Goodbye Pattaya, Hello Bangkok

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So, after spending two days in "lovely" Pattaya (definitely not the Greatest City on Earth, as I was told it would be), I decided it was time to bid ado to this fine noisy cesspool and see something a little more wholesome and real.


Out on an Island

I met up with my friend Scott from Kansas City early in the morning, but it wasn't until the afternoon that we actually headed out. We walked through the steamy-hot streets of Pattaya, past pushy Indian tailors and aggressive Lady-Boys, down to the thoroughly-appalling Pattaya beach.

At the beach we were forced to haggle with the con-man motorboat drivers that hang around between ferry runs, waiting to rip-off tourists. Despite our savvy shopping, however, we were unable to avoid our fate and paid far too much money for the trip.

The ride out to Koh Larn was beautiful. The sun baked our faces, the wind blew back our hair, and the ocean's spray spattered our sunglasses. Even dirty Pattaya looks lovely from the bay when you're headed away. Our driver took us quick, but he let us appreciate the sight and didn't go too rough over the bumps.

We put down at a little place called Taewan Beach, much sunnier and quieter and cleaner that Pattaya, but still occupied by obnoxious tourists and the insistent sellers of goods and services that prey on them.

Scott and I each jumped onto the back of a pair of shiny new motorcycles and told the drivers to take us up the mountain and across the island to another little beach called Samae, which we had been told was filled with pretty European tourist girls.

The bike ride was one of the most absolutely frightening and dangerous things I have ever done: on the back of a Honda, clinging to a skinny Thai fella, with my big-ass backpack swaying back and forth as he took the turns, ready to tip me off onto the ground at any moment. We started out driving along a broken concrete sidewalk, at some places cracked, at some places with huge holes through which could be seen the high ocean tide below, at some places several feet of concrete were completely missing and the gaps spanned by two-by-fours, and at other places we drove just along the rocks of the beach. My driver went over this in bursts and coasts, sometimes using his feet to stabilize us against the ground when the swaying of my heavy bag had come close to dashing both our skulls against the rocks.

After a bit, we got onto a narrow cobble-stone road, barely wide enough to let the tiny Nissan trucks get by as we raced up the side of a small mountain, zipping past slower bikes and rushing head long towards oncoming pickups and the occassional expensive European car. This road took us over and down into a valley of palms, then ended in the dirt pathways of a small town.

The "road" here was clearly meant to be a foot path, but had obviously been used for cars for close to a hundred years without any kind of sensible conversion. The taxi drivers and locals on bikes or scooters screamed along as if it was a major highway, dodging sleeping dogs and standing water and playing kids and the occassional street-side vendor, all on a street too narrow to drive a Hummer down. After several 90-degree corners had threatened to spill me in the mud, we leaft the town and got back into some fields of palm.

Up another mountain and over and there we were on Samae beach.

Unlike the beach at Pattaya, this one lacked the homeless prostitutes and Lady Boys soliciting you for sex with calls of, "handsome man," "welcome, sexy boy," and, "you want boom-boom long time?" However, it did not lack the congestion of beach chairs and umbrellas (all rentable for the day), and the crowds of Thai vendors asking you to pay them for a seat and a drink and something to eat and some souvenirs.

Scott and I walked the beach until we found a patch of empty sand and sat there on the ground, taking turns to venture out into the cresting waves and get slapped full in the face with some discarded garbage. Rather than hoardes of Euro sun bather girls, we found a dozen-or-so people, mostly white males with Thai hookers in tow. The sun quickly went behind some clouds, and the retreating tide deposited more and more garbage on the beach. All in all, it was a lovely scene.


Up the Mountainside

Scott had a boat meeting him at 5:00 pm back at Taewan Beach, so we said goodbye around 4:30 and he climbed onto a motorbike. I sat for a while and had some water and looked up at the mountain on which I had decided to camp.

The Thais weren't going to let me camp there, of course, not with so many unrented bungalows around. So, I acquiesced to their offers of food and drink, hoping to throw them off the scent of my money. I paid ten times what I would pay to a street vendor and recieved a beautiful and altogether fantastic Thai Mixed Seafood Salad. There were shrimp and oysters and pieces of squid, all tossed with tomatoes and onion and green onion and some other unidentifiable veggies, then seasoned with a Thai chili/garlic/lemon sauce.

The food was good and it went down easy with about three bottles of water, then I paid and hoisted my pack to set off. I was barefoot and shirtless and walking with a long bamboo stick and a 30 kilo backpack. Of course they stopped me and offered bungalows, but I made up a story about already having paid for a room on the other side of the island at Naul Beach. At this point, the beach's boss-lady just couldn't stand the thought of me walking all that way (2 kilometers) without having one of the taxi drivers or motorcyclists in her employ take me there. I told her I liked to walk and that I needed the air and the exercise, and she told me to be wary of the packs of stray dogs that lived in the mountains and would attack me while I walked. Good thing I had the stick, she said, because I would need it to fight the strays.

