Still Workin'

So we spent two weeks building houses for Thai villagers. It was fun.

There was one fellow, a Thai fellow, named Jackson who kept us entertained by singing constantly (doo-doo-doo, da-da-da-da-da) and occasionally getting us drunk on the job. Oh, and one time he caught a really big lizard with his hat. Great guy all around.

At the end of the day we'd clamber off the pick-up truck at our drop-off point and wander, zombie-like, into the grocery store for tater chips and bottles of beer. Did we feel a bit smug walking amongst the tourists in our cement speckled work clothes? Hell yes. Why else do people volunteer if not for the sense of moral superiority? Altruism? Bah!

One night we all threw in for a heap of fresh shrimp and barbecued them on the beach. Jackson made a hot air balloon out of twigs and a plastic bag and a candle it glowed in the night sky like a really dodgy star.

Time well spent, if you ask me.

Workin'

We went for an orientation on Monday at the Tsunami Volunteer Center. TVC is up on a hill just south of Khao Lak's main drag nestled in the rainforest. We stood around getting our pictures taken for ID badges and drinking coffee with the seven other new volunteers until there was a quick meetng in which they told us some dos and don'ts (1. Don't touch any Thai person's head. 2. If you're a couple, don't hold hands or show affection in public, etc...) and then we loaded into the back of a pick up truck and we were off.

We toured the villages that had already been completed to get an idea of what we would be building, then we went to the boat yard which is where TVC had built longtail boats for all the fishermen who'd lost their's in the tsunami. They'd replaced all the boats and were building a huge yacht in which to sail around the world. It was pretty fantastic.

We saw two enormous ships that had been pushed a mile inland by the wave. It was incredibly odd to see a 150 foot long police boat in the middle of a field.

Then they took us to lunch where we met the folks we'd be working with. We all made smalltalk until someone put two and two together and realized there were two Massachusettsians on the crew. They called over to Louie, who had been somewhere else (napping, playing with the kittens? I don't know) and it turned out we knew each other. Wild.

That was about it. We went back to our bungalow and had some beers and braced for an early day of hard labor under the hot and punishing Thai sun.

Oops.

Khao Sok is pretty quiet and pretty quiet was just what we were... Oh, holy crap, I completely skipped over a very important part of our trip. For some reason I mixed up the order in which we did what we did.

Ok, insert this between Kantiang Bay and The Next Thing I Know...

When we left Kantiang bay we headed not for Khao Sok but for Khao Lak. An important distinction. We spent two weeks in Khao Lak building houses for folks who had lost their homes in the Tsunami of December 2004.

When we first got to Khao Lak we walked around in flip-flops with our enormous, three-months-worth-of-stuff backpacks on our backs for about an hour and a half trying to find a place to stay. K spotted a bunch of bungalows behind a restaurant set back from the main road but we couldn't find the proprietor and so we soldiered on, checking many different places, none of which compared to the ones behind the restaurant. So we went back and hung out until a hilarious lady appeared. She spoke six or seven words of English and I had recently mastered "hello" and "thank you" in Thai so our conversations were largely gestural but she knew what we were looking for (white people with backpacks don't often peddle magazines or salvation in Thailand) and she set us up with a cute, quiet bungalow in the palm tree crowded garden.

We hit the beach.

The beach in Khao Lak was nice but not as idyllic as the beaches on Ko Lanta. No matter, we loved it all the same. We arrived in town on Friday and work didn't begin until Monday so we spent the weekend lazing at the beach and drinking Singha on our porch. It was by all accounts a great weekend.

Hard Drinking Monkeys

We walked through a forest of banana trees and other tropical flora to the banks of a little river. At an oxbow there was a swimming hole and a bunch of local kids swinging from a rope and jumping in. The tourists were less adventurous, preferring to watch from the water. It wasn't until we swam out into the middle of the swimming hole that I noticed the monkeys; literally hundreds of all ages climbing in the crevices of the 75 foot high cliff. The little ones would form lines of three or more holding onto the tail of the one in front of them. It was fantastic.

Then an eel bit my ankle.

I thrashed and shrieked and made for the rocks. Once there I turned around and Kristy looked concerned.

Kristy: What the hell?

Me: A fish just bit me!

Kristy was a bit calmer than I but she started swimming in increasingly frantic circles until she finally headed off in the opposite direction as I had, towards where we'd left our stuff.

