A very visual reminder
Will and I just had lunch here at the hotel – on our own tab now (included in the room rate) as the Thai government scheme for “stranded” (it’ll always be in inverted commas, sorry) tourists ended yesterday. You can’t half tell.
The restaurant, which seats around … ooh, say … a hundred? hundred and fifty? … is normally about a third full, with the buffet at the far left a hive of activity. We understand from talking to the staff that even this is well below normal occupancy rates for the time of year.
Today: no customers, no buffet. A set menu replaced the lavish banquet; the bains marie, normally the stars of the show, sat unheated, forlorn, devoid of nourishment. The chefs were not circulating amongst the customers pointing out the various foodstuffs, explaining the recipes, helping out those with special dietary needs. Practical economics lies behind this change: there just aren’t enough people to make it worthwhile.
Besides Will and myself, I spotted two other people. Two. One wing of this hotel has 25 floors, the other 15.
It was very sad. It felt rather like being in a very low security prison for ex-politicians. No noise, no chatter, no life. No people.
I dread to think how many staff they’ve already had to lay off, and how many may go in the coming weeks. I can only imagine a good few of them are sitting at home wondering what they’re going to do for a living; I say this with no authority, but I’d be amazed if workers’ rights schemes exist in Thailand to protect dishwashers and wait staff.
Good as it’s been for us, the actions of the PAD have, at least in the short term, crippled this city; I must assume that the rest of the country is suffering a similar fate. Tourism accounts for some 6% of Thailand’s economy; in the areas we’ve seen – the islands, central Bangkok – it must be in the double digits. From what we can tell, that has been reduced to almost nil.
Our only hope is that Westerners have a short memory; that now that this story has disappeared from the ADD-afflicted media tourists will once more flock to this amazing country. Bangkok – indeed the whole of Thailand – holds a unique position, in my experience: it is the perfect fusion of East and West, a city/country that is still very much Asian, a place where you truly can experience the “real” culture by wandering just a few blocks from your hotel, yet somewhere that Westerners fit in very easily; almost everybody speaks enough English to help you out, transport is relatively easy and cheap, the range, quality and cost of accommodation is superb, and of course the people are out of this world. Singapore and KL are far too built-up and Westernised, Phnom Penh and Hanoi perhaps a bit too grubby and difficult – Bangkok, for now, seems to have the perfect blend.
(That may be a bit unfair on Hanoi, which is actually a very beautiful city.)
The strange thing about the timing of this event is the court ruling on Tuesday which effectively dissolved the ruling party anyway. One wonders why the PAD didn’t just wait?… But then one wonders – again, without any authority – about the independence of the judiciary, and whether this wasn’t timed rather too well to force the decision in the PAD’s favour. If anyone out there has any informed insight, please share it.
For now, I know only one thing for sure: this city, and this country, needs tourists. I will be back: I say that with absolute conviction. Please don’t cancel your holiday, if you had one planned. Please don’t think about going somewhere else, if you were thinking about coming here. And please, come here, if you weren’t even thinking about it.
Thailand remains one of the most incredible countries it has ever been my pleasure to visit. I’ll be sad to leave tomorrow.
Scale & polish
Will and I thought we’d take advantage of Thailand’s ludicrously cheap healthcare today and have come looking for someone to whiten our teeth, ravaged as they are by years of abuse.
Whitening was a bit pricey – about a hundred and fourty quid. The little booths in Melbourne Central do it cheaper than that (although I think it’s the real deal here, leaving you looking proper Hollywood like – the shopping centre booths are more like a work experience student with a brillo pad and a bottle of Tipp-Ex).
We’ve settled for a plain old scale & polish for a meagre fourteen pounds. Will is in having his done now (they have free internet at the dentist!) and I can’t hear any screaming; if he comes out bleeding profusely I may just make a run for it.
All at once, let’s make that shiny-teeth-noise: chiiiiing!
Update: oh my god!
