For booking with US Guesthouse, we're promised a free taxi, which turns out to be a guy in sandals with a cart who carries our bags while we walk behind him. While walking in our show of uncomfortable imperialist-pantomime, we spot Hefina and some of the other girls eating in a cafe. We try to talk, but the man with the cart is on a mission and won't stop for nothing. When we get to US, we're told our rooms aren't ready anyways, so we head back to meet the girls.
Hefina, Anna, and Cyndi tell us they're going camping in Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Leh in about three hours, and ask if we'd like to join. Maya Bay is where they filmed The Beach, and a very popular tourist site. However, since the island is part of the Phi Phi National Park, there are no buildings on the island and all the tourist boats come during the day, which made this park-sponsored camping trip the only way to stay overnight there. It also made it quite pricey. I'd planned to see Phi Phi Leh at some point, but three hours was a little short notice, and I didn't really want to spend a lot of money to stay longer at an island I didn't care that much about in the first place. Both Sander and Tyler say no. I think about it.
What could it hurt? I knock Phi Phi Leh off my sightseeing list early, and maybe have some fun. It's not like I'd be doing anything more interesting by staying on Phi Phi with the guys, especially with all the girls gone. Plus, the ticket offered a free bucket drink once you got to the island, which seemed like a curious thing for a National Park-run camping trip to offer, but forget it, Jamie. It's Thailand.
I tell the girls I'm in, eat a waffle, pack some things in to my small backpack, and sunburn the time away until I have to meet them at the travel office. About a dozen other campers show up, and we're all led to a restaurant a few blocks away, where the park rangers lay out rules and itinerary. Once everyone is ready and has their bags, the rangers give everyone a stamp consisting of three horizontal lines. Which, if you've seen The Beach, you'll recognize as the brand the characters gave each other. This was some cutthroat kitsch, right here.
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| But I still kind of fucking loved it. |
As we left the restaurant to catch our boat, I noticed one of the guides cutting up what looked like a solid brick of marijuana, before wrapping it in a cloth sheet. This camping trip might not be all bad. I should also point out that as of this writing the camping trip is no longer offered, for reasons unknown and incredibly mysterious if you don't read the next dozen or so paragraphs.
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| Just call me Marlow. |
On the boat the girls have befriended a stout, older Scottish lass by the name of Imogen, with thick, messy hair and a freckled, sunburned face to match her garbled, peat-heavy accent. In between tired bouts of crossword puzzle-solving, I also meet two Irishmen and a smattering of other mixed-gender Brits before our boat takes a stop at Viking Cave. The way our guide explains it, the cave now exists mostly to harvest bird nests for rich Chinese dudes who like to eat nasty ol' bird nests. It also provides decent snorkeling for spoiled Westerners, so we're handed masks and jump in.
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| I'd much rather be at the cave where they harvest the Cinnabons. |
We snorkel around the bay for a bit, one of the rangers showing off some clownfish hiding spots and tossing a sea sponge around, just the way you would expect a nature-conscious park representative not to do. The boat finally takes us to the anchor point for Phi Phi Leh, where all the other tourist boats are currently departing. The guides throw our backpacks into some dry bags, and we're told to swim for the shore. The water is fairly shallow, although sharp coral makes for some careful stepping. On the beach, we're led along a short path through the woods, stopping to drop our things off at an open-air bamboo hut raised on stilts.
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| Which is either here, or this is a narrative break. Choose Your Own Adventure! |
We're shown a fire pit where dinner is going to be held, and more importantly, the small hut they've set up to dispense bucket drinks. At last, they show everyone along the end of the path to Maya Bay.
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| That's the one. |
Where I discover my camera has a low battery. Figures.
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| So you'll just have to assume everything is real nice from here on in. |
As we all splash around the bay and take pictures before daylight gives out, someone calls out "Shark!" So naturally, while half of our group looks around their feet fearfully and/or heads for the shore, the other half starts stomping excitedly over to where the spotter is pointing. I'm only able to catch the dorsal fin of na shadowy underwater blob before it swims to deeper waters and away.
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| Maybe it's in this photo? I don't know, they're not labeled. |
Unlike in the movie, the only sharks that hang around The Beach are blacktip reef sharks, which are kind of the pussies of the shark world. They've got a good sharky-killy look about them, but they pretty much freak out and run the second they see people. Lame.
