Going Down South
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by Scott Gilbertson
Tuesday, 11 April 2006
Matt and I spent one day by ourselves in Sinoukville and though we never spoke of it I thought it was pretty appropriate that when we went back to the beach shack with the good food they were closed. When we tried to spend the afternoon in the sun, it poured. But then I write, so a bit of drama is never a bad thing.
We had a good time anyway. And the next morning we headed back across the border into Thailand. Strange to think that I had gone to Laos for the sole purpose of renewing my Thai visa and here I was, three months later, finally returning to Thailand. If I've learned anything it's the truth of Woody Allen's phrase, "if you want to make god laugh, have a plan."
By a strange act of god (who must have been having himself a laugh at the time), both Matt and I were headed back to Bangkok to meet up with friends from home. But before that we made an honest effort at tracking down Ofir. I had kept up with Ofir via email ever since he left Laos, and, though I hadn't heard from him in a few days. I knew he should be in Bangkok at the same time as Matt and I. I also knew that he was flying out the next day to return home to Israel. I compulsively checked my email throughout the evening but never heard anything. Matt and I hatched a plan that must have split god's sides with laughter; we decided to set out into Bangkok in some vain hope of running into Ofir. A city of seven million, how hard could it be?
Our best hope was the Khao San Rd. I don't believe I devoted any time to the Khao San Rd in my previous Bangkok posts which is largely because I avoided it like the plague. Khao San is everything I don't like about traveling, thousands and thousands of western tourists behaving badly. But, taking a tip from our experiences with heat, we thought why not? Why not embrace the cheesy touristy aspect of it? And we also thought Ofir, having his last night in Bangkok might think the same thing. So we hit the Khao San in full swing. As it turned out, Ofir had more taste than we did and was nowhere near the Khao San Rd on his last night in Bangkok, but we had fun nevertheless. We ate a bit of street food and parked ourselves in the cheesiest, most tourist saturated bar and watched the parade of humanity that is Khao San.
And then we gave up. The next day we both had errands to run, I need a plane ticket to London among other things and so Matt and I split up for the day, which was a bit strange since all the time he and Debi and I traveled together we always stuck together. But the strangest part is, and this goes to show you the fallacy of plans, about six hours later Matt and I ran into each other at the central pier. Yes, in a city of seven million, I ran into the one person I knew. This is why planning never works. Things happen or they don't and there's nothing you can do about it.
Traveling for as long as I have, one tends to lose track of time. It's been months since I could have told you with any confidence what day of the week it was or what day of the month, once I even got the month wrong. It just isn't something worth keeping track of; time exists to measure days that in reality aren't worth measuring. When I was managing a restaurant I could have told you not just day and date, but probably the hour and often right down to the minute because this is how we manage to do the things we have to do. It's been nearly a year since I've had to do anything.
It should then have been no surprise when the phone rang a day earlier than I expected and familiar voice sank slowly into my still sleep-fogged brain. Oh crap. My friends aren't coming tomorrow, they're here today. Whoops. I said a hurried goodbye to Matt (yes that was always how it was going to end wasn't it? Cheers mate), and slipped into the next chapter as it were.
Leah and Kate were staying at the Westin Sukhumvit which was shall we say a bit nicer than my lodgings. It was something akin to culture shock to step into the immaculateness of the Westin after spending the last six months in sleeping quarters where the old saying "don't let the bed bugs bite" isn't an antiquated joke, it's genuine advice. Not that I mind high class resorts nor look down my nose at them, so long as we all understand that high class resorts are for vacations; they don't qualify as traveling. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Change and adaptability are what got humanity this far and who am I to buck evolutionary trends? So I spent a minute in the lobby before I went up to their room, adjusting myself, adapting. It sounds stupid, but it does take you a minute to orient yourself in five star surroundings after so long in well, whatever.