Noble's Nashers
Cohen's Chompers
Wow. Clean as a whistle. I have two small cavities (haven’t been to the dentist in over 4 years … oops) which they’re doing for me tomorrow at the tidy sum of – you guessed it – fourteen quid each! Fourteen pounds! You can’t buy a Mars Bar for fourteen quid.
Can someone in the UK or Oz find out how much a white filling in the upper back molar would cost please? I might just draw a graph or something.
The way this one is going, I’m looking at package tours to the FARC-controlled regions of Colombia
Since coming to the glorious realisation that my travel insurance would cover the cost of a real hotel, life in Bangkok has been sensational.
“What’s that?”, you say, “I saw on the global news channels that Bangkok was in ‘turmoil’, that conditions for some travellers were ‘unbearable’, that the hundred thousand stranded travellers were ‘desperate’ to get out of the country?” Um … yeah, I’m not sure who they interviewed but it sure as hell wasn’t me. If they had, the title of this ridiculous BBC article would have been “I’m a tourist, please don’t make me leave”. Allow me to describe the conditions which we have been forced to endure during this time of national crisis.
I’ve been to Bangkok before and, on a whim (another story), stayed in the Amari Watergate hotel; a plush, five-star affair with beds the size of my parents’ garden. My travel insurance company had said, when asked if they’d foot the bill for a real hotel, “yeah, just don’t go checking in to a five-star resort or anything (laughs)”. Reasonable enough; I don’t need the adjacent golf course or spa treatments anyway. Instead I settled for the sister hotel, the merely four-star Amari Boulevard.
This place really does make you wonder where that extra star would come from. More free coffee in the room? Beds that could sleep five rather than four? Staff that actually wash your feet as you walk in the door, rather than merely bowing towards them? Perhaps it is just the lack of an adjacent golf course; regardless, this place is probably sufficient for my needs.
The staff are ridiculously attentive, and if you treat them like human beings (which so few residents of reasonably posh hotels fail to do) they soon become your friend. Welcoming smiles and the ubiquitous Thai “sawasdee kaaaaaaap!” are in abundance: from the staff immediately outside, who are now handing out “FREE ACCOMMODATION” leaflets to try and tease “stranded” passengers in to the hotel (the Thai taxpayer is footing the bill), to the porters immediately inside the door, through the lady infusing the spacious lobby with the gentle tones from her chake, past the check-in counter staff on the left and the lobby bar staff (notable mention to Chanissara, whose name I’m proud to have remembered phonetically at least) on the right, up to the staff just in front of the restaurant and lifts, and finally on to the lovely ladies who undo the squalor inflicted by Will and I upon our room on a daily basis. You’d have to actively try to be unhappy in a place like this: it would require a conscious, determined effort. Who has the time?
As it happens I have the time, but I choose to spend it on more fruitful endeavours. I choose to spend my time by the beautiful pool on the impeccable decking, mopping my lightly sweating brow with the complimentary chilled lemon fresh towelettes, sipping on a cold Singha delivered on request by the (surprise, surprise!) smiling poolside staff, alternating between loungers and chairs but always in the most exquisite comfort. If I get sick of reading my book (unlikely, as I’ve been put on to Murakami by Ryan and Bec) I can swim, or sleep, or simply admire the Bangkok skyline from my 6th floor vantage point.
pure anguish - oh, the horror
I choose to spend my time gorging myself on the lavish buffet three times a day, again provided free to us courtesy of the Thai taxpayer. Breakfast is a sumptuous display of fresh fruits, pastries, cereals and yoghurt for the healthy, hand-made (on demand) omelettes to adorn your standard western fry-up breakfast for the unhealthy, and Thai curry and rice for whoever can stomach that sort of stuff this early in the day. Interestingly, the Thais (along with a lot of other South-East Asian nations, I suspect – I seem to remember this from when I was in Vietnam 5 years ago) don’t really have a distinct breakfast food; they eat the same style of food, albeit with slightly more subdued flavours than dinner (that’s lunch, for the rest of you) and tea (dinner).
