Year Of The Dragon On Lonely Beach

Chinese new years looked to be a big deal. There were posters and pamphlets being handed out every were for the dragon party at the beach in front of our huts. The Dirt Squirrels and had a bus booked for the morning and decided it prudent to just stay up all night. Drinking at the Siam Hut I ran into a Danish, German and British posse I had met the night before. They introduce introduced us to some other people and soon we had a proper crew. We sat on the Thai pillows on the floor around miniature tables and talked. Tyler and Damian were not drinking and hadn't for a few nights. I was starting to get concerned. The music pounded on from the beach DJ stage but the showing was poor. Around 2 am the music stopped. Our crew rolled out looking for the mythical "other party." We got to the Lonely Beach strip and soon found out that there was no other party. defeated we headed back to the beach huts.

Almost home I had an idea. "All travelers must stop", I bellowed into the night. Our strung out line of disappointed friends stopped and from the side of the road turned to me. I prepared to myself for the epic speech I felt brewing inside. "This is a convenience store." I shouted. "They sell liquor. We party on the beach!" I was for at least a slow clap and though it never came the idea was well received. So organized our liquid picnic with cups, 2 6 of shitty Thai rum, mix and some magnums of Shinga beer.

We found a table under a light on the beach that promised to aid us mission. Drinks were poured and I started I started the toasts. "To the lost, the wayward, we intrepid travelers. The best fucking people on earth." That one did better then a slow clap. We took to swimming and the Alberta girl to her credit went in the buff. Just out of the water we barely had time to take a drink when it it started to spit rain. I had enough time to run to my hut and put away the camera gear before the sky opened up and poured rain. I got back to the beach where they had found beach umbrellas behind a tree. We huddled under the umbrellas cursing our bad luck. Finally one of the guys said "fuck it" and ran off diving into the ocean. Everyone followed. We laughed and splashed, and made noise for the sake of making noise. I pioneered the much needed emergency float system, periodically running drills by shouting "float" and then laughing as 80 toes bobbed to the surface. A silence eventually took the group as we watched, listened and felt the rain splash into the ocean. "Is this actually happening?" asked one of the girls. The group smiled and nodded agreement with the sentiment.

I tend to travel and live on the ridiculous side, with no belief in or want for perfect, but I think that night with two Dirt Squirrels, a pack international randoms, little plastic cups and shitty Thai Rum, that we came pretty damn close.         

Trekking Part 2

After our elephant rides everyone except the Dirt Squirrels showered up and ate. Damian and I moved some furniture in the open bar so that the eight from our group and two British girls from another tour could all sit around. We quickly decided that we needed a drinking game to start the night out and not so quickly decided which game. The final conclusion was Never Have I Ever. Someone says "Never have I ever __________", and if you have done that deed you to take a drink. We bonded over Chang beer and realizations that we were all bunch of disgusting, amoral, perverts. The bar ran on an honor system and the sheet to mark down what you had drunk filled up fast. The bottle of Hong Thong mystery liquor I had brought on the trek was disappearing fast. Our guide seemed to like me... a lot, so a new rule was added to the game. Every time your guide touches you and you feel awkward you take a drink. I vaguely remember slurring that "This will be funny till it's not." With everyone well liquored we powered down the party making the long march up the hill to the longhouse.

Day Two

Simple breakfast, elephant showers in the river and off again. An air conditioned mini bus picked us up at the village. Some of our group said that they had seen Chat, our guide, doing shots at the store across the street just before we pulled out. At our destination our guide talked with some people and then asked us to make sure we had all of our items out of a pickup truck. "Chat, we came in fucking van," someone yelled.

We made a quick hike up to a waterfall that you could slide down the rocks and into the pool below. Chat was getting weirder by the second. He tried to grab me at the waterfall while mumbling incoherently and I snapped a little, slapping his hand away and making some loud and open ended threats in front of a dozen or so travelers from other groups. As we departed the water fall our guide retreated quickly to squat facing a wall to gnaw on a chicken bone.

Some of the girls were getting worried about the making the much longer and harder, next leg of the trek with our drunken guide. I was firstly worried about my physical ability to make it up the mountain and secondly about the very real possibility of Chat touching me again and me throwing him off the mountain. So I did the manly thing and convinced one of the concerned girls that she should get a bike to the village at the top and I would accompany her to make sure she got there safely. The group walked back to the road, chat flagged down a passing scooter, hopped on the back and said, "See you tomorrow" and took off.

I was feeling bad about inconveniencing the group but they seemed more pissed at Chat then me and the other biker. We complained about Chat for a while and discussed just taking off and attempting the trek ourselves. Another guide from the same company as Chat stopped and checked on us and we told him the situation. A lot of the group asked for a new guide but where told that it wasn't possible and that Chat was always drunk and we would be perfectly safe on the trek. So the group waited and bitched and waited some more. Chat finally came back with one scooter and driver and claimed that another would come. The girl who wanted to ride up the mountain refused to go up or stay behind with out me so we waited some more.