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| Or maybe it had a reason to be afraid. Two reasons. (I'm pointing at my arm muscles.) |
Once the sun goes down, our guides light a big campfire and barbecue dinner for everyone, which is as great as you'd expect. As people mill about, chatting and eating, one of the guides produces a guitar that eventually finds its way to me. Save the reluctance for Rastas and their blind child buddies, I always say. I've got future drinking partners to impress. This being a Western European audience, I figure maybe I can impress with some acoustic Clash. The only band that matters. I get through about a song and a half before: "Do you know any Oasis?"
Dejected and feeling not-at-all like a champagne supernova, I wander over to the tiny drink hut, manned by a sole female French bartender, to inquire about the complimentary bucket drink situation. The bartender is also noodling around on another guitar that the park rangers brought. "Do you want to play?" she asks, before making my bucket.
This female French bartender also happens to be cute AND responsible for all the booze on the island, and boy is that a combination I want to impress. I accept the guitar. Then she offers me a hit from a bamboo bong she pulls from behind the wooden counter. Oh my god. The coolest girl. I found her. Play it smooth, Jamie.
With the guitar in hand, I say confidently: "I uh, I used to know the chords to Ca Plane Pour Moi, if uh, if you know that one." I pause a moment. "But I forgot them." And that is how you pick up a French girl. My penis dusts its hands off.
"Ah, Plasteek Bertrand! In 2009 I worked at a gay club in Paris, I was bartender! One night, I see Plast-eek Bertrand, he looks exactly the same, he does not age. He was danceeng, by himself in the meedle of all the people, very high on cocaine, seenging this song to heemself."
She acts the scene of coked-out Plastic Bertrand dancing in place and mumbling lyrics to himself, which I find intensely attractive. The coolest girl. Finished telling the story, she turns to one of the Thai guides and starts up a conversation. She will be mine, I promise myself. (Spoiler: I get drunk and forget about her, and probably didn't have a chance in the first place. She was just too cool, like a sentient leather jacket that also plays bass for Godspeed You! Black Emperor.)
With my free bucket in hand I rejoin the group, where they're playing a drinking game where you burn cigarette holes in a napkin tied to the top of a cup and try to get the coin to drop in for the next guy. I lose the very first round, followed by the guy next to me losing the second and third. Meet Paul, an Irishman who I think may have been throwing the game just for more chances to drink. Paul is here with Phil, "a mate from uni" in his own words. Since I am the first American Phil has met on his trip, he starts singing "America, Fuck Yeah", which, I dunno, I kind of appreciate.
After seeing these guys throw back their bucket drinks, naturally the old debate about which nationality drinks the hardest starts up. Genuinely curious, I ask what the group thinks about Australian drinking prowess. "They're shit! They bang on about how hard they are, but can't hold their drink worth a damn" is one response, followed by a chorus of agreement. It gets decided that the best drinkers are the Irish, British, and Americans. And wouldn't you know it, our little group just so happens to be made up of Irishmen, Brits, and one lone hard-drinking, opinionated American.
Sitting on the other side of me is Imogen, and the more she drinks, the more I notice her laughing and oh-so-accidentally brushing her tits against my shoulder. I'm not interested, but man it does wonders for my confidence. Maybe you the Reader are a Don Juan-Casanova-motherfucker, but as for me I really have to appreciate the rare, fleeting moment when I'm able to actually pick up signals being transmitted from the opposite sex. Even better, they're good signals! Why yes my dick does look great in this humidity, and thank you for noticing.
A pack of cards materializes, and we all play King's Cup while a joint gets passed around. By the second round the game has fallen apart, and one of the guides takes it upon himself to do a fire show on the beach, despite being both high and drunk. Crunk, maybe? He gets through a fair amount of sloshed fire-stick twirling before calling it quits, without any injury. There's a lesson there that I bet the liberal media doesn't want you to know about.
Another one of the park rangers produces some portable speakers, and asks if anyone has an iPod they'd like to hook up. Cyndi shares hers, and as The Arcade Fire begins to crackle out of the old, salt-stained speakers, everyone jumps into the night bay to swim with the bioluminescent plankton. As the couples among us all play DiCaprio and anonymous-dead-career-French-chick (did you know she said Leo was a bad kisser? scandalous!), I have a drunk chat with Cyndi about Pulp Fiction, which I guess is like nerd second base. In other words, almost as good as swimming in warm, dark waters literally glowing from the motion of your lovemaking. Almost.