[Quick note: this blog's official language is North East English, and its official currency is the British pound. The reader is left to find their own translation services from this point onwards.]
Dinner and tea are similarly opulent, with an array of Thai, Western and Indian food that boggles the senses. The executive chef is a lovely Italian, Silvano. He guides Bec through the vegetarian selections each day; in the time it takes those two to catch up on each others’ daily lives, Will has already put a plate of pork, potatoes and vegetables followed by a pasta dish with more potatoes followed by a curry with naan and pickle down his capacious gullet. There’s dessert a-plenty, from home baked cookies and brownies to pastries, crème caramel and ice cream.
As you may imagine, I have literally piled on the kilos. Sucking in the stomach no longer remains a viable option.
When we dare to venture out of the hotel and on to the dangerous streets of Bangkok we find – once we escape the immediate environs, which are populated by skanky looking hookers pretending to be waiting for a bus (but actually just waiting for a Western man with money, age no issue) – more smiling people and a few particularly beautiful bars, one of which wouldn’t be at all out of place in Melbourne. nest is a tastefully decorated rooftop bar where beds rather than seats make up the majority of the furniture. Thanks to a refreshing lack of street advertising it is mostly devoid of people like us, which makes it all the more pleasant.
Getting back to basics, street stalls come alive after about midnight replacing the rows of stalls selling t-shirts, DVDs, laser pointer pens, engraved faux-ebony penises (some even have an attached set of balls), bags watches hats paintings food sex – you name it, if it’s crappy tat you don’t want they have it – with little vans and playground size chairs to create makeshift bars. Life really doesn’t have much time to stop in Bangkok.
By now you’ll doubtless be sensing the trauma and anguish in my voice. The worst thing about all this is that I must endure it with my best friends. I was alone for a few days when I first arrived but Bart, Bec, Will and Ryan travelled up from the islands last weekend so since then we’ve spent our days together looking at each other in wide-eyed astonishment at the predicament we’ve fortuitously landed ourselves in. Other travellers provide a constant source of entertainment when we get bored of each other (which isn’t often. Okay, it isn’t ever).
Will and I had the pleasure of meeting the British ambassador last week. Just after the airport re-opened he did a whistle-stop tour of the hotels where his stranded subjects were staying; he mentioned that he’d only just been able to get back in Bangkok himself, having driven up from Phuket that day. (Phuket airport has been open the whole time so people have been able to get out to KL or Singapore, but it’s a hell of a bus journey, then a flight to KL, then onward flights (two, in my case) to wherever you want to actually get to – I had a ticket booked and was due to leave on Tuesday, but the court ruling which dissolved the current government came through a few hours before my departure, at which point the protestors left the airport; given the option of a gruelling five day trip home or waiting it out in a plush hotel with my mates, well, let’s just say that wasn’t the hardest decision of my life…)
Mr Quayle was lovely and gave the 20-odd assembled Brits a concise but thorough overview of the current situation, including minutes old information about a special British Airways flight which would depart Phuket for Heathrow late the following day; he explained how we could check in at a central Bangkok hotel, that we would be bussed to Phuket, that the flight was open to anybody that wanted it, and that his staff had the number for anyone who was interested and we should contact British Airways directly. Simple enough, right?
