Thailand - Days 3 through 5

Our sea-kayaking was to take place in another national park; this one includes hundreds of tiny islands in the Andaman Sea spread out along the coast of Thailand. Our group drove to a pier and got on a boat that would take us to the islands of Koh Panak and Koh Hong. The journey to the islands took about an hour. On the way there we were introduced to our guides and assigned paddlers for our kayaks. Michael and I were assigned Mario who ended up being pretty funny. It rained heavily throughout the one hour ride to the first island and would continue to rain off and on the rest of the day.

When we arrived at the first island we boarded our kayaks and paddled to Oyster cave where oysters hung from the ceiling of the cave. We had to lay down flat on the kayak at the entrance to the cave, even at low tide the entrance was small, and during high tide the entire cave is submerged. We left the cave through the same entrance and followed the cliffs along the edge of the island. Due to the erosive action of the waves the island had a large overhang which loomed overheard of us. The next cave was a bat cave that was pitch black and reeked of guano. Once we went through the cave we entered a small lagoon on the inside of the island. It was absolutely beautiful and I don’t think any of the pictures I took captured it properly. Vines, trees, and all sorts of tropical vegetation clung to the cliffs on the inside of the island. It looked as if all of the plants were slowly descending into the emerald green lagoon below.

After the two caves we went back to the boat and rode to the next island. Koh Hong is the site of the diamond cave, so-called not because it contains diamonds but because within the lagoon there is an opening in one of the walls that is shaped like a diamond. On the way to another cave on the other side of the island we saw monkeys on the shore. One monkey was eating a banana and it climbed up into branches of a tree that hung over our heads. I was expecting it to jump into one of the kayaks but it didn’t. Then we spotted the alpha-male monkey who was strutting along the shore confidently. When he spotted us he walked over to one of the female monkeys, mounted her, and began mating.

This last cave was by far the most impressive. It opened up into a huge lagoon with little islands inside of it and giant pillar-like islands with trees on top. From our position it didn’t look like an island in the normal sense, there was no beaches, just a collection of huge rocks rising out of the sea covered in vegetation. We were paddled into another lagoon where a man in a small fishing boat was catching crabs. At this point the guides started to mess around. They spoke to the fisherman for a bit and then removed some crabs and horseshoe crabs from his boat and handed them to us. The girls in some of the kayaks screamed when they were handed the crabs, and one of the guides put a horseshoe crab on his head. The girls in one of the kayaks started wrestling with their guide and managed to knock him out of the kayak. They stole the paddle and paddled away, he just stood in the shallow water with his hands in the air laughing.

Our final stop for the day was Lawa Island where we had a few hours to paddle the kayaks on our own, sunbathe, or swim. During the ride to the island we were served a Thai buffet which was very tasty. I’m not sure how they managed to prepare it on the boat, but they did a great job. The boat anchored some distance from the shore and we all jumped into the water. I opted to swim the distance with Mario paddling around me in the kayak. I swam and swam and was ready to give up when I noticed people not too far from me standing up, so I stood up. I didn’t have to walk too far before half of my body was out of the water. I walked to the shore and grabbed the pink kayak we had been riding around in all day and set off.

I paddled around for a bit near Mike and some other kids who had their own kayaks as well. I noticed a dot-sized island some distance off, at least a mile away, and I considered trying to paddle there. As I was considering it another SAS guy, Zach, started paddling towards the island. I followed, not sure whether I would paddle to the same island or some others that were farther still. It took 45 minutes of constant paddling to get to the island and on more than one occasion I was close to giving up and turning back. I spent the time thinking about when I used to go sea-kayaking in Brigantine and wondered what it would be like to live on some of the islands we had paddled around earlier. Some of my favorite books as a child, Robinson Crusoe and The Island of the Blue Dolphin, were about people being stranded on islands. Paddling around these semi-remote islands with no inhabitants brought me back to daydreaming about what I would do if I were stuck on an island (or if I moved there willingly). While it’s fun to think about, it doesn’t sound too pleasant in practice.

Eventually I reached the island I had originally planned to paddle to; Zach had reached it five minutes before me. We walked around looking for coral and just checked things out. The island was basically a mostly barren rock with a group of trees and bushes on the left side. The rocks were very sharp and looked volcanic in origin, walking on them in bare feet was painful. After 15 minutes or so of walking around we decided it was time to get back to the boat. We decided to stack the kayaks and try paddling back in the same kayak because Zach’s was losing air and kept filling up with water. We tried this for 10 minutes until the top kayak slid off and we fell into the water. We spent a few minutes floundering about in the water trying to put the kayaks on top of each other again. The effort of trying to stack the kayaks on one another (while treading water) and then climbing back into my own kayak left my arms so sore I really didn’t think I would be able to paddle back.

Somehow I got back to the boat quicker than it took me to get to the island. As I got closer to the boat I saw Zach leaving his kayak and climbing on board, everyone else had boarded the boat and they were waiting for me. Less than a minute’s paddling time from the boat the wind started blowing heavily and these frighteningly dark clouds moved in over the water. Mario was standing on the back deck of the boat yelling, “Hurry Andy, the storm will blow you away!” As the wind began blowing even harder and the rain started to fall I felt like I was moving backwards. I finally made it to the boat and crawled on boat just as the monsoon rains came in full force. Back on the boat I gratefully accepted a young coconut with the top cut off and a straw in it, I gulped the coconut juice down quickly and wondered how much my arms would hurt later that night.

