Like most people of a certain disposition, the first thing I did upon arrival in Bangkok was buy an Armani suit. It turns out Giorgio Armani is a smiley Burmese dwarf. The suit was brown.
Bangkok is basically one massive sauna that smells like it has never been cleaned. So we left in disgust. After a few days.
I couldn’t sleep on the bus journey to Koh Phangan, so I popped a valium and yawned a bit instead. My friend Neil then trod on someone’s face while trying to find his cardigan, and we embraced the insomniac misery together while the driver of the coach blasted terrible Thai rock though the speakers to keep himself, and us, awake.
Neil comically broke a hammock, which must be quite a feat for a midget. Fortunately the hammock’s owner was a pleasant Englishman called Kes, who’d spent two years as a homeless mute so had some good stories to tell, our appreciation of which took the edge off the ruined hammock.
My friend Steve (who I had come all this way to visit) then decided after two days that he was bored with me, and spent the next week shacked up with a pretty, boring, Canadian.
In protest I crashed* a motorbike.
Ha.
On to a lighter matter, Neil. Neil was a joy from start to finish, for reasons outlined below.
Neil strikes me as the sort of traveller most suited to staying at home. He dislikes the sea, sand, getting his head wet, boats and sitting doing nothing ( in his words 'it's all related...'), so it was a bit of a surprise to see him head towards a desert island at all. He also went bright pink within two days and was forced to endure the remainder of the misery from the safety of the shade.
Neil was inevitably very entertaining, mainly because he would shit himself for increasingly bizarre reasons on an hourly basis. Among the things that make Neil shit himself are:
- The wind generated by a bedroom fan.
- Some sand I had put on his knee.
- His feet being touched by a masseuse.
- Beetles (nature in general actually, though at one point Neil was sure that he had somehow given birth to two bugs while on the toilet).
- Steve's backpack (he thought it was a snake, obviously).
- An ant (that he had just killed with a serviette).
- Himself (!)
- Me.
-Absolutely nothing (I think he would term this phenomenon 'ghosts').
My personal favourite though is when he leapt up from his chair as a bead of his own armpit sweat hit his abdomen.
Another good story (though sadly one I missed) is of the time Neil finally found someone he was sure was gay at a pool party. Upon spying his prey he sunk down in the water like a crocodile, so only his eyes and hair was visible, and proceeded to look sultry while the lucky fella walked over to his girlfriend and gave her a big kiss.
In all honesty Neil was excellent company throughout, and completely hilarious even when not being rude to people or shitting himself. Everyone we met wanted to keep him, forcing me to explain politely that I had found him first and that he was therefore mine.
In other holiday news, went to find a waterfall. There were signs everywhere to show us the way (and even one to tell us helpfully ‘waterfall not here’ – ‘here’ being next to a house in a wood). This must have confused Neil somewhat as he then asked the owner of the house if there was a waterfall nearby. There was, but being the dry season it was a little disappointing so I doubled its volume with my sweat.
Steve and I rode off one evening to find a bar, and ran over the head of a snake along the way. On the way back we realised that the snake was still where we left it, which was hardly a surprise as, if my head had been flattened, I probably wouldn’t have done much either. Being discernable gentlefolk, we took the only sensible course of action and took it home; to be hung over Neil’s washing line for a great fright in the morning. We went to bed chuckling at our clever trick, but awoke to find our surprise had been ruined in the night by a hungry dog. It was to be the first of many unlucky incidents with animals.
I found a huge gecko on the bathroom wall and called Steve in to admire its size. He was about to take a photo of the biggest gecko in the world but before he could do so I incomprehensibly flushed the toilet. Our hopes of a classic photo suddenly went similarly down the shitter as the gecko ran off.
Another night we were two inches from seeing a prizefight between a cockroach and a typically average sized gecko, on the vertical strut of our veranda. Just as the cockroach was bravely dashing upwards towards the stealthily waiting lizard, it inexplicably fell off, and the fight of the century was over before it had begun.
In fact, the only animal I was to have any luck with was of the dog variety. Despite my hatred of them, they loved me, and would constantly accost me on the beach and lick my face off.
We got st*ned and Steve spend ten minutes trashing our room in search of his wallet, only to find it in his back pocket. Sadly his debit card had been debited so I gave him mine, which days later would come to worry my mother.
Steve then stopped talking to me, which was useful as my sunstroke had taken my capacity to reply anyway. I probably could have mustered up a quick “yes I’d love to come to breakfast” but sadly I was not afforded the opportunity and Steve went off on his own instead, leaving me to try and find him ten minutes later. When eventually I did come across him we continued to not talk.
Steve and I also caught a punk rock show, with the lights on. The first two of my three entries to the mosh pit ended in the loss of my glasses, while during the third I got punched in the mouth and couldn’t yawn properly for a couple of days.
We then went to find a ping-pong show and a woman with large hands tried to molest my penis.
I finally lost my cool in the taxi on the way to the airport, which was boiling hot with loud music and a very chatty driver who insisted on showing us pound coins. Having seen several pound coins in my time, I demanded he pull over and let us out, almost accidentally going through the menopause in the process.
At the airport I had a final beer with Steve and forgave him for being quite the disappointment on my trip. I then spent my last few bahts on some lovely sushi, which I then ruined by covering it in enough wasabi to drown Lithuania. Crying, I boarded the plane.
The only other occurrence of note is that I had my first nosebleed on the flight home, somewhere above the gulf of Oman. I had previously had no experience of nosebleeds, and this, coupled with the fact that a fat sleeping Arab was blocking my exit, meant I quietly bled into my serviette. The rest of the journey was without incident (save for the two babies in front of me who took it in turns to wake me up) until I got to Gatwick, realised Rageh Omar had been on my flight the whole time, and promptly had another nosebleed while waiting for my luggage. I mopped up the second coming of blood with my hoodie and grabbed my bag, which was covered in saline solution. Fortunately most of the moisture was soaked up by my mother’s much-cherished Bill Bryson book.
I finally got home and then went to work, shaking.
*I crashed that bike on purpose. Consider the facts:
- I did not damage the rented bike (as I conveniently aimed at and crashed into a muddy puddle)
- Steve bore the brunt of the injuries. (I was annoyed with Steve, for reasons outlined above, and was looking for a way to get him back)
- The only injury I received was a sympathy inducing yet pain-free cut to the knee.
- I didn't want to ride the bike (Allana was riding the bike I wanted to ride, but got freaked out when I crashed because she is a girl, leaving me to ride my chosen bike anyway)
- At no point during the crash did I look anything but incredibly cool
Job done, I rest my case.
Labels: holiday, nelly rubi, steve collins, thailand, travel