Apparently not. The Brits abroad did themselves proud. “How many seats are on the plane?” asks one burly mid-op transsexual (I’m serious – imagine Jimmy Nail in a boob tube). About two hundred and seventy seven, says Mr. Ambassador. “But you said there’s ‘a bus’, will there be enough space on the bus for us all?” Good lord. The poor man actually had to spell out that there would be any number of buses and that he was sure that BA would have considered this in their planning. Someone else asked about their visa – Thai visas are granted for a month, and if you overstay it’s a fifty quid a day penalty. They’ve stated (in the Thai national media, if you would only bother to read it (there’s a free copy at the pool), and in any number of international news stories, if you bothered to read them either – but then why keep abreast of an international story that you’re personally involved in?…) that this fee will be waived for people who have overstayed through no fault of their own. “So I was due to leave on the 2nd, I won’t be charged when I leave will I?” No, says the Queen’s representative, we’ve been assured that you will not. Another Brit: “what about me, I was due to leave on the 5th but don’t know when my flight is yet, what about my visa?” [Deep exhale from Mr. Quayle.] No, I’m not the Thai immigration authorities, but I’m sure they won’t be charging you when you leave the country. I’m sure he was asked that same question three times. He left shortly thereafter, any lingering doubts he may have had about leaving England to become an expat no doubt expelled forever. Will and I even apologised to the lovely, intelligent, European (Dutch, possibly) hotel manager afterwards, assuring him that not all British were this retarded; even he cracked a joke about the number of buses, rolling his eyes…
So I’ve been here since Thursday the 27th, and it’s now Saturday the 6th. As you can probably gather, we’re bearing up okay: really, there’s no need to worry about us. The most traumatic experience of the week so far has been the call to Emirates (in the UK – Emirates Australia are pitifully incompetent) yesterday morning where they actually managed to get me on to a confirmed flight! Agh! Unfortunately I must stay in this hellhole until Wednesday the 10th as that was the earliest available seat.
I’m already thinking about my next holiday destination. The way this one is going, I’m looking at package tours to the FARC-controlled regions of Colombia.
Thank goodness for seemingly contradictory statements in travel insurance policy documents
Bangkok airport arrivals is perfectly normal apart from the lack of baggage trolleys. No big deal: I refer the honourable gentleman to the previous comment re: not packing loads of unnecessary crap. I gets me bag and wanders out, finding a stray trolley on the way. My bag may not be that heavy, but I’m still a lazy bastard.
The new Bangkok airport is pretty funky, done in the modern airport style which seems to be “build one really enormous central hall with a really high roof where everybody checks in” rather than the rats-maze style of old, e.g. Heathrow. Arrivals is on the 1st floor, departures up on 4, and groovy travelators take you up on a gentle zig-zag; it’s all rather Gattaca, or it would be if they turned the lights down a bit and invited Uma Thurman over for tea. On the 4th I check the board and it tells me to check in at counter T.
It’s midnight. My flight is at half two, so I’m not necessarily expecting the check-in staff to be there yet but neither am I expecting people to be sitting behind the check-in desks, on the check-in staff chairs or on the baggage conveyors themselves. Wow, I think, these travellers are taking a rather relaxed approach. Whatever. I smile at a random girl sitting on a trolley and think I’ll go for a potter while I wait for the Emirates staff to rock up.
I still haven’t looked outside at this point; nor is it obvious that there’s something happening.
The 3rd floor has a couple of cafés and restaurants, the usual airport fare. It’s late, so this isn’t that unusual either, but the restaurants are semi-closed; tables block the main eating space but people are still serving punters. There are queues at most places and it doesn’t feel quite right, but I put it down to an Asian airport at midnight, which is never the most predictable place in the world at the best of times.
I don’t recall when I realise what’s happening. Perhaps I do spot the fact that all of the doors on the 4th floor are locked. Perhaps it’s the hundreds of yellow t-shirt clad people lying on the main road outside. Perhaps it’s the nice Scottish bloke Danny who I start chatting to (bald men stick together). Whatever it was, within 15 minutes I click that something is happening.
As I write this I wonder why I didn’t put two and two together. Sorry sir, your flight might be delayed leaving Samui because of a mob at the destination airport; people sitting behind the check-in desks, which I’ve never seen before no matter what the delay. It’s not like I don’t follow the international news or that this hasn’t happened before in Thailand. I should probably slap my hand against my forehead but I’m writing this in the lobby bar of a posh-ish hotel and I’d look like a right twat so I won’t bother.
I chat to the girl, who is sitting reading a book and has fashioned herself quite a canny seat from her trolley and her bag. Dutch, Vivienne, 18 years old, and the poor girl is on her way home for her brother’s funeral which is in two days. I didn’t ask how. She seemed remarkably chipper all things considered.
