Come On Man/RAILAY

The night ferry isn't as bad as they say, so long as you don't mind sleeping like Nosferatu for the entirety of the trip. It's actually pretty swell for me, on account of my intimacy problems. The real killer is the van ride across the mainland. Just like in Laos, an old, cramped, shitty van is made to play TARDIS and carry far more passengers than its exterior form would ever suggest. The padding in my seat is so worn I can feel the springs digging into my back along every bump along the road, and let me tell you, Thailand has no shortage of bumps in their roads. A brief rest stop is allowed, inside a tin made of cheap wood and corrugated aluminum, surrounded by flimsy benches. Getting up, I bash my head against the van's ceiling, only to find Jackass 2 is playing on a small, grainy TV inside. I feel like the franchise is following me, like a more butt-obsessed Sadako.

While Railay isn't technically an island, a range of mountains along the peninsula means visitors have to take a boat in and out. Once we come into port, I find myself in East Railay Beach, one of the two town centers. A single room at any of the hotels here costs too much for my lonely ass, so I hike inland into the jungle for cheaper options. A narrow dirt road takes me past a few clumps of bungalows, and I stop at one particularly ratty collection sitting in a sunlit field. At 350 baht, I still think I overpaid. See if you can figure out what's off about the bathroom:

It isn't the cold shower. Like a poetry-writing teenager, I've long since gotten used to them. No, it's the lack of a fucking sink that really threw me. Not to brag, but I've seen a lot of bathrooms in my time, and this is the first I've been in that was sans-sink. It's not the biggest deal, but...geez. It makes all bathroom operations just a little more frustrating, like eating soup without any lips. Oh, and they told me they wouldn't be able to give me any toilet paper until the evening, which was also just...not cool, guys.

With my backpack stashed away, I continue along the dirt road and into dense forest.  Here, the path gets more and more haphazard as it zig-zags up a series of hills. Next to the path is strung what must be the only cable line for this entire side of the island, which I'm a little reluctant to use as a walking support. After about a half hour of hiking, the road spits me out onto West Railay Beach.

All throughout the area jut gorgeous white limestone karsts, perfect for rock climbing. Unbeknownst to me, Railay is actually one of the world's biggest rock climbing destinations. I meet another backpacker on his way to town, who points out how many of the cliffs are already bolted and ready for climbing. All you need is a bag of gear and someone to belay.

Even getting into town requires some bouldering: Since the end of the beach is blocked by more cliffs, the only paths through involve either working your way through a narrow crevasse, or catching low tide and trying to wade around the shore. Fuck it, I love rock climbing. This'll just be foreplay:

After scrambling through the narrow passage, I eat lunch at a cafe that's supposed to have great tuna sandwiches. While I eat a big plate of internet exaggeration and disappointment, Simon and Niels walk by, completely out of the blue.

They've already made a day of climbing, and are quick to rave about the experience, as well as point me in the direction of where I can find some guides. Before leaving, they also let me know where they're staying in the area so we can meet up later.

Most climbing tours are scheduled for the early morning, so it turns out to be tough finding a guide to take me now that it's past noon. Still, I finally find a local Thai who promises for 800 baht to take me to as many spots as we can manage before sundown. He hands me a pair of climbing shoes, and before I can even get them on, chides "The shoes fit! Come on man!" and leads me to the first cliff. Like everyone else in the area, he's deeply tanned and tightly muscled, and makes me feel absolutely ashamed after seeing him effortlessly scale these rock faces to thread the rope for me, only to have my out-of-practice and out-of-shape ass clumsily try to match him. "Have a water! Come on man!" he helpfully suggests.

Before the light starts to fail, we get in 2 3/4 climbs before my paltry energy reserves finally run dry. Back at the shop, my guide makes fun of me when I ask for band-aids for my fingers that have blistered and burst. "Come on man! Fingers okay! You don't need! Come on man!"

The wussy man needs band-aids for his boo-boos.

No, I insist, I do need. Because I thought I was a hard man, but it turns out I'm just a pig-tailed Nancy Boy who's afraid of getting a widdle infection.

Outside the climb shop I sit at a table in an alley to bandage my hands. Next to me a Thai Rasta with shoulder-length dreads is playing guitar to a blind child. After I finish wrapping my fingers, the Rasta offers me the guitar, which I'm all too happy to refuse until the blind kid, sensing a new performer, smiles wide and chants me on. 

Well, what else can I do? Come on man. I give a very mediocre performance of Smashing Pumpkins' "Today" for the kid while the Rasta practices twirling a firestick. I have to give credit to the blind boy though, as he kept me in the alley long enough to have Tyler and Sander coincidentally walk by and notice me. Together, we grab some dinner at a Thai restaurant where the waiter insists on cleaning and then trying on our sunglasses. As it turns out, he prefers Tyler's £150 designer shades to my 5 dollar fake Ray Bans. Some people have an eye, I guess (Which was not a joke at the blind kid's expense, and shame on you if you thought it was! Alternatively, shame on me if no one thought it was and I just made an awkward dick out of myself [You know, awkward like nestling a set of brackets inside multiple sentences in a set of parentheses inside another sentence {Or your butt! Shut up!}.].)

Around dusk Tyler and Sander lead me into the jungle to visit a Reggae-themed bar they found the night previous, that they tell me has some of the best coffee they've ever had. Also, weed. It is named, imaginatively, Reggae Bar.