For some reason Chat decide it was a good time grab at me again. It looked like an incoming hug at first and then I felt something graze my package. I got a little rough with him. Threats were made feelings were hurt but in the end I left him relatively undamaged, only for the sake of the people who actually wanted to spend four hours climbing up the mountain. Chat made a phone call and got two scooters to come down from the village to get us as our other scooter had got bored of waiting and took off. The trekkers set on their way as Tiff and I waited.

The scooters arrived. My driver seemed a little nervous as I climbed on behind him. I should have known that the ride up would be an ordeal when the other guide had told us that the road up the mountain was to dangerous for trucks. Dust, rocks, and deep ruts were my first impression. My driver couldn't control the bike with me on the back and we drove into a couple of deep ruts and then powered out on a steep incline. We stopped and transferred my twenty five pound camera bag to the other bike and it seemed to give the bike enough relief that we could continue. The drivers feet almost never left the ground as the scooter groaned up the mountain, listing between deep ruts in the road and the sheer cliff. The ride got scarier and I realized that I could steer the bike from the back. Our lines between the rocks, ruts and cliffs became cleaner and we even managed to start in to a couple of the steeper parts in second or third gear. As we summited and entered the village I let out a whoop and my driver cheered as well. The villagers pointed, smiled and shouted as we drove by. I can only guess at what they were saying but it must have been something like, "Holy fuck, look what Bob just brought up the mountain on his scooter!" I paid and tipped my driver for not killing us, bought a pack of cigarettes and a beer and sat down to wait for the the trekkers.

To Be Continued...

My Day Off

Decide to leave the camera in the bag and relax after two solid days of trains, buses and boats. Tyler and I spent the afternoon at the beach, found Damian and sat about some bars for some beers. Didgeridoo's and hand drumming signaled time to switch to buckets of harder stuff. We tried a beach party out but it didn't take. Back on the strip we decided it would be funny to drink at the whore bar. All of the girls were out for the night so we had the run of the place. The owner was a very nice lady named Moulin. Moulin is in her early forties but has only been a lady for the last six years. I played pool against Moulin for a drink. Moulin took great joy in flashing me during difficult shots. I lost. Tyler was still a little skittish about lady boys from his bad Bangkok experience and decided to go home for the night. Damian lost several games of connect four to Moulin before switching to a game similar to Janga. Having access to a very open and friendly lady boy Damian asked every question he could think of. I'm going to give quote of the night to Damian for "There's nothing there, she showed me!" Well informed we moved on to a bar with more people. Ting Tongs fit the bill so we sat at the bar and chatted up the other tourists. Very unfortunately the sun decided to come up. Realizing that the day was pretty much shot I stayed up a little longer had a swim. The end.

Nothing Actualy Blew Up

People from the west keep telling me that Koh San Road was blown up. I was there the morning after the bomb scare and I can assure you it's still in one piece.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/security/275278/pm-assures-public-of-safety

To The Beach

Took a sixteen hour night train from northern Thailand back to Bangkok. The Dirt Squirrels slept through most of it while I drank in the dinning car with a couple of Norwegian guys. I didn't get to say much as yelled stuff at me and over each other for several hours while insisting to buy all my beer. They had been driving motorcycles around northern Thailand for a few weeks and decided that it was time to terrorize the country around it's middle parts. Around four in the morning the train stopped, the bikes were unloaded. Tom and Giller finished their beers, stumbled off the train and drove into the night.

Got into Bangkok at around seven in the morning. We booked a bus to the island of Koh Chang and then drank in Lucky Beer* till noon when our mini bus was ready. *(Lucky Beer is currently the only Dirt Squirrel approved bar in Thailand.) It took us about seven hours to get to the island but I'm sure that five of those hours were spent at gas stations as our propane fueled bus could only mange about thirty meters of travel on a tank. The Squirrels noticed that the person who signed our tickets was named Poo and made appropriate jokes for the better part of two hours. I was suddenly and completely grateful for my three hundred dollar, noise canceling, squirrel proof head phones.

After a short ferry ride we were ready for beach life but couldn't find a place to stay. I took us farther and farther down the island looking for a quiet place I had visited seven years before. We acquired a map and I decided the place I was looking for was Lonely Beach. In route I bored the squirrels with stories of how chill and perfect our destination was with its little huts, beach barbeques and complete lack of amenities. The driver dropped us off and assured me that I was exactly where I had asked to go. Instead of a quiet unlit path to the beach there was a street lined with bar's, restaurants, tattoo parlors and vendors. Shitty dance music came at us from every direction and Thai working girls cat called us from the seedier bars. Seven years is a longtime, welcome to Koh Chang.

Better blog coming,

I know I said I would talk about the trek today but our trekking group went for a steak dinner last night which made six out of the eight of us violently ill. Managed to get to a pharmacy for some antibiotics with out shitting myself or vomiting on anyone. The moral of this story, don't eat western food in Asia.