I try to be pragmatic in these situations; there’s no point in histrionics, no point stressing yourself if there’s not much you can do. (Thanks, mam.) This sort of thing never gets resolved in an hour or two, so I pretty quickly think that I’ll ditch the airport and go find a hotel or a hostel in central Bangkok. If they’re going to try to overthrow a government, I might as well be drinking a beer somewhere pleasant while they do it, no? But I’ve befriended this Dutch girl and don’t want to leave her on her own, so I ask her if she’d like to share a cab and find somewhere to stay. Poor lass doesn’t have any money and has promised her parents that she’d stay in the airport so she could be on the first possible flight out – and what can you say to a girl going home for her brother’s funeral, “don’t be daft pet, you’re going nowhere”? Course not, so I make my trolley in to a seat like hers and sit and finish Porno. (Brilliant – read it.)
Time passes. I find water and buy 4 bottles. I hide 3 in my bag. Oh, hang on, I forgot something. Where are the Emirates staff telling us what’s going on, by the way? In fact, where are any airport staff telling us what’s going on? Fucked if I know, ‘cos they’re sure as hell not at the airport. Emirates will be receiving a sternly worded letter (“Yours faithfully, Angry from Melbourne”) when slash if I finally get home. Anyway … nothing much happens for a while. I make sure I’ve got the right type of film in the camera (T-Max 3200, thanks again Bart) and potter some more. I’m more bored than anything.
Then the riot police appear from nowhere and start coming down those groovy travellators. Lots of them, and they’re all very cool and calm and collected and the way that not-quite-horizontal escalator thingy delivers them to the concourse then they step off with their shields and full face helmets and batons and whatnot looks, honestly, really quite cool. A flurry of photographers, yours truly included (thanks, Dad), burst in to action; by now the media are there in full force and I think they’re glad for the action because most of them had almost dozed off. The coppers step off on level 3, over to the next one, and down to 2. And down to 1. And out the front doors, by which time we’re up on 4 looking down through the road to the ground level below expecting a bit of action.
Nah. They just went … somewhere. Do you wonder why the only interesting photos you see of the riot police on news.bbc.co.uk are of them wandering calmly through the terminal? That’s because the most interesting thing the riot police did was to wander calmly through the terminal.
The Scottish bloke Danny is with his family: brother, sister-in-law, mother, father, and 3 kids, one of which is very very young. A baby. The other two are only about seven or eight (I think – I’m terrible at judging kids’ ages). They’re all remarkably composed, drinking cans of Singha, his brother has had his picture taken at the door with a couple of black-clad lads holding big sticks and samurai swords (not confirmed lethal, don’t worry mother – they were probably from Toys ‘R Us). The kids look like they’re getting tired, though – it’s getting on for 4am.
Tick, tock. I capitulate to the global domination of Starbucks and order 2 x double espresso, tuna sandwiches and “butter cake”. I take one half of said order to Vivienne, who by now is talking to a couple of lovely old women from Yorkshire. She accepts the coffee and declines the rest. I can’t believe she’s still smiling. One of the ladies from Yorkshire is laughing as she’s found the airport comments form and is wondering what she’s going to do to suggest they improve their service. I love the British.
That is, until I overhear an English guy banging on about how much it must cost to keep the airport open for this long – air-con alone is “at least 50k” he reckons, on what authority or in which currency I don’t know. “All these people working for nothing,” as if the guys staying on at Starbucks are not part of the greater cause, as if some of them don’t wish they could be outside wearing yellow. It’ll be “the manager’s call” as to whether this continues. Yeah pal, the manager of Bangkok airport will be the one to order the military coup, or the one to prevent the ousting of a government, or the one to tell hundreds of protestors to go home, because it costs too much to keep his building cool overnight. You fucking idiot. Give me that passport, here’s an American one you can use instead. Your new name’s Dwayne. Catch ya.