The boys don't lie. I order, and watch as the be-dreaded bartender/barista painstakingly hand-grinds the beans for what seems like an eternity before disappearing behind his beat-up espresso machine and returning with a god-damn excellent iced mocha. As we sit back and enjoy our coffees, we're chatted up by a Swiss guy sitting with his girlfriend on some pillows a few yards away.

"So ver are you all from?" he asks.

Each of us answers in turn. Sander, Tyler, then me. "America."

"That damn country!" Whoo boy.

"Well hey, we got bin Laden!" I reply. Now, I'm never quick to defend the States, because, well, everything, but geez man. We got bin Laden!

"Big deal, only take 10 years to find guy on dialysis in couple of mountains!"

There is nothing that will make a person more patriotic than some dick stranger in a foreign land ragging on his homeland. Unfortunately, all I have time to come back at him with is "Hey, you know, it was more than a couple mountains..." before his girlfriend gives him a look that says "Stop being mean to him, you know he only has an American education." As if to apologize for his rudeness, he asks Sander "Would you like?" and offers a joint he's just bought, but is turned down. Then Tyler, "Would you like?", again turned down, "No thanks man". And then he looks at me, retracts the proffered joint, and falls silent. What a global fucking citizen.

The bar has an acoustic guitar lying down, which starts to get passed around after Tyler rolls a couple blunts from his own stash. Once I've picked it up, and started plucking the intro to Metallica's "One" (because a girl from Montreal requested "Wish You Were Here", and I figured I should show the poor girl what real music sounds like), Swiss Miss Fucking Asshole starts loud-whispering to his girlfriend about how easy it is to play guitar. I mean, it's totally true, it's the music community's dirty little secret how stupidly easy it is to play guitar and impress people, but CHRIST MAN GET THE FUCK OFF MY STAR-SPANGLED NUTS.

But maybe I've been going about this all wrong. Better to take the high road, and show him some of that American compassion and diplomacy we aren't known for in the slightest. Catch him off guard.

"You want to play something for us?" I ask, holding out the guitar for him. Global citizen, here.

"Oh, I don't play guitar." He doesn't even play guitar! I swear to fuck I wish I gave more of a shit about Switzerland just so I could have levied some truly prejudiced and paint-peelingly offensive epithets his way. Even now, I just shot all my knowledge on that hot cocoa zinger a paragraph ago. Are they the ones with funny hats, or shoes? What's their pants situation? Ultimately, it didn't matter, because by now the entire bar was tired of his bullshit and just ignored him, and he left shortly after without saying anything. U-S-A! U-S-A!

We smoke a little more, and I try to field some music requests, but apparently all people from Europe want to hear is Oasis, and then after that maybe change the vibe with some Oasis, and then finally close out strong with Oasis. If you're from Europe and you take exception to that, well, talk to everyone else from your continent. Only you might have to speak kind of loudly, because they're all listening to goddamn "Wonderwall" for the hundred billionth time on repeat through a busted Walkman from back when that band might have mistakenly been considered good. Yeah, I'm a music snob, and I will fight you!

I'm sorry, just thinking about that Swiss guy got me all worked up. "Oh, I don't play guitar" what a dick.

After about the third time someone asks for an Oasis song and I say "Sure" and play The Misfits, I leave with Tyler and Sander for their bungalow, where we smoke more weed and play the card game Shithead for another few hours. In almost total darkness, I walk through the jungle back to my bungalow, where I sleep fitfully, because that's kind of my thing now.

That Swiss guy was kind of a bummer, so here are some cats being lazy at a Railay restaurant.

From Railay East, we catch the morning boat to Ko Phi Phi, where we can meet back up with the girls and keep our little party going. Rather than a longtail, this is the fast boat, so for the majority of the ride we sit feet over the railings, just riding the waves, the toothpaste foam of the water bathing our soles after each bounce and brief spell of hangtime. Range after range of limestone cliffs race by behind the warm spray of ocean water. Fuck. I liked Railay.

Drinking and Diving/KO TAO

Somehow, incredibly, I wake up on time to catch my boat. Well, not on time-on time, but only a little late, as opposed to major missed-the-boat-fuck-everything late. I'm finally getting off this rock. Ko Tao here I come, to dive and relax and be merry. I throw my stuff together in a rush and check out. The guy at the desk only charges me 300 baht for losing the key, instead of the full 500 penalty they have written. I'm all feeling good vi-bra-tions.

As per the instructions on my travel ticket, I wait on the side of a road about 10 minutes walk from Venus. A songthaew (a modified pick-up truck with bench seats and a roof in the back) pulls up, a few minutes early.

"Are you the pick-up?" I ask.

"Yes yes!" A middle-age Thai woman in the passenger seat nods, and waves me in. I heave my backpack onto the vehicle, and we take off. There are three other foreign passengers, none of whom seem to have the same ticket I do. Before we reach the dock, the driver lets out two of the passengers, who, instead of handing the Thai woman a ticket like mine, pay in cash. A few minutes later, the driver stops again at an ATM, so another passenger can withdraw some cash to pay the woman.

"Do you have a boat ticket yet?" the woman asks me. Considering I have a joint ticket with the car pick-up and the boat arranged together, alarm bells are ringing. Man, am I tired of metaphorical alarm bells.

We pull into Thongsala Pier, where I get out and start walking away. Immediately, the driver and the woman start yelling at me for money. Pulling out my ticket, I insist I've already paid, because hey look at this ticket I have that I paid for. "That is for van! Not us!" she yells.

