DON’T DRINK THE WATER
A YEAR IN ASIA
SIMON CUTTING
1
FARANG, CHANG, RED BULL, AND BHANG
THAILAND
Ko Samui- Big Buddha Beach
I woke up unaware of where I was and something seemed to be licking my feet, possibly a dog. My head was tilted to the right nestling on sand, and in my distorted field of view I could see a few people sitting on the beach, beers in hand, talking animatedly about nothing important. I raised my head. It wasn’t a dog licking my feet, it was the waves lapping up against them as they hit the shore. I was soaking wet, as was my wallet and my money belt containing close to five hundred dollars in cash, my plane tickets and my passport. My head was throbbing and my vision was so unfocused I couldn’t even tell if I recognised anybody around me without going right up to them and staring them in the face for a few seconds. I’d have called out their names but I couldn’t remember anyone’s names. After breathing directly into one guy’s face I realised I had never seen him before.
‘Where am I?’ I asked, my words slurred and indistinct.
Either he couldn’t speak English or perhaps in my current state, I couldn’t, but I got no response. He looked at me like he had just scraped me off his shoe until I wandered off up the beach, past some bungalows and towards the road. I had to get home, wherever the hell that was. I hit the road, nothing was familiar. Not just my location, but nothing. Shapes such as trees and houses were completely new to me. I looked about the dimly lit street, which seemed empty and imposing.
Where the hell was I?
Then it all came flooding back.
I was on Ko Samui, in southern Thailand. I had arrived that afternoon with my two flatmates from home, Banga and his girlfriend Mel. We’d gotten into Bangkok late and headed immediately south to the islands. I went to school with Banga and the one thing we both share is a common love of binge drinking. Mel had never travelled before and after some initial distress at the smell and filth upon landing in Bangkok she decided that Thailand wasn’t so bad after all and had actually started to enjoy herself. We had planned to meet up with Banga’s brother, Billy, and his girlfriend Ag. Billy is immensely tall and good-natured whilst Ag, who immigrated from Poland when she was six years old, is not immensely tall but just as good-natured. We had decided not to tell them that I was coming to Thailand and so, when we arrived at their bungalows ‘Shambala’, I hid in Banga and Mel’s bathroom as everybody hugged and laughed in the next room. I waited for my moment and then emerged triumphantly. Billy and Ag looked briefly stunned and then came rushing over.
‘This is great! I didn’t know you were coming!’ Ag said.
‘It was meant to be a surprise,’ I replied.
We chatted excitedly for a bit and then there was a pause.
‘Umm, but we didn’t book you a room. And they’re full,’ Billy said after a bit.
‘Oh,’ I replied.
There was another pause.
‘Well I’m sure you can find somewhere else just up the beach there,’ Ag said reassuringly.
I nodded.
’Oh, I’m sure I will.’
So I picked up my heavy pack and trudged out of the room.
‘Come back when you find somewhere. We can have a drink!’ Banga called after me as he ordered an ice cold Chang and they all set off laughing to the beachfront restaurant.
I pondered over the pros and cons of our little joke as I walked up the road, stopping to ask at every place I saw. They were all full. We were staying on a beach called Big Buddha, aptly named after the gigantic golden statue of Buddha that stands prominently on a headland at one end. Unfortunately, I didn’t know this. Banga hadn’t been sure where it was we were going. We had gotten a songthaew from the ferry stop and we just jumped out when he recognised something, as he had been to Samui before. A songthaew incidentally, is a ute with two rows of seats in the back, facing inwards, and usually with a roof. They are the main form of transport on the Thai islands unless you want to rent a motorcycle. In any case, Banga had thought we were on Bo Phut Beach, and had told me as such. I discovered later that this was a crucial piece of misinformation.
Which led to my predicament. I managed to find a place, a good five hundred metres up the beach and when I got back down we decided to have some beverages to celebrate our arrival. I had heard all about Thai Red Bull and how it was so much stronger than at home. I didn’t think that would be a particularly difficult thing as the Red Bull in Australia has no effect on me whatsoever, so when Banga suggested I drink a Vodka Red Bull I was game. In fact, I ended up having about five of them, and I had already been drinking copious amounts of Chang.
To cut a long story short, I woke up, waves lapping against my feet and lying in the sand, completely unaware of where I was. The problem, as I have since discovered, is that the Red Bull gives you so much energy that you’re awake long after you should have passed out from too much drinking. Not only are you awake, but you have the energy to act upon every uninhibited impulse that happens to flash through your mind. I spoke to Billy and Banga the next day to check on what had happened.
‘Well,’ began Banga, ‘You started getting very loud and disturbing the other guests at Shambala so we decided to walk you home.’
‘Yes. But the biggest problem with that was that you were unable to walk,’ added Billy.
‘Okay, but why was I so wet?’
‘Well you were unable to walk, but you were able to swim,’ he replied, ‘You said you were going to swim home and ran off into the water fully clothed before we could stop you.’
I thought this over. It sounded plausible. My clothes had been soaking as was my money belt. I had been forced to hang thousand baht notes up on the clothesline in my bungalow when I finally made it home.
‘But wait a minute, if you were walking me home then how come I woke up on the beach?’
‘Well you didn’t know where you lived. You were pretty sure we had come to the right place when you saw a bunch of guys sitting around a plastic table on the beach drinking, but when you approached them you tripped and knocked the table over and all their beers, so they weren’t too friendly after that.’
