Well, that was interesting…. On our final day in Phuket, Friday of last week, we packed our belongings and brought our bags down to the front desk for them to hold. Our flight wasn’t until 8:15pm and since we had to check out by 1, we obviously had some time to kill. We packed an enormous box of gifts and stuff we aren’t using and hopped on our hog and rode down to the post office. Mailing things home is pretty painless but takes FOREVER, about 3 months.
After the post office, we jumped back on the scooter and went to get some lunch. We landed in a Sushi place right on the ocean and had one of the best meals so far. Food was phenomenal, beer was cold and we were the only ones in there, so food fights and belches weren’t terribly frowned upon. After finishing lunch, we decided to bring the scooter back to the place we rented it from. We then hit a bar to play some pool and have a few pops – really to kill time before our flight out. We planned very carefully (mostly because Molly is absolutely paranoid about missing flights) and decided that if we got into a cab at 5:45, that would get us to the airport by about 6:45-7, allowing time to eat and board the plane. We got to our hotel and the front desk attendant called us a cab. She finally shows up, a half hour late, in a Honda Civic that was straight out the movie “The Fast and the Furious.” It had neon lights everywhere, subwoofers and was lowered so it had about 2 inches of clearance from the ground. Speed bumps in our parking lot took another 10 minutes to navigate before we were finally off – right around peak rush hour of 6:30.
The hour ride to the airport felt like 5 hours, largely because the driver tried really hard to communicate with us. It was appreciated, but it’s taxing after a while! Molly got a great lesson in Thai. The driver was very willing and able to share her knowledge of the language. My mental capacity isn’t even strong enough to grasp the full English language, so as you can imagine, I was completely unable to pick up anything she was putting down. All I learned was that everything I say in Thai should end in “Kop”, because I’m a guy. We started to get really nervous around 7:30 as we had no idea where we were, but got there at about 7:40. We ran in, got through security, checked our bags and got to our terminal. I wanted a damn chicken sandwich from Burger King but Molly called me “Fatty” enough times that I finally agreed to do New York Deli instead. I wish I knew how to write me making the raspberries noise, maybe “Thhhhhhhhhhhhhpppppppppppppp” because that’s how disgusting this thing was.
The flight took about 2 hours, was rather pleasant and we landed and got to the hotel we had booked. What we didn’t know through the pictures online is that it also smelled like a wet dog that had rolled in elephant poo. They also did not have a King size bed for us, just two twins. We tried to explain that we were on our honeymoon. The beanpole clearly understood us, but had no power in being able to upgrade us to a room with a King bed, though he clearly tried. The miniature, greasy fella that ran things had no heart and didn’t care for our “online booking.”
Saturday was rainy, to say the least. We learned that the rainy season up here is extremely rainy. It’s not like a light sprinkle that lasts for an hour and then clears like in the islands. Nope, here it POURS and goes all day long. We tried not to let it stop us. We got ponchos and walked around, stopping in a few bars for a beer and pool game. We met a British couple and went to the Saturday night market, which was awesome, as is all shopping here. We got an awesome fig root carving of a Buddha that is going to look great… but only with a spotlight as Molly keeps reminding me!
On Sunday we decided to rent a scooter and head out of the city and up the mountain to check out the waterfalls in northwest Chiang Mai. We met our British friends and hopped on the open road to venture out. Peter, the British chap, was somewhat nervous because he wasn’t a fan of motorcycles or scooters but quickly caught on and was able to navigate the VERY windy mountain roads. We got about ¾ of the way up and the rain started to fall, only lightly. We finally reached our first destination and the skies opened. We hid under a small awning for about ten minutes, hoping it would stop. This didn’t happen and we finally decided the rain had slowed enough to try to navigate the 2 kilometers up to the waterfalls. Ironically, we were the only ones there and at the time, we weren’t sure why. It became clear that most other somewhat sane people understand that the rainy season in the mountains means it absolutely pours all of the time. The 2 km trip down the windy road to the waterfall felt like we were running headfirst into a tsunami. The skies opened and we were absolutely drenched by the time we got to the waterfall. At the point that we had to stop and park the scooter, we had another 3km walk up the rest of the mountain to see the whole waterfall and decided that a mudslide was entirely possible and we should just head back. Molly and I lead the way, Molly singing Disney songs the whole way to take our minds off the torrential downpour. I didn’t think it was possible for one person to know the main songs of Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Lion King and Mulan. She could easily recite them, word for word and sang like an angel… at least that’s how it sounded while I shivered and wept to myself while praying the brakes didn’t fail.