Dammit. Yes, it was probably my fault that I got into the wrong vehicle. Yes, considering my recent transformative drug experience, I could probably be a little more patient and understanding. But I've just had way too little sleep for this enlightenment bullshit. Breakthrough drug trip or no, I'm ready to get ugly. I mean, unless they call over the cops. If that happens, I'll totally pussy out and pay them whatever they want and apologize shamefully and profusely. But otherwise, I'm your motherfucker.

"You told me to get in! You can call the ticket people and get your money, but I'm not paying!" In response, the woman calls for the driver, a short and stout older gentleman, who steps out of the songthaew. In the back are still two German girls, watching the whole scene. The driver walks up to me and brandishes a handful of coins.

"You call! You call people! Here, I even pay for phone!" I check the ticket, and as I thought, there's no phone number, because why the hell would there be. My resolve starts to let up, and I offer him half the cost of the ride. No dice. Growing angrier, he demands the full amount, shouting that it was my mistake, that I need to call the travel people and get my money back, and pay him his due.

"I can't! I'm leaving! Take half, or nothing."

He stops shouting now. "See what happens if you leave," he says, leaning into me.

I figure if this dude really wanted to pursue a legitimate restitution, he would've called the cops over at any point. And as it is, despite the number of brutal Muay Thai matches I've seen, pudgy 5-foot songthaew drivers just don't intimidate me. That's just the form my racism has taken, I guess.

"I will leave!" I wave my ticket in his face. "I've got my ticket! My boat's over there!"

"See what happens," he goads.

"Okay," I say, and turn to walk towards the ferry. He grabs my arm. Every muscle in my body tenses at once. I lean right up into his tiny, fat face.

The woman calls out something in Thai from the songthaew, and the man relents. He gets in the vehicle, while she waves me off angrily. I walk away carefully, an enormous knot of adrenaline vibrations tying up my joints. I buy a tuna sandwich for the boat ride. 100 baht. That's how much he wanted me to pay. I almost fought a cab driver for 3 bucks, and it was probably really my fault to begin with. I really need to get off Ko Pha Ngan.

At the end of the pier I find our cast thus far: Sander, Tyler, Hefina, Cyndi, Bethany, and another Brit girl, Anna. Janice has left, off to pursue her own interests. As we wait for the ferry, Hefina mentions how she and a few of the others had to wait while their van made a stop for some "boy" who never showed up, and asks where the hell I was. My answer is vague, as I don't feeling like telling them about the songthaew. The less I think about it, the less my actions have consequences.

The ferry to Ko Tao takes about 2 hours, during which we're solicited by a handful of shills for the island's various diving resorts. The decision is made to stay at Big Blue Diving, on account of someone having seen the name in Lonely Planet. Apparently my new traveling buddies make a vast number of decisions this way. The brochure-pusher for Big Blue makes a call, and by the time we dock there's a ride already waiting for us. Great schools of fish coil beneath our feet as we walk down the pier to meet the Big Blue rep, and get taken to the resort.

Once checked in, we're all split into two rooms with bunk beds but, more importantly, AC. After dropping off luggage, we all reconvene to peruse the diving packages. I opt to get my Advanced Diving license, because Ko Tao is one of the cheapest and best places in the world to do certifications, so even if I can't actually "afford" it, at least it feels like I'm saving money. Everyone else opts to do various fun dives, except for Anna, whose leg is still healing from a scooter accident, and Hefina, who is terrified of diving, but we peer pressure into getting her Open Water license regardless.

Sander, having sat still for over an hour, does flips for awhile.

Not only does Big Blue have some decent deals on diving, but it also has a floating bar, where you can wade knee-deep into the ocean to drink beers from a boat moored twenty feet offshore:

It's...beautiful.

A few of us grab some kebabs, and explore around our neck of the island. By coincidence, Fred, who I previously gabbed about Dragon Tattoos and such with, has also ended up on Ko Tao. Bethany and I tag along with him back to his diving resort, Lotus, and watch the best fireshow I've seen yet:

Of particular interest is one of the fire dancers will walk into the audience, still spinning his fire cups, and twirl them so near to one's face that he can (and does) light a cigarette.

If we were sober this would probably seem really dangerous.

Staying in the same room is an eighteen-year old Israeli dude by the name of Amzi, whom I meet the following day after an afternoon dive. We hit up the floating bar for some light conversation, and as a perfect island sunset falls into our drinks, Amzi tells me all about terrorism and how this skinny Israeli kid with the goofy hair knows how to drive tanks.

With the appropriate amount of libation, Amzi, Bethany, and I find our way to Ko Tao's only ladyboy bar, known as The Queen, where I may or may not have been dragged on stage to pole dance with the ladies.

To be fair, that could be any handsome, devilishly charming, horribly sunburned foreigner.

Aw geez.

Afterward, our bartender host Mickey challenges me to a game of Connect Four, which is what one comes to expect from bored bartenders in Thailand. And I'm proud to say, for the first time in Thailand, I won a goddamn game of Connect Four. Upping the ante, Mickey brings out a Jenga set, and ropes Bethany in. Ladyboys fucking love Hasbro, I guess. The loser has to drink out of a warm, haphazardly mixed bucket drink that seems to be mostly backwash and sand, so the stakes are high.

Jenga-high.

Cyndi shows up, and makes about a hundred requests for Lady Gaga. I'm done after hearing the second remix of "Just Dance", and leave for a party at The Castle, a club in the middle of the island that takes far too long to get to, and maybe it's pertinent somehow that I have a particularly deep dive early in the morning that I should probably be awake and ready for, but you know what The Castle has a neon glow-in-the-dark triceratops:

Eat it, every other club in the universe.

Now, if only you weren't filled with assholes...