A memory came back to me. A frosty silence when I asked that blurry figure on the beach where I was. No wonder he wouldn’t talk to me.
‘And then you refused to get up and couldn’t tell us your room number so we left you there. We figured you’d get up and go home eventually.’
They were right. I did get up and go home… eventually. When I stumbled up to the road I had been so drunk I hadn’t even realised that I was just outside my own bungalows. I had flagged down a passing motorcycle and asked him if he would drive me to Bo Phut Beach. This he did, and when I got off I realised that I had no idea where I was. I scratched my head (well tried to, but accidentally poked myself in the eye) and attempted to think of another way of going about this. Bo Phut Beach was clearly not where I was, or else I would recognise it. I tried to recall instead the name of my bungalows. They were called Sunset Song 2, but the only word I could remember was Sunset. Now the thing about Thailand is, the Thais are some of the friendliest people in the world. They’ll always help you out and do it with a smile, so even at three in the morning I had no trouble finding another motorcycle to take me to my destination.
‘I need to get to Sunset… something. Sunset…’ I stammered, shivering a little in my sodden clothes.
The Thais may be some of the friendliest people in the world, but when it comes to naming bungalows and guesthouses they lack imagination. Every second place on the island has Sunset or Beach or Sunrise or Sea in the title.
He dropped me off at the end of a dirt road outside a locked gate of a massive resort complex called Sunset Resort. I shook my head.
‘This isn’t it!’ I exclaimed.
I was feeling a little desperate now. I had been driving around for half an hour or more and I had no idea where I was. My Thai was about as bad as his English and he became angry at me. He wanted money for petrol which I agreed to give him, if he got me home. Looking back I can see how stupid such a request was. He needed petrol to drive me around searching (out of the goodness of his heart and perhaps the possibility of a small tip) for a place that I didn’t know the name or location of, but I refused to give him money for the petrol he needed to do that until he got me there. My logic was not working at full capacity and I was getting a little bit scared. I became even more scared when he got off the bike and shoved me backwards, demanding money. Now I am not a fighter, but I raised my fists in front of my face to protect myself, and he just shook his head and got back on his bike.
‘Fuck you!’ he called back at me as he drove away.
His English was impeccable in that particular instance but I felt a little better. I had scared him off. I certainly showed him, I thought, as I stood in the pitch darkness at the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
I found a main road through some blind stumbling and soon found myself perched on the back of yet another bike, heading for Bo Phut Beach. It was all wrong again, and I walked up the beach, thinking maybe I was just at the far end of it and would see my place if I walked the length of it. I arrived at a small wooden bar at the far end without having seen anything familiar. The bar was literally just that. A bar in the sand, playing reggae music. The two young Thai guys working there looked up in surprise as I approached. It must have been getting on to five in the morning.
‘You want a beer?’ one asked, and I admit that the thought did cross my mind, but I turned it down.
The last thing I needed was more alcohol. Maybe just a Red Bull to keep myself awake…
‘You lost?’ the bartender asked and I nodded.
‘I’m looking for a place called Sunset…’ I began and he just nodded.
I think he had seen this kind of thing before.
‘When I close the bar, I’ll give you a lift,’ he said, ‘About fifteen minutes.’
I shrugged. Sure, whatever. I didn’t honestly expect to get home but a change of scenery would be nice. So we sat around talking and suddenly something in my mind clicked. I must have been sobering up.
‘Sunset Song! That’s what it’s called! Sunset freaking Song!’
I was so overjoyed that I had remembered that I didn’t even notice the look of confusion that crossed his face. It turned out, as we were cruising around Samui that he didn’t know where Sunset Song was. We stopped once at a lonely crossroads at one point. Lonely that is except for the five Thai guys sitting around on a little bamboo structure getting drunk. One of them wandered up and said something to my bartender, and then peered at me through the gloom. He face spread into a broad smile and he started to laugh so much he could barely stand up. I looked at him, a bit bemused until I realised what was going on. He was the guy who had dropped me at the end of the dirt road, about and hour and a half earlier. My bartender was beginning to sense that he might be stuck with me, but he kept driving and within a few minutes we met an old man who knew where Sunset Song was.
‘Not Bo Phut. Big Buddha!’ he said.
I could have kissed that old man, and perhaps I did, I don’t really remember. Those two words and I was home within five minutes. We roared up the road on his Honda Dream (Bo Phut is the next beach along) and soon the huge gold Buddha appeared in my vision, like a guide. There it was, Sunset Song 2, just where I’d left it. I got off the bike exhausted and delved into my pocket, showering my new best friend with money, and making him promise to give the other guy some petrol money if he saw him again. He assured me that he would and with that I went into my bungalow, just as the sun was peeking up over the horizon.
‘Hang on,’ Billy said, interrupting my story, ‘Are you telling me you spent three hours or more driving around trying to get back to the exact place that we left you?’
I nodded, bowing my head with shame.
‘You’re an idiot!’ he declared.
‘You really are,’ Banga agreed.
Krabi- Rai Leh Beach
So what the hell was I doing in South East Asia anyway? A lot of people claim to go travelling to find themselves or to learn more about their own limitations and confront their fears of the unknown. Not so for me. I was in South East Asia for one reason and for one reason only, and that was to have fun. This was no spiritual journey of self discovery. As a matter of fact, self discovery was one of the things I was trying to avoid in my life, and the closest I wanted to get to a spiritual awakening had happened on Big Buddha when I woke up after drinking over a litre of the stuff mixed with Red Bull. There was no ultimate destination and no purpose to my trip beyond seeing things I hadn’t seen before. And that, for me, is enough. A person is only made of memories so they might as well be interesting ones.
