Episode 11: Shall I Compare Thee to an Absolute Scorcher?
สวัสดี
S̄wạs̄dī
It’s been a while now - 12 days, in fact - since I wrote a Ramble, and for the first time, I kind of had to force myself to. For what it’s worth, I don’t think I would’ve done at all if it weren’t for your encouraging messages. I’m lying in on a rock-hard hostel bunk bed in Koh Samui, Thailand, my bunkmate snoring thunderously. I’ve been here for a week, give or take.
The journey was a gruelling tribulation; 11 hour delay in Melbourne, from which the only positive was meeting Johannes, the softly-spoken, mild-mannered, tall and handsome German. We stepped out of Bangkok’s air-conditioned airport, both in our full jeans, trainers and jumpers, at 2am no less on April the 5th.
Never experienced heat like it. It hits you like God himself has emptied his dirty bathwater over your head; the superheated, humid air almost a liquid that you could drink, and probably want to spit out. If fully clothed, you begin sweating immediately. This is, by the way, at the dead of night. I almost feel panicky; mostly because I’m in a notoriously hazardous city on a continent I’ve never been to and my only contacts are a German in the same position as me, and Emily, a friend from home, in a hostel the other side of town. But also because I am worried I won’t be able to walk, sleep, even survive in this heat.
It is very exhilarating, though. Because there’re more than 40 Thai baht to a quid, I feel like a king walking away from the exchange office. The taxi ride is like a fever dream; endless skyscrapers drift past the steamy window, shrouded in a reddish haze of darkish intentions. The country wears the distinctive pungent odour of dodgy waterworks combined with high temperatures, and the hostel is nothing short of a shitter; a dilapidated affair of rickety staircases and lethal sewage systems.
At this stage, I am every inch the prissy English gap yar dickhead. But - and my reader will have to humour me here by only throwing up a bit in their mouth - I forget all about my initial objections, and the knot of anxiety in the pit of my stomach loosens like a neatly tied shoelace, when I walk into the hostel room. And that is because Em, hair tousled and sleep interrupted, sits up and hugs me and even through the almost total darkness I am comforted that one of the few things hotter than the country I am in is the girl I’ll be travelling it with.
Having gone to sleep at 4, we are up at 5:30. The full moon party on Koh Phangan is later that evening and we said we would tick that clichéd checkbox early doors. The journey is long and arduous, but bearable. Two’s a crowd, right? We arrive at our hostel at 5pm, and both promptly crash. We sleep fitfully. Eventually, at 1am, we wake up, look each other in the eye and question what we are doing with our lives. Partying now is not an attractive proposition. But we have come a long way and so, after some industrial-grade red bull and borderline dangerous pre-drinking, we steel ourselves for the beach party.
I have a blast. I also meet up with Scarlet, my longest standing friend, and we talk the early morning away until 6am, the shallow, shimmering waves reflecting a million disco lights and the white orb of the full moon. The fact those same waves are 80% urine at this point is an afterthought. Although technically we’re already in it, tomorrow feels light years away.
The next day I sample my first real Thai meal, which is mouth-watering. Unfortunately, island prices are much higher than northern mainland prices, I’m told. Although Koh Phangan is predominantly populated by white westerners currently, I listen to my first Thai words, which are baffling. There don’t seem to be enough distinctly different sounds to impart meaning, and the rules of emphasis are that you emphasise when it feels least natural in the sentence to an English speaker, and don’t when it feels like you should. Thai people on the islands are extremely long-suffering and good-natured. Presumably, decades of building an industry around hammered Europeans has made them very patient. It’s also worth noting that at no stage have I felt threatened, or had any possessions stolen. Em, who has been here months longer than me, concurs.
One of the reasons I decided to pick up the pen again is to throw into sharp relief the contrast from NZ. First and foremost is that in Thailand, I am clearly holidaying. Over the next few days, we adopt a lifestyle diametrically opposed to the thrift and shrewd financial efficiency of my NZ months. When we are tired we sleep. When hungry, eat. When thirsty, drink. It is lazy consumerism, and whilst I’m on the subject, the plastic and litter situation here - perhaps everywhere in the developing world - is apocalyptic.
Perhaps it’s something about this lifestyle that has punctured my creative drive. Nonetheless, no denying it’s relaxing and fun. It’s also quite civilised, now the unbridled hedonism of the full moon party is behind us. We eat out in restaurants, sip beer and cocktails, and meander sedately through the streets of Koh Phangan. We swan about on the white sands and bright blue waters of the beaches, although Em does nothing to allay my concern that women spend far too much of their day on this particular pursuit. We go jet skiing, which is a laugh. We sit out on balconies and piers watching the blood-red sunsets. And we talk. A lot. Not much else to do.
We take the ferry to Koh Samui, a neighbouring island. The hostels have been fine thus far, barring the first one, but we decide to treat ourselves to a night in a proper hotel in the party centre of Koh Samui. I meet an Aussie who I go to a club with, but am slightly perturbed by the fat, ugly, middle aged white men perving on Thai girls barely older than me - and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn they were younger. It is not a pleasant sight.
Em left today for Istanbul, where she’s spending a few days before heading home. That knot of anxiety, by the way - otherwise known as the fear of the unknown - only returns now that she’s buggered off. That is not to say I am alone in Thailand now; that’s not my worry. I’m on another ferry now, heading to Koh Tao, which is yet another island about which we’ve heard positive rumours. I’m going to meet up with Johannes there. Scarlet is in Indonesia, but many of her friends are still here. Jonny and Adi and other sixth form muckers are all out here too, pursuing their own middle class agendas; I plan to meet up with them. Being alone, in any case, is not a bad way to travel. It was my modus operandi in NZ. No, my worry is that it’s going to be very difficult to top Em as a travel partner. If she’s reading this… I hope she knows that. I wrote something to that effect on the inside of her cigarette box as a goodbye letter, in any case.
Missing you all. I hope this episode hasn’t given you the impression I’ve had my stoney heart melted and I’m turning into some soppy romantic. Oh shut up, I can hear you all sniggering. Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me.
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