My dive instructor in the morning sees my Castle stamp and expresses grave reservations about me being prepared for the dive, even though he's Scottish, and I feel like there's some type of stereotype there that he's not playing by. Regardless, I dive, and I'm fucking awesome at it. Afterwards, I take a quick nap before our night dive on the same day.

As our last dive for the licenses, Iain doesn't even wait till we've showered off the salt water before taking our diving license photos.

Motherfucking Jacques Cousteau.

Bethany decides spur-of-the-moment that she wants one of them bamboo tattoos, so I go with her as moral and physical support. We end up at The Office, an outdoor bar that has a very strict music request policy:

Good for them. I have some more drinks on the beach with Bethany and Mathilde, our Danish roommate, and go back to the room, to smoke more cigarettes with Bethany and enjoy my first night in Ko Tao without diving the next morning. The only place I want to see now is Chumphon Pinnacle, on the off-chance of seeing a whale shark, but the boat tomorrow is full.

Bethany leaves early in the morning, whispering goodbyes to all in the dorm room. Hefina heads out for Chumphon Pinnacle as the last dive of her Open Water, as I go with Cyndi, Anna, and Sander to inquire about cliff diving. The local shop, Good Time Adventures, disappoints with the news that we'd have to get full-day packages, as a recent storm has destroyed all the bridges between cliffs, making it impossible to go by land. Instead, we ask about wakeboarding. Their boat is broken. The four of us end up climbing rocks on the shore, get ice cream, and venture out to Kimg Rama Rock.

When we stop at a local shop for water, I find this sign, which is far more educational than any number of years in higher education:

Mathilde gets a tattoo, and once again I provide a hand to hold as her foot is punctured again and again by a thin bamboo spear.

When we finally get back to Big Blue, it turns out Hefina's group out at Chumphon Pinnacle spotted a whale shark. As they happened to have a cameraman diving with them, they show the video to the benefit and dripping jealousy of the entire resort. The boat was full, they told me. I sign up for the Pinnacle tomorrow. I will not be denied my whale shark. It's something special to think that these are my life problems now.

That night, I return to The Queen, with Amzi this time. It's finally Cabaret Show night, and we get seats around the stage in the back for an hour of intricately choreographed and costumed lipsync routines.

For the climax of the show, select audience members are brought backstage, dressed up, and then trotted out to dance with the stars. Amzi is picked as I snicker and jeer, mostly to cover up my shamed jealousy. Man alive, do I need attention. It isn't long before Amzi's brought back out in a gold sequined bra, matching pantaloons, and a massive green frightwig:

Drinks are expensive at 200 baht a cocktail, but through some miracle of space-time gymnastic happy hour comes around right afterwards. I have one last drink with Mathilde at The Office, and head home.

I finally dive Chumphon Pinnacle in the morning, but the whale shark has already left the area. Typical. Our divemaster is a tiny girl whom we watch taunt a huge triggerfish on the seafloor for about 10 minutes, because every other divemaster at the resort has been attacked by one, and she'll be goddamned if she's odd man out. Unfortunately for her, the triggerfish merely swims away, confused but unfazed, leaving her totally and disappointingly unharmed. Today's just shit luck for everyone. On the boat I try to show off my language skills by chatting with a Japanese couple, who call my bluff by inviting me to dinner with them. Since using the little Japanese I remember has already given me half an aneurysm, I don't feel up to it, but I do hang out with them and watch the sunset.

Outside Big Blue, the fastest banana pancake vendor alive has a stall. I get a banana pancake that I don't even really want, just to watch the guy make it. Are these the Halcyon days?

I wake up around noon, having slept about 12 hours. I check Facebook, and there's a surprising amount of talk about Osama bin Laden. More specifically, his being super duper dead. Outside, the TV in the bar is playing a BBC report intercut with Obama's press announcement. I watch for awhile, on uncertain emotional ground, before Iain finds me and hands me my Advance Diver License. Of all the things I'm feeling, at the forefront is how me getting my Advance License just got overshadowed somewhat.

I drink a tall boy in the sand and run around with a pack of beach dogs. It could be the bin Laden thing, or my lack of food and water combined with the burning afternoon sun, but I feel reeling drunk.

I eat dinner with the whole gang, and find out that all these Europeans have both seen and love Napoleon Dynamite. As the only one with an American accent, they're in awe of my impression, which gets those panties a-soakin', or at least until I order a Grasshopper and all my work is undone.

Sander, Tyler, and I go to AC Bar, where we get hammered immediately, Sander does some breaking in the sand, and shortly thereafter he and Tyler pull a pair of girls together. I dance on a stage area by myself for awhile, a lone uncoordinated wolf, until I'm approached by some ladyboys, who dance to Shakira with me. I must have sent out some sort of pheromone, because soon an old Thai man starts hugging me and kissing me on the cheek, saying he loves me, over and over. I get away from him, only to have another younger Thai guy approach and motion to kiss me on the lips. I shake my head no, he kisses me on the cheek instead.

Tearing myself away from all the Thai man-love, I finally find a girl to talk to, who I only realize is Thai after trying for about five minutes straight to speak Japanese with her. Karma, I guess, for missing dinner the other night. Tyler shows up, says Sander is leaving with the girls. We catch up, and I find out that one of the girls is pissed because Tyler called her a lesbian after she rebuffed him. I can identify, I think. They say they're going to sleep. I buy a beer and do the same.

