samui - meeting a resort mogul, day 13

another early flight, but upon landing in samui, i realize it's worth it. the airport is luxurous and open air. when i arrive at cheweng resort, i'm greeted by a very nice staff and shown a room which in comparison to my chiang mai experience, i start laughing. mostly due to how incredibly decadent it is.

From vietnam / thailand trip

i could post more photos, but you can also look at my picasa page. i think they messed up and gave me the honeymoon suite. fortunately it was close to my 29th anniversary living with myself and a good reason to celebrate. the man behind all of this is p'somporn, who is a relative to a friend who jay introduced me to. on top of the awesome pad, which included a pool and a great restaurant, i also got the full tour of all his resorts including his new one. he has researched different styles of architecture from all over the world and it definitely shows. the new resort is going to be so swank, he will set the tone for the rest of the luxury resorts on the island.

From vietnam / thailand trip

after seeing p'somporn's new resort, i head back to the cheweng resort and go for a dip in the water. i meet some aussies and we decide to meet up at the rasta bar that night. i wonder more up and down the beach, grabbing dinner on the main drag at a restaurant called the aussie bbq or something. the service was abysmal, it took them almost an hour to make my meal, a seafood pad thai. the waiter keeps telling me 5 more minutes and my mango shake is decimated by the time my food comes. some aussie ladies sat down next to me, i commented that i hope they weren't hungry. they laughed, but in fairness it took 45 minutes for the salads they ordered. they are going on a trip to the wilderness reserve and i found out they purchased it from a man named peter just up the road. i ask for the check several times and send scathing looks in a vain attempt to speed up the billing process. island time. i buy the tour from peter, who is a burmese who fled and has lost a lot of his family; mostly due to illness, but still it's a grim situation. i thank him and skidattle to the rasta bar.

this whole trip has not been the most pleasant for a man traveling alone. the aussies had told me this bar is past a bunch of shady clubs and i would have to deal with women hassling me. it's not as bad as chiang mai though where one actually jumped on me like a monkey, i just kept walking and assuring her i wasn't going to buy her a drink. she finally got the point and let go. anyway, they assume the darkest of a man alone at night and it was a true pain to get to the rasta bar. there is a live band and the club is absolutely, utterly empty. so empty the band is playing songs directly to me and my clapping echoes solitary appreciation. i'm close to finishing this beer and the aussies are nowhere to be seen. all i can think is i'm truly sad for this band, who, minus the drummer is giving it a pretty good effort for a gigantic empty house and pondering exit strategies. could i look like i'm going to the bathroom and just leave? should i applaud and walk out? should i get up in the middle of the song and leave or would they announce my flight? fortunately, the aussies show up and i have a couple of drinks with them. they ordered some popcorn, which took the place of some salgados and i realized i was getting torn up by mosquitoes. those bastards are horrible over here. i bid the couple goodnight and walk past the redlight district home. tomorrow, the island tour awaits me.

chiang mai - water and elephants, day 12

the hangover is the worst so far on the trip. i ponder how much i could pay the guide to not take me to the mountains when a firm rap is upon my prison cell door. i made this bed, i'm going to lie in it. as i climb in the back of the pickup truck, i wonder how kind the roads will be.

i try not to pay attention to the swaying car and the bad road and meet my compadres. there are 2 from good ol' america, 2 brits, 1 girl from hong kong and 4 koreans. as everyone knows my nature, i still managed to talk my head off with a hangover. the hour and a half drive was pretty rough, but the payoff was coming. i was paired with the girl from hong kong for the elephant ride which was amazingly rough, we sat on a rice bag and had a rail that wasn't attached to hold onto as the elephant trod up and down a mountain mind you. i would say our elephant definitely had a personality though, he stopped whenever he pleased and i would pass him bananas that he would take and toss aside. ingrate. it was definitely a memorable experience though.

From vietnam / thailand trip

then it was on to the hike up to the waterfall. a windy road along the stream where most fear to tread. sometimes you would skip over stepping stones across the stream. other times there were a couple of bamboo logs tied to eachother, which i prayed wouldn't break under the strain of my weight. they didn't. another great payoff and excellent cool down, i went in and sat under the waterfall for a while, getting my own version of a swedish massage. on to whiter water: white water rafting.

From vietnam / thailand trip

i got placed in the whiter person raft although i was feeling bad i wasn't with the girl from hong kong, because she didn't know how to swim. but that wasn't going to happen, right? after an extremely brief and detailed speech in broken english about how to handle oars, rapids and commands they gave me a helmet too small for my big dome, stuck a paddle in my arms and plunked me onto the raft. it was intense and we took on quite a bit of water, but we weren't prepared for what happened to the other raft. as we came around a bend, we saw their raft flipped over and the poor hong kong girl clutching a rock for dear life. our guide pulled aside and deftly swam across the rapids to help the other guide recover the oars and help her out of the water. but where were the koreans? apparently when it flipped they didn't stick around to help the poor girl out and left her there. assholes.

we finished the rest of the trip on the raft and went on to bamboo floating which they also call bamboo submarines. quite an odd feeling sinking in the water on a swaying bamboo raft lazily going down the river. all i could think was, 'where is my beer?'. it was almost time to wrap up the trip and we had a visit to a tribes village in the mountain. it literally was 5 minutes so i didn't get much information at all. they did have a few pigs though.

i returned back to the hostel to meet ken, a old coworker of my father's and we had a great chat walking though the night market. he has quite a bit of insight into the banking woes, like dad, but also has firm experience within international banking, so i was quite interested in what he had to say. ken preached about thailand and how it's great to retire there, i can see his life is quite comfortable and he seems very happy. his wife gia was very nice too, although we didn't have much time to chat. obligatory photo:

From vietnam / thailand trip

after that, i went to bed as i flew out of chiang mai at 6 in the morning.
(the airport)

From vietnam / thailand trip

onward and southward to koh samui, where the full moon lurks and i learn to live like a king.