M + M TRAVEL ADVENTURES: Ko Pha Ngan and Bangkok!!!

Middle-aged bearded hipster backpacker: “-mumble-mumble-mumble… picture taken…”

Me: (thinking he said “Do you want your picture taken?”) “Sure, sure. Thanks a lot.” (Handing him our camera)

Middle-aged bearded hipster backpacker: “No, sorry. I said I can’t have my picture taken. Did you just take my picture?”

Seconds earlier, I’d just taken a picture of Megan while we sat on the patio of a bar. The hipster was sitting behind her at another table and motioned to me after. In truth, he was in the background of the picture.

Me: “No, I didn’t take your picture.”

Middle-aged bearded hipster backpacker: “Good, good. I can’t have my picture taken, but I can take one of you guys.”

Me: “Ummm… No, that’s okay. Thanks anyway.” (Middle-aged hipster heads back to his table)

Megan: (whispering) “Why the heck would we want a picture of him?”

Bearded Hipster in background taking a swig

Bearded Hipster in background becoming irrate; cover is blown

This is Bangkok, Thailand Day 1. We are staying a 5 minute walk from the illustrious Khao San road. If you’re a western backpacker and you’ve been to Bangkok, then you’ve been to Khao San. Numerous guesthouses, bars, restaurants, shops, tuk-tuks lady-boys and white people line the street from end-to-end. It’s a crossroads of sorts for people travelling South East Asia. From here, you can head south (where we came from) north (where we’re going), or even east to Cambodia (where we’ll be flying out from). I wonder if Obama stayed here when he was in town a couple of days ago?

Khao San, Bangkok

Flashback: Yesterday, we departed our much-loved beach on Ko Pha-Ngan. Oh, we adored that spot. We stayed at the affable Lime ‘N Soda guesthouse right next to the port town of Thong Sala. The island of Ko Pha-Ngan can only be reached by boat, so the more touristry folk usually go to Ko Samui which has an airport. At Lime ‘N Soda, we paid $14 a day for a bungalow next to the beach. I’m still looking for that $1 a day bungalow of yesteryear. We got our much-needed laundry done for under $10; the local restaurant was blasting music from Schindler’s List, Bob Marley and Twin Peaks. As they say here, “Same-Same, but Different.”

Our Bungalow

Across the street from the Soda, we’d pick up breakfast for under a $1 in the form of a smoothie (banana for me; strawberry for Megan). In the evening, we’d sit and watch the sunset. By day, we roamed into Thong Sala and ate at the market having a delicious meal of Pad Thai for about a $1.20. To pump things up, we rented a motorbike to drive 10kms to go to the party beach called Hat Rin. It was afternoon when we arrived, so the party-ers must have been sleeping. I drove, Megan sat passenger. Throughout our ride, she would give me polite suggestions, such as: “Brakes! Watch out for that guy! Speed up for the hill! Slow down for the corners!” A very educational experience I must say. Later, Megan tried driving the motorbike with me as passenger. My advice to her: “Ah, in Thailand, you know, they drive on the left side of the road.” Her response: “Oh s***” Megan promptly corrected her mistake. Thank God.

Thong Sala Market

Almost forgot: for $10, we each received the most intense, relaxing and divine massage of our lives: a Thai massage! They were standing on us, using their knees, folding our legs every whichway, using their fingers to heal our very souls. At point, while I laid on my stomach, my masseuse was standing on my legs, using my arms to lift my torso off the ground. I can never go back to traditional Canadian massages. Never. Megan and I were in a state of euphoria for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, all journeys come to an end, so we had to leave Ko Pha Ngan to continue our trip northward. We took the ferry back to Surat Thani and caught an overnight bus to Bangkok. Now, overnight buses are surreal. The seats recline to an almost horizontal position, the air conditioning is blasting, and the bus is trying to pull a Chuck Yeager by breaking the sound barrier. They give you blankets and some orange juice. The overhead lights don’t work, so you have no choice but to sleep. Multiple times in the night you wake up wondering where the heck you are; that night, I woke up and swear we were driving by a beach in the middle of a thunder-storm. I simply shrugged my shoulders and went back to sleep. Later, somebody woke me up by tapping me on the head to give me a cold face cloth. Megan is pretty high maintenance in this situation: she needs her long pants, sweater, eye-contact case, inflatable pillow, eye shade and sleeping bag. Did I miss anything? I chuckle of course. It’s all good.

Leaving Ko Pha Ngan

We arrived in Bangkok in the wee hours of the morning and jumped on the city bus down to Khao San. The street cleaners were sweeping up the mess from the previous night; luckily, our room at the guesthouse called ‘The Happy House’ was ready, so we checked in, grabbed a cold shower and got into bed for a quick nap.

The two of us spent the day wandering the streets looking for deals on t-shirts. My goal is to get a beer muscle shirt each from Thailand (Chang), Laos (Lao Beer) and Cambodia (Angkor Beer). They’re pretty expensive in Bangkok, so maybe I’ll wait until Chiang Mai. I also want to get a ‘Jesus Shirt,’ but Megan is less than enthusiastic. Megan finished ‘Into the Wild’ and looked to trade it in for ‘The Beach;’ the best deal she’s caught so far is a 100 baht discount; we’ll keep looking.