This was bullshit, I soon learned, concocted to scare me a little and then get me to overpay for a ride to a place that I wasn't even trying to go to. She knew it too, she knew I was going camping and she was trying to call my bluff. But, I'm a good poker player--at least I used to be--and despite my obvious tells, I held onto my cards until all the other players had folded and then reached over and grabbed up the pot.

Fifty feet from the beach and the locals' dogs stopped trailing me. I turned off on the side-road to Naul and was soon out of sight, smell, and hearing of Samae, surrounded only by silent green and warm air and some really tiny mosquitos.

The bugs here are much smaller than those at home, and there are a lot less of them. There's less of every animal really, aside from humans. Up on that mountain that night, I saw none of the vast array of wildlife I would expect in a similar place at home, and I also saw none of the dogs and boars and monkeys that I'd been told by other travellers that I would see there.

The road took me to the top of the mountain as the sky around me got darker. Right there where the road starts it's descent back down into the valley on the other side and from there down to the lush little guest-village at Naul, I changed my clothes and ventured off the road into the brush.

A quick trek brought me to a hollow between the ridges, mostly sheltered from the high winds that buffeted the mountain's small trees, and completely out of sight of the two beaches nearby and their inhabitants. I hung my mosquito net out of a little twig of a tree and I set my bed up inside. The backpack and all my possessions in the world got locked up and covered with camoflauge, shoved into the bushes and bike-locked to a tree--just in case someone came along in the night and saw me. They could have my sleeping bag and my net and shoes and the clothes off my body if they wanted, but they were never gonna get to my money and passport.

It was getting really dark by then, and I was getting munched by bugs too small for me to see and kill, so I climbed in under the net and settled down for bed. There was a nice warm breeze coming in and I slept naked on top of the sleeping bag, drifting into heaven under the light of the moon.


Hell and High Water

My peace was short-lived however, as the racket from the Cicadas woke me up an hour or so later and put stiff the hairs on the back of my neck. I discovered as well that there was an incredible pain in my stomach and bowels that could only be food-poisoning from the seafood and chili sauce I had eaten on the beach below.

The rest of the night involved restlessly rolling around on the ground, trying to cover my head from the noise, and making steady trips to the woods to dig a hole. To make matters worse, I had left my toilet paper and hand wash in the backpack, and my flashlight's last bulb burnt out while I was searching for them. I was forced to resort to the leaf-and-rock method I had learned in the Olympic mountains with NOLS, and to wash my hands with grass and my own spit. Needless to say, it is very difficult to remember all your Leave No Trace camping ethics and practices while marooned high on an island mountain in Thailand with no flashlight, no traveling companions, and an agonizing case of food poisoning.

I awoke in the morning and laid for awhile, avoiding the bugs and the need to get clothed. I got up in stages, first taking time to replenish electrolytes with some powdered Pedialyte drink, then to rub my sore feet with lotion, and to whittle awhile on the end of my walking stick. When I eventually did break down camp, I discovered the presence of an awful smell around and an unusually large population of flies. Taking time to properly bury all the piles and mark each one with a stone cairn (a back-country backpacker's courtesy), I then shouldered the pack, grabbed my stick, and headed down the mountain towards the beach.

Going down the opposite way from how I'd come, I transitioned from low grass and scrub to larger trees and odd brambles, and soon found that my way was blocked by an almost-impassable cliff. I followed the ridge-line down to a place where it looked safe to start traversing in long switchbacks and made my way in that fashion until it could be done no more. Luckily, I was deep in the forest on a gently-inclined hill and was able to do the rest of the way sliding on my ass with the occassional crab-walk to get around a cactii and untangle myself from the vines.

At the bottom of the hill, I changed into my beach clothes and hid my bag again just as I had in camp. There wasn't really a beach here, though, just garbage, rocks, coral, and tide-pools, and after that some beautiful, clean, early-morning waves.

I did some vigorous exercise on the rocks, drinking more water and Pedialyte. Aside from my regular pushups and squats, I also had some great long pieces of bamboo to stretch with and to practice my overhead squat. Afterwards, I found some big rocks to lift and throw, and then put my shoes on for a bit of plyometrics and rough-terrain jogging.

A local passed me, on his way back from his morning rounds collecting crabs. We exchanged smiles and I watched him go on his way, walking along the rocks down past some native shacks and further down to the huts and umbrellas at Samae Beach.

I thought about all the garbage in the water down there, and the fact that I would have no friends to watch my bag while I swam, and I decided I ought to jump in for a quick dip here where it was clean I was by myself.

Kicking off my sandals, I stepped out into the surf, finding the rocks and coral to be a little bit sharper than I'd expected. I was knocked over a couple times by the heavy waves, but it got deep quick and I was able to have a great and refreshing swim. I stroked and floated and treaded and dove and when it started to feel like I was swallowing too much salt water in the waves and finding it harder and harder to breath, I headed back towards the shore. The waves were growing with the day, and the tide was getting higher. I found myself knocked over time after time as I walked up to where my sandals and walking stick were waiting, and by the time I got there I was covered in cuts and bruises.

