Patong, Phuket

Ours Friends from the Capsule Hotel

I never finished my blog. It just takes me so damn long to write these things, that I always had too many other things to do while traveling. And also, I was straight up lazy.

I regret it, because I've been wanting to finish it for a year now, and all the memories are hazy and have faded some. I have a really bad memory as it is, so now in order to finish it, I must rely heavily on the pictures I took, the stories that I actually remember, and Jabo aka Patong, who was there with me for the majority of the remainder of my travels.

Last time I posted, it was about what was happening in March of 2014; my family (aunt, uncle and cousins) had just went back home, leaving Jabo and I to explore the island of Phuket.

Getting off the boat from Koh Lanta, we haggled for a taxi to take us to the main city on Phuket, a city called Patong.

Jabo had meshed so well with my family and I, that when we got into our taxi Jabo tells me "I feel like I just left my own family."

This is the city that I thank/blame for the new phase of Jabo, a phase so powerful, that it persists to this very day, more than 1 year later...ladies and gentlemen, may I present, PATONG JABO, the most powerful Jabo yet.

The city of Patong is a beachside city that is as close to Las Vegas as I've ever experienced. And there is no gambling. The reason I compare it to Vegas is because of the feeling. You know the feeling. This is the feeling of dread, impending doom, and disgust, that one gets after spending longer than 3 nights in Vegas. That is Patong. The street where everything goes down is called Bangla Road.

Staring down the abyss that is Bangla Road

Jabo and I arrive to Patong rather late, with no place to stay, and no plan. We get dropped off on Bangla road, and Jabo tells me that he vaguely recognizes it. This is the place he stayed for his very first night in Thailand, before meeting up with me on Koh Lanta.

We wonder the nightlife-filled street for a couple of minutes before we get approached by a promoter. Usually I completely ignore these people. But he insisted that "his guesthouse" was the newest, cheapest and fanciest in Patong. Skeptically, we follow him this guesthouse. Right in the mix of it all, on Bangla Road, was a place called "Capsule Hotel."

The man didn't lie. It was brand new. And it was awesome. The hotel was based on traditional Japanese Capsule hotels. A few weeks later, while in Japan, Jabo and I would become very familiar with these types of hotels, but at the time, this was a novel idea to the both of us.

Instead of having your own room, like in a traditional hotel, or instead of sharing a dorm room with 6 beds, like in traditional hostels or guesthouses, a capsule hotel has a different concept. Imagine those "cubby" holes you had as a kid in elementary school. In those cubbies, you put your lunch box, crayons, jacket, etc. Now imagine that these "cubbies" are human sized holes with nothing but a mattress in them. That is a capsule hotel. So we pay for a few nights, and get settled in to our capsules. These capsules had a comfortable mattress, pillow, outlets, a light, and a privacy curtain. It gave us the privacy of a solo room, with the atmosphere and price of a hostel.

After showering and getting ready, Jabo and I went out to explore the busy streets of Patong. Now, there are plenty of places in Thailand that are rustic, authentic, and cultural. Bangla Road in Patong is not one of these places. It is a drug-fueled, prostitute-ridden nightclub Mecca. Even more so than Bangkok's redlight district (NaNa & Soi Cowboy), I have never before been to a place where prostitutes (both lady and ladyboy) outnumber real people.

On top of this, the place is incredibly modern. They have a mall right there at the end of the road, that looks like a very high-end american shopping center. There are more recognizable brand names and restaurants on Bangla Road than there are on the Vegas strip.

That first night, after grabbing a couple Big Changs at the 7-11, we met these 2 Swedish girls that were staying at our hotel. That night, we met up with even more Swedes and went to nightclubs till the wee hours of the morning. At about 3 or 4am, Jabo and I were walking back to our hotel. Completely exhausted I went to bed.

Waking up around noon, I look in Jabo's capsule. He's nowhere to be found. In fact, his bag is exactly how it had been the day before, and his bed is still neat. I came to the inevitable conclusion that Jabo did not sleep here.

Laughing nervously to myself, I turn on my phone's wifi and text him on whatsapp. I can see that he is receiving my messages, but is not reading or opening them. I get some lunch, and around 1pm, Jabo shows up, wearing the same clothes as the night before.

He tells me that when I went to bed, he went out for a smoke and randomly saw the same girl he had seen the week before, when he was here for a night. Spending the rest of the night together, he had just now returned. This started the habitual disappearance of Jabo for the next few weeks.

Patong is where we fully understood the concept of Bar Girls. You see, the vast majority of bars on Bangla look completely normal, like any other bar or club you would walk in. This is not the case.

The bars are filled with women that are seemingly playing drinking games, or just sitting at the bar. When a man goes up to order a drink, they are flocked by these friendly women that are eager to talk to you. They even ask you if you want to play games, ranging from connect 4, to the stump game where you need to hammer a nail into a stump. They tell you that if you beat them, they will buy you a drink. However, if they beat you, you owe them a drink.

Playing hammer-your-nail-in-my-stump

Here's the thing though, they make you play a game with strange rules. This is a game that they play all day, everyday. Because it's their job. Therefore, as you can imagine, they rarely lose.

"What the hell I thought, drinks are like $2, I'll play her hammer-nail-stump game." I lost. Badly. So I take the loss with class, and go with her to the bar to buy her a drink.
"What kind of drink would you like?" I ask her.
She looks at the bartender (whom she works for) and says she would like "a lady drink."

Sure, whatever, I thought, this must be some sort of cocktail that they serve here.
The bartender pours her a drink from a pre-mixed bottle, and tells me that it will be $10.
I stand back, SHOCKED. Nothing in Thailand costs that much. That's literally how much I was paying per night to stay in the capsule hotel.

