Phi Phi to Krabi to Langkawi

After leaving Railay-Tonsai beach, I set off for a two day/one night stay in the big island of Koh Phi Phi Don. Apparently, Koh Phi Phi Don is the next next stop on the party circuit after the full moon party in Koh Pha Ngan, and I expected this party scene would be a jarring experience after the serenity of the previous two weeks. Regardless, I sent one or two postcards of the beautiful beaches and bays that form part of the smaller island of Koh Phi Phi Leh, so I felt obligated to pay a visit before departing Thailand.

On day one, I tramped through the jungle path to the quiet(er) Long Beach and snorkeled out to Shark Point in hopes of sighting a black-tip reef shark. About two dozen tourist in life jackets were bobbing awkwardly up and down around Shark Point, and the reef isn't much of a reef any more from all the damage from said tourists -- in that sense, it's a shame black-tip reef sharks aren't more dangerous. I assume the black-tip reef sharks were equally appalled at this sight, and for that reason, none were to be seen. (Consider re-naming to merely Point).

I became aware of the many Chinese tourists vacationing in Koh Phi Phi, and a healthy smattering of Russian tourists too. The harbor is filled with dozens and dozens of luxury speed boats and yachts, and in reality, these wealthy tourists have elbowed out the backpackers that originally laid claim to Koh Phi Phi 20+ years ago.

On day two, I woke up to a cacophony of puking from every adjacent room to my own. Fortunately, I had arranged an early morning half-day boat tour of Koh Phi Phi Leh, of which Maya Bay was made famous as the backdrop for the movie The Beach. (While many backpackers can tell you that cinematic fact about Koh Phi Phi Leh, far fewer know that Hat Yuan on Koh Pha Ngan, which I visited with Maggie many weeks ago, is the actual inspiration for the book). After filtering out the tourists that thronged the bays, it was easy to imagine the original beauty of this island, but as soon as I dunked my head underwater the destruction to the reefs was obvious. Tourism fail, again.

Maya Bay packed with boats and tourists.

Before I left Thailand, I spent one more night in Krabi Town. In total I spent nearly 18 days in Krabi, and while there isn't much to do there except read, I enjoyed being back in a familiar place where I knew all the good food markets and hang outs. I hopped on an early morning bus, and a few hours later, onto a boat that navigated through the archipelago of Langkawi in the north west of Malaysia. Here I met my Swedish friend, Robin, who was my climbing partner in Tonsai.

While I've only been in Malaysia for a few days, it has a different feel than Thailand. For one, rooms and food are a little more expensive in Malaysia, but still cheap by Western standards. Fruit isn't as abundant or as cheap in Malaysia, which had been a staple of my diet in Thailand. The people here seem to be impossibly friendlier than Thailand, and I've yet to be hassled by a tout or a taxi driver. There is the melodious and frequent call to prayer five times a day. Oh, and the mellowed out cats here are of a totally different breed or perhaps the catnip here is really good.

Someone forgot to mention "Do not leave your passed out cat on the table".

At this point, Robin and I are headed toward the Perhentian Islands (if you care, pronounced Per-en-ti-an) in the north east of Malaysia. I've read there isn't much of an internet connection there, so this might be the last post for a while, especially if I get "stuck" in the beauty their islands and reefs are rumored to have. 

Tonsai and Railay Beach

Generally speaking, rock climbing makes me happy. It is a catharsis. Rock climbing in Tonsai and Railay Beach made me even happier. Here is a sample of my daily routine (repeat for two weeks):

1. Wake up naturally from the start of a humid sunny day. (Or wake up all of a sudden from monkeys tramping on the aluminum roof of my bungalow).
2. Put on sunscreen -- very important.
3. Pack up my backpack with rope, quickdraws, harness, other climbing gear etc. 
4. Walk down to Mama Chicken on Tonsai Beach for breakfast. On the way, pass a young Thai dude who always asks in colloquial English "What's up man? Where you goin' today?"
5. Get a pineapple and a loaf of banana bread for breakfast.
6. Meet up with other climbers. Find a good wall to climb that will be in the morning shade.
7. Climb above the beautiful landscape of Tonsai and Railay Beach.
8. Grab lunch at a cafe, while continuing to watch other climbers on the nearby walls. 
9. Re-locate to a different climbing spot in the afternoon shade.
10. Climb more. 
11. Meet up for dinner and a drink, and watch a sunset or a movie. 