Me: Uhh.

Kristy: I'm getting the hell out of here.

The locals thought we were hilarious. There was one guy who was pouring capfuls of whisky and offering them to the monkeys who were far more interested in the bananas other people were dishing out. Chuckling he handed me a full cap and I drank it and it was foul and perfect.

I summoned the courage to leap back into the water and back into the water I leapt. I tried to look cool as I swam at a breakneck pace towards the safety of our spot on the rocky beach. I'm sure I failed at looking cool but I did make it back successfully and without any more eel bites.

We left in search of food...

Next thing I know...

We're on a bus on our way to the rain forest of Khao Sok.

I have a photo of the bus somewhere which I will add later but for now a description will suffice. It was bright orange and looked like a carnival, an appearance which disguised the general "un-fun-ness" of the trip we were about to embark on.

After a couple of stops at various market towns we were dropped off on the side of the road in what looked to be the middle of nowhere in particular. There were three taxi-trucks waiting for the bus and so we just poked about for a minute until there was only one left and we didn't have to make a decision. He brought us to his guest house/bungalow operation and sat with us, silently while we drank our bottles of soda and tried to convey to him as subtly as possible that it was okay for him to go (Us: It's okay for you to go. Him: [Twiddle of thumbs. Silence.]) It was weird.

Our room was cleanish and the bedding was heavy and synthetic, perfect for the tropical heat and humidity.

Then we headed off to the river where, we were promised, there would be monkeys as far as the eye could see.

To be continued...

Kantiang Bay

I run like a cartoon.

It's why I never made it as an athlete. Well, that and I used to smoke like a fish.

We went south which didn't take long because Ko Lanta isn't big and we got ourselves booked into a bamboo hut which was perched on stilts on the side of a hill. At night the whole thing swayed about a foot and a half back and forth. Fun!

We were at the north end of a half-moon bay and every night we got some beers and wathced the sunset over the Andaman Sea. Ahhh.

We met a German couple from Cologne who invited us to live with them rent-free if we would teach them English. They were adamant. So if I ever say, "hey, I'm off to Cologne to teach some elderly Germans English for a few months" and you never hear from me again it's because they actually just wanted to kill us.

The beach put me in this sort of mood:






Oh, that Sally Field!

Naked Man Beach

And there we were, a stones throw from naked man beach.

Though the beach directly outside our bungalow looked nice it was a bit rocky until about 6pm when the tide came in so we were told to make our way over the rocky out-cropping a hundred yards away to a lovely, rock-free beach. We did and found a beautiful bay. The only trouble was, right at the close end of the beach there lived a lonesome naked German in a tarpaulin hut. He was sort of a half hermit as he spent most of his time alone but occassionally would chat up other 50-something year old single men. Everyday we had to pass him and his full-body tan. You try not to look but sometimes your eyes wander, you forget about the strangely-fit-for-his-age hut-dwelling Hun and POW! There he is, squatting over some piece of wood or simple machine he has constructed from rocks and crab shells. Guh-huh-huh-huh-huh!

He's probably still there, philosophizing from time to time with one of his speedo-clad countrymen. So if you're interested let me know and I'll give you directions.

Near "Naked Man" Beach

So our boat pulls up to the pier at the northern end of Ko Lanta and we teeter off onto the dock and are immediately mobbed by, oh, let's say 400 of the islands inhabitants. They all want us to stay at their brother's or mother's or cousin's resort. We are whelmed. They can sense by our blank looks that we're easy marks and hound us for a while until they realize that our blank looks aren't giving way to anything. We just stare off into oblivion, dazed.

When the crowd disperses there's just one man left, the mild-mannered Mr. Shippy.

Mr. Shippy tells us he can take us to a very nice beach and find us a very nice bungalow and we believe him because maybe he hypnotized us, I don't really know, but we load into the back of his truck and he takes us out to a quiet beach.

Standing in front of his truck Mr. Shippy tosses 10 or 12 pills into his mouth and says something about a stomach problem. He looks blissed. We walk up the beach with our backpacks on our backs and we find this place:




So we say "this looks good" and we check in.

Tiny Islands

We stood in line behind nine (*kokonatsu!) Japanese girls in the sweltering Bangkok airport waiting to clear customs before we could get our connecting flight to Phuket. People kept putting stickers on me and sending me to one after the other poorly bounded line. When we finally got to the Thai Airways desk to check in for our connector I realized I'd lost my ticket. The lady behind the counter acted like this was a deal breaker and I'd have to make my own way down south but with a little pleading she wrote me up a new ticket and we were on our way.

