Tourist Traps, Chapter 1

So, I’ve already been less than diligent with this blog. My parents referred to it “starving” in their last email. That’s mostly due to the fact that until this weekend, I hadn’t done much except stuff myself with Thai food...

YUM.

...go to the The Big C (the Thai equivalent of a Wal-Mart), and go to class, which is Monday through Friday, 9-5. We get out for lunch and are reminded that we’re just yards away from this:

before we have to drag ourselves back into the conference center. We do get out of the classroom in time for this:

Oh! I did go get a fish pedicure with my new friend Roisin (pronounced Raw-sheen, it's Gaelic). It was majorly gross. It felt like bubbles, but not, because it's actually tiny fish sucking on your feet. For a while I couldn't stand to look down, because they were just a writhing mass of weirdness wriggling in between my toes.

Lisa and Marga, avert your eyes.

So, you know, the usual.

But on Saturday, we went to the islands! And they were super beautiful, with white beaches, aqua water, and jagged, precipitation-stained cliffs covered in green wherever the jungle could gain purchase. They didn’t even look real while I was standing there looking up at them.

But first we left Phuket, and I took a lot of photos of it in our wake for reasons I can no longer remember.

See the Big Buddha?

We swung by the Viking Cave, where swallows’ nests are harvested to be made into soup that makes you look ten years younger.

No clue what this has to do with Vikings, if anything.

And then my camera died, because I had taken too many wholly uninteresting photos of the harbor. 

Off to Maya Bay, where Leonardo DiCaprio filmed the mediocre “The Beach”. I’ve seen this movie, but remember very little of it except for a sweaty Leo with his shirt off and guys with A/K 47s guarding impressive marijuana fields. I was disappointed that those things were no longer there, but made do with what was: a beautiful, pale-sand crescent shaped beach enclosed by fortress-like cliffs hundreds of feet high. I have zero photos of that.

But through the magic of facebook, here's someone else's.

This place, and every other subsequent stop, was absolutely lousy with tourists. Thousands of them. In retrospect, the best idea would be to charter one of these:

and tell your captain to take you somewhere out of the way. 

We got back on the boat after ducking through tourists of every nationality. It was at this point that one of the girls in the group remembered that when she had changed her camera batteries (which were just low on power- she must be one of those plan-ahead-types) that morning, she hadn’t thrown them away! Hooray! So she was very sweet and gave them to me, which gave me a little power to take photos.

ATI represent!

By this time, however, I had realized the value of getting out from behind your technology and just living in the fleeting moment without trying to preserve it, which is futile, man. Also, I didn’t want my camera to die before the trip was over.

The next stop was Ao Ling (Monkey Beach). Some people love monkeys. Actually, I would say that most people love monkeys. I haven’t done any polls or anything, but apparently enough people love monkeys that this tour boat stops at a monkey island.

These people all love monkeys.

I do not love monkeys. I find them creepy. But I did feed one a peanut.

OK, the baby was pretty cute.

These monkeys were fatasses, because they get fed by tourists on the daily.

You nasty.

 











Then we stopped the boat over a reef for some snorkeling. This did not go well for me.  I’ve never snorkeled before, and the open sea is not the place to learn. I also have pretty bad panic issues with the ocean (stemming from a scarring event in early childhood that involved the flat-out negligence of a certain family member who will remain nameless), so every time I attempted to snorkel and ended up sucking in sea water, I freaked out and ripped the mask off. It took about four tries before I decided to cut my losses and just go swimming.

Fish! Apparently. 

 
Then we had lunch on Phi Phi Don Island, which was another fabulously beautiful island with massive cliffs and jungle and beautiful beaches and so on ad nausea. The tour boat had a buffet set up, which was fine, but what was not fine was that the bathrooms there were disgusting and had no soap in them. So I ate lunch without having washed my hands, and even though I used utensils, I had hand-fed a monkey hours before, so I’m pretty sure I have ebola now. I'm, like, 90% sure.

Phi Phi.

From Phi Phi we went to Khai Nai Island, also known as Egg Island. The trip there took 45 minutes, and everyone fell asleep.

Adorable.

Egg Island is a teeny tiny little spot of land with some jungle and a beach. The beach is bristling with beach chairs, and the few families who live there sell ice cream and corn on the cob and henna tattoos at vastly overinflated prices because, hey, you’re a hot/ hungry/ stupid tourist who is trapped on their island. More power to them.

It was very beautiful. 
And exhausting. I was thrilled to get back to Phuket, out of my swimsuit, and into a shower. The End.

Next: The Night Market, or I Pretend to be Anthony Bourdain

Phuket

Just a Tuesday night on Nai Harn Beach.

A Bold Swimmer?

Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every
    moment of your life. 

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout,
    and laughingly dash with your hair.

-from part 46 of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself", Leaves of Grass