Some days had passed since my incident, and I had managed to get myself so burnt from riding around on motorcycles that the skin on my hands moved in a single section, like a piece of schnitzel. Apart from that complication, renting a motorcycle in Thailand is a simple process. Usually a passport and one hundred and fifty baht are enough for the day. No licence is required, which is good because I didn’t have one. No helmets were supplied either but of course, I only needed one of those if I intended to fall off. In any case, Samui is a fantastic island for riding on; it’s about twenty five kilometres long by twenty one kilometres wide and has its own airport as well as several ports and small towns. There’s a sort of ring road that wraps around the beaches and it’s along this that the best views can be seen. There’s nothing like riding a bike around the winding cliff-side roads and along beautiful beaches.
I was trying to keep off the alcohol since my opening act, although the others all went out and had riotous times whilst I sat at home dousing my baked body with aloe vera. Finally, Billy and Ag decided that they had been there long enough and wanted to head off for Krabi. The rest of us had planned to go to Ko Pha Ngan, but we decided to go to Krabi with them because they would be leaving for home after that. So Banga and I went to arrange tickets. There didn’t seem to be any problem except for the fact that we were told that there was only one ferry a day and the time that Billy and Ag's was supposed to leave was an hour before ours. Either there was some sort of mistake or there was a small localised time distortion at the wharf. We were placing our bets on a fuck-up.
Sure enough, that’s exactly what it was. Getting up very early we managed to get in a songthaew and to the ferry. It was still dark, and the only other people in the back with us were locals carrying sacks of produce or chickens. It was about ten to seven by the time we got there and as it turned out the ferry didn't leave until nine. Why did we get there so early, you ask? Shut up and mind your own business, I reply. It's all someone else's fault I add, under my breath.
But of course, in every trip there are long periods of waiting. I had backpacked before, through India, and the one thing that I learnt from that experience is that there is no sense in getting upset about anything. Things will go wrong, and your bus will NEVER look like the one in the photograph. Express trains are NOT express trains and the Deluxe Bus is deluxe only when compared to being dragged behind wild horses with a rope around your ankles. I have a mantra for such occasions. This too shall pass. Whatever happens, however bad it is, it will be over soon and at some point in the future you will be sitting back and laughing about it. Of course this also applies to when you’re having fun and you know that at some point in the future you’ll find yourself at a wharf somewhere waiting for a ferry that was supposed to have arrived hours earlier. It was there that we found ourselves later that day. We had booked tickets through the P.P. Family travel agency. This was not so much because we thought that it would be the best service, but rather because they seem to hold a monopoly on all services to the beaches.
Krabi town itself is not the place to be. A lot of the beaches that surround the area cannot be reached by road and so a boat needs to be arranged, which is what we thought we had done. We had been waiting for over an hour for what was supposed to have been a joint bus/ferry ticket before I approached the counter, putting on my most passive face.
'Hello there my fine fellow. On this glorious day I have arrived to board the eleven o’clock boat to beautiful Rai Leh Beach where I plan to indulge in all kinds of magnificent and possibly illegal debauchery,’ I said, with excessive politeness.
'Not eleven, twelve thirty.'
'Oh. Why is that my dear chap?' I replied.
‘Twelve thirty.’
So we sat down and had a drink in the fine PP family restaurant conveniently located opposite the ticket office. After twelve thirty had come and gone I approached again.
'This is a splendid restaurant my cheerful friend and trusted confidante. Incidentally where is the fucking boat?'
'No boat till one.'
‘But you said…’ I began.
‘One.’
The problem seems to be a desire to keep people happy by lying to them. If you arrive at ten o’clock and the boat is not coming until two o’clock, then you are told it will be there in an hour. Every hour you will be told the same thing. This is not restricted to the P.P. Family by any means. It is a common practice everywhere in South East Asia. Personally, I would prefer not to be appeased repeatedly with lies. I would prefer to approach the counter and have them say,
'Sit in the restaurant and spend money. You take it, farang, and you like it! The boat is an upturned coconut and a bloke with a spoon paddling. It comes in four days.'
Eventually they got sick of us complaining and flagged down a longtail for us to ride. It was not the ferry we had paid for but it would get us there. A longtail is a canoe-like boat with an outboard motor on the back. The propeller is on the end of a long shaft and can be lifted out of the water and rotated almost one hundred and eighty degrees by the driver. This is a particularly useful design for the shallow sections of water they frequently have to travel in. And so we arrived on Rai Leh Beach. It looked incredible. A pure white-sand beach, flanked on either side by sheer cliffs. Out to sea, huge fingers of rock protruded upwards, and the water was so clear we could see all the way to the bottom even when it was several metres deep. The rooms on the beach were too expensive for the likes of us, and so we were forced to move inland. Between the two beaches and further inland, was a small hill, and perched on top of that was a series of bungalows. It was quite a long way from the beach, but cheap and pleasant. It was approaching Valentine’s day and the others, being couples, all took nice bungalows, whereas I went to the place next door which offered crap bungalows at an unbeatable price.
I’ve grown to hate Valentine’s day, not because I’m single, but because people seem to think I should be sad about that fact. Numerous people I have met on my travels, especially in India have asked me this question.
‘So why don’t you have a girlfriend?’
