the view than each other, power cables hung down between it all and grumpy looking middle-aged tourists trudged around, apparently unaware that they had inflicted this on themselves for the duration of their entire visit.
The motorbike was making all of this much easier to handle. Whenever I didn't like something, it was quickly out of view. I steered towards the beach and found the road which ran along a neat row of umbrellas and sun recliners. The beach was far from impressive and looked very busy. I got a few shots as souvenirs, remounted my bike and felt the press of acceleration as it disappeared behind me.
I decided I needed three things: a nice authentic thai snack, a ticket to Koh Phi Phi or Khao Lak, and some petrol for the bike so I could bring it back full the next day. I decided to ignore the warnings of the authority-obsessed tourists bleating on about which exact angle I should park my motorbike to avoid a fine from the 'tut-tut la police, fais-attention: jeune-homme' and strode into a nice road-side cafe which seemed to have the only real Thai food in the area.
It was well worth while, several smiles, a plate of sumptious curry and salad and a coconut juice later, I was feeling much more at peace with the world. I bought my ticket to Koh Phi Phi and drove back to Katai near Anders' bungalows. Unfortunately, I needed to drop off the motorbike and find some way of getting back to my place at Orawan Sauna, which I guessed was somewhere around 5km away.
As I drove in, Anders was coincidentally passing on his motorbike with his girlfriend on the back. It was good to see a familiar face. His girlfriend looked about 16 and I said hi but she was quite shy. I told Anders that I was leaving the next morning for Koh Phi Phi and that I needed a lift back to my bungalows and shrugged it off, claiming that I wouldn't want to leave. He knew what to say, he suggested some dinner and drinks and I agreed heartily.
He showed me his room, which turned out to be similar to mine, with even the same brand of fridge in there, and we sat down outside in the deck chairs. He suggested I get the drinks and he and his girlfriend could go get the ingredients for dinner. His girlfriend prepared my shopping list which turned out to be quite a simple one: a bag of ice, a large bottle of Thai whiskey, a large bottle of coke, and some red bull (Kra-tin-daeng).
I decided to fix myself a drink while waiting, and settled in in the deck chairs. Even the first sip made me feel a little dizzy, I wasn't sure why. I took it easy and waited for them to return.
When they finally did, they were laden to hilt with various ingredients in bags, a large electric cooker, some matts for the ground and several friends. Conversation was a little difficult at first, the Thais were from Isaan in the north and spoke only a little English. Part of the problem was I could hardly understand their Thai dialect, and they apparently had problems with my NZ accent. There were lots of sheepish shy grins on both sides. Anders didn't seem to have this problem at all and had developed his own unique pigeon talk which they seemed to be well adapted to. It was undoubtedly clearer than the way I spoke.
Fortunately, he had brought some Chang beer with him. I had a glass and the dizzy feeling went away immediately, I put it down to blood sugar level. The Thais were getting used to my accent and the conversation flowed more easily. We set about the task of preparing the soup and consuming the alcohol. Andy, as the Thais called him, seemed to have quite an amazing propensity for talking non-stop. He was closely followed by myself and the girl who was preparing the soup.
The soup was delicious, and hit the spot with the alcohol perfectly. The vegetables were fresh and juicy and the soup was lightly spicy and tangy with an edge of lemongrass. I was deeply impressed and made note of the ingredients that went in.
The thai guy explained in between drunk grins that he had been drinking since early afternoon in his bar, and that he'd have to go back later to work. Andy gave him a smoke and he quickly went off to regurgitate the contents of his stomach into the river over the hedge. One of the girls helped him and eventually he returned looking even more out of it and slightly green.
Andy and his girlfriend, who was apparently 26 (!) were due to go visit her parents in the north and he talked about how the Thai women were so incredibly subservient to men and in particular to falang men. They seemed to be on the verge of raising an objection but just laughed a little. His girlfriend laughed and said that he was a 'poo hai'. At the time I had a good laugh and took it to mean 'high person' but since I've decided it could also mean 'person who does whatever you tell them to do' or the 'person who is there to give'. I'm still incredibly curious which it was, any of them would be quite amusing. I also knew full well that he would be expected to support the entire family if he ever married her. That only seemed fair, as he was in a position to do so. I wondered if he knew.
Andy had some classic Thai pop music on his discman and handed it around, everyone enjoyed it immensely and whenever he had the headphones on, the big Swede sang along quite convincingly and with a strong sense of tune. Although he hardly spoke Thai, he seemed to know most of the words.
Unfortunately, I've forgotten everyone's names and I swore at the time I would remember the fascinating insights into culture the conversation provided, but that's alcohol for you.
I realized Andy was in no shape to drive me back and the motorbike back to Katai's. He suggested that one of the girls, the one who had been so skillful at making the soup, drive me home because she was far more sober than me. I was feeling fairly invincible but knew I would be better off letting her drive, so I agreed and I thanked everyone for an excellent meal and a good time.
At the drive along the twisting roads and the turnoff through to the end of the dark overgrown path, my motorbike was one of the few that was still left there. I thanked my Thai companion who asked if she could come and see my bungalow. I would definitely feel rude saying no, but I actually just wanted some time on my own and a good night's sleep. I decided showing her my room couldn't hurt and would have to be over quick. But she spotted the TV and started navigating the channels like an addict deprived of their favourite drug.
I chilled out on the bed, maintaining a good metre or two between us so that she wouldn't get an ideas. This might sound rude, but Thai girls are very forward, and I wasn't interested. We talked a little, and she asked all the questions I expected, including an interestingly phrased "How many wifes do you have?". I knew that in old Thai society, men had several 'major' wives, who were looked after and supported, as well as several 'minor' wives (or concubines). This arrangement sounds exploitative until you realize that there are, of course, not enough women to leave every man with several wives just to themselves. In fact, this isn't the point. So the wives basically track down their husbands and mix and match as they please. Generally speaking, they are in charge and search out the guys they like, not the other way round. They generally are in control. I knew from the previous conversation she had at least one minor husband of her own, some doctor from Scandinavia. Part of me was afraid if I told her to let me sleep she'd do something to my bike on the way out of there. In hindsight this was definitely paranoid. Eventually at about 1:30 I feigned sleepiness she said she'd go. I walked her to the bike and felt the same relief to be home and on my own finally when I returned that I had felt when I got on the bike that afternoon.
On returning to my room, I realized my next door neighbours were the young French people, who had seen me drop off the Thai girl in the small hours. I knew what they thought, but I didn't care. I spoke to them in French and they seemed much nicer, I think they had also had a few drinks. I wanted to chat, but I didn't have the energy left to talk French so I went to bed and when I finally slept it was an uneasily until 6AM when my alarm went off again. I knew I hard hardly slept but it didn't seem to bother me.
[ -- movies of Anders singing in Thai coming soon as soon as I add movie support to the site -- ]
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(8) (The Dohertys)
I'd just quickly like to point out that we're not in Phuket but about 80 miles...
Entry 6 of 24 
