There is an episode of Star Trek (The Next Generation) where Captain Picard is so stressed out and grumpy that he's ordered to take a holiday, and ends up awkwardly, reluctantly, boredly sunning himself on some resort planet. As if it's something he knows he should be doing, but it really doesn't hold all that much appeal.
I'm kind of Picarding at the moment. I spent today sitting on Ao Nang beach in Krabi, paddling in the water, searching for orange juice, lounging about, reading my book, trying to take pictures of myself and having to fend off well-meaning fellow leeches offering to take poorly composed and overexposed pictures of me being excruciatingly bored.
The difference between me and the good Captain is that in this episode he meets a mysterious woman with a map to a hidden artifact from the future that could bring about the downfall of the universe. Picard, being Picard, goes on a mission with the beautiful mysterious woman to find it, with sufficient resulting excitement to fill up 50 minutes of TV. I have met no mysterious stranger. I have no map to any artifact. Not even any visitors from the future.
I am obviously not living in a Star Trek episode.
I'm currently sitting at a plastic dining table at the night food market in Krabi town. I'm here entirely by accident. I was meant to get into Krabi at 9.30am in time to catch the 10.30am ferry to an undoubtedly even more boring locale, but I failed to account for Thailand Time.
Sometimes your bus runs late. Sometimes it doesn't even run. I was a victim of the latter.
Turns out my 6.30am bus from Surat Thani to Krabi didn't actually exist. However the 8.30am bus was extremely exciting and well worth waiting for. It had an excessively frosty aircon system (extra 100 baht please) that would drench me in aircon residue each time we rounded a corner. I did better than some pommy chicks I overheard though... they'd given their ticket for the bus (which was also their ticket for the ferry) to the friendly bus man, and now they had no ferry ticket. Hah!
(Actually this was the first time I've seen a Thai person get stroppy. One of the pommy girls turned her back on the guy and walked away in exasperation, and he got MAD. Thai people don't get mad. They're all about the face-saving. A mad Thai person is a scary sight indeed.)
Ok, so I'm not doing too badly. Let me list my comparatively pricey lessons so far:
1) I listened to a girl wearing an "Information" tag at the train station and allowed myself to be ushered into the "tourist information" office, which was actually just a booking office.
Result: I probably paid a couple of hundred baht more for my train and bus tickets than I should have.
Lesson learned: Always try to buy from official offices, since booking agents undoubtedly get their cut.
2) I got suckered into paying 150 baht for a cold meal on the train because the woman told me it was free. I'd stocked up at the supermarket and I wasn't even hungry, but when I'm confronted with free food I can't help but say "hell yeah!" Of course it turns out it wasn't free.
Result: For perspective, the meal I'm currently digesting was freshly cooked, served on a table, and cost 30 baht. The train meal cost five of these. (For more perspective, 150 baht is only like NZD$7. You have to decide which perspective you're going to go with when determining whether to make a big deal of it or not.)
Lesson learned: Where was my brain? Why would they be giving away free food on such a prime vessel for extortion as a train? That makes no sense whatsoever, unless you've got an airline food hangover. A plastic food on plastic tray hangover. The lesson is that if a woman who speaks little English nods her head emphatically when you ask if it's free, says "nooo" when you ask what it costs... there's going to be a cost. These people can't afford to just give shit away.
3)Arrived at the bus station in Krabi today too late for the ferry, and got suckered into staying at a particular guesthouse. "Only 250 baht! Close to everything! Your own bungalow! He pick you up! He already been called and coming to pick you up! Ferry booked and pick you up at bungalow! No refunds, pay now, 550 baht please!"
Result: The ferry is probably only 200 baht. The bungalow is a shithole. I have to wash my hands/spit my toothpaste into the toiletbowl because the drain and sink aren't connected and it just goes onto the floor. There's a comprehensive set of flyscreens on the windows but big gaps in the floorboards and under the door. It slopes, dramatically, which I suppose is good for drainage. I rigged up my own mozzie net by dislodging ceiling tiles. Hah!
Lesson learned: Don't book yourself into a place just because they give you a free transfer. Don't book into a place with a "no refunds after checkin" policy, when they don't let you check the rooms before checking in.
4) Received really good advice, really helpful information, completely unbidden from people who have nothing to gain from it. Touts pointing to other companies, giving directions, giving times. Nothing in it for them.
Lesson learned: You can't just throw up your walls and ignore everyone. You can't work on the assumption that everyone is out to rip you off. This makes things very difficult.
I'm onto my second giant Singha beer, still sitting at the plastic table. At the end of this I will be extraordinarily drunk and well prepared for a mother-frightening stroll back to my guesthouse: Drunk and in the dark.
So, the night food market in Krabi. It's like a city of street vendors and plastic tables. It didn't exist when I walked past here four hours ago. It looks like you can get pretty much any kind of Thai food, baked goods, pureed fruit, barbequed meat, things floating in other things, alcoholic beverages of the bottled and canned variety... and it's a good place for farang watching.
Opposite me two hair-flipping Australian chicks in short shorts make conversation with two chiseled German guys. They talk about where they've been, where they're going, what they've done, what they recommend. There's a guy next to me of indeterminable origin, indeterminable because he's trying to speak Thai. I can feel the "I'm willing to strike up a conversation with any old one" emanating from this one so I'm making it very obvious that I'm deeply involved in my journal.
Back to Captain Picard. I went to Ao Nang today. I rode a songthaew (spelling varies), which is basically a ute with a roof over the back bit and seating down either side. I swam in the sea. It was like bathwater. I sat on the beach and sensibly worked on my tan. By that I mean that I lay on one side for ten minutes, on the other side for ten minutes, then moved into the shade. I got a little bit excited when I was desperately searching for an orange juice that I was actually in THAILAND desperately searching for an orange juice.
But mostly I was just bored and lonely. Everyone (me included) bleats on about how travelling solo is so much better, you meet more people, you can do what you want, etc. Bleat bleat. What they (we) neglect to mention is that in between these times when you're meeting these exciting characters and changing your plans on a whim, you're mostly bored, lonely and indecisive. You can go so long without conversing with anyone that you forget what your own voice and accent sound like. You almost forget that you speak English, except, you know, you understand English. You drink by yourself at the night market, you write about the people you see around you, and then unwisely stumble back to your guesthouse alone and in the dark, wishing that you had someone to bitch to about the slope of the floor.
And like Picard discovered, all the luxury and relaxation in the world means very little if it bores you to death. You need an exciting and mysterious stranger with a treasure map to lead you on an mission to save the universe. I don't think I'll find one of those in Krabi.