‘Well,’ I’d reply jokingly, ‘I just haven’t meant the right stupid, ugly, blind, deaf mute who has neither the intelligence nor the sensory perception to realise she’s too good for me.’
‘That’s the spirit! Keep on searching! She’s out there somewhere!’ is the general response.
So we spent our days kayaking out to the rocks and climbing up into the hollow caves within them. Rai Leh is one of the main destinations in Thailand for rock climbers and we could see them clambering up ridiculously dangerous cliff faces all around, as we sat in the beachfront bar sinking a few coldies and wondering what it was that possessed people to do such things. We had become accustomed to eating our breakfast at a restaurant that sat up on the hill, at almost the highest point of the surrounding landscape. It was from there one morning that Ag noticed something a little odd.
‘You know, there’s an awful lot of black smoke coming from our bungalows,’ she said, sipping on her tea.
We all looked over. A big pillar of smoke was rising up from behind the trees where our bungalows were located.
‘There sure is,’ I replied, nibbling on a dainty French pastry.
‘I wonder what it is?’ Mel said, buttering a perfectly browned piece of toast.
‘Beats me,’ Banga replied, stirring his fruit yoghurt with a spoon.
We finished our breakfast. If our bungalows were on fire there was no sense in trying to put them out on an empty stomach.
When we got back we were relieved to see that they all seemed to be intact, and in fact the smoke seemed to have cleared away, but as I was crossing the field to my hut the owner called out to me.
‘Excuse me! You can’t go there!’ she shouted.
I looked over at my hut. It looked fine to me.
‘No! We have all your stuff here.’
Intrigued, I followed her to the restaurant where, sure enough, all of my possessions were spread out on various tables. This was surprising for two reasons. One, I had put my own padlock on the door, and two I had also had my pack in a Pacsafe. A Pacsafe is basically a wire mesh that fits over a backpack and can be locked. I had attached it to one of the supports of the hut. Yet there it was, all my possessions, right in front of me.
‘What happened?’ I asked, looking through my dirty underwear to see if the cunningly hidden wad of cash was still there.
It was.
‘There was a fire! We had to smash your door in with an axe!’ she said.
I nodded. I had just seen, sitting there on the table, my padlock, with huge gash marks on it and twisted completely out of shape.
‘But what about my Pacsafe?’
‘We had to cut it,’ she cried, ‘I’m sorry, we’ll pay for it.’
She was becoming quite upset now.
‘I thought the bungalows were going to burn down. I’m sorry!’
I assured her that it was fine. I couldn’t ask for her to pay for the Pacsafe, it cost far too much money and I was pretty sure she didn’t have it. So she insisted that I didn’t have to pay for my accommodation. When we went to inspect my former lodgings I could see that whoever had taken an axe to my door had been having a good time of it. There were huge gashes all around the door, and the metal latch had been neatly slice in two. It reminded me of the Shining. And there, just behind the bungalow, which was on the perimeter of their land, was a huge black area. The fire had come within about ten metres of the place and then the wind had changed and it had torn off up the hill. As far as I could see in that direction there was only black desolation.
So they put me in another hut, on the other side of the place. It was much the same as my previous one except for one small thing. When I went to plug in the little fan she had given me later that night, I suddenly felt electricity coursing through my body. It lasted about three seconds, as my hand clenched up and I couldn’t release the plug, and then finally the vibrations wrenched it free of the wall socket and threw me back onto the bed. I lay there, breathing heavily, not moving for quite some time. My heart beat felt slightly irregular but it was probably just my imagination. I smiled. If a ruined Pacsafe could get me free accommodation then God only knew what near-fatal electrocution would be worth!
Ko Pha Ngan- Thong Nai Pan and Hat Rin
We had bid farewell to Billy and Ag, who were heading to Phuket before flying home. It was sad to see them go so soon, but as it turned out I would be meeting them again before the trip was over. After again being taken roughly from behind by the P.P. Family I was back on the east side of Thailand with Banga and Mel, although this time we had settled on Ko Pha Ngan instead. Ko Pha Ngan is the smaller and less developed of the two major east coast islands, but it is still very much a tourist centre. It didn’t have a McDonalds (as Samui does) but it was only a matter of time. It’s a sad fact. Initially we went to Thong Nai Pan, a beach on the far north of the island. This is one of the quieter beaches, mainly because it doesn’t actually have sealed roads to get to it. Ko Pha Ngan is a particularly hilly place and to get as far north as we were involved a series of forty five degree hills, made mainly of mud. The basic idea was for the songthaew driver to lock the brakes up and slide down, steering and hoping for the best. Which is exactly what we did when we stupidly hired out motorcycles. Consequently I came off three times and vowed never to ride on Ko Pha Ngan again.
Billy and Ag had gone, but as it happened, we met up with two more friends of ours. One of these was Rebecka, a Swedish girl that I had met in India a few years before. She was at one point a semi-professional handball player and it showed. When we first met she was able to beat all four of the guys I was travelling with at arm wrestling. She came with another friend of mine from home, Dave. Dave is, to put it mildly, a pessimist. For him not only is the glass half empty, it’s broken and lying on the ground in a million razor sharp shards, which he will inevitably stand on and cut his foot. When these two arrived, I was sitting in a hammock, looking out at the unspoiled beach of Thong Nai Pan and reading a book. I had just purchased the hammock and had fallen deeply in love with it. I was considering hiring two strong men to carry around a piece of bamboo with my hammock tied to it so I wouldn’t have to get up to go to meals. Beck walked up with the man himself, surprising the hell out of me. We had arranged to meet but I had not expected them so soon.
