Forgotten Notes

Over the course of our month long trip, there were a few events that were hilarious or noteworthy but not enough to write an entire blog about. We called these forgotten notes…

1. In the Chiang Mai hospital B spent at least an hour on the phone trying to get the paper work to come through. For some reason, the idea of faxing or calling a foreign country was nearly impossible. While speaking to the Canadian insurance rep in a state of pure frustration, B uttered my favorite line of the day, “I’m in a Thai hospital and they are holding me and my passport hostage!”

2. After getting two massages prior to this, we decided to splurge and spend 30$ on a 3 hour massage extravaganza. This included a one hour foot massage, a one hour traditional Thai massage and a one hour oil massage.

We were seated next to each other in a very dimly lit area, sat in comfy chairs with soft blankets and told to settle in for our first massage. During the foot massage, I noticed that my masseuse had some strange techniques. She had a very light touch and would sometimes slow to a complete stop. After a few minutes of this I started to wonder… so I barely opened one eye and peeked out at her to find that she was in fact, falling asleep. She was one hundred percent nodding off and then jerking back awake. I didn’t know what to do… Every time she fell asleep I’d slightly move my leg to jostle her awake again. I was annoyed but I knew that the Thai massage was next and there was no way she could fall asleep in such a physically demanding massage.

I was wrong. When massaging my hands at the end of the Thai massage, she most certainly nodded off several times. Then came the oil massage where, guess what? She fell asleep again.

Feeling pretty ripped off at the end of it, I took the manager to the side and quietly expressed my displeasure. I was incredibly nice about it, “maybe she’s sick?” but that isn’t how it works here in Thailand. The manager practically sprinted over to the lady to ball her out and I quietly put my money on the table and ran the hell out of there. Confrontation? No thanks! I hope you enjoyed your nap, ma’am.

3. During the same massage, B had an interesting experience as well. In Thailand, masseuses are less um, respectful of your privacy. A hot oil massage is always a shirtless event of course, but every Thai massage ends with a stretching sequence that involves raising your arms above your head and the masseuse grabbing your body and swinging it to and fro. My lady was kind enough to let me put my shirt on but B wasn’t so lucky. There she was, her and a strange Thai woman, just doing some naked stretching. When in Thailand…

4. Keep in mind, B had injured her foot just days before this happened… The level of cheapness we reached was astonishing. It was February 1^st and we headed for our last dinner in Chiang Mai to our favorite haunt only to find out that they had shut down. We saw them packing all their shit into the back of a pick up truck and closing up shop. So, disappointed, we head to another of our favorite stops only to find that it was closed for the night (It was 6pm, by the way.) Then off to our third favorite stop… looks like that place is closed for the night as well. The entire city was desolate and since we didn’t want to pay $4 at our hostel, we kept on trucking. Walking aimlessly for over an hour until we finally decided to cave and eat street food for the very first time. It was a glorious discovery… fresh spring rolls for mere cents? Fresh fruit? Fried rice and chicken for a dollar? If only it was cooked with a little more consideration for hygiene. It is a miracle though, neither of us got sick on our entire trip. I had some stomach pains one night but neither of us fell prey to food poisoning.

5. While staying in our bungalow on Koh Phangan, we were sitting in our hammocks relaxing when a man was suddenly standing by our stairs. He made eye contact with me and, unable to simply ignore him, I said hello… his eyes were burning holes in my face so honestly, I had no choice. He was a very strange Australian dude. He proceeded to tell us all about how his girlfriend and him were in a huge fight and how he needs to blow off some steam. Later that night we heard them screaming at each other two bungalows down and then him ripping off on his scooter.

If you’re familiar with Coach from Survivor, imagine this guy a lot like that. He is completely clueless but not realizing it himself. At one point I was sitting in my hammock when I notice him standing in front of a huge palm tree. His girlfriend is standing in the water watching him and he pats his hands onto the side of the tree to get a grip on it, shouting to her, “How many do you want?” I ran inside to get B, “Jesus, this guy is gonna try to climb this tree.” He was forever dubbed Coconut Bob after that. Sadly he never got that coconut.

Whenever we left the house we always had to so in a hurry because Coconut Bob had a habit of hopping onto his scooter and chasing us down. We stopped at the 7-11 once, knowing he had followed us when he said, “Hey!” We responded, “Oh, Hi” like we hadn’t noticed him 3 feet behind us. “I saw you leave. I’m stalking you.” And that was the end of our conversations with Coconut Bob. We expected to see him randomly pop out from trees for rest of our trip.

6. Speaking of the bungalow… It is insane what you get used to. I could drool with more water pressure than our shower in that hut. You couldn’t even hear the shower when you were sitting in the main room. When you were using it, you had to crouch down to take advantage of gravity which would get the pressure just high enough to remove soap off your body.

7. Here’s a rundown of the two scooter accidents B got into. Now, she’ll try to tell you otherwise but don’t let her fool you.

She got cocky one night when we were returning to our bungalow. Coconut Bob always parked so close to the huts and B was determined to do the same. She made me dismount then pulled the gas and went full speed into the deepest sand, dropping the scooter onto its side. Just a few scrapes though!

The second time was in the parking lot of the mall in Phuket. We had plenty of bags and she offered to put one on the handle bar. When moving out of our parking spot, from my perspective, she floored it straight into the back of another scooter. As she tells it, the bag got stuck on the brake. However you put it, she still rammed that scooter with several people watching. No one even blinked an eye though and we backed up and busted out of there.

