Hola Amigos,
I guess since we are nearing the end of our trip and I still have quite a bit of writing ahead of me if I want to finish all my little (except they aren't so little) updates by the time I get back I should keep bangin em out. So before all y'all even get a chance to catch your breath after reading the last one, bam! I'm hitting you with another long winded account of some trip stuff that I make sound super unique and fun but in reality is exactly what any of you reading this would be doing (or have done) if you were on a trip similar to ours!
In response to some comments on the last update I posted...namely Damien calling me out as a pussy for not writing longer updates, I am going to write as much as I want for this one with no regard for a word limit and zero remorse for any of you readers out there. So sadistic.
So let's get to the meat of it. The last time I left ya Brit and I had just spent the night in Phuket and were catching the ferry to Koh Phi Phi. I was quite worried for the ferry trip cause I didn't know how long it was and I was scared about getting seasick. Especially after our last sea journey to the Similan islands. I was relieved to find that the ferry was a big ass boat that had numerous bathrooms on it. To me, it was heaven. I quickly realized however, that the boat was filled to the brim with tourists and they were all headed to the same place as Brit and I. It was supposed to be low season in Thailand but apparently none of these people got the message. It looked like Brit and I were gonna have to share the island with thousands of other people trumping up and down the beach in their speedos. The nerve of them, coming to the same island as me where I was planning on having a slice of paradise all to myself. How selfish can you get eh?
Once we got to the island we had a bit of an issue getting organized with a hotel. We didn't realize you had to book your place at some desk thing once you got off the boat and then follow a porter guy to your hotel. The whole thing seemed fishy to me, but everyone was doing it so we did as well. The guy leading us took us pretty much as far away from the beach and civilization as possible to an insanely steep hill that led us up to the place we had just booked. He dropped our bags and refused to take them up the hill, despite getting paid to do so along with a tip from us. So we ended up having to trek up there ourselves. Brit got halfway and then quit saying that I should go on ahead and see if it's really nice and if it wasn't we were going somewhere else. So I trudged up this hill solo only to find some dodgy looking bamboo huts that looked none to appealing. I huffed back down and we opted to stay in another bamboo hut place nearby but not up a million mile vertical incline. This involved me having to run around cancelling and re-booking the new place.
After that ordeal we were excited to hit the beach. I was really geared up cause everyone I had talked too that had been to Thailand hyped up the islands on this coast to be waaaaay nicer than the islands of Koh Tao, and Koh Phangan which were on the other coast. We got to the beach only to be disappointed. Now don't get me wrong here, the beaches were pretty nice, but they were filled with trash from all the tourists and the water was murky from numerous longtail boats ripping around and hundreds of people swimming all over the place. Made me a bit sad for leaving the other islands in such a rush like we did and also a bit tithered at my friends and fam for telling me to not screw around on the Gulf Coast and head over to the Andaman Coast as quick as I could. Despite this Brit and I had an enjoyable day lounging on the beach. It still beats school or work...
The island itself was pretty cool cause all the restaurants and shops are 100% devoted to tourists. So you can get cheap stuff and cheap food. Again, Brit and I drank unheard of amounts of smoothies. We went out that night to a bar that was showing a flick on their big projection screen. We got to sit around while a bunch of hippies smoked weed filling the place with smoke. They all left when the movie started, thank god. We ran into Mark and Rach again as they came to enjoy the film as well. The film was "The Inbetweeners" which both of them hyped up super hard as hilarious British comedy, which needless to say is entirely my thing.......(needed extra periods to emphasize my sarcasm). The flick ended up being fairly decent, an English version of American Pie. After the show we parted ways and Brit and I ended up going down to the beach to party. All the bars on the beach go off hard at night. They all have fire spinning shows which Con and Clayton would be immensely proud of, and they all got dance floors blaring music at decibels that would make you go deaf if you stayed too long. We danced the night away with kids that looked like they were barely out of high school. If you want to feel old go to Thailand and stay up late partying. I'm pretty sure the average age of the kids we were partyin with was 17.
The following day we headed out on a little snorkel trip to some of the other more hard to reach beaches around the island. It was pretty fun as we got to escape the hordes of tourists momentarily. We went to a beach where monkeys hang out and they enjoyed jumping outta the trees and into the water. It was cool to swim around for a bit with some monkeys but also freaky cause those things are so damn unpredictable! Little creepy human-like brains, freaks me out. We also got to head to the beach from the movie "The Beach" with Leo DiCaprio. It is really hyped up in Thailand for some reason which I don't really understand. The movie was ok but I never really felt the need to go to the place they filmed it. Their are other films I liked a lot more and I, nor anyone else really feels the desire to check out the film locations. Like you never hear anyone say "Man, let's go check out this club Austin Powers goes to in the movie!" Nor does the club feel the need to advertise the fact Austin Powers was filmed there. For some odd reason though everyone wants to go to this beach and everyone always asks "Did you check out the beach from The Beach!?" Strange...That being said, the beach was just ok. Looked nicer in the movie.
