The Meyer of Thailand

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The last two week’s have been spent in the company of family Meyer (and Andy) on the Islands of Ko Phan Ngan and Ko Tao. It has been much less difficult than I imagined. Anny and I left Borneo, flew to Penang and then crossed into Thailand on the train, arriving on Ko Phan Ngan a couple days before the Meyer invasion. As four months ago (has so much time disappeared already?) we stayed at Coconut Beach Bungalows on Haad Khoom beach where we found everything to be same-same, but different. The beach was the same; a gorgeous sandy curve bitten from the mountains, but the water was so low that that it made snorkeling impossible. The weather was perfect (especially considering the time of year) and perhaps even hotter than before. The lovely guys at the guest house were as friendly as ever, though the prices had gone up and the whole operation still seems to attract the permanently lost and confused - perhaps that’s why we all felt so at home here?

Family Meyer, to save time, decided to fly from Bangkok to Ko Samui and to get a ferry from there. We knew which day they were arriving but neither which ferry nor what time. In the end it was not hard to spot them, as stepping off of the first ferry were three of the whitest people you have ever seen! I shouted out to these white people three, dumped their bag’s on my scooter and lead them to where Anny was waiting in a nearby café. As soon as Anny saw her mum and sister she ran (I’ve truly never seen this before!) down the road for a teary reunion, whilst I slapped Andy fraternally on the back and drew him into the café for a beer.

To allow you guys to better understand what is to follow I’ll attempt a brief description of the two new Meyer’s and Andy. I’ll start with the Ursula, the gentle matriarch. It is said that when assessing a new girlfriend’s potential you should look at her mother, for this will give you some idea of what’s to come. If this is the case then Anny is looking an excelent choice as Ursula looks radiant, happy and it is quite clear as to where the Meyer sister’s get their looks from! Unfortunately Ursula speaks no English and I no German, so communication was a little difficult but thanks to her relaxed nature and gentle spirit this wasn’t the awkward barrier it could have been. Ursula arrived here with a nasty strain injury to her spine (for which she had been signed of work for a month) but she was never heard to complain. In fact her relaxed nature was only heightened (if that’s not an oxymoron) when she insisted on having three large Chang beer’s on top of the strong painkillers she was taking! When in Rome I guess!

Then we have Suzi, Anny’s little big sister. Suzi has the biggest grin you have ever seen and she uses it often; it is infectious, uplifting and a pleasure to behold. She also has very cute dimples! Suzi has taken to all things Thai with great enthusiasm and would like, I think, to come back and live here. If this is not achieved then I worry for Andy as I suspect his Nottingham refuge may soon look like a Buddhist temple, smell of incense and that his beloved cottage pie will be replaced by Som Tam, Pad Thai and Green Curry!

Which leaves Andy who, like me, is the only other non-Meyer here. Andy is a rock and roll star and dresses accordingly, all the time. Whilst back home, with his graveyard tan and tight black clobber, he is the epitome of moody cool but here, on a baking beach in Thailand, his Black drainpipes, 12 inch black shit-flicker shoes, long dark hair, shades and bright pink tan look pretty damn funny. Still, at least this guy is rock all the way through, no compromise and no surrender! As you can imagine, with all the black leather, the cool tunes and adoring fans, this guy is pretty tough, but sit him down in front of a gentle Massaman curry (Mai Pet) and he starts crying like a girl and calling for his mummy! Don’t even get me started on what he does when we mention sharks, it’d spoil his cool for ever! Andy likes a drink (goes with the territory) and so do I (goes well with other drinks) so on a couple of occasions we bought ourselves some space from the chattering German’s and took ourselves to the bar. One memorable time, after leaving early in the morning to return the bikes and after having seen an Elephant play a harmonica whilst spinning a hula hoop and the largest Monitor lizard, we decided to celebrate with an early lunchtime (read not so late breakfast) drink. When we finally staggered back some eight hours later we were both, as is only right and proper, in a good deal of trouble with our respective Meyers. It’s stuff like this that brings us blokes closer; and distances us from our girls!

So there you have the Meyer’s; here, briefly, is what we got up to: The first few days on Ko Phan Ngan were spent relaxing, getting over jet lag, adjusting to the temperature, drinking, swimming, eating and catching up on gossip. To be fair the three days which followed were also spent in this vein with the exception of one, where we got out there and made like tourists. Because neither Suzi nor Ursula wanted to ride a scooter, Anny bravely stepped up to the plate and drove herself round for the day. This girl was born to ride and truly looked the cutest thing on her bright red scooter, unfortunately though all was not to go well - more on this later. Andy drove Suzi and I a very nervous Ursula; every time a car passed us or a horn was sounded Ursula would lock her arms even tighter around me which made control pretty tough, not to mention breathing!

