Unfortunately for my massive following (ie: mom & dad) I don't have a whole lot of interesting things to report. However, this past weekend was an epic [and rare] holiday. A four day weekend! Sound the bells, choirs of angels! 96 glorious hours free of pestilent 6th graders, grading and chalkboards. Here is how the adventure begins...
Wednesday marked the beginning of Khao Phansa, the equivalent of Buddhist Lent. This is a 3-month period in which the monks retreat to the temples, coinciding with the beginning of rainy season. This tradition began long ago to prevent monks from trampling rice paddies as they collected offerings from villagers and is a time of spiritual renewal for all Buddhist people. It also means we had Thursday and Friday off from school.
Due to the national holiday, plane tickets (even domestic) were outrageously expensive. So, a few girlfriends and I opted to take an overnight bus and ferry south to the island of Koh Samui. Now, I love Thailand and her people just as much as the next underpaid foreign teacher; but for the love of kidney beans, this place is so fantastically inefficient / unpunctual / disorganized!
Mei pen rei is a common phrase in Thailand meaning, "no worries." That's what they tell you, anyway. What it really means is, "Wow. We really f****d up, but nah, we're not gonna do anything about it. Sorry." We hauled ourselves over to the bus station straight from work, only to wait in the rain for the bus, which decided at some point that leaving at 8 pm would be just as good as 7 pm.
My four friends and I were stuck in the back row of the bus...the kind with seats that do not recline and are narrower than the rest. Lovely. Over the course of the 10-hour bus ride we made a couple of pit-stops. One was simply so the driver could smoke a pack of cigarettes. I'm not sure the purpose of the second stop, although my guess would be an illicit drug deal. Just a guess. Finally, around 5 am, we arrive at some horrid patch of grass and trees, off the main road. I thought that if they were going to either a) chop us into pieces for pickling or b) kidnap us, they would have done it straight away. But when we went off the road, I thought perhaps these were true sadists and they wanted all the foreigners to suffer 10 hours of hell before the chop-fest.
Clearly, we were neither chopped or kidnapped. However, we were told to wait "one hour" for the next bus to pick us up and drop us at the pier. It was about at this time that I put two and two together and realized that everyone wants a piece of the farang pie. In other words, we were dropped-off, picked-up and otherwise needlessly transported so that everyone had a fair chance to make money.
Naturally, one hour turned to two...to two and a half...to three. Finally, we were loaded onto a bus which was one loose bolt short of the junkyard. We waited on the bus some more, just for good measure. Then drove approximately 400 feet and stopped. The driver disappeared but eventually returned. At the pier, we waited some more, but finally made it to Koh Samui (Koh means "island" in Thai). I booked us a beach bungalow on Tongtakien Bay...a beautiful cove with clear, aqua waters...it really looked like Jurassic Park was filmed there, with the green hills and giant boulders.
We had a wonderful couple of days. Our cove was small and very private, so we weren't bothered by drunk college boys. It was the ideal holiday: everyday, I would rise early, read on the beach, swim for hours in the sea, nap on the beach and then out with friends at night. I also made sure to eat a banana split after every meal. This is not an exaggeration: I would get scrambled eggs for breakfast, followed one hour later by heavenly ice cream and continue that eating pattern* all day, every day for the entire weekend.
We did indulge in a couple of tourist-y things, including a Muay Thai (Thai Boxing) match. We sat ringside for seven fights and it was awesome! It really is an especially brutally form of boxing, employing the use of elbows, knees and feet. Ouch.
The neighboring island of Koh Pha Naeng is known for it's Full Moon Parties. These happen every full moon, but it was especially important last weekend because of the holiday. On Saturday night, we took the ferry over and wow! Full Moon Party is Thailand's answer to Mardi Gras! It was Biblical in the sense that I half expected swarms of locusts to descend upon us from above, or for boils to sprout on everyone's skin...parties like that are what bring on The Plagues...10,000 people where Bourbon Street meets the beach. It was one of my favorite nights in Thailand, thus far. We went in on a massive bucket. Now, a Thai bucket is literally a bucket, which is filled with Coca-Cola, soda water, Red Bull and either vodka or Thai whisky. We found a great steal in a 1.5 gallon bucket...not kidding. I took charge of the bucket (which happened to be the size of my torso) and was instantly the most popular girl there! No telling how many strangers asked to pose with me and the giant bucket of vodka mess. The night wore on and soon involved body paint and purchasing plaid fedoras (don't ask) and dancing in the rain with thousands of Euro trash!
In short (too late), my holiday was a success...even after another 18 hours of travel back home. We left on Sunday morning and did not arrive until 5 am Monday (I had to be at work at 7 am)...in fact, I'm pretty sure I got -3 hours of sleep.
But hey, mei pen rei!
* Even though I was not exercising, this banana split pattern was completely excused. Behold, the Calorie Bank: obviously, calories consumed count as 'Deposit' in the Bank. However, anytime you are given the opportunity to consume a high-calorie food and abstain, you simply 'Withdraw' those calories from the Bank. Por ejemplo:
Saturday--
Deposit:
+ 2 banana splits
+ 2 scrambled eggs
+ 1 watermelon smoothie
+ 1 fish burger
+ .3 gallons of Thai Bucket
Intake = 24 billion calories
Withdraw:
- 1 banana split (could have ordered after dinner, but did not)
- 1 order of french fries (ditto)
Bank Balance = 1,700 calories (ideal!)
...just goes to show what the human brain can concoct after 10 hours on a Thai bus.
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