That evening we headed to the beach bars again, and enroute we ran into a guy feeding a monkey chocolate milk. He asked if we wanted to have the monkey on our heads and we obviously said yes. It was really cool and was the first monkey I have ever had sit on me. It had weird grabby hands and wore a diaper. After that we got some drinks and enjoyed the fire dancers. Then all of a sudden Brit got up and said she had to run to the bathroom. She did and came back in a bit asking for the room key. I didn't really know what was up and she wouldn't tell me. Eventually I got it out of her that she had to take a poo real bad in there and did so before checking the toilet paper status, which was that there was no toilet paper. So she had to run all the way back to our cabin with a pooey butt. I love when that stuff happens to her and not me. Especially cause she loves making me sound like a big puss and exaggerate my sickness to everyone back home. Pretty much every single time we talk to her parents or her friends they refer to me as "Diarrhea Dan" or ask how sick I am. She's made it seem like I just have a constant stream of diarrhea coming out my butt which is not true!
So after that I'm sure we did some other stuff but I can't really remember. The next thing I remember from Thailand was catching the boat to our next island stop which was Koh Lanta. I was excited for it cause people were hyping it (especially my parents) as being a nicer and quieter version of Koh Phi Phi. When we got there though I was very disappointed. The place we checked into was a straight up hippie commune with a buncha long haired weirdo's sitting around smoking weed. I realize lots of my friends have long hair and smoke weed but seriously hippies are grubby and shitty and I hate them. I mean c'mon people get it together and do something other than smoking weed and look proper. Christ. We bailed outta that place after one night (the beach there was shit anyways) and checked into a much nicer hotel with a pool for around the same price. The beach was also nicer there, but still not nearly what I was led to believe. It was low season on the island so there were no other tourists which was kinda nice but it also meant that everything was closed and the weather was miserable. We only spent a couple more nights there lounging by the pool and eating at the same restaurant before bailing out.
Next on the list of places to go was Krabi. We headed to an area called Railay beach and got a bungalow there which was way back in the woods. Not exactly what I had in mind but the places on the beach were millionaire Sean Cromie status. The reason we came to Krabi was to hit the rock climbing on the ocean rock formations that jut up outta the sea. My brother's girlfriend Kara swore by it and gave me loot to go so I really felt obligated to give it a shot despite not being much of a rock climber. I think my only rock climbing experience came on a grade 6 field trip to a climbing center back when I was a real fatty so I could probably only get up like 3 feet.
The girls weren't into the climbing so Mark and I set out on the tour with some other experienced climbers. I was real nervous cause everyone on the boat were experienced climbers so it was just gonna be Mark and I with no experience, but then Mark goes ahead and shows up with his own climbing shoes all chalked up and ready to go! Jesus, I was 100% sure I was gonna make a fool of myself. I also haven't mentioned that Mark is a life coach back at home and also a personal trainer. Dude is all about fitness. Apparently being a life coach means keeping people healthy and helping them kick bad/abusive habits but I prefer to imagine Mark busting in peoples doors at 6am yelling at them to get outta bed, standing over them as they cook saying they need more veggies, shouting at them in the passenger seat of a car to drive the speed limit, informing them on proper dress, screaming at them to get more done at work, you know that sorta thing. It makes his job seem more funny to me when I think of it like this. So yea, now you all have an idea of the forces I was up against in the climbing department. Mr. Fitness and a group of several experienced climbers and to top it off our guide found out I was from the Okanagan in Canada and knew that there is lots of cliff jumping there so he was expecting big things from me. I guess I haven't elaborated on this rock climbing. We were doing a bit different style than normal climbing. It's called Solo Climbing and you just go into the ocean on these tall rock pillars that rise hundreds of meters out of the ocean and climb up those with no ropes or harness. So if you fall you fall and flail into the churning water below. If you're a good climber though you make it up pretty high and then jump off (you don't go right to the top of these rock pillars cause that is kill you if you jump height). We got to the place and everyone headed up the rocks. I had some trouble at first but so did lots of others but despite this I actually managed to make it to the highest peak on the first little area we went too. It was funny cause even though these people were good climbers once they got to the top part (only about 30 or 40 feet) they were super scared to jump. Even Mark was glued to the rocks before he hyped himself up enough to jump. I didn't really have a problem with it, I guess cause I was used to jumping off cliffs back at home and did it a few times. Not trying to make myself sound like a badass or anything cause these cliffs weren't super high, they were shit that most of my buds back at home would be doing flips off of and calling me a pussy for just straight jumping them.