Our first stop was the Buddhist temple we visited last time we were here. We wanted to introduce Ursula, Suzi and Andy to Somchai so he could bless them in his inimitable way but unfortunately he was away for a month. It was a shame because we had bought him some pictures of our last trip to add to his massive collection - we had to leave them with another monk. Last time we were here Somchai had shown us many pictures of him in locations across the world, including one of him on Brighton pier and one, which I have a copy of, of him posing inside the home of Jay Kay, the lead singer from Jamiroqi, or however it’s spelt. Next we went to the psychedelically painted and ornately carved Chinese temple that sits atop a hill with amazing views over Chaloklam bay. After this we went to Wat Pho and indulged in an herbal Sauna. This was like stepping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Andy thought we were truly crazy to want to leave the unbearable (for him) heat and humidity of Ko Phan Ngan and to step into a room which was much, much hotter and considerably more humid. So, not wanting to seem like a spoil-sport, Andy (still wearing his drainpipe jean!) stepped manly into the oven. He said that the only good thing about it was that for five minutes afterwards he could barely feel the Thai heat!

After this we had decided to head back as it was getting late and we decided to take the coast road so as to enjoy the amazing views. I now wish we hadn’t. At one point the road, as often happens, was being repaired and had been left as a bumpy dirt track down a steep hill. Because Anny had been riding so well all day I did not think that she would have any problems, I didn’t even consider it. Anny was driving the bike behind me so I couldn’t see what was happening but I could hear the scrunch of skidding tires and then the sickening crunch as she crashed the bike. Luckily she was not going very fast at all as we were traveling down a steep hill with our brakes fully on but Anny managed to lock hers which caused the skid. She ended up with a nasty cut on her knee and a couple on her foot, she was lucky as it could have been much worse. The bike was quite expensive to fix though!

For the second half of their trip we moved across to the smaller island Of Ko Tao. We found ourselves a lovely quiet beach that required a white knuckle jeep ride to reach - I’ve never seen such a steep road, Andy and I were convinced the heavily laden jeep was going to pull a wheelie! The sand here was not as soft and white as on Ko Phan Ngan but if anything the view was even better, especially the one from our wooden hut, half way up the steep hill. From the beach we could see Ko Phan Ngan and, on an exceptionally velar day after a storm, Ko Samui as well. We spent our days here in much the same way as on Phan Ngan with the exception of two days.

On the first of these we took a day trip to the beautiful triumvirate of Islands that are collectively known as Ko Nang Yuan. The three islands are connected by a white sand-bar and are best viewed from the top of one of the larger hills. The island also had exceptionally clear water which made for great snorkeling and it was with much pleasure that I reacquainted myself with the underwater world. I saw a meter long Garfish and some huge shoals of Parrotfish, as well as some huge coral’s over three meters high and as many across. The highlight of my snorkeling adventures would have to wait another two days however, and would happen just a few yards of of the beach we were staying on.

We hired snorkels for two days in a row and (Anny and Ursula especially) spent our time exploring the next bay along where much superior coral gardens could be found. Beautiful abstractions in purple, gold and green were laid out in strange formations to be perused at our leisure. The coral was amazing, the fish prolific (especially enjoyed were the huge shoals of fusilier fish that would surround us and follow us as we swam) and the water warm and clear. On the last day we could not be bothered to make the climb over the hill to the next bay so Anny, Suzi and Ursula decided to have a go in ours. There is very little coral in this bay, the bottom mostly comprising dead and broken coral pieces, patches of sand and the odd large coral. None the less fish were everywhere, including a giant grouper and a huge shoal of bright orange fish.


The girls had been in the water for about an hour and when they came back they all looked slightly wired. With good reason it turns out as when Ursula was pointing out a Moorish Idol, Anny saw a shark! They saw a couple more on the way back in. Anny was quite blasé about this and said she was not really worried as it was only a couple feet long. Anny asked if I wanted to come see if I could see them and when I said yes we swam back out. We had been swimming for quite a while without seeing anything unusual. We were in fairly deep water and as it was late in the day and the light quite oblique, we were unable to see clearly for more than ten meters in any one direction. I have to admit that this made me slightly nervous, especially as I was ready to see a shark at any moment. We were heading despondently back to the beach when, from about about eight meters away, I saw it. It was huge, about two meters long! I pointed it out to Anny expecting her to smile a smile of an experience shared but, putting her head above the water and spitting out her snorkel, she exclaimed, “Jesus Scott, it’s fu#*@ng huge.” We put our masks back on and started to swim as quickly as we could back to the beach. I was watching the shark out the corner of my eye; he would swim in and then swim away, each time getting closer. On the last pass it came within four meters and I was starting to get seriously scared. I knew there were sharks here, in fact the island just of shore is called “Shark Island” and the bay to our right “Shark bay”; I also knew that these were black tipped reef sharks and therefore “relatively harmless” but this didn’t stop my bum twitching like an excited Bill Oddie! The strangest thing though was the reaction of the rest of the people on the beach when we got out and excitedly spread the word. Everyone ran to the dive shops, grabbed snorkels, even more people and dived straight in the water! Crazy!

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