‘You’re early!’ I exclaimed.
Beck shrugged, and rocked my hammock back and forth with her hand.
‘Only a little.’
So of course we had a few drinks to celebrate. This was better than our usual excuse which was,
‘Oh look there's some beers in that fridge, let's celebrate! Oh look, I finished my beer, let's celebrate! Wow, we’re pissed. Here’s to us. Cheers!’
The night took an unexpected turn when Dave announced that he wanted to try a bhang lassi. For those who aren’t aware, a bhang lassi is a plain yoghurt lassi filled with copious amounts of bhang, which is similar to hash. Basically, it gets you very wasted. The rest of us decided not to but he went ahead anyway. They are illegal, but then again, so is riding around on motorcycles without a licence and that happens everywhere. So it turned up, thick and green and smelling like a university dorm. Dave hesitated for the briefest of moments as he looked down at it. Then he picked it up and drank half of it in one go, slamming it back onto the table.
‘It’s not too bad,’ he informed us.
‘Well come on then, the glass is still half full.’
He picked it up and finished it off.
‘The glass is empty,’ he replied.
We sat around talking for a bit longer, but I began to notice that Dave had become very quiet. I didn’t think much of it, as pot has the same effect on me, but soon he began to curl up like a plant that needs water.
‘Are you all right?’
His look told me that he wasn’t.
‘I’ll walk you home,’ I said, and he nodded.
His lips moved but no sound came out. I walked him back about a hundred metres to his bungalow and he followed in my wake, lurching like a zombie. We went up the steep steps to his room and he fell in through the open door and onto the bed.
‘All right. Sleep it off. Good night.’
He didn’t respond.
The next day we had planned to head for another beach, Hat Rin, but unfortunately Dave had other plans. They mainly seemed to involve spasming and being unable to talk for thirty six hours. Banga came to my bungalow that morning looking pale, just as I was about to walk out with my pack.
‘I think you better come. It’s Dave. He’s… he’s pretty messed up.’
I didn’t think it could be too bad. After all, it was only bhang. But when I pushed open the door he was lying on the bed on his back, his arms bent at the elbow and pointing at the ceiling and he was shaking continuously. His eyes were half open but he didn’t seem to be looking at anything.
‘Smell that? I think maybe he wet himself or something,’ Banga said.
I shook my head.
‘No, he always smells like that.’
But his sheets were wet. He had been sweating so much it was if a bucket of water had been poured on him. Which gave me an idea.
‘We’ll chuck him under the shower and he’ll be fine!’
Now Dave is a fairly big guy. He weighs somewhere either side of a hundred kilograms and the stairs from his bungalow were narrow and steep. I asked him if he felt like walking to the showers and he shook his head.
‘Is he saying no, or is that just another spasm?’ I asked Banga.
‘We’ll just have to lift him.’
This was easier said than done. He could support his own weight once we got him onto his feet, but lifting one foot in front of the other proved to be too much for him.
‘You hold him up and I’ll move his legs,’ Banga suggested, and this we did, refusing to acknowledge the absurdity of the situation.
It was in this way that we got him to the shower block, after almost losing him on his way down the stairs. Whenever we asked him questions, his lips seemed to move but no sound came out.
‘Don’t worry, this’ll do it,’ I said, and turned on the detachable shower head.
It was cold water, beating right down on his head, but he stood there looking as if he was asleep. I tore it from the wall and pointed it directly into his face, but all that made him do was spit out the water occasionally. He didn’t even try to move away.
‘Well, while he’s here you should shower him anyway,’ Banga said, making sure he stood well back.
So I sprayed him down like some kind of circus animal, taking every last ounce of dignity he had left. He ended up leaning against the wall, gagging.
‘All in all I’d say that was a success!’
We got him back to his room and had no choice but to leave him there. There was no sense in calling a doctor. There wasn’t anything wrong with him. He was just really, really stoned. And still he had not said a single word. Later in the day we went back and forced him to come out for food, and he looked a lot better. He was even able to walk without too much help, but when it came to ordering he pointed at the menu and moved his mouth soundlessly. He wanted a burger and when it arrived, it didn’t stand a chance; he ate it in about thirty seconds and ordered another.
‘Well that’s a good sign, right?’ Mel said.
‘Oh he’s got the munchies BAD!’ Banga laughed.
It was short lived. He ended up going straight back to bed afterwards.
The following morning I knocked on the door, ever hopeful. He was lying just as we had left him.
‘Are you all right?’
There was no reply. I sat down on an old wooden chair in the corner of the room.
‘Can you talk?’
Again there was no reply. I sighed. Suddenly, and without warning, his voice rang out across the stinky silence of the room.
‘What year is it? Who's the president?'
Now we were getting somewhere. Sitting in the shadows, anointing myself with water, I looked up with sad eyes.
'The year is lost in history, I'm afraid. We wander in packs, scavenging for food. Small pockets of humanity, desperately trying to cling on to our once proud civilisation. Death is a constant threat and love and compassion are luxuries humans can no longer afford. You've been asleep for quite some time.'
Dave fell to his back moaning, as the whispers of a million dead circled the bungalow and rose into a crescendo of agony.
'The horror, the horror...' he whispered, his eyes staring blindly at the ceiling.
I switched on the light and pushed open the window, allowing the daylight to come streaming in.
'Oh get up you lazy bastard, the songthaew's coming in an hour...'