We went to a couple other spots that were progressively harder and I managed to make it to fairly high spots on each of them. There was only one dude that could get higher than me (some of his other rock climbing buddies had bailed out and went back home) and he was like fucking Spiderman on those rocks! Speaking of which the new Spidey movie comes out soon, you should go see it. The last spot we went too only Spiderman, two girls and myself made it up.Ol' Marky Mark just couldn't cut it. Guess those climbing shoes of his need some more breakin in! Once we got up there one of the girls was too scared to jump and the guide had to climb up and bring her down. The spot we got to was pretty high and even I was a bit nervous for it. Once the girl jumped though I had to so I just sent it. I believe the height was 25 meters which is about 80 feet. Pretty high in my books and I was feeling pretty good bout jumping it till the guide climbed up there and hucked a backy off it like it was nothin!
The rest of our days in Krabi we spent em laying on the nice beaches there and having food and drinks with Mark and Rach. It was pretty uneventful other than the climbing but the relax time was exactly what we were searching for. After a few nights there we went the main town area on a little boat ride with Mark and Rach. Mark had been away for an entire year and had not gotten his friends of family any gifts and left it all till the last goddam day. We spent the day shopping and he kept picking stuff up and bargaining for it but then wouldn't buy anything. All he ended up getting was a little Thai ball thing and a T-shirt. Both for himself. He decided that a few Toblerones from the airport would be sufficient presents after being in several exotic locations over the past year. A real gent. We said our goodbyes to our friends and watched them hop on the bus to the airport. After a month or so of travelling with them, Brit and I were stuck with just each other again...
After spending another night in Krabi, Brit and I realized we had like 4 or 5 nights left in Thailand and didn't really know where to go. We really didn't want to go to Phuket cause everyone said to avoid it cause it is super touristy and sleazy. Brit wanted to pet a tiger though and in the area that was the only place to do it. So we packed up and headed to sleazeville.
We got there and checked into a cool hotel with a pool and all and headed out into the streets. The place was super built up and touristy, but that is pretty much the way it is all over Thailand so it was nothing new. I can't really remember the order of things in Phuket so this is all probably gonna be outta order but oh well. We did some last minute shopping for souvenirs and found Phuket was the cheapest place to get stuff other than in Bangkok which was cool. I think I bought some stuff but I'm not sure. I know Brit did. We went to the strip during the night when they shut down the streets to traffic and it is completely insane. Thousands of people fill the streets and all the bars are open to the streets with half naked women dancing up on the bars for everyone to see. There are probably a million bars on the street and all of them have workers trying to usher you in to see one of the "Sex Shows". We opted not to go to one of these on the first night. We did however find another guy with a little monkey that he put on our heads and let us hold. It was a tiny baby lemur that was awesome. The following day we headed to Phuket Zoo to pet the tigers. The Zoo itself was rugged, the pens were all nasty and ill equipped for the animals they were keeping there. Pretty sad to see and we both felt bad paying money to support the place. We did get to sit with a tiger though and got to pet him which was cool. Unlike lots of the places in Thailand where they drug the tigers to be docile ours was very lively so I don't think he was doped up. He was on a chain though and the tiger keeper guy had to constantly get the tigers attention so it didn't try to eat us. The tiger fur was not as soft as I expected and it seemed huge when sitting next to it. We also got some cool pictures with an Orangutan who gave us hugs and kisses and posed with sunnies on. The zoo also had several shows we saw including a monkey show were one of the monkeys lifted weights like a badass, dunked on a basketball hoop and drank juice boxes (which I thought was awesome but I don't think it was actually part of the show, he was just getting fed). The other shows were a crocodile show and an elephant show where the elephants played instruments and painted pictures. Pretty cool.
That evening we decided to not be wimps and check out one of the sex shows. Some of you reading this will be all like "Sex tourism is bad and blah blah blah, wah wah" and I agree with you but since I had already done several shameless activities on this trip (going on elephant treks where they hit the elephants, sitting with a chained up tiger, paying pennies to locals doing work they should be getting much more for, etc) I figured we would continue on our path to hell and check it out. So all you people who think I'm a dick for this (I had one girl get offended that I watched a sex show already) can talk shit on me behind my back and try to convince yourselves you wouldn't do the same if you were in my situation. You people are probably the same ones who would ask me if I went to a ping-pong show in Thailand and then be bummed if I said no and didn't have a good story. Anyways, now that's all outta the way I'll get down to details!