I wake up to Sander coming into the room at 9:50. "Checkout's in 10 minutes," he says. Fuck it. I sleep in till noon and take a shit. I'll be glad to be rid of this toilet, with the cracks in the seat that suck in your ass flesh and pincer it viciously when you try to stand up. Sander and Tyler have already made arrangements at a travel agency for passage to Railay, so I get a ticket for myself and drop off my big backpack at the agency. The sun is starting to set, so I drop my small backpack off in front of the Big Blue reception with a pile of other bags, and hit the Sea Bar for a view with brews.

A Frenchman buys me a beer because of bin Laden's death, and tells me about a "temple valley" in Myanmar that is spectacular "if you have an ipod". A Lebanese girl toasts me "Kessak".

I go to put my sunglasses away, and the reception area that was previously full of bags is totally empty. My backpack is gone. It's 7 pm, and I have to leave at 8. I walk around Big Blue asking people if they've seen my bag, more and more hopelessly. The Thai don't want to help, and the Westerners don't know how to help. After an hour, Sander and Tyler take off ("Sorry man, don't know what to say...Later?"), and I'm forced to check back in to Big Blue. With my wallet (containing 500 bucks in Chinese yuan), debit card, netbook, and a gallimaufry of other electronics and travel accessories in the lost backpack, all I have left is my big backpack full of clothes, and whatever's in my pockets. My camera, and a little less than 200 USD. More time passes, and by now all of the staff know my situation, but no one can offer any help. I decide to drink.

They're playing beer pong in the Big Blue bar, which I hang around while waiting for news and sucking down Long Islands. I have a conversation with the bartender that goes something like this:

"So I heard you lost your backpack?"

"Yup, with my wallet in it, with all my cash and my debit card. Can I get a Long Island?"

"Sure, I imagine you could use one right now. That's so horrible. Anyways, that'll be 6 dollars."

I eat nothing, because I need to save money, and drink more Long Islands. A lot of drunken gazes at my wrist tattoo. "Don't Panic." Probably not the Halcyon days.

I wake up in bed, with no memory of leaving the bar. A staff girl comes in, and asks if James Wilson is here. Miracle of miracles, she has my backpack! Which, when she hands it to me, feels suspiciously light. Sure enough, no netbook (despite the Korean sticker on the cover that says 'Don't Take Shit Anybody"), no mouse, no expensive headphones, no Nintendo DS, all my cables and cords are gone, and I can't find my wallet. They even took my cheapo USB drive and the soap I had just bought. After turning the backpack inside out, I find my wallet in a pocket I didn't know existed. My debit card is floating around outside the wallet, and all the Chinese cash is gone. Curiously enough, the Xanax is still here. I check out, and even if the bartender wouldn't comp me a pity drink the night before, they don't charge me for the room. I get a new ticket for Railay and get some espresso at Tao Cafe.

I overhear some Canadian girls talking about how they heard someone say you don't get hangovers here. And it's true. By all rights, I should be hungover. I should've been hungover from Day One. I check my card's transaction history, which is clear. And so much the better, because I'll be damned if I'm going to stick around for a replacement card. After some prodding from the Big Blue staff, I file a police report, which amounts to exactly what you might figure. Some rumblings of a Burmese culprit ("Couldn't be a Thai..."). Of course the security guards didn't see anything. Of course the cameras are broken. Of course, nothing ever gets stolen here.

I get a massage, only to find massages aren't that relaxing when you're thinking "When I am relaxed, all my problems will be over" the whole time. For dinner, I eat something called the Hungry Hippo burger:

Because I'll always love you, Jamie.

A truck pulls up to the travel agency around 8, where I've been using the internet and feeling sorry for myself. A quick drive, and I'm put on a boat to Surat Thani, where everyone has a 3x5' bit of padded floor demarcated for sleeping. Some try to read, undistracted by how they haven't been robbed.

Like that one there. Look at that smug personal property-having dick.

At least I've got my camera and my debit card, and whatever health left before I soon destroy it with titanic amounts of drink. And to play devil's advocate, the 500 dollars cash wasn't really mine, as I hadn't yet paid Sarah back for it. So really, I'm just fucked out of my new netbook. And my cables. And my DS. And my goddamn soap. Optimism is an uphill fucking battle.

He knows.

Still, I can't bring myself to read, or sleep. Did I mention this is my first theft, ever, in my life? I can see why someone might get worked up! It definitely isn't all smiles and banana splits. Before I left for this trip, I considered doing it Luddite-style: no electronics, no diversions, no Western bullshit. A real gritty classic adventure. Of course, I laughed the thought away a second later and took all my toys, but it seems forces are pushing me the other way. Maybe the thief did me a favor?

Fuck. I had the new episode of Game of Thrones on the netbook. I hope that goddamn thief gets AIDS.

Frogress Is Made/KO PHA NGAN

Enough sitting around. I book a boat tour of the island, especially interested in a series of waterfalls that are supposed to be spectacular, and a special beach that some tourist brochures had me really psyched about. Anything to get out of Haad Rin for a bit.

An awful heat hangs over the morning, a real crack-sluicer, as I wait for the tour van to pick me up. The van stops at a place called Friendly Resort near Haad Rin Nok, the sunset beach, where I meet the rest of the tour group. They register my presence with some surprise, as it turns out everyone else going is from a travel package group, making me the outsider butting into their planned boat ride. Play it cool, Jamie. Don't let 'em see your crack sweat. The head of their travel group makes some introductions, but I confess I was too distracted by the very angry cold sore on her lip to memorize a dozen British names on the spot.

