Before leaving Malaysia I had read that Thailand was the land of smiles and this is certainly true. Everyone smiles here. Even the immigration officer, who had kept me in line for over an hour and a half, smiled as he meticulously checked through my passport before issuing me with a thirty day tourist visa. Having spent almost eight hours on a freezing cold bus attempting to sleep Mark was not in the mood. For some reason all of the bus drivers here are air conditioning zealots, they don’t seem to have grasped that it is designed to keep the air at a comfortable, rather than a polar temperature! All the time we stood in line his lack of sleep became more acute and he cursed the fact that we hadn’t flown, which amused me and consequently I was smiling as we entered the country.
My smile soon faded away upon reaching our destination. I woke up to find myself surrounded by a bunch of sweaty Thai guys jabbering offers of buses and accommodation in my face. This is not a good thing as I am not particularly great company when I wake up. Losing my temper I waved them away and stormed off the bus into the tropical heat. Clearly I shouldn’t have been so smug at the border!
So I am in Thailand and it is raining! I had anticipated this later in the journey, but not yet it isn’t supposed to be rainy season yet! There have been two clear days in which I have spent much time in bed making up for the aforementioned bus journey and staying up late to watch Chelsea lose the Premiership. Fortunately this is over now and I won’t lose anymore nights sleep, except to drink!
After spending three days (one dry two wet) on the Andaman coast and upon the arrival of Marks mate Pez we headed to Ko Phi Phi by ferry. The journey began well with bright sunshine and lots of sun-cream, but within an hour we were heading into a rainstorm, which set the tone for the rest of the day.
Arriving at the island we were assailed with offers of accommodation from all sides. After forty five minutes of trying to decide I mentioned that the Lonely Planet had recommended going to a beach further down the island which you could only reach by boat and that maybe we should try there. The idea should have been left there. Instead, we decided I would go down and check it out while Mark and Pez waited in the main town to hear from me. To achieve this I would use Marks phone to text back what I found, if it was no good I would come back. Sounds simple, but at this point I should point out that I have never used it before, that I am a bit of a luddite when it comes to phones beyond nice, simple Nokias and am still unable to use predictive text.
I set off on my journey and no sooner than the boat had left the quayside did the sky began to darken and the sea become choppy. Upon reaching the beach the rain was beginning to fall in sheets and I was presented with the challenge of reaching the shore which was still a good fifteen metres distant! The boat had pulled up alongside five other boats and I was expected to boat hop to reach the shore.
Well the rain was really falling now, so quickly I set off; large rucksack on my back and my second bag, containing passport, camera, money and mp3 player, in another hand. I negotiated the first two boats successfully, wobbled a bit at the third before slipping on the forth and bouncing my knee of the side of the fifth whilst almost falling into the sea as I was unable to balance properly a la the bloody rucksack. Steadying myself I managed to negotiate the fourth and fifth, but was left with the tricky prospect of jumping to shore. All through this the boatman sat back and watched my plight with great amusment. Now I see why they call this the 'Land of Smiles', the locals get to watch the endless comedy of watching tourists make tits of themselves, and who can blame them!
Finally I made it to the shore, but not before falling into the sea in the process. Quickly I hurried to some cover and worked my way up the beach past numerous hotels and guesthouses, which were all full, until finally I reached the end of the beach where there we vacancies. I whipped the phone out and was immediately presented with the problem of predictive texting. I fucking hate this function, I myself have managed to nail down texting to the methodical spelling of words and can still do it as quickly as the predictive text function and therefore don't see the point of it! Well anyway I relayed what I had found to the guys: 'One rom for 3 1200 1 nite w con tmw Cost 1400 for 1 and get 2 fan 4 600. Seems ok'. Somehow they were able to comprehend this garbled message which had taken me ten minutes to write and immediately fired back a load of questions at me. At this point I gave up and simply replied 'pls get here'!
Eventually they arrived and we settled into an afternoon and evening of unabating wind and rain. We certainly didn't encounter much of the tropical paradise of which The Lonely Planet had spoken. Either way I decided that after the shit I had put up with today a swim in the sea was in order, and it was great. Never have I been in the sea and it felt warmer than the surrounding air. Every time I lifted my shoulders out of the water I shuddered in the cold and quickly dived back under into the clear blue waters of the Andaman Sea and was relieved that I wasn't trying to negotiate boat hopping, predictive texting or accomodation hunting. Now I was smiling again!