I did a bit of convincing with Brit to go which was mainly me telling her that the first thing anyone was going to ask her about Thailand and they would be all like "awwwwwwww man!" if she said she was too wuss. So we picked a bar and headed in. The touts trying to get you in to these shows all promise that it's free to watch as long as you get a drink so we figured we'd get one drink and then bail after watching for a minute. The people were telling the truth and the show had no admission charges but what they don't inform you off is that a goddam Coke costs $30! We each got an insanely pricey drink and decided that since we paid so much we were gonna watch the whole show and get some bang for our buck! The show started off with the girls coming out and dancing naked then getting some guys on stage. They took the dudes shirts off (one guy was a 20 something year old American kid and the other was a ready to die year old Asian man) and wrapped their bottoms in towels. They then went under the towels and came out holding the guys shorts and undies. The laid the guys down with the towels on and then proceeded to rub their naked bodies all over the dudes. It was a very weird thing to watch. The girls actually sat on the guys faces and rubbed their naked butts and vag's in the guys noses. They did this for awhile and when they were done they ripped the towels away without giving the guys notice. The kid had a stiff woody pokin up in the air but thankfully the old man still had some undies on so we didn't see him naked. Everyone got a good laugh out of that.
Next an assortment of girls came out doing an assortment of strange things with their vaginas. One of them kept sticking an egg up there and then shooting it out right in front of your face. Very gross. She then put it up there and bashed her stomach against the ground and shot out broken egg bits. Another girl came with a flute and played songs with her vag and blew out candles on a birthday cake. A third girl drank a bottle of Coke with her naughty bits and another one shot ping pong balls out of there. All of it was real gnarly and made me feel weird. Brit was laughing and having a good time but I felt so slimy and had to get outta there, so we bailed before the show was finished.
Next day we took a Thai cooking class and learned to cook all the delicious stuff we'd been eating over the past couple months. It was fun and our teacher was insane and hyper singing songs and making us sing and dance the whole time. Other stuff that happened in Phuket included going to see The Avengers, doing more shopping, eating junk food and watching break dancers. We had one fun night that entailed Brit locking all our important stuff like passports, wallets, etc. in the hotel room safe and forgetting the password. We had to get the front desk lady to come get it open and while she was doing this the 60 year old white dude in the room next to ours starts railin his Thai prostitute. The girl was screamin like it was the best sex she'd ever had and the guy was moaning like he was gonna keel over and die at any moment. It made for a pretty awkward time while Brit, the front desk lady and I all pretended not to hear it and act like nothing was going on while she worked on the safe trying to get it open.
So despite everyone hating on Phuket and saying to steer clear, both Brit and I ended up having a really good time. I think it was actually one of my favorite stops of the entire trip. I guess I just gotta not take people's advice cause the things they hype up end up sucking and the things they hate I end up loving!
So that's all she wrote for Thailand, I'm pretty sure I got it all, if not Brit will read this and be like "WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT THAT IN!!!" Like she has for all my other blogs. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Which is a whole bunch so you best love it! I only got a short time left before I gotta leave my travels and come back home. So keep enjoying your time away from me cause soon it will all be over and I'll be visiting you again and you'll all be like "Christ...is Dan actually coming over again!?" See you soon my friends and family.
Love to all of you.
- Dan Hutchinson, the forgotten Rat.
Ps. Brit and I just remember a funny story that involved me getting sick. As we were leaving Phuket towards the airport on our little shuttle bus my stomach started to churn violently. The ride was like an hour long and about 15 minutes in I started to feel it. I only lasted about 10 more minutes before I started sweating, getting really itchy and red hot. I dunno why my body reacts this way all the time cause I never get it when I am at home. It's like my stomach knows I'm on a bus and decides to fuck me. So I made it about 10 more minutes and I told Brit she had to get the bus driver to stop (I always get her to stop the bus for two reasons. 1, because it's embarrassing and 2, because I don't feel like I can talk when I have to poo really bad. It's like if I try to talk I'll crap my pants. Weird, I know). So she asks the driver to stop and he fucking says no! All the other passengers have planes to catch so we couldn't stop. She asked again and said it was an emergency but he still kept saying no. I had to hold it for another half hour till we got to the airport and I thought it was the end. I was running through it in my mind what it was going to be like to shit my pants on a bus in front of my girlfriend and lots of strangers. Thankfully though my visions didn't come to fruition and I made it off the bus. I ran into the airport and upon entering had to go through security. I hucked my bag down and ran through the detector then ran to the bathroom. I made it just in time but quickly realized I had forgotten my bag just sitting there after putting it down for security. Since it had my passport, our camera and lots of other valuables in it I freaked out and ran back to check on it with my pants undone and poo on my butt. Luckily though Brit had picked it up and I got to go back to the bathroom. I spent alot of time in there waiting for our plane...so close to making it through Thailand without getting the runs. So close.