And so it was that Dave had his first, and presumably last, encounter with bhang lassis. He was still quite silent, but clearly getting better, and able to talk, although he seemed to lack concentration.
‘Why didn’t you answer us when we were talking to you yesterday?’ I asked, ‘You haven’t spoken in thirty six hours!’
He shrugged.
‘I thought I was talking,’ was all he said by way of reply.
We got some bungalows on Hat Rin midway between the two beaches. Hat Rin is probably the best known beach on the island. It’s where they hold the notorious full moon parties and is home to a series of restaurants and beach bars. It’s very crowded and very much a party place. Down on the beach every night, mats were laid out in the sand and fire twirlers burnt themselves for the amusement of backpackers. Makeshift stands were set up selling kits for making buckets of alcohol. Literally, little plastic buckets of vodka, Sangsom (whisky) and the like, as well as Red Bull and coke. The idea is that a bucket is placed in the centre of a group of friends and you all sip from it whenever you feel yourself sobering up. A nice idea that helps to avoid awkward conversations, but in practice, it results in a lot of excessively drunk people wandering the beach and deciding that jumping through that big flaming ring of fire is a great idea. We saw more than a few people singe themselves. All of us except for Dave were having a great time, but he was only very slowly getting back into the spirit of things. As for me, I was perhaps getting too much into the spirit of things. I decided that in order to fit in with all the other backpackers I would get my hair, which came down to somewhere around my chin, put into dreadlocks.
A brief explanation of the process: Firstly, a Thai woman puts on a tape of old songs remixed as dance tunes and loops it to play for the entire three and a half hours that it's going to take. Then she takes a comb, grabs two strands of your hair and combs it backwards, from the tip to the scalp. After this, which takes two hours or so to do the whole head, the topmost dreads are pretty much standing straight out to the sides and you resemble some kind of bizarre dog cross-breed. Then she goes and gets a Red Bull and complains of having repetitive strain injury as Madonna sings ‘Like a Prayer’ over a techno beat. After the break, she takes something resembling a thin knitting needle, gestures for you to sit down, and threads it through each dread and compacts it down as much as she possibly can. This feels about the same as getting brain surgery whilst conscious. It hurts. I mean it really hurts. And the fact that Starship are singing 'We built this city on Rock on Roll' to a crap dance beat really doesn’t help matters. Finally she finishes and you stand up and look in the mirror, hoping to see the new you. The cool you, with the mystique and the rampant sex-appeal that has been so lacking.
When this moment arrived for me I couldn't see my reflection, because there was this really ugly red-faced guy with a stupid haircut blocking the mirror and staring at me... and then the baht dropped;
I looked, and I mean this, like a complete and total dickhead.
Banga and Mel insisted it didn't look that bad, and Beck declared that it had a certain appeal. Everyone was lying in order to make me feel better. Except for Dave. Dave said, and I quote;
'Simon, you look, and I mean this, like a complete and total dickhead.'
2
THE SIZE OF FOREIGNERS
VIETNAM
Bangkok to Hanoi
All too soon it was over. I had a ticket from Bangkok to Hanoi and I had to get back to the Kok. Banga and Mel had flown to Hanoi a few days earlier, and Beck intended to try and get a flight and come with me. Dave was going to fly home, assuming his plane didn’t ditch into the ocean. In any case, I had left Beck and Dave in the islands, whilst they went to Krabi, and taken the train alone. Although my train was described as an ‘express’ this was clearly just a figure of speech. Stopping every five minutes for no particular reason, I made it to Bangkok in about fourteen hours. The sleeper trains are very comfortable and I would have had a great nights sleep except for one minor problem. My bed was right next to the toilet and, although it was stench-free to begin with, this all changed when the annoyed-looking Dutch girl sitting next to me decided to try the railway food. From then on it was all downhill as she, and her foolish partners in bowel dysfunction, kept relieving themselves directly next to my bed. Due to some overly vigorous dumping the toilet soon refused to flush and much of my night was spent gagging on the stench. I was glad when morning came and the beds were folded away so that I could sit in a seat a bit further back and enjoy the view. I finally arrived at about six o’clock and just as I got off the platform the loudspeakers came on very loudly and began to play the National Anthem. Everybody stopped what they were doing and faced a picture of the King (His Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej) that was just above the ticket windows. The Thais love their King. He is a man universally admired and respected. Nowhere in Australia would we see a spontaneous display of patriotism like this. If the National Anthem came on at one of our stations we’d all simply move away from the loudspeaker so we could still hear the voice on the other end of our mobile phones.
Khao San (the central road for tourists in Bangkok), and the streets surrounding the huge temple complex at the end of it, were packed with people from all over the world, some just passing through and others who went nowhere much else. It is a crowded, smelly stretch of tarmac that is littered with drinking dens and budget accommodation. People sit by the side of the road getting their hair plaited and dreadlocked, or wander around the stalls that sell ‘McShit’ and Singha beer shirts and pirate CDs. It was getting a bit late by the time I got there, and I had to find somewhere to stay. Everything seemed to be full on Khao San itself, and so I was forced to go down Soi Rambutri (a soi is like an alley or sidestreet) alongside the temple. I stopped at a narrow restaurant that stunk of bad seafood. They had a sign up for rooms, but the room I was shown was little more than a box with a prison style bed in it. The walls were covered with illicit graffiti that appeared to be a visual diary of what the previous occupants had been doing in Patpong (the Red Light District). The largest piece of graffiti was three simple words and was asking exactly what I was thinking, namely ‘What’s that smell?’. There are several communicable disease I was yet to contract and, as one night in this place could have doubled my current collection, I ended up taking it. Then I had some time to kill. Whilst Bangkok is very good at killing a lot of things, time is not one of them.