It’s getting on for 5am and the Scottish contingent are leaving. The kids are tired, Emirates UK has told them a fucking lot more than Emirates in Bangkok bothered to not to bother staying in the airport as there are definitely no flights leaving tonight. They’ve got a 3 hour taxi ride back to the holiday house they were staying in, which I think they might even have owned; whatever, they’re off. They’re nice enough to come and find me as I’ve left my bags next to their stuff, and they want to tell me that they can’t watch them any more. Not that I think they really need watching by this point, but still. Lovely, lovely family. Thanks, Danny.
This is my cue. I’d been thinking about it, and now that the Dutch girl has ditched me for the old dears from Yorkshire (I wonder whether her mother didn’t tell her to do that: “yes, I’ve found a nice English boy to talk to” – “don’t go talking to strange boys in the airport, dear – find some old ladies from Yorkshire, at least they’ll make you a cup of tea if it all goes to hell”) I don’t feel morally obliged to hang around any more. I bid them my farewell and get the lift down to the arrivals floor where some taxis are still appearing.
As soon as I walk out of the lift, in true Thai style a couple of people shout “taxi? hotel?” in my face and I immediately say yes. The strange and beautiful thing about Thailand is that, even in situations like this, you still get the feeling that you can trust everybody. You don’t need to find the Official Tourist Taxi or any such crap, you just go with the bloke who takes you to his Camry (and immediately puts the air-con on. It’s five o’clock in the bloody morning! Jesus!) out in the car park and starts driving you to some hotel. City or near airport? he asks. Near airport, I say, so I can get back quick-fast if necessary. We chat; his English is very good. He asks me about the protests and I’m smiling, I’ve been walking out between the people all night and all I’ve got from anybody is smiles and a feeling that there’s an unspoken “hey Westerner, sorry about this but you kind of know why we’re doing it, right?” apology from them. See that crap that tourists quoted on BBC News say about there being a feeling of “hostility” and it being a “siege”? Ha!, christ, they’re out there playing the bongos and they’ve got a big truck with a band playing funky tunes and they’re all laughing and clapping these plastic clappy-hand toys together! A siege?! God help these people if they ever find themselves in genuine trouble. Why don’t the BBC ever quote me? “It were proper brilliant like, r8 good party like and people was top man, bangin’ tunes and evryfink! Toooooootally wickid man, better than Ibiza innit! -John Noble, Melbourne”
So I’m chatting to the cabby-fella and I tell him, hey, these things happen right?, at least it makes for an interesting story right?, and he’s genuinely chuffed that I’m not angry. He personally is 50/50 with the protestors. A lot of people are; the protestors seem like a fairly vocal minority. After all, this government was democratically elected.
We get to the shabby-looking hotel and I get the last room, apparently. It was like stepping back in time, or going to Scotland. Still, any real bed is a glorious sight when your last resting place was the grubby floor underneath a check-in counter, so I’m reasonably content.
At this point I’d assumed that my travel insurance wasn’t going to cover this due to point 1.3 in the “What We Will Not Pay For” section:
Claims arising directly or indirectly from war, acts of foreign enemies, hostilities or warlike operations (whether war be declared or not), civil war, rebellion, insurrection, civil commotion assuming the proportions of or amounting to an uprising, military or usurped power.
As a result, I was happy enough in my shabby nowhere-near-anything-but-the-airport 1960s throwback hotel. However when I called the insurance company the next day, I discovered that I was wrong. Thank goodness for seemingly contradictory statements in travel insurance policy documents.
If only I hadn’t scanned those Polaroids…
It started at about 1pm on Tuesday afternoon, the 25th. I was convinced my flight from Bangkok was the next evening, i.e. 2am on Thursday morning. I don’t know why, and no I didn’t bother telling you mam & dad as you’d just have worried, but there you go, that’s what I thought. I had the flight from Samui to Bangkok booked for the following afternoon and was lamenting the fact that my last full day on Koh Tao would be spent on the porch of my bungalow watching the torrential tropical rain. Actually doing anything was out of the question; the place was flooded, and you were soaked to the (still warm, mind you) bone within seconds of exposure.