When we got back to the hotel a few hours later Mike and I asked for a “good Thai restaurant” and made arrangements to have a free shuttle take us there. Five minutes later a shuttle from the restaurant came to pick us up. When we got to the restaurant and saw the menu we realized we were at what was probably one of the fanciest restaurants in Phuket. The people around us were dressed nicely, though it would still generally be classified as ‘casual’ in most of the U.S., but Mike and I were in t-shirts, shorts, and sandals (thankfully we left our stinky jungle-water-logged shoes at the hotel). We sat on a balcony on a cliff that overlooked the beach where waves from the Andaman Sea crashed on the shore. The food was good (I had some green curry Chicken and spring rolls) but it wasn’t quite as good as the previous night when we paid four times less for a better dinner.

After dinner we decided to wander around Patong Beach, specifically Bangla Road which is the notorious red-light district. All we did was wander down the street and get bothered by Thai guys who wanted you to go to their nightclub (it was feeling a lot like Roppongi in Tokyo though not as insane). There were these other Thai guys who hung around on the streets and would stop and introduce themselves and ask if you wanted to go party with them. I had read in a guidebook somewhere that sometimes, though it is uncommon, these guys will take you to a bar where you order some drinks and talk to a woman who approaches you for a bit. When you decide it’s time to leave they present you with something like a $600 bill and claim it was for the woman’s drinks. If you refuse to pay they may beat you and take your wallet. I certainly didn’t want to ‘party’ with a total stranger in a foreign country, especially not with what I’d read in mind.

Mike and I crossed to the other side of the street where it was devoid of shady characters and walked back to the hotel. We ran into Emily and Brittany who were heading the way we had came and they invited us to come with them but Mike declined (he was feeling sick) and after all that paddling I was exhausted. Back at the hotel I watched some T.V. and then went to sleep. This concluded our trip to Phuket. The next day we would fly to Bangkok where, strangely, SAS had decided to put us in a classy hotel that was directly adjacent to Bangkok’s famous red-light district. After the tranquility and beauty of Phuket Bangkok was noisy, crazy, and just plain weird. As I would find out, there is almost nothing in Bangkok for tourists unless you are planning on visiting the royal palace or the red-light district.

After flying from Phuket to Bangkok we checked into our fancy hotel that was one block away from the red-light district. Mike and I went to drop our bags off in our hotel room and we found that the beds were not made and there were dirty towels in the bathroom, not to mention the room smelled strange. With several buses of SAS kids checking into the hotel at once, and only two elevators, waiting for the elevator was torturous. All of this was making me annoyed and it made me wonder why we spent so much money to stay in a nice hotel that seemed to have some problems.

While our room was being cleaned Mike and I went to lunch at a pizzeria attached to the hotel. Everyone else wanted to eat pizza and I, being in Thailand, wanted Thai food. I was starving and I didn’t want to eat alone so I went with Mike, Emily, Brittany and some other girls to eat some pizza. Afterwards we walked around the few streets comprising the red-light district which, in daylight, was deserted. They were setting up tables and tents in the middle of one of the streets that would serve as a night market. After walking around for a bit we all went back to relax for a bit and Mike, Emily, and I got Thai foot massages.

The red light district at night was pretty intense. As we wandered from stall to stall in the night market we were constantly bothered by Thai men standing in front of the night clubs, bars, and strip clubs that lined the street. They offered menus of drinks and a list of prices for “ping pong shows” which involve women, ping pong balls, and private parts (I don’t think any more detail is necessary). Brittany had wanted to see one of these shows, for reasons I can’t fathom, but when I went on the internet earlier in the day to do some research I found out that not only are they disgusting (obviously) but that many of the women are forced to take part and patrons are often scammed into paying a lot of money to leave the clubs. So instead we had to fight off the dozens of Thai men trying to get us to pay to see a ping pong show. They were absolutely shameless too; they had no problem asking the girls in our group if they wanted to see one of the ping pong shows.

We wandered around for a bit trying to find bars without ladyboys, strippers, or prostitutes. Since we were all hungry we decided to find a random Thai restaurant. The restaurant we went to ended up being great. They put giant pieces of paper on the table and let us draw on it with crayons. The waitress kept joking with us throughout dinner. She told us that we would have to pay her one million Baht in order to write on “her table”. When she brought the bill to us with a Buddhist book underneath I was curious and she told me I could keep it as long as I read it. I did read it and it amounts to a Buddhist version of those pamphlets the Jehovah’s Witness people hand out sometimes in the streets and the train stations in Philadelphia.

After dinner we wandered around some more looking for ‘normal’ bars. We walked back to the hotel where Emily asked reception where we could find a bar “with no ping pong shows and no girls”. After getting directions we walked to another street we hadn’t seen before. It didn’t take long to realize that this street was full of gay bars. Well, there certainly wouldn’t be any girls or ping pong shows here. We drank there a bit, feeling out of place but enjoying the peace, and then went to find a place for karaoke. We did find a place but it was empty, and at 2 A.M. it was getting rather late, so we decided to head back to the hotel.

The following day was a bit of a blur. We visited the royal palace which would have been more interesting if I didn’t have to go to the bathroom so bad during the tour. Even worse, the batteries in my camera died so I took very few pictures. By the time we took the bus back to the port at Laem Chaebang it was early evening and only a few hours from the time we had to be back on the ship. Laem Chaebang is apparently an industrial city and the port did not seem to be near anything. Any hopes I had of having one more spicy Thai meal were quickly dashed when I realized this. Instead I went back to my cabin dreading the next 14 days on board the ship before we reached India. I enjoyed our time in Phuket, it gave me a taste of “adventure travel” and made me look forward to visiting national parks in other countries on our itinerary.