After drying, showering and eating we hit the Sunday night market and were amazed by how much cool stuff they had. I think Molly’s effect on the Thai economy was worse than that of the Great Depression on America. I think I literally saw a 45 year old Thai man cry during negotiations with her. She’s relentless and it’s truly a masterpiece in the making to watch. We left the market with almost more than we could carry and headed home for the night.
Monday was very uneventful, other than booking a full day trek for Tuesday. We decided on a trip about an hour and a half north into the country that would take us elephant trekking, hiking to a waterfall, white water rafting, bamboo raft canoeing and then to visit the orchid/butterfly farm and the Burmese Longneck tribe. After booking we hit a delightful little Italian restaurant for some “Pharang” (whitey) food. After dinner, we ended up in a bar near home to grab a few beers and challenge a roving gang of Thai women to a few games of pool. After our second or third beer and some heavy conversation, one of the Thai women was delivered a plate of deep fried grasshoppers and whole frogs. She offered then to us, giggling like we were way too big of sissies to try them. She was entirely right in my case – I have the weakest stomach for strange food, but Molly was up to the challenge. They cheersed frogs and tossed them down, Molly making a terribly sour face and waving her hands like she’d just eaten a monkey brain. She kept it down and then tried a grasshopper. I’m not sure if they were laughing more at Molly’s reaction to this or mine, which was a look of utter disgust. I was, however, proud of her and she survived.
Tuesday morning we were picked up at the butt crack of dawn by the tour guide. We planned on taking our Malaria medicine when we woke up, going to get our free hotel breakfast and having plenty of time to eat before being picked up. What we didn’t count on was that the expiration of our hotel stay that morning would result in us having to move rooms. We just assumed that in low season there was no way that they would be fully booked. We were getting picked up at 8:30am and at 7:50 were told that our room was already rented out that day. We had to run upstairs, pack all of our stuff and get back down in time to eat something because the Malaria pills have a terrible effect on your stomach. Poor Molly wasn’t fortunate enough to make it through breakfast before she puked, for about the 34th time this trip. That’s a slight exaggeration, but she vomits about as much as I brush my teeth – once per week.
We caught our shuttle up to our trek and took the hour and a half ride. When we arrived, the first thing on the docket was the elephant trek. Elephants are massive animals and I’ve not had good luck with much smaller animals, horses. I was pretty nervous to ride these beasts and furthermore, am pretty heavy. We climbed a large apparatus and got on top of this seat on top of the elephant whom I named Stinky Trunk due to her affinity to get as close as possible to the rear end of the elephant walking in front of her. We took about a 25 minute ride down a long trail which was about 23 minutes too long for me. Molly on the other hand seemed to really enjoy it and even climbed off the seat and sat on the elephants neck/head for a while. I didn’t want to tempt fate knowing how horses feel about me and decided the seat was best. We finally de-elephanted and took a short walk down to the next checkpoint. We arrived at a large, rushing river with 2 lines that ran all the way across to the other side. On these lines was a steel human cage that was attached to the lines by 2 small wheels. 2 people at a time climbed in and were pushed across, suspended 30 feet above the water. We thankfully made it all the way across and were back in the pickup truck in no time to head to lunch.
After lunch (fried noodles wrapped in banana leaves) we began our hike – let’s call it the spider hike. We walked through the jungle for about 45 minutes before finally arriving at some of the most beautiful waterfalls we’d ever seen. On the way we saw the most gigantic spiders of all time, at least the size of my hand and very likely man eating. We swam in the pool below the waterfall for a bit and trekked all the way back down the path to where we started. I affectionately gave Molly the name “Jungle Cat” due to her impeccable balance when walking down thin trails and crossing log bridges over the rivers. I thought I had bad balance? She’s like a blind ape trying to balance on top of a beach ball on the high wire. She did well though, not falling in the river once, but falling off numerous trails.
When we got back to the checkpoint, we embarked on our whitewater rafting trip. Due to our competitive nature, this was, as expected, a race. Not only did we beat the other boats but we thoroughly splashed them on the way. Molly was kind enough to push me off the boat near the end which really made me surly. I wasn’t able to get back in and since all of the passengers were dwarf sized, no one was able to help me back in. Fortunately our guide was sympathetic and pushed Molly out to join me. As the big white water raft arrived at the small bamboo rafts, we got pinned in between the big raft and the small bamboo one and were nearly impaled, but narrowly survived. The bamboo raft was quite interesting and equally as unstable. It took us about 10 minutes to learn to balance which was unfortunately the length of the trip.