As it was raining so heavily I thought I’d scan the Polaroid photos we’d taken. I check my email while I’m there. “Emirates welcomes you to check in on-line” goes the email. How lovely. It does cross my mind that I didn’t think they did that until 24 hours before departure, but in my relaxed state it didn’t really register. Until I saw “Wednesday” on the screen. Wednesday? That’s … tomorrow. And my flight is at 2am. Which is … in 12 hours.
Shit.
What’s that Peter Kay joke about Teletext? “Booked it, packed it, fucked off?” That’s about right. I went and told the kids, already looking a little forlorn hiding from the rain, that I’d buggered up and had to leave in an hour. (At least there was no time for that long goodbye crap. I’m sure Ryan would have cried – we won’t see each other for at least 10 days.)
Flight to Bangkok from Samui booked, 10pm that night. There’s a 6:30pm flight but the ferry doesn’t arrive until past 5pm and with the weather this bad I’m not confident of making it. Bag packed, hastily. Damp. Everything is damp. Taxi booked to the port. Accommodation paid for, farewells said, and I’m running the 20 metres down the path to seek shelter while I wait for my taxi. I needn’t have bothered running – me and everything I’m carrying is drenched by the time I get there anyway.
The taxi is a [select a term according to your nationality: ute/flat-bed truck] and I climb in to the front; it’s just me and the driver, and despite the rain he puts the air-con on. It seems to be one of the Five Thai Pillars of Transport: No Matter What The Weather, If You’re In A Vehicle The Air Conditioning Must Be On At All Times. I’m wet, and therefore before very long I’m cold. I don’t have long to think about it though, because within 30 seconds I’m back out of the cab.
I really can’t stress enough how hard it was raining. Perhaps I can: it was fucking chucking it down. The ute gets about 30 metres before we have to stop because Thais on motorbikes (little 125cc things that they all scoot around on) are stuck, literally, in the torrent of water flooding down the road; we can’t pass through the river as they’re in the way. I jump out of the cab and try to help a girl and her friend move their bike but even with 3 of us it won’t shift – the force of the water, now an opaque muddy brown over a foot deep, flowing at a fair clip, is jamming it in place. I soon discover how: the spokes have been jammed with branches, and there’s a concrete block being pushed against the engine block. We manage to clear the jam and push the bike out of the way. I do the same for some old bloke over the road, and the cab tries to drive across.
The water is too deep for the truck. I’m having difficulty standing up in it and it’s obvious he’s not going to get across. Now I’m thinking I’m properly screwed.
I grab my bags – backpack, thankfully not chock full of unnecessary crap (pack light, kids!), and shoulder bag with the important stuff. I get across the river and start to walk up the hill towards the port looking for a lift. By now the rain has stopped, which makes the journey a little easier. Nobody is heading my way, though; they can’t, the road behind me is blocked. I’m resigned to the idea of walking the mile or so to the port, alternating between barefoot and flip-flopped (they don’t work when there’s water deeper than about an inch on the road, but they’re essential when you’re on the stretches of Thai road which are brown gravel), when a guy in a motorbike and rickety side-cart pulls up and helps me out. It’s just as well, as I’m running perilously late anyway. My only hope is that the catamaran – the last to Samui for the day – shares my tardiness.
So I’m perched in his side cart with the vegetables, about three quarters of an inch from the road surface, listening to the sound of his suspension and him telling me about how he believes Chelsea are the dominant force in the Premier League this year and that Man United (probably the only thing more popular than the monarchy in Thailand) aren’t going to do it. Terrific. I ask him about Sunderland but he doesn’t have an opinion on the mighty mackems. Which is odd.