I guess since we are nearing the end of our trip and I still have quite a bit of writing ahead of me if I want to finish all my little (except they aren't so little) updates by the time I get back I should keep bangin em out. So before all y'all even get a chance to catch your breath after reading the last one, bam! I'm hitting you with another long winded account of some trip stuff that I make sound super unique and fun but in reality is exactly what any of you reading this would be doing (or have done) if you were on a trip similar to ours!
In response to some comments on the last update I posted...namely Damien calling me out as a pussy for not writing longer updates, I am going to write as much as I want for this one with no regard for a word limit and zero remorse for any of you readers out there. So sadistic.
So let's get to the meat of it. The last time I left ya Brit and I had just spent the night in Phuket and were catching the ferry to Koh Phi Phi. I was quite worried for the ferry trip cause I didn't know how long it was and I was scared about getting seasick. Especially after our last sea journey to the Similan islands. I was relieved to find that the ferry was a big ass boat that had numerous bathrooms on it. To me, it was heaven. I quickly realized however, that the boat was filled to the brim with tourists and they were all headed to the same place as Brit and I. It was supposed to be low season in Thailand but apparently none of these people got the message. It looked like Brit and I were gonna have to share the island with thousands of other people trumping up and down the beach in their speedos. The nerve of them, coming to the same island as me where I was planning on having a slice of paradise all to myself. How selfish can you get eh?
Once we got to the island we had a bit of an issue getting organized with a hotel. We didn't realize you had to book your place at some desk thing once you got off the boat and then follow a porter guy to your hotel. The whole thing seemed fishy to me, but everyone was doing it so we did as well. The guy leading us took us pretty much as far away from the beach and civilization as possible to an insanely steep hill that led us up to the place we had just booked. He dropped our bags and refused to take them up the hill, despite getting paid to do so along with a tip from us. So we ended up having to trek up there ourselves. Brit got halfway and then quit saying that I should go on ahead and see if it's really nice and if it wasn't we were going somewhere else. So I trudged up this hill solo only to find some dodgy looking bamboo huts that looked none to appealing. I huffed back down and we opted to stay in another bamboo hut place nearby but not up a million mile vertical incline. This involved me having to run around cancelling and re-booking the new place.
After that ordeal we were excited to hit the beach. I was really geared up cause everyone I had talked too that had been to Thailand hyped up the islands on this coast to be waaaaay nicer than the islands of Koh Tao, and Koh Phangan which were on the other coast. We got to the beach only to be disappointed. Now don't get me wrong here, the beaches were pretty nice, but they were filled with trash from all the tourists and the water was murky from numerous longtail boats ripping around and hundreds of people swimming all over the place. Made me a bit sad for leaving the other islands in such a rush like we did and also a bit tithered at my friends and fam for telling me to not screw around on the Gulf Coast and head over to the Andaman Coast as quick as I could. Despite this Brit and I had an enjoyable day lounging on the beach. It still beats school or work...
The island itself was pretty cool cause all the restaurants and shops are 100% devoted to tourists. So you can get cheap stuff and cheap food. Again, Brit and I drank unheard of amounts of smoothies. We went out that night to a bar that was showing a flick on their big projection screen. We got to sit around while a bunch of hippies smoked weed filling the place with smoke. They all left when the movie started, thank god. We ran into Mark and Rach again as they came to enjoy the film as well. The film was "The Inbetweeners" which both of them hyped up super hard as hilarious British comedy, which needless to say is entirely my thing.......(needed extra periods to emphasize my sarcasm). The flick ended up being fairly decent, an English version of American Pie. After the show we parted ways and Brit and I ended up going down to the beach to party. All the bars on the beach go off hard at night. They all have fire spinning shows which Con and Clayton would be immensely proud of, and they all got dance floors blaring music at decibels that would make you go deaf if you stayed too long. We danced the night away with kids that looked like they were barely out of high school. If you want to feel old go to Thailand and stay up late partying. I'm pretty sure the average age of the kids we were partyin with was 17.
The following day we headed out on a little snorkel trip to some of the other more hard to reach beaches around the island. It was pretty fun as we got to escape the hordes of tourists momentarily. We went to a beach where monkeys hang out and they enjoyed jumping outta the trees and into the water. It was cool to swim around for a bit with some monkeys but also freaky cause those things are so damn unpredictable! Little creepy human-like brains, freaks me out. We also got to head to the beach from the movie "The Beach" with Leo DiCaprio. It is really hyped up in Thailand for some reason which I don't really understand. The movie was ok but I never really felt the need to go to the place they filmed it. Their are other films I liked a lot more and I, nor anyone else really feels the desire to check out the film locations. Like you never hear anyone say "Man, let's go check out this club Austin Powers goes to in the movie!" Nor does the club feel the need to advertise the fact Austin Powers was filmed there. For some odd reason though everyone wants to go to this beach and everyone always asks "Did you check out the beach from The Beach!?" Strange...That being said, the beach was just ok. Looked nicer in the movie.