Once the boat leaves the dock, the waters start to chop and wave. Our captain has a chat with the cold sore girl, which she relays back to us: Due to possibility of getting trapped by a storm, we won't be stopping at the waterfalls or the special beach. Alright, I probably had that coming. Anyways, I have bigger concerns: This is the first time I've worn my swim trunks since the night I tried my hand at fire rope-jumping, and I never noticed that a 3-inch hole was burned into the crotch, so now I get to spend the rest of the boat ride playing How Many British Strangers Are Going To See My White American Dick.

Quit lookin' perv

The boat pulls into our first stop at Bottle Beach, where the group is led to lunch at a beachside open-air restaurant. After eating a plate of fried rice, I find myself back on the boat sunbathing with a couple other guys from the group, chatting about the Dragon Tattoo movies, The Inbetweeners, the general state of British film and television, and...goddammit. They were nerds. Stupid, smart, interesting nerds. Still, baby steps. I was making progress. Friend progress. Frogress, if you will. No, definitely friend progress.

The tour stops next at a snorkeling spot about a half mile from shore. Masks and flippers are handed out for everyone who wants to get wet. While half the boat is jumping in, the captain starts throwing bride slices out onto the water, setting off a feeding frenzy among the sputtering neon-banded fish nearby. Really, the opposite of everything I had just learned about not disturbing marine life in scuba diving classes. I watch the sight for a bit before diving in myself.

Sorry, Environment.

The area has a great deal of coral, but in lifeless gray-green hues, like the pea-soup screen of an old Game Boy. Still, the water feels great after the day's oppressive heat. Back on the boat, the woman who we'll just call Cold Sore Sally is warning her travel group about fire rope swinging. Apparently one of the Thai rope swingers she knows dropped the rope for whatever reason, only to have it coil around his leg, while his jeans were soaked in kerosene. His legs were horribly burnt, and being too poor for medical care, became infected.  In the end, both legs had to be amputated.

Meanwhile some other assholes complain about their boo-boos.

Snorkeling turns out to be the last activity for the day, and the boat heads back to port. Almost as soon as we start moving, I realize I have to pee, and this is one of those apocalyptic all-consuming needs to pee. Without any handy sinks around, I consider my options. I could try and sit as nonchalantly as possible, legs crossed tighter than the Gordian Knot, feet spasming uncontrollably, and wait for my kidneys to explode, or I could simply announce to the others my basic bodily needs, and have a beautiful, soul-soaring piss over the side of the boat, announcing myself before all creation. I go with not peeing, which somehow feels more shameful, and wait to die.

After three or four years, we come in sight of the dock. "Does anyone else feel like jumping off the boat right now, they have to pee so bad?" someone pipes up. All round the boat, every single person shouts and/or painfully moans their agreement. To think, what would have happened had I been the pioneer to let it fly over the side? What could I have started? Imagine the sight; the boat floating magically, wonderfully into the air, carried aloft by the sheer force of so many desperate golden arcs, our ship soaring out of this world and into the story-swapping sessions of grizzled sailors at their drunkest, telling the impossible tale with hushed voice into an empty whiskey bottle. 

Our group disembarks and the dozen of us all crabwalk over and around each other to the nearest bathrooms. As much as I'd like to make plans to meet up with my new nerd-friends again, my bladder trumps all. I ditch everyone else running into their bungalows to have a good, old-fashioned public urine-bonanza right there on the pier.

Now the narrative is going to try and stumble on.  In the meantime, here's a crab spitting bubbles out of its mouth.

"Blurble"

Feeling like a sufficiently active and outgoing human being once again, I eat dinner for one at an Italian place called Mona Lisa. I order their homemade limoncello cream and chocolate mousse, but they're out of both, and I can only get regular limoncello, and tiramisu. That's the story of this whole trip, really. If you were just reading this blog until I nailed the perfect travel analogy, because you're the most weirdly specific reader in the world, well here's your stopping point, because home run!

Life is pain.

The ritual continues; paying 5 dollar ATM fees to get drunk in the afternoon, and by night dodging the Thais playing badminton in the street and the dogs sleeping on the beach. I'm starting to recognize the locals, and for better or worse they're recognizing me.

The next afternoon I'm having lunch in a Friends bar called Lazy House. On the TV is a UK Jackass-alike called Balls of Steel, which is a lot like Jackass, minus the charisma, personalities, creativity, or humor. While I sit and consider how far-gone a mind has to be to get pretentious about Jackass, the Lazy House bartender starts up a conversation with me. He confirms for me that the island is indeed now filled with Israelis and Estonians (?) for reasons unknown to him, and shares anecdotes about how after the Full Moon Party he'll find the restaurant filled with people after closing who just seem to wander in, despite the walls and furniture being put up.  He also complains bitterly about the same people who stop in, look at the menu, and then leave to find places that are 10 or 15 baht cheaper. "Assholes," I agree, all of a sudden very worried that he can see into my soul, and the guilt therein.

Along with a pork kebab, I order a few cocktails, including a mai tai, which has become something of a game for me. I've found that every bar and restaurant has them on the menu, but will make them completely different, usually with no idea as to what is actually supposed to go in one, so I get a surprise every time. A cat and dog pair saunter into Lazy House, looking for handouts. After playing Jackass 3D, they close early.

With nothing else to do, and not feeling particularly energetic, I'm about go home when I notice Club 9, a bar I had thought closed following the Full Moon Party, was open for the night. Curious, I go for in a drink.

Inside, the club is completely deserted save for two bartenders and myself. After perusing the menu, I order a "rocknrolla", because James Bond and Charlie Sheen taught me if you're just going to have one drink, make it count.