After adjusting myself to the idea of air conditioning and polished marble floors and cushioned chairs I hopped in the elevator (elevator, damn I forgot about those) thinking this was probably good since I would be back in the west in less than a month and I needed to get used to these things again. I have for some time been dreading returning to the west with all its stodgy formalities and laws and cleanliness. I don't necessarily have a problem with the west, though I do feel a greater sense of freedom in S.E Asia than I ever have in America, I've just forgot what these things are like. My plan is to head from Bangkok to London and then, after visiting a friend I met in India, continuing on to Budapest where I will meet up with my parents and travel central Europe for a month before returning to the States. When the elevator opened into the large luxuriously padded carpet of the Westin's seventh floor hallway, I realized that I was not mentally prepared to return. I've actually come to rather like dodgy food and grungy guesthouses.
The girls were surprisingly bright-eyed and animated for people that should have been jet lagged and half asleep. My own grogginess was still wearing off, but we set off straight away since Bangkok is pretty warm by midday and the temples have little in the way of shade. Leah and Kate had only one day in Bangkok and wanted to see some temples and other touristy sights. I was planning to take them to Wat Phra Krew and Wat Pho via public transport since that way you get to see the river as well. We hopped on the sky train, caught the river taxi and walked for a bit around Wat Phra Krew. After about an hour it was too hot to think. Bangkok averages in the high 90s this time of year and humidity is around 80. If you look it up on Weatherunderground it has that, "feel like…" index which typically is about 116 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know how they calculate it, but it sounds about right. 
It's hotter than it ever gets in say Athens, GA in the summer, but not as hot as Seam Reap. It's bearable if you're used to it, but coming out of air conditioning into that kind of heat and humidity will quickly drain you.
We decided to give up on the temples and head back to the hotel. The girls went up to the rooftop pool and I set out to buy a plane ticket to London and on to Budapest. After walking around in the heat for two hours and realizing that there is some sort of price fixing travel agent mafia in Bangkok, I gave up and went to the pool myself. After a few hours in the sun and a bit of snooze on the couch, we set out for dinner at Sciorocco. I hadn't been up to the towers before, but the view was roughly the same as the Baiyoke Sky hotel—stunning. Unfortunately, a few minutes after we were seated, it started to pour. Everyone scattered for cover and the restaurant struggled gamely to accommodate everyone that had been outside, inside. Curiously the only additional seating they seemed to have was a room two floors up which was half set for a wedding reception the next day.
We tried to make ourselves comfortable but it was a bit peculiar, particularly the ceiling which looked like the inside of a massive telescope, white hexagonal tiles with metal bracings and exposed pipeworks, across which various colors of neon lights in cheesy floral patterns performed highly unnatural sweeping motions. For a minute I felt like I was at some really bad laser lights show back in Los Angeles. After sitting there for a few minutes in fits of laughter, half expecting Pink Floyd to come erupting out of some hidden speaker system, we decided that it just wasn't going to work. Normally I wouldn't complain about it, I even liked the campy aspect in some ways, but the girls were only going to have one fancy dinner in Bangkok and they understandably didn't want it to resemble a wedding reception at the Hollywood bowl. After speaking to the hostess, we decided to head down a few floors where there was an Italian restaurant. Not very Thai to be sure, but damn it was good.
The next day the girls left for Phuket. I spent another day in Bangkok, finally bought my ticket to London and on to Budapest, and then caught an overnight bus to Krabia which is about half way down the peninsula of Thailand. The plan was to meet up with Kate and Leah again on Ko Phi Phi. On the bus ride down I met a very nice woman from Sweden and spent the day walking around Krabie with her and while I liked Krabie, I couldn't see any reason to stay. I caught the last ferry of the day out to Ko Phi Phi.
Koh Phi Phi is small island just south of Phuket, about an hour by ferry, and west of Krabie, about forty minutes by ferry. Actually Koh Phi Phi is two islands, Ko Phi Phi Don which is developed and Ko Phi Phi Leh which is not. Phi Phi Don is a long skinny island which at one point narrows to an isthmus less than a hundred meters across. On both sides of the sandy isthmus are towering limestone cliffs and to the west there is nothing but Andaman Sea. As a result, outside of Phuket, Koh Phi Phi Don was probably hit the hardest by last year's tsunami. The initial wave actually broke over the island at the isthmus, wiping out the entire area and killing over 1737 people.