That being said, two little mishaps is nothing short of a miracle when driving in that environment. I’m very proud of B for handling herself in literally the most stressful driving conditions I can imagine.

But she totally crashed twice.

8. Finally, an update on B’s ankle. As you know, she had a mishap jumping off of an elephant and was diagnosed in Chiang Mai with a 2^nd degree ligament tear. Seeing as her foot remained swollen and sore for the entire trip, the first thing she did when we got back was go to the doctor for x-rays.

About an hour later she got a call, “You need to come in immediately.” After around 8 x-rays and various scans, it turns out that not only is her tibia and fibula cracked, her talus bone (above the heel bone) is shattered. The doctor called it the biggest misdiagnosis he has ever seen. The only option now is an ankle replacement surgery. This is major, folks. You’d think they would have rushed her in right away but she is currently being passed from surgeon to surgeon because they’re all throwing their hands up in the air when they see her scans. Seriously, nobody knows how to fix this.

On the plus side, she’s in very little pain and her biggest concern right now is not being in a cast for her brother’s wedding. My biggest concern is that she is healed in time for rafting season.

Overall, we absolutely loved our time in Thailand. I would love to go back now that I know what I liked and what I didn’t find so fun. Before we can do that though, we have another adventure to plan…

Thanks for reading!

Our Last Week

We underestimated how much travel can take out of a person. After four weeks of being in an Asian country, switching homes every few nights, going out for every meal, it can make a person miss the comforts of home. That being said, it’s not like we had a bad last week, it was quite the opposite. For the last four days before leaving, we got daily massages and didn’t eat a stitch of fried rice. We found the best Italian restaurant I’ve ever eaten at and made it our spot for dinner every night.

We did go on one tour, a boat ride to the Phi Phi Islands and Khai Nai Island. I will admit, I wasn’t excited about this tour because of how motion sick I get but it was surprisingly mellow and I was able to enjoy it. The smaller Phi Phi Island, Phi Phi Leh can be seen in the movie The Beach but apparently the making of the movie was hugely damaging. I guess paradise wasn’t perfect enough for the movie makers so they completely tore apart the island to reconstruct it, introducing plants that are not even native to the area as well as destroying many that were. In other words, Leo is such a jerk!

An interesting piece of history about Phi Phi Don, the larger of the two islands is that it was nearly completely destroyed by the 2005 Tsunami and it wasn’t until 2010 that the majority of it was finally finished being rebuilt. One of my regrets is that we didn’t stay on Phi Phi Don. After having about an hour to walk around the island it had a very relaxed vibe that reminded me a lot of Chiang Mai but in a compressed area. Despite all the tourist shops, it seemed like a place you could get a bungalow and relax.

Along the way to the islands we stopped at a lot of sight-seeing locations where everyone rushed up and plastered themselves against the windows of the boat. At this point, I was content to sit in the middle of the boat and let people fight to see rocks and take poorly angled photos with partial boat railings in them. I’m sure in week one I would have kicked my own ass and told myself to take a look but when you’re burnt out on week 5 it’s like, rocks? Monkeys? I’ve seen those. Plus, the guide stole B’s camera and took about 30 shots of monkeys in various positions so it’s pretty much like I saw them myself. I could even make a flip book for you.

On our last day we hit up the Big C for our snacks and of course, the best souvenir anyone could have, a legit Thai broom. You bet your buns I carried this thing on 3 plane rides and got countless stares. I'm sure they just regretted not buying one themselves.

Then we had to prep for the longest two days of our lives. Our first flight was a one hour flight at 11:30pm on Monday the 20^th from Phuket to Bangkok. We checked in at about 9:30pm and sat at our gate until boarding at 11:15pm only to be turned away because we were apparently at the wrong gate. Looking at our tickets, they actually said 10:30pm so we hit full sprint towards what we were told was the correct gate only to get to our seats on the plane to find people sitting in them. The flight attendant checked our tickets which definitely said some Russian people’s names on them instead of ours. B was in full panic but knowing that our next flight was in 8 hours, I wasn’t particularly concerned. Eventually they got it sorted and threw us in any available seat. The lesson here, don’t fly Air Asia!

Bangkok airport at midnight is bustling like a beehive, if all the bees were on strike and sleeping on the floor. We got some midnight rice followed by some save for later cake and went in search for somewhere comfy to have a snooze until 8am. Unfortunately, somewhere comfy does not exist in an airport. I think I managed one restless hour of sleep in a chair worse than the bus from hell and we ventured over to our gate at about 4 or 5am. We proceeded to eat our cake, because what else are we supposed to do at 4am?

Back on the lovely Japan Airlines, we had a 6 hour flight to Tokyo which was filled with more not-so-delicious foods followed by highly delicious ice cream. I actually read the other day that the owner of Japan Airlines not only gives up the majority of his income in order to increase the income of his employees, but he also takes the bus to work every day. This makes me like JAL even more. And their aprons are so damn cute.

A short 45 minute layover in Tokyo and my eyes were feeling like sandpaper. The air is so dry, seriously bring eye drops if you are taking a flight as long as this. Then our last leg of the flight, Tokyo to Vancouver, was a whopping 9 hours of sleepless flight. I did manage to watch In Time, 50/50 and Ides of March though. I’d skip In Time but you should watch the others.

And so, we finally made it home to the beautiful Vancouver airport where I was giddier than a hoarder on garbage day. My first trip to the bathroom and I could count at least 6 things in there I was thankful for: toilet paper, warm water, hand towels, hand soap, auto-flush, an actual TOILET!

So in short, as much as we adore Thailand, we are damn glad to be home.