Club 9 offered Hangover Cures at the bar, which I thought a brilliant innovation. And maybe just a little foreboding.

While one of the bartenders futzes with the sound system, and I sip my oversold and overpriced vodka-Red Bull, the other bartender asks me if I'd like to play a game. Intrigued, and not sure how I could say no in an empty bar, I agree. From behind the counter, he produces...Connect Four. Not just the favored game of prepubescent scam artists, it would seem. What the hell. We play a few games, and the bartender predictably dominates. To make up for my loss, he pours me a whiskey sour, although I'm pretty sure I ended up paying for it anyway.

Two guys walk through the door, and I happen to recognize them. They're both from the group I was with on the boat trip, and they also both happen to be the only non-Brits of said group: Sander, from the Netherlands, and Ted, from Australia. Happy to get away from more embarrassing Connect Four defeats, I join them at a table in the corner. After a round or two of skittles shots, they mention that the rest of the group is going to be partying on the beach, and invite me to come. It would cut into my valuable losing-Hasbro-games-to-a-bored-bartender-in-a-depressing-nightclub time, but I tag along anyway.

Sander, Ted, and I find the others at the beach, and I'm greeted with a few surprised cries of recognition. My nerd-friends aren't here, and I got the feeling they weren't entirely missed. For a while I share in the others' drink buckets and make small talk with a Spanish girl who is oddly insistent about me friending her on Facebook, and then the fire rope comes out.

Hello, old friend.

This time, I abstain. Sander leaves for bed, and the rest of them have too much healthy self-preservation instinct to jump in. Without any interest to keep it going, the fire rope guys pack it in, and are replaced by fire jugglers, whom we watch transfixed while draining more heinously intoxicating and intoxicatingly heinous buckets.

Fire jugglers: Stroking the ego of amateur photographers the world over

Then out comes the fire ring. Sorry, let me rephrase that: they brought out a literal Ring of Fire. This time, abstinence is for ugly teens and dudes named Morrissey. I'mma go live a misinterpreted Johnny Cash song.

Sometimes I really goddamn love you, Ko Pha Ngan.

I jump through the ring again, and again, and again. My draw to it is so powerful, it's practically encoded in my DNA. 

Even though you can't actually see my face, I feel like in this second it's become at least three times as handsome.

Once I've got all the ring-jumping out of my system, I settle down, dance a little, and have a couple beers to celebrate a successful injury-free experience. However, something feels amiss. I check my pockets. My keys are missing.

They're nowhere around the table, or the ground beneath. Clearly, they must have fallen out while I was jumping through a flaming hoop, not that there is anything about this sentence I could have seen coming. Desperate, I hunt the surrounding sand, but with all the foot traffic and the tide coming in, the search becomes hopeless.

I hope you're happy. And goddammit, I know you are.

I have no way of contacting the people at Venus to let me in, and it's far too late to get a room somewhere else for the night. I have two options left: Sleep on the beach, or find someone to go home with. Not wanting to be robbed and/or marked as territory by stray dogs, I put my game face on. My seduction face. Which sounds like I was making kissy lips or something, but it was really pretty much my normal face, except I tried to make my eyes more brooding-er.

With the stakes this high, I got to see just what kind of man I was. Turns out, I'm a man who's not very good at picking up girls. After Ted starts making out with the Spanish Facebook-enthusiast, and takes her off the market, I set my sights on a British girl named Cyndi. Cyndi is the kind of girl with a face that's made to be drunk, possessing the perfect elastic qualities and expression of coy bewilderment. She's already rebuffed Tyler, the playboy of their little group, but she's kept drinking steadily since then and seems very interested in Seattle (even if she does think it's somewhere in California). Let me be clear on this: all I really wanted was a place to stay for the night. If anything, sex would be working against my purpose, since everyone had roommates and any busted hanky-panky could result in me getting thrown out. I wouldn't say I was quite on the Light side of the Force here, but I certainly wasn't Darth Vader neither.

However, Cyndi is being very hot/cold, and just when I think I'm getting somewhere, she's pulled aside by the other girls and given a talking-to. There are a lot of comforting gestures, and every once in awhile Cyndi nods in my direction and loudly exclaims "He?!" I don't know what kind of grammar she's using to do it, but I can feel her slipping away.

I turn my laser-guided attentions elsewhere. A cute Asian girl joins the party, who turns out to have actually lived in Seattle for a bit. And, she's even lost her flip-flops in the sand to boot! I help her look for them for awhile, but they've been sucked out into that same bitch ocean with my room key. She thanks me for my help, compliments me for being such a nice guy, but she's really got to get to bed and good luck with your room situation! Exeunt cute Asian girl.

It's past 3 a.m. now, and I've given up hope. The group is disbanding, and starting to make their way back to their rooms in Haad Rin Nok. I tag along for a bit, wondering which part of the beach is neutral dog territory,  when another one of the stragglers, Janice, an attractive brunette with a stern air, asks where I'm headed. 

"Oh, nowhere really. I'm kind of homeless at the moment," I reply, and fill her in on my plight. To my relief, she's sympathetic.

"I suppose...you might be able to stay in our room. My roommate is probably going to be gone for the night, so there's an extra bed."

Yes! Salvation! Elated, I walk with her to get a couple toasties, while she makes some surprisingly catty remarks about the other girls in her travel group. But hey, whatever you want to bitch about, I'm interested. I even humor her by trying some of her Marmite and cheese toastie, and further humor her by not instantly spitting the Marmite out and rinsing my mouth with Abraxo and holy water.