That evening we headed to the beach bars again, and enroute we ran into a guy feeding a monkey chocolate milk. He asked if we wanted to have the monkey on our heads and we obviously said yes. It was really cool and was the first monkey I have ever had sit on me. It had weird grabby hands and wore a diaper. After that we got some drinks and enjoyed the fire dancers. Then all of a sudden Brit got up and said she had to run to the bathroom. She did and came back in a bit asking for the room key. I didn't really know what was up and she wouldn't tell me. Eventually I got it out of her that she had to take a poo real bad in there and did so before checking the toilet paper status, which was that there was no toilet paper. So she had to run all the way back to our cabin with a pooey butt. I love when that stuff happens to her and not me. Especially cause she loves making me sound like a big puss and exaggerate my sickness to everyone back home. Pretty much every single time we talk to her parents or her friends they refer to me as "Diarrhea Dan" or ask how sick I am. She's made it seem like I just have a constant stream of diarrhea coming out my butt which is not true!
So after that I'm sure we did some other stuff but I can't really remember. The next thing I remember from Thailand was catching the boat to our next island stop which was Koh Lanta. I was excited for it cause people were hyping it (especially my parents) as being a nicer and quieter version of Koh Phi Phi. When we got there though I was very disappointed. The place we checked into was a straight up hippie commune with a buncha long haired weirdo's sitting around smoking weed. I realize lots of my friends have long hair and smoke weed but seriously hippies are grubby and shitty and I hate them. I mean c'mon people get it together and do something other than smoking weed and look proper. Christ. We bailed outta that place after one night (the beach there was shit anyways) and checked into a much nicer hotel with a pool for around the same price. The beach was also nicer there, but still not nearly what I was led to believe. It was low season on the island so there were no other tourists which was kinda nice but it also meant that everything was closed and the weather was miserable. We only spent a couple more nights there lounging by the pool and eating at the same restaurant before bailing out.
Next on the list of places to go was Krabi. We headed to an area called Railay beach and got a bungalow there which was way back in the woods. Not exactly what I had in mind but the places on the beach were millionaire Sean Cromie status. The reason we came to Krabi was to hit the rock climbing on the ocean rock formations that jut up outta the sea. My brother's girlfriend Kara swore by it and gave me loot to go so I really felt obligated to give it a shot despite not being much of a rock climber. I think my only rock climbing experience came on a grade 6 field trip to a climbing center back when I was a real fatty so I could probably only get up like 3 feet.
The girls weren't into the climbing so Mark and I set out on the tour with some other experienced climbers. I was real nervous cause everyone on the boat were experienced climbers so it was just gonna be Mark and I with no experience, but then Mark goes ahead and shows up with his own climbing shoes all chalked up and ready to go! Jesus, I was 100% sure I was gonna make a fool of myself. I also haven't mentioned that Mark is a life coach back at home and also a personal trainer. Dude is all about fitness. Apparently being a life coach means keeping people healthy and helping them kick bad/abusive habits but I prefer to imagine Mark busting in peoples doors at 6am yelling at them to get outta bed, standing over them as they cook saying they need more veggies, shouting at them in the passenger seat of a car to drive the speed limit, informing them on proper dress, screaming at them to get more done at work, you know that sorta thing. It makes his job seem more funny to me when I think of it like this. So yea, now you all have an idea of the forces I was up against in the climbing department. Mr. Fitness and a group of several experienced climbers and to top it off our guide found out I was from the Okanagan in Canada and knew that there is lots of cliff jumping there so he was expecting big things from me. I guess I haven't elaborated on this rock climbing. We were doing a bit different style than normal climbing. It's called Solo Climbing and you just go into the ocean on these tall rock pillars that rise hundreds of meters out of the ocean and climb up those with no ropes or harness. So if you fall you fall and flail into the churning water below. If you're a good climber though you make it up pretty high and then jump off (you don't go right to the top of these rock pillars cause that is kill you if you jump height). We got to the place and everyone headed up the rocks. I had some trouble at first but so did lots of others but despite this I actually managed to make it to the highest peak on the first little area we went too. It was funny cause even though these people were good climbers once they got to the top part (only about 30 or 40 feet) they were super scared to jump. Even Mark was glued to the rocks before he hyped himself up enough to jump. I didn't really have a problem with it, I guess cause I was used to jumping off cliffs back at home and did it a few times. Not trying to make myself sound like a badass or anything cause these cliffs weren't super high, they were shit that most of my buds back at home would be doing flips off of and calling me a pussy for just straight jumping them.