From Phuket we got a taxi to the pier and hopped on a full-of-holes boat. It was taking on gallons of water and no-one seemed to care except for the pale white, fresh off the plane tourists. We all looked around the passenger area, laughing nervously and trying not to make eye-contact. Halfway to Phi-Phi both Kristy and I realized we both had to... well, pee, really bad (ironic!). Kristy was a little worse off than I so she went on deck and there encountered a violently rocking, soaking wet deck with no hand rail down which she was supposed to walk to reach the toilet. Mission: Aborted. We crossed our legs and hoped for the best. When a girl three rows behind us started puking into a plastic bag I thought "why not just piss yourself? It's no worse than vomit." Of course if I had, ahem, opened the floodgates they would have said I was gross. Go figure. When the seas calmed we took turns using the "toilet" (hole in the floor of the boat with a bucket over it). Finally we made it to Phi-Phi Island where Kristy and I would have to wait for another boat to Ko Lanta.

It was time for a beer.

We found a beachside bar and ordered two Singhas and did a little people-watching. The Lonely Planet, in one of it's panting, undignified attempts to sound hip, describes Phi-Phi Island as having beaches that will bring a tear to your eye but "shed another when you realize you're sharing it with every Speedo on the planet." It was, however, true. Do the 250 lb. 5' 8" tall guys who wear Speedos just not look in the mirror before they leave their room? Who let them buy the suit int he first place?

Anyway, we ambled back down to the pier, got onto the boat back to Phuket, realized our error, quickly hustled onto the boat to Ko Lanta and we were off!


*This is my favorite word in all of the Japanese language. You use it to count nine things or people. Like, if you and eight of your friends are out drinking you could order "kokonatsu" beers. We did this once with three people and had a blast.

Leaving Japan. January 31st, 2007.

Cast of Characters:

Me: You probably know me personally.

Kristy: My fiancé.

Josh: The Arkansan who adopted our turtles.

First thing that morning Kristy and I took the train one stop to Namba station to drop off our bags. Later we'd be leaving from here to go to the airport and neither of us wanted to lug all our shit around all day. We clown-carred both bags into a tall slim locker, jammed the door shut and crossed our fingers that the thing wouldn't burst. Then Kristy went to work.

I had some errands to do. Namely, mail what remained of our things to England and give the keys to the apartment to our landlord and explain the hole in the wall next to the bathroom mirror (light punch delivered by me out of mild frustration with our hot water heater. Our walls weren't made of paper but they might as well have been). These chores went off without a hitch and then I was off to meet my friend and co-worker Josh Hicks.

Josh sounds just like Bill Clinton if you ever had the chance to get Bill Clinton drunk at a barbecue and convince him it was o.k. to swear. He describes his mustache as Dali-esque but I prefer Dalinese. He is the only person who I don't mind going to karaoke with sober. He adopted our turtles.

Josh and I descended into the cavernous city-beneath-a-city that is Nambawalk in Osaka. Because of the lack of space (and their apparent hatred of the sun) the Japanese build enormous shopping malls entirely underground. It's possible to spend an entire day out and about in Osaka without spending more than 2 or 3 minutes outside (depending on how close you live to a subway station). It's amazing and a little scary but Josh knew of a good kaiten (rotating) sushi shop down there.

We found the sushi and it was good. I didn't exactly understand the color-coded plate pricing system and so spent 2500 yen but it was delicious so I didn't care at all. Everything was feeling very last-timey which made me excited and sad. It seemed I was already missing the place and I hadn't yet left.

Next on the list was karaoke. Customarily I would have anywhere from a few to a fair few drinks before doing karaoke but Josh and I rocked it sober. Extreme, More than Words; John Denver, Country Roads; Bill Withers, Ain't No Sunshine. It was a good last karaoke. I didn't rock my all-time favorite karaoke jam, Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush but I didn't think I could hit all the high notes. We left after 2 hours. Sated.

And it was time to get Kristy and get out of Japan. I met her outside work and we went for a last izakaya drink with some folks we knew. We stayed too long. We dashed to the train station and just caught the last train to the airport. We said goodbye to Japan.