Trekking Part 1

We picked up our guide in Chiang Mai and rode out into the mountains in the back of a pickup truck. Starting out into the jungle we crossed streams and rice paddies as our guide commented on the amazing foliage. Half an hour into our beginners level jungle walk (as described by out travel agent) we stopped to rest at a stream along a steep bank. Our guide told us to rest up for a bit as we would go up hill for a long time. I quickly realized two things, our travel agent was an asshole and I was in worse shape then I thought. For one hour up a 50 degree slope using steps, created by elephants I wheezed and sweated my way to the top holding on to roots and trees, struggling to get from foothold to foothold. When we would stop to break I would plop down in the dirt not caring how dirty my pants were getting and our guide would come around and fan me and the other girl who was struggling. My self esteem had never been higher.

We eventually summited "Holy Fuck This Sucks" mountain and started down the other side to a little village. Down is awesome. We stopped in the village which had a perfectly good road running through it. We got water and ice cream and then walked across a rice paddy to the Jumbo elephant resort and spa. There were some elephants with chains dragging from their legs a little open air bar next to a pig pen and an elephant dugout. Chickens, ducks and mangy dogs wandered around freely. On the hill a one hundred feet above us was a long thatch roofed building in which we would spend the night.

Leaving no time stop and smell the massive piles of elephant dung we were pushed up a ladder to a raised platform so we could go on our elephant ride. Tyler and I boarded together. The bench seat had a hint of padding and a back rest of three quarter inch square iron. The elephant driver or "mahut" sat lazily on elephant's head. As we started up the rocky hill I understood why the elephant never caught on in mass as a form of personal transportation. Our seat rocked back and forth as the elephant slowly climbed the hill. As Tyler made all sorts of unmanly sounds, I struggled to hold the camera and mono pod straight with out wrecking my back on the iron bar behind or being pitched forward and off the to my certain death. The elephants would stop constantly to eat leaves from the surrounding bush. To get them moving again the mahuts would strike them on the in the forhead head with wooden handled device that looked something like a fire poker. Our elephant was the only one of the group that had tusks and an attitude so we fell behind. At a large cut bank he stopped to eat and refused to move. Finally our mahut gave up, jumped to the bank, bank and left us to fend for ourselves. Tlyer's unmanly sounds intensified and I found a better grip as the elephant decided he wanted some roots out of the bank and took to ripping it up with his tusks. We contemplated jumping by which I mean I encouraged Tyler to jump so I could better secure myself. Fortunately the mahut came back with a bunch of big green leaves which he used to bribe the elephant into moving again before leaping deftly back aboard. Our elephant decide that one more 360 was in order and then took us the rest of the way home with out complaint.

Filming from an elephants back is nearly impossible

Just got back from jungle trekking in Northern Thailand. Very tired. Going to get something to eat and will write more in the morning.

The Reggae cat of the Central Guest House in Bangkok

On of the caretakers of the guest house loves cats. He dressed one up for us today and showed us this video he made.

Reflections from day five

Thailand is a very safe place to travel but... on our second night the Dirt Squirrels were drinking in a street bar against the wall of a monastery. Things were going fine I was talking politics with a Canadian working for the UN and two travelers from the UK, Damian was learning Cambodian from a guy named Wat and Tyler was passed out in the bartender lady's lap on a bench. The party grew and Tyler came back to life. Maybe it was the buckets of whiskey and Red bull or maybe it was just poor moral character but I suddenly decided that I was more interested in Finnish girls then Dirt Squirrels so I left the Damian and Tyler on at the street bar.

The next day I went for a shower at the crack of of 4 pm. The caretaker of the Central guest house told me that the police had called and one of my friends had been drugged and robbed. I automatically assumed Damian. Walking out the door the phone rang again and was passed to me. It was Tyler from the police station. Walking to catch a tuk tuk to the cop shop I just happened to see Damian in an alley talking to a guy selling bus tours.

"Damian" I yelled.

"Oh, hi Tuftin" He replied slowly.

"Have you been to bed yet?" Damian shook his head no. "Are you ok?" He shook his head yes. "Ok whatever, Tyler was drugged and robbed by a lady boy last night and we have to go get him from the tourist police station.

"I think that might have happened to me too, I can't find my debit card."

"Get in the tuk tuk Damian, one fucking crisis at a time."

Driving to police station Damian pointed out the stairs of a monument in the middle of a roundabout that he had slept on during some of the seven hours that he was lost in Bangkok.

Tyler was fine though a little shooken up. He lost a passport, watch, visa and all his cash money after accepting a free beer and coming to no longer on Khoa San road.

I had the boys get on the internet and find numbers and addresses for embassies and
banks. While I went and got them food and drinks. They slept for about fourteen hours and we spent a whole day cabing around Bangkok getting passport photos, police reports and international calling cards.

Tyler's new passport is on the way and we are heading to northern Thailand by night train tomorrow. Damian can't get cash advances off of his Visa despite multiple calls to his bank so he has now become the group's indentured slave. We don't think he was actually robbed.

Everyone is okay and excited to get the fuck out of Bangkok.

Squirrels sleeping on off

Safe in Bangkok. It's noon here and Dirt Squirrels are fast asleep after a big day of planes, tuk tuk's and bucket drinks. The tracker doesn't seem to Bangkok, might be where I have it placed.