We went to a couple other spots that were progressively harder and I managed to make it to fairly high spots on each of them. There was only one dude that could get higher than me (some of his other rock climbing buddies had bailed out and went back home) and he was like fucking Spiderman on those rocks! Speaking of which the new Spidey movie comes out soon, you should go see it. The last spot we went too only Spiderman, two girls and myself made it up.Ol' Marky Mark just couldn't cut it. Guess those climbing shoes of his need some more breakin in! Once we got up there one of the girls was too scared to jump and the guide had to climb up and bring her down. The spot we got to was pretty high and even I was a bit nervous for it. Once the girl jumped though I had to so I just sent it. I believe the height was 25 meters which is about 80 feet. Pretty high in my books and I was feeling pretty good bout jumping it till the guide climbed up there and hucked a backy off it like it was nothin!
The rest of our days in Krabi we spent em laying on the nice beaches there and having food and drinks with Mark and Rach. It was pretty uneventful other than the climbing but the relax time was exactly what we were searching for. After a few nights there we went the main town area on a little boat ride with Mark and Rach. Mark had been away for an entire year and had not gotten his friends of family any gifts and left it all till the last goddam day. We spent the day shopping and he kept picking stuff up and bargaining for it but then wouldn't buy anything. All he ended up getting was a little Thai ball thing and a T-shirt. Both for himself. He decided that a few Toblerones from the airport would be sufficient presents after being in several exotic locations over the past year. A real gent. We said our goodbyes to our friends and watched them hop on the bus to the airport. After a month or so of travelling with them, Brit and I were stuck with just each other again...
After spending another night in Krabi, Brit and I realized we had like 4 or 5 nights left in Thailand and didn't really know where to go. We really didn't want to go to Phuket cause everyone said to avoid it cause it is super touristy and sleazy. Brit wanted to pet a tiger though and in the area that was the only place to do it. So we packed up and headed to sleazeville.
We got there and checked into a cool hotel with a pool and all and headed out into the streets. The place was super built up and touristy, but that is pretty much the way it is all over Thailand so it was nothing new. I can't really remember the order of things in Phuket so this is all probably gonna be outta order but oh well. We did some last minute shopping for souvenirs and found Phuket was the cheapest place to get stuff other than in Bangkok which was cool. I think I bought some stuff but I'm not sure. I know Brit did. We went to the strip during the night when they shut down the streets to traffic and it is completely insane. Thousands of people fill the streets and all the bars are open to the streets with half naked women dancing up on the bars for everyone to see. There are probably a million bars on the street and all of them have workers trying to usher you in to see one of the "Sex Shows". We opted not to go to one of these on the first night. We did however find another guy with a little monkey that he put on our heads and let us hold. It was a tiny baby lemur that was awesome. The following day we headed to Phuket Zoo to pet the tigers. The Zoo itself was rugged, the pens were all nasty and ill equipped for the animals they were keeping there. Pretty sad to see and we both felt bad paying money to support the place. We did get to sit with a tiger though and got to pet him which was cool. Unlike lots of the places in Thailand where they drug the tigers to be docile ours was very lively so I don't think he was doped up. He was on a chain though and the tiger keeper guy had to constantly get the tigers attention so it didn't try to eat us. The tiger fur was not as soft as I expected and it seemed huge when sitting next to it. We also got some cool pictures with an Orangutan who gave us hugs and kisses and posed with sunnies on. The zoo also had several shows we saw including a monkey show were one of the monkeys lifted weights like a badass, dunked on a basketball hoop and drank juice boxes (which I thought was awesome but I don't think it was actually part of the show, he was just getting fed). The other shows were a crocodile show and an elephant show where the elephants played instruments and painted pictures. Pretty cool.
That evening we decided to not be wimps and check out one of the sex shows. Some of you reading this will be all like "Sex tourism is bad and blah blah blah, wah wah" and I agree with you but since I had already done several shameless activities on this trip (going on elephant treks where they hit the elephants, sitting with a chained up tiger, paying pennies to locals doing work they should be getting much more for, etc) I figured we would continue on our path to hell and check it out. So all you people who think I'm a dick for this (I had one girl get offended that I watched a sex show already) can talk shit on me behind my back and try to convince yourselves you wouldn't do the same if you were in my situation. You people are probably the same ones who would ask me if I went to a ping-pong show in Thailand and then be bummed if I said no and didn't have a good story. Anyways, now that's all outta the way I'll get down to details!