I shed an tiny atom-sized tear when I left Tonsai and Railay Beach. I look forward to getting back there sometime in the future. I tried to upload pictures of my time there, but somehow -- irritatingly so -- pictures I just spent two hours waiting for failed to upload.

WATER FIGHT! Oh, and Happy New Year.

If anyone arrived by plane into Thailand on April 13th, I imagine that those people were first doused with water for the Thai New Year, "Songkran", before the immigration official would even consider stamping their passport. The Thai people here take their water fights very seriously. Especially if it means a barrage of aquatic assaults to a foreigner, "falang".

I had heard varying information on what time the water fighting began, so just to be safe I bought a cheap little water gun at the street market the night before. When I came back to the hostel, the hostel owner laughed hysterically in my face and said it was too small. Way too small. I ignored the blow to my ego, figuring that other people would have big water guns and water balloons, but I could be quicker and more discrete. Someone forgot to tell me that there is no part of discrete in this water fight. 

Fellow travelers posing for the picture while I ruin it with my wet seat of my britches. 

Everyone seemingly tries to one-up each other. Small guns one-up'd by large soakers, large soakers one-up'd by hoses from the tap, the hoses one-up'd by buckets of water, buckets of water one-up'd by buckets of water with ice, water with ice one-up'd by water with paint, water with paint one-up'd by water with paint and ice. Next year, I predict water with bullets, but that's just an educated guess.  

When I finally stepped out of the hostel on Songkran Day around 11PM, water gangs were already on the prowl on the street and riding in the back of pick-up trucks. Two 50 gallon trash buckets were filled to the brim outside my guesthouse to futilely take on the hordes of enemies. One of these 50 gallon trash buckets also came equipped with a five year old kid named Maverick, who despite being generally ineffective at soaking passersby with his pump-action gun, kept exclaiming, "This is the best day in my life." I imagined what he was thinking: a care free five year old surrounded by grown-ups who always make seeming arbitrary rules, and then one day everyone around you forgets the rules for a gi-normous water fight. I'd probably think that is the best day in my life too. 

The water fight and the five year old defending himself from inside the ammo bucket.

After throwing buckets of water at people for about an hour, a squad of four falang, including myself, decided we would get into a truck to take part in the fight from a different vantage. A passing truck slowed down to engage in a brief water fight; we hopped on with no questions asked. The two ~12 year old girls in the bed of the truck smiled at us curiously and on we went. 

The parade of enemy combatants. 

All of us assumed that the truck would circle the block, and upon our return a few minutes later we'd go back to fighting outside the hostel. What actually happened is that over the next three hours the truck took us from Krabi Town to Ao Nang and back again following the parade of thousands of trucks chucking water at anyone within reach of their buckets of water. We hadn't prepared for such a journey. On the ride back I was exhausted from the sun and the fighting, of continually being soaked by cold water and then made colder still by the rush of wind, and the onset of what I knew was going to be an unpleasant sunburn. Despite all that, it was an awesome day and I couldn't have been more happy to have jumped into the back of that truck. 

When the truck pulled over to drop us off at our guesthouse, the parents of the Thai girls got out of the truck to offer us each a container of take-away food (it was picked up on the ride back). They were incredibly nice and despite our best efforts to pay for gasoline, they refused. A friendly wai and a "thank you" was more than enough gratitude for them -- all part of the fun and carefree spirit of the Thai New Years.     

Free, Absolutely Free

Here's a story in idiocracy, hot off the press:

A traveler, maybe who lost his wallet (maybe you know him or maybe you don't), likes to kill time, while waiting for his credit cards to arrive in the mail, by sitting outdoors at the little river pier in Krabi, Thailand. He's been going there to relax every other day or so, and since there's a roof, its suitable even if it is raining. Taxi boat touts poach there too, and they hassle people who pass-by, including the said gentleman of this story. But after the initial onslaught, the hassling abates and the touts generally leave him in peace. Occasionally, the touts will joke with the traveler or ask him where he is from, but it is all friendly; and to be honest, he thinks the touts are bored.