Cyndi's song choices take a turn for the Linkin Park, so I scamper off to talk with a fellow American named Jenny. Turns out Jenny's a semi-pro Muay Thai fighter living in Bangkok. I mention that, not to brag or nothing, but I've done a little high school wrestling in my time. "Alright, show me what you've got!" she challenges. Now, when I did wrestling in high school I was on the lighter end of the weight classes, so it is with great experience I can say that I have no problem fighting a girl. Phil comes over to watch as we square off in a clearing between the trees, and it isn't long before we're soundtracked by more of him singing "America, Fuck Yeah".
Jenny is, not surprisingly, in incredible shape and very strong, but since we've established we're only going to grapple, I'm able to hold my own. With all modesty, I am pretty decent at wrestling, and after a couple minutes of grappling I'm slowly able to start pinning her. It's then that she gets desperate, and hooks her index finger into my cheek and pulls hard.
That's right, she fucking fish-hooks me. It does the trick, and while I'm reeling back in pain she pins me forcefully into the ground and celebrates. She may be a Muay Thai fighter, but she clearly grew out her nails for vacation. The inside of my cheek has had a good chunk gouged out, and while sucking on the bloody wound I'm only able to stammer out: "Iyyegal! Iyyegal!"
But Jenny is uninterested in my bloody-mouthed bellyaching. She shrugs and laughs "Man up!" And there we go, my sexual confidence back down to its normal levels of a preteen albino. I guess some guys might've stuck it out, but dangit my cheek really hurts, so I leave in search of a drink and a less-violent good time.
Dammit, Paul's already making out with Imogen. Fucking Irish! Not that I'm only here for quick, dirty vacation sex, but, you know, maybe just a little? And wouldn't you know it, the more bong hits I do with the Thais after that, not only do my half-remembered Smashing Pumpkin and Radiohead guitar covers get tremendously worse, but shockingly so does my game. I swim around a bit with Cyndi, but then she sneaks off somewhere during my weirdly passionate attempt to educate her on the musical intricacies of acoustic-folk-punk band Against Me!.
After striking out with a petite girl by the name of Lisa and getting myself another bucket, somehow I end up on a secluded rope swing with Hefina. Lovely Hefina, whom Paul has been hitting on so relentlessly on all night before bedding down with Imogen (loudly and obviously in the sand nearby). Lovely Hefina, sharing a warm and heartfelt conversation with me as the sky starts to lighten over the bay. Lovely, lovely Hefina, doubled over on the swing, puking next to my feet.
I find some Sang Som dregs to swill and pass out at the sleeping hut. I sleep for about an hour or two, and miss the sunrise. Whoops.
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| Good thing I saved my camera battery! |
I'm told the clouds obscured it anyway, so a big ol' whatever on that front. Once everyone's up, we gather on the beach hungover and sleep-deprived to try and take the iconic "The Beach" photo. Over and over we jump, futilely trying to time it so that all 16 people are in the air at the same time, which as you may guess is goddamn impossible. Then the next person's camera is up, and the attempt starts all over again.
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| Fuck. |
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| Fuck. |
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| Fuck. |
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| Good effort, team. |
Hefina asks if I'll take a photo of just her, Anna, and Cyndi, which turns into 15 minutes of again trying to get all four of them in the air at the same time. Was the goddamn photograph even in the book? Christ. Fuck you, Danny Boyle. Finally, I hand my camera off to Hefina so she can use the last of my battery to take a photo of me. Timing the jump is a bit easier solo.
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| Suck my nuts Boyle! |
As the bay starts to fill with the morning tourist boats, we get on our boat back to Phi Phi, upon which everyone lounges morosely, either upset at having to leave paradise or more physically upset by the rolling of the boat on bucket-laden stomachs. Phil can't take it, and vomits over the side. Between heaves, I can hear him choke out: "America...fuck yeah..." As he hurls his chunky tribute to the Land of Freedom and Opportunity, the 9-year old son of a German-Japanese couple watches him and laughs. Truly, the Heart of Darkness of our times. Alex Garland eat your fucking heart out.