I have a love-hate relationship with the city. It usually depends on where I’m coming from when I arrive back there. If, for example, I am flying in from a stopover in Singapore, then I adore it. If I have just been released from a Burmese prison, it’s the place for me. But if I have just come from an island paradise where the beer runs like wine and the wine runs like vodka red bull buckets then I’m less than happy. In fact, I hate it! I HATE IT! It's too hot and it stinks, and if you ask a taxi driver to take you to the airport, he drives you to a gem merchant in Chiang Mai, and there’s Kombi vans on the side of the road selling a huge list of cocktails for fifty baht and...
Actually, Bangkok’s not so bad.
'Another Pina Colada my good man!'
Yeah, the Kok's not so bad once you get used to it. All the smells just add to the atmosphere. And you’re totally immersed in another culture…
'How about a Slippery Nipple this time!'
And the people! They're so friendly. You walk around the streets in Sydney and people barely look at you. Here everyone smiles...
'No I don't want any bracelets, sorry...'
Plus the hawkers. Well sure they can be annoying but I mean, they’ve got a job to do. After all, they’re just trying to get by, aren't they?
'Oi, how ‘bout some service here! A B-52 if you please! Oh sorry mate, didn't mean to bump into you...'
Yeah, they're all good sorts really, just trying to make it in this big old city. Salt of the earth, that's what they are, salt of the bloody earth and... where the hell's my money gone? That bastard stole my money!
'Hey, how 'bout a Harvey Wallbanger. Umm... Can I get it on credit?'
So I found myself with plenty to do in Bangkok. I met up with Beck and Dave a little later, and Dave got his flight home, looking miserable to be leaving. Or maybe he was happy, I don’t really know. Then Rebecka made a deal with me; i.e. she told me what to do and I did it- I was to go with her to the airport even though her flight left four hours before mine and then she'd wait for me at the other end. I nodded dumbly like some sort of semi-sentient ape creature that humans of the future will use as a slave race. The flight was great. The stewardess called me 'Madam,’ before correcting herself with ‘Oh, I mean sir'. This in itself wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that it was the same one who had served me three or four times already which meant it took her about half an hour to work out which gender I was. Oh curse this pretty, pretty face of mine!
Landing in Hanoi, I waited in customs for about forty five minutes, with the line barely moving until one of the numerous Vietnamese Guards poked the customs official with a stick and he began stamping passports again. One thing struck me as very odd about the whole thing. There were perhaps three customs windows open, but observing this were about ten men in military uniform, all standing around and looking very official, but apparently doing absolutely nothing. This turned out to be a very common sight in the north of Vietnam, but the military presence dropped off dramatically the further south we got, until finally in Saigon there were barely any. Obviously this was a result of the old split, but it was interesting to see. When I finally emerged in the arrivals lounge, running quite late, I was confronted with an enraged Rebecka. This dangerous beast cannot be outrun and the only real defence is to lie down and play dead in the hope that it loses interest after a while.
It was too late at night to get a minivan into the city. We sat in one for a while, but the only people emerging from the airport all seemed to have their own means of transportation. Our driver wasn’t going anywhere until the van was full and so we were forced to get a taxi. A soldier pointed out the taxi stand, and became very angry when we attempted to go with a tout who offered us a better price. He yelled at us in Vietnamese until we scurried into the taxi waiting at the official stand. I’m not entirely sure how the communist system works in Vietnam. There is, as is always going to be the case, a large black market operating and this includes taxis amongst other things. But to the external observer, Hanoi appears very much like any Capitalist Democracy, except for the abundance of guys in green uniforms carrying automatic weapons. Later, we asked a shopkeeper with good English to explain how the system worked, but he seemed to know about as much as we did.
A tout had jumped in the front seat of the taxi with us (the driver didn’t bat an eyelid) and turned around and smiled at us as we drove off.
‘So where are you from?’ he asked.
‘I’m from Sweden, he’s from Australia,’ Beck replied and he nodded as if this was something he already knew.
Time passed and we talked amongst ourselves before he turned around again.
‘So where in Hanoi do you plan to stay?’
‘The Old Quarter,’ we replied.
He nodded again. It was clear where this was going. Neither one of us was a stranger to hotel touts and we knew what to do. The best bet was to pick a hotel at random from the book, preferably one close to several others, and refuse to even look at anywhere else. In this case, we didn’t even need to do that. Banga had booked us a room at the Nam Long Guesthouse. We had a get-out-of-touting free card. The magic word ‘reservation’ usually put off any tout; they simply moved on to easier targets. But it was late, and our tout was already in a taxi with us on his way to Hanoi, an hour from the airport. He had no choice but to try, and to his credit he made a very impressive effort. We began to notice that he seemed to be on the phone a lot. Every few minutes either he would call somebody, or they would call him, and they would have an animated conversation in Vietnamese.
‘Your friends? Where are they from?’ he asked.
‘They’re Australian too,’ I told him, ‘We’re going to go to Hué next.’
He smiled. Interesting information clearly, because he immediately got on the phone again. Of course, although I do not speak Vietnamese, I can understand the word ‘Hué’ when he says it to someone on the other end of the line. Subtlety was not this guy’s strong point it seemed.