We got to our final jungle destination and boarded the pickup to the Longneck Tribe. This is a Burmese tribe considered to be refugees due to the civil war currently taking place in Burma. They are a tribe of about 100 that migrated to Thailand and are known for the very heavy brass rings they wear around their necks that essentially push their collar bones down and extend their necks. It’s truly bizarre but very interesting at the same time. The craziest part is that only the women do this and start at the age of 5. At 10 years of age, the rings are doubled and by the time a woman reaches the age of 65-70, she may have 20+ rings on her neck that would equate to about 12 inches of brass. If she were to take the rings off, as it was explained to us, her neck muscles would be atrophied to the point where a wrong move would result in a broken neck. Therefore, they stay on all day and night, during sleep, dirt bike riding and wind surfing. I made those last couple up, but you get the point – they don’t come off. It is seen as a beautiful gift to be chosen amongst the tribe to become a long neck. Those lazy women do it, as we were told, in order to avoid working in the rice fields because they’re now too fragile for every day life.
After leaving the refugee camp, we went to the Orchid/Butterfly farm which thoroughly bored me. Molly really enjoyed taking pictures of the orchids though, and got some pretty cool shots. We left there after about 20 minutes and came home, only to head to the nightly market east of our hotel for more bargaining. After some more tearful purchases, on the part of the sellers, we found what’s known as a “Fish Spa.” The idea of this oddity is that you sit down, dip your feet into a large tank filled with hundreds of fish and these fish absolutely maul your feet, eating all of the dead skin off. It took a lot of convincing on Molly's part to get me to join her. I'm not a fan of anyone really touching my feet, nevermind having fish consume them. I reluctantly agreed and we sat down for a small Thai he/she to scrub our feet prior to dipping. When we got our feet in there, they were immediately attracted to my unkempt water skis. Not only is there a ton of surface area to munch on, but I've never had a pedicure in my life, rarely try to scrub my feet of dead skin and consistently wound my feet leaving plenty of scratches and such to snack on. It was an intensely weird feeling having these little guys devour your skin. I wouldn't say it felt good - not bad, but definitely not good. If you've ever gotten shocked by a low voltage electric source, like a 9V battery or something, that's exactly what it feels like. The difference is, the shocking goes on for 20 minutes and when you get shocked by something, it doesn't typically leave thousands of little terds stuck in your leg hair. It was certainly an experience...
Wednesday was a lazy day and involved only eating, drinking and desperately searching for this mystical restaurant called “Amazing Sandwiches,” which was recommended in our “Lonely Planet” travel guide for western hoagie cravers. We never were able to find it, but were able to get ourselves a scary flat tire while doing about 50 km/hr down a major road. Fortunately we made it to the curb without incident, got the tire repaired and found a restaurant to give us lunch/dinner. After a nap we went out in search of a final meal and a guy we had seen a few nights before that did drawings on the street of people. We found him, got him to do a picture of Molly and I which Molly wasn’t all that impressed with and came home. We stopped at our favorite bar, close by our hotel, and played a few more games of pool with the same Thai women mentioned earlier. It became clear about midway through that Molly had once again attracted the lesbian attention of these women as one repeatedly asked her to go home with her and insisted on lifting her skirt in front of Molly to distract her every time she took a shot. When I went to the bathroom, she even had the nerve to walk up to Molly, play with her hair and tell her how beautiful she was. We attract the weirdest people here – women for Molly and ladyboys for me.
This morning we were supposed to head to the Tiger Kingdom to play with baby, teenage and full grown tigers. Unfortunately, we lost our camera charger and spent the majority of the day trying to replace it. We missed our window of opportunity and will instead go tomorrow morning before leaving this area to go to Pai, Thailand. I’ll try to update soon.
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| Pre-Boarding of Elephant Flight 627 |
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| Nice Keisters! |
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| Put That Smelly Thing Down, Stinky Trunk! |
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| This Was Just Prior to Molly Deciding She No Longer Wanted to Ride It's Neck and Used It's Head as a Step Back Up to the Platform |
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| Me Pulling the Human Cage Back Across the River While a Strange Thai Man smacked my Back and Laughed Like I Was a Rented Mule |
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| Lunch - I Did the Dishes |
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| She's a Man Eater - Seriously, the Size of My Hand |
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| Trek Through the Jungle |
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| Waterfall |
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| Another Man Eater |
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| Molly With Queen Long Neck |
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| Get to Work Long Neck!! |
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| Orchid Up Close |
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| Me With the 7 Lb. Lobster |
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| Us at the Fish Spa |
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| Eat Those Frogs! |
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| Molly's Turn |
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| It's REALLY Hard to Sit Still and Stare in a Strangers Eyes For 40 Minutes |
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| Who's That Chick?! |
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| My Attempt at Hair Design |
