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Published: March 7th 2008
Sometimes you end up in a certain situation, in a certain place, at a certain point in time and wonder how did you get there? This is one of those times. It's late. Or early. It depends on your perspective. Either way, I'm tired, and a little drunk. And I'd like to go to bed. But i won't for a little while. There is a more pressing matter at hand. There's the drunken Thai guy shouting. There's a drunken Thai guy shouting at me. There's a drunken Thai guy with a knife in his hand. And again, i think to myself, how did i end up here?
The situation seems incongruent with the island. Ko Lanta is not a crazy sort of a place. It's popular with families and Scandinavians (and how laidback are they - Penny excepted!!). My time on the island has been relaxed and chilled. If anything it has been too relaxed. Too chilled. While Lanta is a large island it's not (at the moment) another Ko Pha Nagn. The main town Saladan is not another Haad Rin. And maybe thats the point. Maybe thats why people go there. But I'd started getting a little restless. I needed some excitement. And here it was. In the sweaty, shouting, stressed out form of this drunken Thai guy. It wasn't quite what i had had in mind.
Despite not being a busy party place Ko Lanta still has a lot of guesthouses. It is not an untouched paradise. But the guesthouse have been built to blend in between the beach and the road. They're there, but they're not massive concrete monstrosities competing in a neon battle for the tourist dollar. They're smaller, they're more subtle. But this seems to lead to a lack of focus on Lanta. Strolling out from Charlee Barley's in either direction along Klong Nin beach at night i passed bars after guesthouse after bar. All open. All with a handful of people. All lacking a real atmosphere. It seemed that just a little focus to gather people into one place would go a long way. A special BBQ at one place one night. Fire dancing somewhere else the next. Drinks promotions and so on and so forth. And so when i saw the banner i was excited. Full Moon Party. Chocolate Bar. 25th February. This didn't exactly tie-in with the Full Moon but it seems any party in Thailand has to be related to the moon in someway (Full Moon, half moon, black moon etc. etc.). There was going to be a live band playing too - Lou had seen them before and they were good. I was even more excited. But i hadn't counted on the annoying, aggravated, arsehole of a drunken Thai guy. Again, it wasn't quite what i had had in mind.
Lou. Yes i hadn't mentioned Lou. Some of you will know Miss Louise Powell. Lou was here diving. It was great to see a familiar face. Great to be able to talk about some of you guys. Great to talk about Norwich. Great to know someone who knew the island. Lou was a real star, showing me places i'd have never found (breakfast at Drunken Sailors in Kan Tiang), being great company, letting me borrow her scooter while she was off diving and, perhaps most importantly, bringing me a tub of delicious Marmite! The scooter was a god-send. It was great having the freedom to zoom around the island and see the backroads and villages. This was the 1st scooter that I'd ridden in Thailand and thankfully i avoided joining the hordes of walking wounded Falang sporting their scooter battle scars. Trust me, they're everywhere. Instead my troubles not from what i did with my scoooter. But from who i let onto my scooter. Why did i let the tempremental, troublemaking, tosser of a drunken Thai guy on the back of my bike?.
Well, as these things normally go, at the start of the night he was. Amusing and funny even. The party was good. The band were kind of just there... lots of rock covers... some good, some bad, though stuff like Metallica didn't really fit the beach party vibe. At some point we hooked up with the soon to be drunken Thai guy and all was good. He was shy almost, liking western women but being a bit too scared to go and say hi. We tried to hook him up with people, we drank buckets, we got loaded and we had a good time. Eventually going home seemed a good idea and so Brajit and me jumped onto the scooter, unexpectedly followed by the drunken Thai guy. No big deal. We'd been having i'd laugh, I was happy to give him a lift.
On the way back our drunken friend was more concerned with trying to grope Brajit then letting us know where he wanted dropping. And so we ended up back at Charlee Barley's. Me, Brajit and our drunken Thai friend. Soon we told our friend we were off to bed and bid him goodnight. Nice to meet you and all that. Which was when things began to get interesting. Seemingly there had been a misunderstand. Maybe he thought we were coming back to continue partying, or maybe he wanted to try his luck with Brajit, or whatever. But it was now dawning on him that he was a rather long walk from the party and needed to get back. So he wanted me to drive him all the way back. Now this wasn't something i wanted to do, we'd told him countless times we were going home. But even if i had wanted to the scooter was virtually out of gas, it was late, and it wouldn't have got me there and back. So he wasn't get a lift. Our drunken friend though didn't seem to understand any of this in the slightest.
So Brajit and me decided the easiest way out was to simply go into my room, shut the door and wait for him to go. The only problem being that he didn't. Oh and that my room didn't actually lock from the inside either. So when he started banging on the door we lietrally had to hold it shut, which at first was amusing, but as the guy got angrier became rapidly less so. So as language was not providing an effective form of communication i thought a demonstration was in order. And so i open the door, argued a little more, and strolled over to the bike. At which point Mr Drunken Thai Guy pulled out a knife and started shouting some more.
I think at this point i was drunk enough to not be too frightened by the situation, but not too drunk to think going Jackie Chan on him was a good idea. So as he shouted i moved, always keeping enough distance between us. Brajit was outside too, talking to him. And he seemed to listen to her more. his malice was definitely directed to me. And so this went on for a little. We did our little man-dance until eventually people at our guesthouse were woken and came to see what the hell was going on. I felt bad leaving this drunken fool in their hands but some were Thai and could actually talk to him. and my presence wasn't really helping the effort to get rid of him. So Brajit and me disappeared into her room, which had a lock, and got away from him. In the morning we found out they had eventually given him some money for a taxi to make him go away!!
All a bit dramatic and certainly not what i'd expected. I think in the morning it dawned on me more how much of a shady situation this was. As you travel round you hear stories like this from time to time. Arguments with drunken Thai's turning into brawls and before you know it 1 or 2 people are getting beaten by 20 locals. As it was nothing really happened apart from a lot of shouting and i felt lucky that things hadn't gotten more out of hand.
This all clouded my time on Lanta. Before i came here a couple had told me the story of how they'd woken up to find one of the staff at their resort in their room going through their things at 5 in the morning. Two of Lou's friends had money stolen from their house while i was there. Another drunken local was almost kicking off with the owner of Charlee Barley's the night i left... and they were friends. All in all this all left me with a bit of a bad impression of Lanta. This stuff probably happens all over Thailand all the time but i'd avoided it all. Yet here on Lanta it seemed to keep coming up.
Maybe it's all conincidence though. There were great things about Lanta too. Pon and Yai at Charley Barley's were great. Pon, a young shy guy who really not looking forward to his upcoming arranged marriage. Yai, an older, former Muay Thai boxer with an infectious passion for life. Both great guys. One morning Dolphins, including little baby Dolphins, swam along our beach. I swam out with a few others and while we didn't get within touching distance we did see them jumping from 50 ft away. Muay Thai boxing in Saladan was a fun night out. The Thai vs. Falang fights being the most heated and most fun (Thai vs. Thai fights were more technical with lots of feints and posturing involved).
But overall Lanta was just kind of there for me. I think though after such a great time in Tonsai anywhere was going to struggle to follow it up. But anyway, Lanta was my last real stop in Thailand. A quick nothing night in Had Yai and i was on the coach to Malaysia for the 2nd time and leaving Thailand for the 3rd and final time!!!
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Juan Pablo De Wes
Wesley Hughes
To My Family
p.s. just wanted to say no need to worry. Am completely safe and sound!! lol Miss you x x x