Well, on one fine today, the sunniest day in 10 days, this traveler meets one of the taxi boat touts. The taxi boat tout introduces himself first, his name is Adam. What a strange coincidence, the traveler thinks, my name is also Adam. {I think it really was a coincidence, although he could have picked up my name by eavesdropping on the only other day previous where I introduced myself by name}.

The tout goes through his regular spiel, in excellent English for a high school educated individual, about paying for a taxi boat to the tout's village and what not. The traveler explains that he has very little money because he  lost his wallet. The tout understands this, doesn't get hung up on it, and the conversation moves onto the importance of the environment, the pros and cons of tourisms in Thailand, the devastating tsunami in 2004 and village life where he lives across the river, to name a few. The traveler spends most of the day taking in the sun, writing little bits and pieces in his journal, and engaged on and off with the tout in conversation, while the tout waits for some paying customers.

Then, late in the day, the tout suggests that the traveler come with him to his village. The tout owns a rice farm, so there is plenty of rice, and there is white snapper for grilling. Our traveler's appetite is whetted and he is intrigued by the offer -- a real chance to escape the well trodden path of the traveler -- but the traveler can't spare the extra money to do that. No, no, says the tout, it is free, we are friends. A back and forth discussion goes on between the two discussing the terms and price of the offer, and whether it is really free. The tout re-re-re-re-assures him: Absolutely, it is free.

The traveler has an internal monologue at this point: I travel all over Asia, I've spent two month in Thailand already, and I very rarely get to interact with the culture. As a traveler, I'm always corralled into the same places as the rest of the travelers, insulated by Westerners from the local culture, and for the times when I try to connect with the culture, I have to book a tour through a travel agent to an "authentic" village (which, by the way, subsists on tourism; authentic tourism, I imagine). This tout is offering me a chance to do something original and personal. I can't let my skepticism stop me from interacting with local people -- eventually, one has to trust someone to get this type of authentic experience. Yes, I'm going to take up his offer. In fact, I must do it! And then a pirate cried out "Huz-ZAH!" from the river, breaking the travelers concentration.

The traveler has some extra things with him. A camera, a journal, and another writing pad. The tout says that first the traveler should "go make his books safe", which seems like a better idea than lugging them around. Our intrepid traveler and the tout head out in the direction of the guesthouse. The traveler goes up to his room, removing the last remaining amount of money from his wallet (just in case the tout is scamming him) -- all except for 100 baht (~$3). Then he meets the tout downstairs at the front of his guesthouse. Here, as the traveler understands the request, the tout wants to go to the pharmacy to pick up some "syrup" for his sister who is pregnant.

A pharmacy is just around the corner, so getting to one isn't a problem. Unfortunately, the tout does not have any money on him. The tout asks the traveler, do you have 100 baht for the "syrup", I will pay you back the 100 baht when we get to my village? This starts the whole "is this offer really free" discussion again. The traveler asks the tout why he should trust a total stranger with borrowed money. The tout is persistent though, and acknowledges that he is asking the traveler to trust him. Eventually, the traveler relents saying, "If you're cheating me, I'm going to be really angry", but internally he's thinking, we're going to his village, and what, is he just going to run off in front of me?! And the tout comes out of the pharmacy with a bottle of cough syrup. Well, the tout wasn't lying about the syrup at least.

The tout and the traveler head back to the pier. The traveler is told to wait a few minutes for another tout's wife to arrive, and then they can all leave. At this point, not even kidding you, the traveler turns his back for about 30 seconds, enjoying the sunset over the river, and turns back to the tout -- the guy who shared the same name, who spent hours in conversation discussing conscientious subjects, who said absolutely, the trip to the village is free -- now 100 meters away, in a half-sprint. With a bottle of free, absolutely free, cough syrup.

Resigned to the situation, the traveler sat down and watched the sunset.

{Me again. I don't know if I'm just getting worse at traveling, or more complacent, but seriously, was I off in trying to trust another person, a tout albeit, in order to get an authentic cultural experience at a village? I don't think so and perhaps losing three dollars to find out isn't a bad trade, but it doesn't make me feel travel savvy, that's for sure}.