I’ve no idea what the time is, but I arrive at the port to see the arse-end of a catamaran about a hundred metres off the pier. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I’ve missed the boat, and hence my flight to Bangkok, and hence my flight to Dubai and Birmingham. There are gonna be some unhappy Nobles back in Blighty.
No I haven’t! Different boat. I get a ticket, talk to some nice Dutch people who have just arrived, and tell them where I stayed. I say that if they run in to my friends – the only other people currently staying there (it’s really quiet in Thailand at this time of year – wonder why?) – to tell them that John said hi. Did they?
Japanese people shouldn’t get on boats. Fly, or invent a mass transit submarine or something, but don’t get on a boat; the poor sods just don’t have the constitution. Every one of them (and they make up 80%+ of the passengers) looks as sick as a dog, and none the wonder – the thing is pitching about 30 degrees and the rain (now resumed with a vengeance) is lashing against the windows. I pay the 50 Baht extra for the “VIP” room upstairs – full of Very Important Japanese, most of them vomiting, and freezing cold thanks to the mandatory air-con – so that I can leave my bag on a seat, take my t-shirt off, and head out back. I’m wearing my board shorts so the fact that it’s lashing down matters nary a jot. It’s warm enough, and the combination of a view of the horizon and ten milligrams of metoclopramide (never, ever travel without it – thanks, Bart) ensures my journey is vaguely pleasant. When it periodically stops raining, I grab the iPhone and get in a bit of overdue podcast time. I learn about the guy who discovered aquaporins, proteins responsible for the water-channel in cells; the 2003 Nobel Prize (chemistry) winner and the so-called “Garrison Keillor of chemistry“. Telling the story of his life, he does indeed sound like a Lake Wobegon character. It’s fascinating, as the Science Show always is. If anyone wants the .mp3, mail me.
The cat to Samui calls in at Koh Pahngan, which takes an hour. Many sick Japanese alight, and suddenly, as if they were directly cursed by the non-interventionist god most of them don’t believe in anyway, the sea is flat. Beautifully, peacefully still; the transformation is incredible, and welcome even for this Westerner, impervious to the waves thanks to the marvels of modern medicine. Perhaps that’s the issue: perhaps if they take proper medicine instead of ingesting potions made from dried extract of frog they won’t be so sick. Anyway.
I elect to use my free transfer from the port to go to the airport, despite my flight not being for another four and a half hours. I would have caught the 6:30pm, but by now there’s a waiting list of 20 and the lady tells me not to bother trying. The lovely people at Bangkok Airways change my booking from tomorrow to today and there’s nothing more to pay. Result! I wasn’t even penalised for my stupidity.
Four hours in an airport is a very long time when that airport is Heathrow, or Sydney, or some other “modern” shit-hole. Four hours in Samui airport is like … well, without wanting to state the obvious, it’s like being on holiday. I know, I know, I’m on holiday. Just have a look, you’ll know what I mean. It’s stunning. I find a bar, the compulsory airport “sports bar”, and am treated like royalty the minute I walk in the door. That could have had something to do with the half-acre floor space, hundreds of seats, legion of attentive staff, and number of customers. One. Me. I get a pint of Singha and tell the girl that she can keep the free t-shirt I’m due. She’s rapt. They’re all rapt, because there’s somebody in the bar! and they’ve got something to do. I wear thin after a while and they stop peering at me through the glass to see if I’ve finished my drink.
The flight is on time and I’m one of the first to board. I usually wait until last, the fascination of queueing at a check-in desk having been lost on me many years ago, but I’m keen for a change of scenery and am in the designated “rows 7 to 12 please” so as requested, up I go. Just as we’re about to go through, they hold us back. Walkie-talkie chatter ensues. “We’re just checking,” they say, “that we can land – we’ve heard there’s a mob (“a what?”) a mob, you know, like a political thing, at the airport in Bangkok, we’re just checking that we’ll be able to land.” Five minutes. Yep, no mob, no worries, on you get, off we go.
And so I leave a beautiful island and fly in to civil unrest. T’riffic. If only I hadn’t scanned those Polaroids…