Once in her room, I ask which bed she wants me to take. She doesn't care. I climb in the one nearest the door, and to my surprise, she climbs in with me. I mean, it wasn't a complete surprise, as I've read in books that girls like to do intercourse stuff too. Still, it was something of a concern. Not only was it past 4 in the morning now, and I was way too tired to be doing anything, but after talking to her it was clear that her roommate was likely to come back at any moment.

Not wanting to offend her or her hospitality, I did the only thing I could: scootched as far as possible to the edge of the bed and pretended to sleep. Janice wasn't satisfied. Every time I would trail off in conversation and close my eyes, she would wait a couple minutes, and then broach a new topic, her hand slowly and steadily moving across the divide towards me the whole time. By the time she started asking if I had seen "this American show 'Glee'", I decided to bite the bullet. Maybe the roommate wouldn't come home after all, and Janice and I could get in a quickie before she would finally let me sleep. I slip my arm around her, and by the waist pull her close. We make out, my reluctance and reservations melting away...

Then her roommate comes home, because of course she does. "Fucking hell!" gasps Bethany, Miss Roommate Herself. Janice and I disentangle ourselves and I go back to the fetal position against the wall.

"Look at this! Haw! Haw!" Behind Bethany is Jake, a topless brodude with the lumpy, ungainly physique of someone who eats too much protein powder. While Bethany gets into her bed, Jake can't sit still, and bounds around the room.  Janice and Bethany argue with each other for a spell about nothing in particular, mostly Janice asking where she's been, and Bethany trying her hardest not to say dry-humping with this guy in the sand. She looks embarrassed to have been caught with him, whereas I don't think Jake has ever been embarrassed in his entire life. Ripping off his pants, he jumps boxer-clad into our bed.

"Let's get this party started!" Jake bellows, starting a tug-of-war with us for our covers.

"Ja-ake! Come on love, just get into bed, yeah?" Bethany pleads with him. He's not having any of it.  He can smell sex in the air, and he's going to be involved in some fashion.

"Whaddaya say we have a four-way? Haw haw! Eh? You know you wanna!" I've started to burrito myself into the sheets, trying not to stare Jake's swinging junk, flapping in and out of the front of his boxers, in the eye.

But neither Janice nor Bethany wanna.  After being stared down by Janice, and berated by Bethany, Jake finally surrenders himself to bed. Bethany turns on the aircon full blast, and switches off the lights, pointless now that it's past 6 and the sun is rising.

"Only spooning, you two!" Bethany chides us before going back to bed, and wrapping herself around Jake.  You got it. If I fall asleep now, I can still get maybe 3 and a half hours of sleep before the girls have to check out of the room.

But Janice isn't interested in sleep. Just as soon as rest was in sight, she starts to grind into me, slowly at first, then gradually picking up speed. Like a sexual Terminator, she wasn't going to quit. Grabbing my available hand under the covers, she presses it to her breast as she continues to grind her ass along my pelvis. In the other bed, I can hear Bethany complain as Jake tries something similar with her. Whether they can see what we're doing, I don't know.

Janice is done playing around. She takes my hand in her left and moves it downtown, pushing two of my fingers into her vagina, while with her other hand she reaches back and starts giving me a very awkward, backwards, over-the-pants handjob. That she does all this while still facing away from me I found extremely impressive. That she was facing her roommate 3-feet away, well, that was something too. She keeps right on fingering herself using my hand as a prop, though if it's making any effect I can't tell. Her backwards handie wasn't doing much for me, but to be fair she would need at least a couple double-joints, and just about every other bit of this situation to be completely different, if she wanted to be very successful.

In the other bed, Bethany has finally had enough of Jake's molestations, and yells at him to either go to sleep, or get out. He chooses to leave, and collects his clothes, muttering the way out. I freeze, not wanting to disturb anybody. Janice has stopped working my hand, and seems to fall asleep, with my fingers still inside her. Without wanting to move, and risk waking her, or angering her roommate, I stay like that, holding hands with her pussy, for an impossibly long time. Minutes, hours, days, I couldn't say. I wonder if it'd be rude to wash my hands after this. My fingers have probably pruned.

After I'm sure Bethany is asleep, I finally withdraw my hand and release my sticky fingers to the light of day. Even if there was time, sleep is impossible thanks to the freezing aircon and morning light filling the room. Didn't I have the option to sleep on a nice, comfortable beach at some point? What happened to that?

Around 9 a.m., the girls awaken to the screech of a travel alarm clock. Bethany heads downstairs to see about extending their stay in the room, while Janice showers. I manage to at least wash my hands before I leave, making vague plans to meet Janice somewhere on the beach, sometime tonight.

I walk of shame back to Venus, but there's nobody there. In all my genius, I got myself locked out on the night before Easter Sunday, and now I get to wait for the family who runs the place to get back from Mass, whenever that would be.

The grandmother finally shows up, but the spare key to my room's padlock, wouldn't you know it, doesn't work. She unlocks the bungalow next door for me to shower in, while she attempts to saw the lock off.  The sawing is unsuccessful, so finally she calls her son in to bash at the door with a hammer, as the locksmith is unavailable because of the holiday.

This is what you get when you "fall into a burning ring of fire." That song is full of shit.

After an hour, he finally smashes the lock off, and I'm able to get inside and nap for a few precious hours. Once I finally feel fit enough to go outside again, I head down to the lobby for breakfast. It's there, on one of the tables, that I spy a familiar bottle.

Hello, beautiful!

The gigolo didn't steal it after all! So, there's a moral to all this bullshit in the end. Don't be quick to judge people. Or something.