Corral cuts are sharp and they hurt and I know this from plenty of experience in the past. I sat a bit and applied neosporin to all my cuts and bandaged myself up where it was needed. Then I tied a bandanna around my head, slid my toes into my sandals, hoisted the pack, and started the scrambling hike into town, passing elaborate sea-caves, curious dogs, and ramshackle huts and shelters.


Stranded on the Beach

I dragged myself into the little beach town a half hour later and frightened all the locals, who--in their pity--all pitched in to find me a seat, help me off with my bag, get me some water and fresh fruit, and put on some comforting music. Only three days in Thailand and I was already quite a rough-looking sight.

I was planning to meet a couple friends at the beach this afternoon, and thought they might already be there by now. Their ETA was 1pm, and with the sun hidden behind grey skies, I had no idea how long my morning's adventures had taken. I was appalled, then, to learn that it was only five minutes past nine in the morning and I would be waiting in this state for another four hours at least.

Lucky for me, the boss-lady from the night before had admired my hutzpah and she offered me a seat on the beach all day, rent free, and some water when I needed it. I found out at the end of the day that she'd also given me my breakfast at native prices, charging me less than half what a regular tourist would have paid.

So that is where I lay for my four hours, sleeping like a baby and waiting for my friends to show. The sun came out while I was there, and wave after wave of tourists began to arrive, piling out of the funny little pickup-truck taxis that are everywhere out here.

By 1:00 the beach was full of tourists from all parts of the world, but my two friends from America were nowhere to be seen. I needed a toilet by this point, and some decent conversation. So, I found a couple of girls to talk to and to watch my belongings while I freshened up.

One of the girls, Erica, was from Sweden and she had excellent English. The other one, Yok, was Erica's brother's girlfriend and her English was not so good, even though it was the only way her and Erica could communicate.

They told me about their travels and I shared stories from mine. We drank pineapple juice and took naps and occassionally went out into the surf and the sun. Before I even knew, it was coming up on five o'clock and I was covered in sun burns. They were taking a ferry at five and it was one seventieth the price I'd payed for my motorboat passage (I kid you not, this is an exact figure), so I tagged along with them.

We had some sugary cakes in the village and got on our boat, watching and laughing at the Euros on the boat still in their speedos, the men with obvious prostitutes, and the beautiful Russian girls surrounded by young boys who hung on their every word.

Back in town, though, we were fading fast, and with no idea what had happened to my friends (turns out it was food poisoning as well), the three of us decided to grab a bite of Indian food. Halfway through the meal I started nodding off, my sunburnt forehead coming inches away from a pile of rice and curry. The girls were heavy-lidded as well, so we boxed up the leftovers and they walked me to a very cheap guest house that Yok knew about. I got a room for the night, threw my bag down by the TV, and sprawled out fast asleep on the bed.

The next morning I was up first thing, ate the cold Indian food from the night before for breakfast, watched an interview with a Thai independent filmmaker on TV, and was out the door and onto a bus bound for Bangkok before the old Englishmen and Germans in Pattaya were even ready to climb out of bed and face their hangovers.


Welcome to the Urban Jungle

Riding down the Thai freeway is kind of like zipping real quick past a state fair and a carnival and the site of a natural disaster. A couple of hours of this and we were suddenly in Bangkok, an ancient and decrepit city that seems never to end.

Somewhere in the middle of Bangkok--underneath a raised freeway, amongst rubble and grafitti, shacks and aluminum sheeting, street vendors and street people that reminded me more of the movie Judge Dredd or of the game Necromunda than of anything I'd ever expected to see in real life--I got dropped off the bus and left to fend for myself.

I asked some help from the right people, I guess, and I found my way onto the Sky Train, where I met some older American professionals returning to their real lives in Bangkok, also fresh out of Pattaya. The train dropped me off in a neighborhood indistinguishable from the first, and a pretty-looking Irish girl helped me to the Khao San Road, found me a cheap guest house, shared my dinner, and before very long we were out celebrating and sharing beers with close to a dozen fellow travelers from around the world.

Ahhhh. That's more like it.

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Comments

[Aaron Brown]

"I discovered as well that there was an incredible pain in my stomach and bowels that could only be food-poisoning from the seafood and chili sauce I had eaten on the beach below. " you know..I had a feeling this was coming. Probiotics- an essential for thailand travel. if you could find some daikon radish and a local cow to get some milk from, I could help you out. what's this pedialyte stuff anyway? "I sat a bit and applied neosporin to all my cuts and bandaged myself up where it was needed." I'd go with the traditional route- tree resins. did you talk all of this out with rendevous with friends before your trip? "(turns out it was food poisoning as well), " I think every person I've heard of who has visited Thailand has gotten food poisoning. I'm guessing the natives have some kind of higher resistance to bad bacteria..or maybe they just be sure and eat plenty of probiotic foods(good bacteria- protectant). "A couple of hours of this and we were suddenly in Bangkok, an ancient and decrepit city that seems never to end." Have you seen the movie "Ong Bok:Thai Warrior"? If so, does Bangkok resemble as portrayed in the movie? Is meeting fellow travelers really that easy or would you say you just have an affinity for it?