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Published: November 21st 2006
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A few days after our return from Koh Chang, Chelly came home from work with a gift for me. She'd saved up some vacation days and was planning to use three of them to take me to the nearby island of Ko Samet.
Without a Hitch Getting to the island was smooth and effortless, which was a good sign.
We took our time the night before we went, kicking around the mall in Sriracha and staying up late with a DVD. Then we took even more time in the morning. We slept in, dragged our feet through breakfast and showers and packing, but finally got rolling late in the morning.
We took even more time when we stopped in Pattaya to look for a new bathing suit for Chelly. (I'd bought her one on Koh Chang, but she wanted a
pink one.) One of the redeeming qualities of Pattaya is the superior selection of goods over the malls and markets in most of the country, so while she shopped, I browsed through cheap DVDs and CDs. After a lot of searching, she failed to find a suit that could fit her--I guess Thai girls have pretty
small breasts--but, I succeeded in finding a live concert DVD that I couldn't live another day without: Iron Maiden at the RockAmRing Metal Fest in Germany, 2005!
About then, we were getting pretty hungry for lunch, so we spent a good hour eating at a fine Indian restaraunt that I remembered from my last visit to Pattaya.
It was getting later now, but we found our next bus effortlessly. In fact, on this bus we were able to pay for the ride all the way to Rayong, and for the connection on to Ban Phe, where we would catch our boat to Ko Samet. Chelly napped through the ride and I had an excellent, lengthy conversation with a Belgian fellow, all about world politics and U.S. policy. We slid into town about a half hour early for the last boat.
Gai And on that boat, we met Gai. "Gai" is the Thai word for "chicken", and it's also the name of a youthful (looking 27, but clocking in at 42 years of age) tattoo artist with a studio on Ko Samet. Gai spoke great English, poked fun at my tattoos, and made Chelly laugh with
his corny jokes--so we were fast friends. He gave us some pointers about the island and kept us entertained until we got there, and once we were there, his friends gave us a ride in their pickup all the way to the tattoo studio.
At the studio, we met Gai's Canadian wife Catherine and their two adorable toddlers. We also became acquainted with Gai's apprentices and with his two major hobbies: doing intricate carvings and machining work (producing fantastic watches and tattoo machines), and collecting replica weapons and airguns. That's when I got my sweet gun pictures. (John Rutledge, an ROTC friend from Washington, suggested that the grenade launcher was over-the-top, what do you think?)
We also learned that there was a 400 baht per person entry fee to come onto the island, which the semi-corrupt national park staff had just doubled this week for the high season, and the proceeds of which they usually spent on their own cars. But Gai and Catherine told us a great way around it that involved cutting off of the main road at a certain Buddha and gate, then following the path to a temple, and then leaving the temple for
the beach and walking the beach until we got where we wanted to be.
We couldn't catch a Sangthaew that way, but we did get a great moonlit walk along the first three major beaches of Ko Samet. We found a guest house running a half-price promotional deal, checked in, settled on the sand for some dinner and the entertainment of a fire show, and just like that we were there.
Uneventful After that first evening, really, the rest of our stay was pretty uneventful--but I guess that's a good thing. A really good thing in this case.
We did a lot of swimming in the gorgeous blue waters and a lot of walking hand-in-hand along the white-sand beaches.
The island seemed to be overpopulated with adorable little puppies, and we befriended quite a few of them. (One of the puppies spent a day following me from place to place. She even showed up unbidden at the movie we were watching up the road from our hotel that night, and I gave her some bacon for her loyalty.)
We had great food, including a new Thai dish I learned called, "Pad Pak", which
is simply stir-fried mixed vegetables. We also had some BBQ ribs, an awesome pizza, excellent curries and sandwiches, and some fun desserts.
We also enjoyed great drinks, mostly fruit shakes and teas and iced-Milo, but even a delicious bottle of French wine and some sweet-tooth screwdrivers.
Down the street from Gai's studio, we found an exceptional ice cream shop. This really was the best ice cream I've had in Thailand, and I went back as much as three times a day for scoops of chocolate-peanut-butter or strawberry.
We saw some funny signs, some gorgeous sunsets, and learned how great of a tattooist Gai really is.
We watched a great film called, "The Constant Gardener". It was set in Kenya, but it didn't lift our spirits as I'd expected it to. In fact, it was a very serious, thoughtful film that I suggest all of you pick up soon. The net effect was to inspire a desire in me to take positive action in the world in some way. Not a bad desire.
One of the highlights was when we found a wild night club full of old white men and their second-rate Thai prositutes (one
of them had two Lady Boys), as well as a few couples like us. There was a great DJ and a cover band with awesome stage presence but terrible musical taste. We danced until Chelly was sick of the music and she dragged me out--smiling.
Over all, it was a relaxing, romantic couple of days.
And that's about it...
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