Finally we were driving through Old Quarter. It has a very obvious French influence. The buildings are all of a classic European style, and the area surrounds an artificial lake. Driving around that lake, it almost felt as if we were in Paris. Old iron streetlights lit up the cobbled streets with a warm yellow light. The streets became narrower and seemed to take on a sort of carnival atmosphere. It was not what I had expected Vietnam to look like, but it was beautiful. It was Paris! The illusion was soon broken when we pulled up at a hotel we had not asked to go to. A young man in a doorman’s outfit opened our door and said,
'You one Australian and one Swede meant to stay in Nam Long Guesthouse with your two Australian friends who have gone to Hué without you but have reserved you a room in our hotel for just ten dollars a night. Each. Come this way please.'
I was a little surprised. Ten dollars was double what we had expected to pay for both of us. And Banga and Mel had left without us? That seemed highly unlikely, but surely this man, this door man could not be lying, could he? He had the little hat and everything. He was wearing leather gloves, for God’s sake! I began to get out of the car, but Beck grabbed me and pulled me back into my seat.
'Get back in here, you moron. Hey!' she called out to the doorman.
He approached us, smiling.
‘Our friends. What are their names?’
We could literally see the smile melt off his face. He stood there, glancing nervously at the tout who had gotten out of the car and was now standing next to him.
‘Two Australians,’ was all he managed to come up with.
Beck nodded in much the same way the tout had. As if this was something she already knew.
‘What are our names?’
Again he was stumped, and we could see the tout wince. Out of all the information he had managed to get from us under the guise of friendly interest he had forgotten perhaps the most important one. He had not once asked us for our names.
‘One Australian, one Swede?’ said the doorman hopefully, but Beck had leant across me and pulled the door shut.
‘Nam Long Guesthouse, please,’ she said to the driver, who simply laughed and drove us less than fifty metres around the corner to the correct hotel, where Banga and Mel were waiting for us.
* * * * *
The following days were spent doing various things. Withdrawing money was a high point for me, mainly because the dong against the dollar is so weak that I withdrew two million of them in one go. Carrying around such large amounts of cash usually makes me nervous but in this case I figured if anyone tried to mug me I could just beat them to death with my wallet. We also went to the Ho Chi Minh museum where, amongst other things, we learnt that the Americans invaded Vietnam unprovoked and committed unspeakable atrocities against civilians and Vietcong alike. Hardly a revelation. As the American founding fathers would say, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’
The thing that I liked most about Hanoi was crossing the road. There are literally thousands and thousands of motorcycles, and very few cars. The flow of traffic is constant and although there are crossings, they are few and far between. Besides, stepping out on a green light is no guarantee that you won’t be run down. To cross the road, you simply have to step out into traffic and walk in a straight line. The bikes avoid you where possible, or maim you if they get distracted by a pretty girl on the side of the road. Add to this mix the occasional car and it’s a wonder more people aren’t killed (although many are). A car cannot swerve to avoid, as it is surrounded by motorcycles, and changing lanes generally means wiping out about six of them. It’s quite a scare when one approaches, because changing walking speed probably means getting hit. Any alteration in direction or speed once you’ve started to cross is likely to be fatal. Don’t hesitate! That’s the main thing. He who hesitates is squashed.
Another interesting thing is the pubs in Hanoi. The beer is sold to customers by competing 'beer girls'. These are attractive women, hired by a beer company, who rush up to you as you enter the bar and try to get you to buy their particular brand. If the girl who sells your beer of choice happens to be out the back having a cigarette then you are forced drink whatever's on hand. The beer girls then return whenever your beer looks close to finished and offer you another one, which they bring directly to your table. It’s an interesting system, but it was annoying when the Tiger girl disappeared later in the evening and we were forced to drink Fosters. God help us.
Although Banga and Mel had already seen him, Beck and I wanted to go and see Ho Chi Minh. We went out the night before to celebrate our impending viewing of the preserved father of Vietnamese communism, by attempting to pickle ourselves as some sort of tribute. It ended early for both Mel and I as we simultaneously decided that maybe all this celebrating was starting to result in major liver failure. So I went to bed pretty soon after getting home, having something of a bad headache. I went to sleep quickly and then woke up at 3:00am to do what it is that people who get up at 3:00am do. Then I noticed that Beck's bed was still empty. Interesting, I thought, considering the fact that she was as drunk as a poet on payday when I left the bar and Banga was using two pool cues as crutches just so he could stand up long enough to fish his wallet out of his jeans. So I got a bit worried, being the worrying sort of person that I am, until finally Beck arrived home, five hours later! All my worries faded away right then and I raised two thumbs in the air as she stumbled into the room.
'Bloody twelve hour bender! Right on! Want to go see Ho Chi Minh?'
By way of answer Beck coughed up her liver, a sickly looking black chunk of meat that smelt like a beer mat. Taking this as a yes, I led her from the room where we went in search of a cyclo. A cyclo, for those who don't know, is like a cycle rickshaw, but the driver sits behind rather than in front. It's also slightly too narrow to accommodate the child-bearing hips of Rebecka, and the beer-enhanced flab of yours truly. The trip was just becoming intolerably painful for both of us when he applied the brakes and pointed at a large complex to our right. We paid the man and gratefully stood up, cursing each other for being so large, before joining the queue of Westerners waiting to be checked for weapons and the like. These seemed like rather strange precautions to take to protect a man who’s been dead for thirty five years. I mean he's hardly going to be assassinated, is he?
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