Flood, Wet, & Beers
Finding my old stories to publish – here’s another one:
Now that my face doesn’t look so much like a melted wellington I decided it was about time I treated myself to a relaxing break to sample some of Thailand’s exotic beaches, swim in its vast crystal clear tropical waters, and perhaps squeeze in a few topless massages as well. This I felt would help aid my recovery more so than staying in Bangkok with its funny name, smog, limbless beggars, and naked GoGo bars (Ok, probably not the latter).
Five hours after conceiving my brilliant recovery scheme, I found myself in a familiar cramped foetal position on the top bunk (designed for Asians) of an overnight train heading for a tiny port in south Thailand. From there I would catch a pre-booked boat that would take approximately 4 hours to reach my final destination that was the island of Koh Samui.
Because I knew from previous experience that the 12 hour train ride would be an uncomfortable sleepless hell, and assuming that the boat ride would in no way resemble a relaxing cruise on the QE2, I reserved a room at a top rate hotel for one night to recover from the journey in luxury. After which I would be free again to seek accommodation in the cheap and dirty, un-air-conditioned, ant infested huts I’m now accustomed to.
As predicted the train journey was a complete nightmare. For 14 long hours I was helplessly imprisoned in the large metal coffin carriage. Scores of Asians surrounded me eating horrendously smelling slop. My head was positioned directly below the arctic air conditioning unit and was steadily succumbing to frostbite. With no book to read and no remaining battery life in my laptop the only thing I could do to pass the time was to watch an old Thai man continuously scratch his scabby feet until they were bloody and raw. After which he would apply some cream (probably an ancient Thai athletes foot cream made from Tiger gonads) and begin the whole process again.
Stupidly (and predictably) I had not asked the travel agent in Bangkok whereabouts my boat would be leaving from and at what time it was scheduled to depart. I was left slightly concerned after consulting my Lonely Plant guide which informed me that there were in fact three boat piers in the area that serviced Koh Samui, with some boats only sailing once a day. Being a proud male I didn’t want to disgrace myself by breaking the sacred ‘man code’ by asking for help or directions. So with a one in three chance I simply just guessed. When I say ‘guessed’ I really mean I picked the closest option as the taxi ride would be the cheapest.
Fortune favours those who do not break the man code. Women and lesser men who would have spent precious minutes asking for directions would have come a cropper. As when I reached the pier I found that not only my ticket matched the boat currently anchored there, but the rust-ridden floating bucket was actually scheduled to leave in the next two minutes.
The boat ride was fairly uneventful, the seas were very choppy and several foreigners (probably French) had to go up on deck to be sick. Luckily being English my genes contain hundreds of years worth of sea faring experience, within each of us Englishmen we carry the blood of sailors who fought for an empire that had the greatest naval force of all time. Deep down we are all salty blooded sea dogs and we should be proud of our heritage, and honour our great ancestors by not throwing up on a 4 hour boat trip. I would not be sick, for the love of all that is English I must not be sick!
Stepping off the boat English pride in tact but as white as a Michael Jackson I jumped into a taxi that would deliver me to my hotel. It seems the reason for the ridiculously bumpy boat ride was that I was in fact in the middle of a large tropical storm. Torrential rain pounded the taxi as Wong the insane driver overtook a series of trucks around blind bends with zero visibility, dodged and ridiculously honked oncoming traffic, and sped through lake sized puddles that I could feel gushing below the undercarriage of the taxi. When we reached the hotel, I released my vice-like grip on the passenger seat, paid Wong his money for nearly killing me, and made a quick dash through the torrential rain to the hotel door.
Over the next three days the weather only got worse, the flooding was so bad that I was physically marooned in my hotel. Lonely Planet must have neglected printing the need to pack a small inflatable dingy with my toilet roll, sleeping bag, condoms, and nail clippers. I was now ‘unfortunately’ forced to extend my stay in the luxury hotel.
Luckily for me before I left Bangkok I purchased series 5 and 6 of The Shield (the greatest TV program of all time), and managed to download the 1993 hit Railroad Tycoon 2 (the most addictive computer game of all time). So for the next 3 days my dreams of exotic beaches, crystal clear tropical seas, and topless massages where instead replaced by transporting valuable resources by rail to and from towns and cities, and watching detective Vick Macky come down hard on Mexican and black gangs in LA while taking a few backhanders to help pay for the special education of his autistic children.