I did a bit of convincing with Brit to go which was mainly me telling her that the first thing anyone was going to ask her about Thailand and they would be all like "awwwwwwww man!" if she said she was too wuss. So we picked a bar and headed in. The touts trying to get you in to these shows all promise that it's free to watch as long as you get a drink so we figured we'd get one drink and then bail after watching for a minute. The people were telling the truth and the show had no admission charges but what they don't inform you off is that a goddam Coke costs $30! We each got an insanely pricey drink and decided that since we paid so much we were gonna watch the whole show and get some bang for our buck! The show started off with the girls coming out and dancing naked then getting some guys on stage. They took the dudes shirts off (one guy was a 20 something year old American kid and the other was a ready to die year old Asian man) and wrapped their bottoms in towels. They then went under the towels and came out holding the guys shorts and undies. The laid the guys down with the towels on and then proceeded to rub their naked bodies all over the dudes. It was a very weird thing to watch. The girls actually sat on the guys faces and rubbed their naked butts and vag's in the guys noses. They did this for awhile and when they were done they ripped the towels away without giving the guys notice. The kid had a stiff woody pokin up in the air but thankfully the old man still had some undies on so we didn't see him naked. Everyone got a good laugh out of that.
Next an assortment of girls came out doing an assortment of strange things with their vaginas. One of them kept sticking an egg up there and then shooting it out right in front of your face. Very gross. She then put it up there and bashed her stomach against the ground and shot out broken egg bits. Another girl came with a flute and played songs with her vag and blew out candles on a birthday cake. A third girl drank a bottle of Coke with her naughty bits and another one shot ping pong balls out of there. All of it was real gnarly and made me feel weird. Brit was laughing and having a good time but I felt so slimy and had to get outta there, so we bailed before the show was finished.
Next day we took a Thai cooking class and learned to cook all the delicious stuff we'd been eating over the past couple months. It was fun and our teacher was insane and hyper singing songs and making us sing and dance the whole time. Other stuff that happened in Phuket included going to see The Avengers, doing more shopping, eating junk food and watching break dancers. We had one fun night that entailed Brit locking all our important stuff like passports, wallets, etc. in the hotel room safe and forgetting the password. We had to get the front desk lady to come get it open and while she was doing this the 60 year old white dude in the room next to ours starts railin his Thai prostitute. The girl was screamin like it was the best sex she'd ever had and the guy was moaning like he was gonna keel over and die at any moment. It made for a pretty awkward time while Brit, the front desk lady and I all pretended not to hear it and act like nothing was going on while she worked on the safe trying to get it open.
So despite everyone hating on Phuket and saying to steer clear, both Brit and I ended up having a really good time. I think it was actually one of my favorite stops of the entire trip. I guess I just gotta not take people's advice cause the things they hype up end up sucking and the things they hate I end up loving!
So that's all she wrote for Thailand, I'm pretty sure I got it all, if not Brit will read this and be like "WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT THAT IN!!!" Like she has for all my other blogs. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Which is a whole bunch so you best love it! I only got a short time left before I gotta leave my travels and come back home. So keep enjoying your time away from me cause soon it will all be over and I'll be visiting you again and you'll all be like "Christ...is Dan actually coming over again!?" See you soon my friends and family.
Love to all of you.
- Dan Hutchinson, the forgotten Rat.
Ps. Brit and I just remember a funny story that involved me getting sick. As we were leaving Phuket towards the airport on our little shuttle bus my stomach started to churn violently. The ride was like an hour long and about 15 minutes in I started to feel it. I only lasted about 10 more minutes before I started sweating, getting really itchy and red hot. I dunno why my body reacts this way all the time cause I never get it when I am at home. It's like my stomach knows I'm on a bus and decides to fuck me. So I made it about 10 more minutes and I told Brit she had to get the bus driver to stop (I always get her to stop the bus for two reasons. 1, because it's embarrassing and 2, because I don't feel like I can talk when I have to poo really bad. It's like if I try to talk I'll crap my pants. Weird, I know). So she asks the driver to stop and he fucking says no! All the other passengers have planes to catch so we couldn't stop. She asked again and said it was an emergency but he still kept saying no. I had to hold it for another half hour till we got to the airport and I thought it was the end. I was running through it in my mind what it was going to be like to shit my pants on a bus in front of my girlfriend and lots of strangers. Thankfully though my visions didn't come to fruition and I made it off the bus. I ran into the airport and upon entering had to go through security. I hucked my bag down and ran through the detector then ran to the bathroom. I made it just in time but quickly realized I had forgotten my bag just sitting there after putting it down for security. Since it had my passport, our camera and lots of other valuables in it I freaked out and ran back to check on it with my pants undone and poo on my butt. Luckily though Brit had picked it up and I got to go back to the bathroom. I spent alot of time in there waiting for our plane...so close to making it through Thailand without getting the runs. So close.
