I have always felt like Thailand would be my favorite country. I woke up in Phuket the day after Christmas on a beautiful beach near the airport. We arrived in the dark of night, with no clue where we were, but after cracking the window of our bamboo bungalow, I knew I was in the country I’ve been waiting for.
Thailand is gorgeous, and we had a wonderful time, but we certainly had our fair share of bad luck along the way as well.
We arrived in Phuket late Christmas night. After getting through customs we grabbed our bag off the carousel which had been broken into. The lock was broken off, and the zipper wide open. We quickly searched through, but it didn’t seem like anything was gone. Then I saw my make-up/jewellery bag making it’s way down the baggage carousel. I ran over and grabbed it and saw that most of my jewellery was gone.
We made a claim with AirAsia, then got in a dodgy taxi, wanting nothing more than to go to bed. The driver said yes yes, he knows where those bungalows are. Half an hour later, he pulls over on a wooded, pitch black winding road and asks us where it is. How the *&$# are we supposed to know?!
After driving back and forth down a poorly lit, small town road, we decided that we weren’t going to win this battle. We told him to take us back to the airport. En route to the airport, we finally found the road for our bungalows. Off to bed we went.
We spent five days on Ko Samui island, on the Eastern side of Thailand with some friends from Adelaide. Our days comprised of swimming, riding motorbikes, eating and drinking. We stayed on Chaweng Noi beach, a beautiful spot with clear warm water.
New Years Eve we took the ferry over to Ko Phangan Island, an hour from Ko Samui. We were about to take part in a full moon/New Years Eve party on Haad Rin beach, along with 50,000 others.
We walked onto the beach and were greeted with a jump-rope that was douced in gas, and lit on fire. Daring idiots took turns jumping in, and laughing with glee as their foot got caught and their hair almost caught on fire. This was too much to watch!
The drinks available on the beach are plastic buckets, filled with an entire mickey of alcohol and a mix of your choice. As expected, my memory doesn’t go too far into the night.
At 7 a.m. we picked ourselves up off the beach and got a tuc-tuc back to the hotel. It was too early to check in so we passed out on the beach. We woke up when the hotel maid came to tell us our room was ready. Pete was walking with a bit of a limp that was in hindsight, a sign of bad things to come.
After sleeping an entire day (my birthday) we woke up on the morning of the 2nd. I took a quick look at Pete’s foot and thought we should go to the clinic. The doctor there took a quick look and said it should have been stitched up, but it was too late for that, so he cleaned it, and wrapped it up.
The next day we took a bus trip which was meant to be six hours. After switching buses about 4 times, and being squished into each one like sardines, we were already six hours in. We were at a stop and waiting to switch to another bus going to Phuket. The bus they had waiting was going to Patong, a little bit further, and you had to pay another 200,000 Baht.
My anger was getting the best of me, as this was the last day of our trip and not how I wanted to remember Thailand. We snuck like fugitives onto the Patong bus after being told that the Phuket bus would be another two hours before arriving.
We threw our bags on and slipped into two spare seats. Each stop my heart raced and my veins pumped with fear that the driver would realize we hadn’t paid and kick us off.
We finally made it to Phuket, as the rest were transfered on to Patong, 12 hours after we departed.
When we arrived back in Phuket Pete was meant to get his foot cleaned a re-wrapped. But the doctor said it needed to be stitched…4 days after the incident! He stuck 3 needles in the wound then stitched it up. Off we went to the airport to fly home to HCM. BUT, bad things come in threes they say! It turns out that my visa renewal on arrival needed an approval letter from the Vietnamese Embassy. Two more days in Thailand…
Instead of going back to Phuket, which we hated, we opted for Patong. It was supposed to have a nice beach. Into the town of fat ugly tourists we went! Fat middle-aged men with young Thai boys, or girls, or ladyboys. It was repulsive. Like a brothel. The beach wasn’t any better. Plastic lounge chairs lined the beach, only inches apart. There was no sand other than that under your chair. Fat hairy men flirted with their purchased girlfriends and drank themselves to obesity. We played travel Scrabble and watched movies and wished we were home.
On the 6th we finally arrived home in HCM. I never thought I’d be so excited to be in HCM. It actually felt like home, or some sort of familiarity.
We’ve now been home for about two weeks, but Pete’s foot saga continues. There is now word that there are some foreign bodies in the wound. And it’s too infected at the moment to cut them out. And he had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics! It’s been a tough run, but I think I see a light at the end of this ridiculously long tunnel!