The truly strange thing is, aside from a gap in the otherwise omnipresent palm trees and a tsunami memorial, you'd never know the area was almost completely destroyed just over a year ago. Nearly everything has already been rebuilt and life seems to have returned to normal on the island. And for Phi Phi normal means tons of tourists and resorts catering to western cravings—burgers, Swedish meatballs and the ubiquitous traveler favorite, banana pancakes. The problem with Phi Phi is that in spite of its tourism and crowds it is a truly stunning island, one you ought not to miss if you ever find yourself in the area, just be aware of what you're getting into.
I spent the first night on the isthmus at a small guesthouse slightly inland from the beach and then the next morning I chartered a long tail around the island to the resort on the eastern shore where the girls were staying. After spending most of the day crashing the resort, Leah and Kate finally showed up and I felt a bit more legitimate. The Phi Phi Island Resort where the girls stayed is on the leeward shore of the island with a lovely private beach that slopes ever so slowly into the sea and about two hundred meters out gives way to a beautiful reef. I rented a snorkel and mask and spent the afternoon on the reef with Leah. Generally when people talk of Thailand's islands they talk of the scuba diving, but the snorkeling is also first rate. The water clarity is generally better than anywhere else I've been though evening storms did stir things up a bit while we were there. The best thing about the resort is that it provides an escape from the crowds concentrated around the isthmus. For the better part of the afternoon Leah and I had the reef to ourselves save for the occasional long tail passing off in the distance.
That evening after dinner we booked a boat trip to go around Phi Phi Leh with several stops for snorkeling and swimming. By nine the next morning we were onboard a large powerboat headed for Phi Phi Leh. As we came around the southern tip of Phi Phi Don where the island juts westward toward the isthmus I realized just how lucky we were to be in the relative isolation of the resort. Anchored just off the main harbor was a massive cruise ship which must have deposited several thousand additional people in the isthmus area.
Luckily we breezed right by the isthmus and cruise ship booth bound for the reef on the east side of Phi Phi Leh. The underwater scenery was spectacular, loads of fish, not as much coral as some places I've been, but I don't know if that was from the tsunami or just the way the reefs are in Thailand. After snorkeling for an hour or so we hoped back on the boat and headed into a very narrow shallow bay surrounded on all sides by steep limestone cliffs. 
Though there was no reef below it was nevertheless amazingly beautiful. We anchored for half and hour and took turns jumping off the upper decks of the boat into the perfect, bathwater warm, cyan-colored bay.
After swimming for a while in the bay we began to circle around the island to the west. Our next stop was a sheltered lagoon which holds the only real beach of Phi Phi Leh. We stopped for lunch and bit of swimming and sunbathing.
I've never personally seen it, but supposedly the movie The Beach was filmed there. After lunch we continued around the backside of Phi Phi Leh which consisted mainly of imposing sheer cliffs that rise straight out of the sea. After rounding the northern point of the Island which conveys just how narrow Phi Phi Leh actually is, we headed back to the resort. As Phi Phi Leh shrunk in the distance I watched my fellow backpackers zoom by on speedboats packed together like sardines under the meager shade on cheap canvas canopies. Silly backpackers.
That evening we watched the clouds glow pink and orange and bright red with the fading light of a sunset we couldn't directly see and I taught the girls how to play shithead, which 
I proceeded to lose at. Rather badly. The results of which shall not be mentioned here. The next day I headed back to join my fellow silly backpackers on the isthmus (luckily the cruise ship had moved on by then). It was really nice to spend time with Kate and Leah, you meet many people when you're traveling but it's not often that you get to see people from home. Thank you girls for letting me crash your vacation and I hope you had as much fun as I did. I only wish we had more time. Oh and for those who were wondering… I charged the whole thing to the Underhill's credit card. You want the number?