Allow me to explain how the bar-girl system works.
All these bar-girls, like the name indicates, are employed by the bar.
Their job, is quite literally to keep you in the bar and drinking.
But then, they realized that men sometimes like to buy women drinks.
And since they can't have all their employees getting hammered, the only thing they are allowed to drink are "ladydrinks" aka non-alcoholic fruit juice. And they charge the shit out of the guy for it.

These ladydrinks, are how the bar-girls make their money. For every lady-drink they get you to buy for them, they get 50% of the price of that drink. So it is in their best interests to keep you playing their stupid games. However, after buying my first (and last) ladydrink, I caught on.

Jabo, the gentleman and Thai Whisperer that he is, kept right on playing and being the life of the party. I stayed, bought myself drinks and eventually convinced the girls that I'll play with them and Jabo, but without any drink buying.

Smoking is cool, kids. Stay in school.

These bar-girls, eventually double as prostitutes, as seen by the many middle-aged white men who buy them lady drinks all night, and then pay the bartender a "Bar-Fine" to take them back to their hotel rooms.

Bangla road is also home to some of the funniest bar names ever, such as:

2nd biggest regret: Never going in to Suzy Wong's

Jabo fell in love with Patong, so we stayed there a little longer than I had originally wanted to or expected. However, it turned out great for several reasons. We did meet tons of fun people at our hostel, and we hung out with them on a daily basis. Perhaps the most important reason, though, is that Patong was the seed that made Jabo want to move to Thailand.
He still lives in Thailand, over a year later, though he has now moved from Patong to Bangkok.

Jabo in Thailand, circa Feb 2015

Random things that I remember from our time in Patong...

• One night, when going out with practically all Swedish people, I mentioned that they all exclusively wore converse. 

  

  Swedish Proof

• There was also a bar that we went to one night, that was sort of hidden out of the way. The name of this place was "Stockholm Syndrome." I think they were trying to cater to the huge Swedish tourist population. But I found the name terrifying. Stockholm Syndrome is the name given to people who have been kidnapped, tortured, and abused, but end up feeling a strange sort of kinship and love for their kidnappers. Probably the scariest bar name if you ask me, I never thought we'd get out alive...

          SPOILER ALERT: we did get out alive, it was just a normal bar.

• There was another bar called the Honky Tonk Bar, and their logo was....STEAMBOAT! Really weird and, I'm sure, a copyright infringement.

  

  In Heaven there is no beer. That's why I went to Thailand.

Though this may seem strange, I must talk about the toilets in our Capsule hotel. In keeping with the Japanese theme, this hotel had Japanese toilets. They are/were the highest tech toilets I had ever seen. With multiple buttons on the side of the seat, I was terrified to press any of them. Turns out they were all different sprays, to spray your bum while seated. It was scary, and kind of nice.

Para continuar en Espanol, oprima numero dos.

• One day, we decided that we'd get out of the capsule hotel for a night and Ball Out of Control. So we got ourselves a huge multi room suite in a fancy beachside hotel. We invited the friends we had made and had ourselves a hotel party. The bathroom had both a shower and bath, and the bathtub had a window that opened up to the master bedroom. Later that night, I had been sleeping in the bed of the master bedroom for several hours, when I hear Jabo and one of the girls talking in the other room. She thought they were alone in the suite, so when Jabo went to the bathroom, in the pitch darkness, she snuck into the master bedroom and started digging through his backpack. I awoke, sat up in bed (she still hadn't seen me) and said "What are you doing?!" I scared her so bad, I nearly gave her a heart attack. She claims she was looking for a comb, but I think she was trying to steal something. In the video, you can see me wearing a man-robe. Like Hugh Hefner. Because when fancy hotels give you robes, you wear them.

• We also found Jabo's twin in the shopping mall.

From left to right: Jabo, Mannequin

• The McDonald's there serves double Big Macs. DOUBLE. So naturally, we had to get one. This happened at noon, on our way to check in to our party suite.

  

  Hilarity did NOT ensue

  
  

  

  Later that night, in our room. Photograph compliments of the table where I set my camera on timer

  
  I was famished, so instead of eating the DOUBLE big mac, like a normal human being, I inhaled it, like a vacuum cleaner. About 3/4 of the way through, I stop to actually taste it. It seemed a little off. The 4 burger patties were nearly raw, barely warm. I asked Jabo to show me his, it was normal. Disgusted, I showed the manager and he gave me another one. Since I'm an idiot, I ate about 3/4 of the new one, and then hated myself. Checking in to the fancy hotel, it became very evident, very quickly, that I was going to get food poisoning because of that damn burger. But I also knew that we had chosen this night to go all out. Therefore I COULDN'T get sick. I had to find a solution. I decided, that even though I hate vomiting, I would have to purge my stomach. I didn't want to get it on my clothes, and it was hot, so I walk into one of the bathrooms in our room, strip down all of my clothes, and sit on the floor next to the toilet. Picture this, I am completely naked, green in the face because I'm so sick, and I am sticking fingers down my throat. That doesn't work; nothing happens. At this point, I am pot-committed and take it as a personal challenge. "I want to puke damnit! I control my god-damned body, IF I SAY PUKE, IT SHOULD PUKE!" So I proceed to stick my entire arm down my throat (obviously not, but that's what it felt like). As I'm eating my fist and getting sick into the toilet bowl, something catches my attention from the corner of my eye. It's Jabo, standing in the doorway, looking at me. He snaps a picture as I say "This is what I've become *pukkkke*." (I asked Jabo for that picture, and either it doesn't exist, or it was lost when he got his phone stolen.)
   He said the same thing to me the next morning when he woke up in the other room, completely naked, his lady friend gone, and stuffed his face with a cold chicken sandwich he had gotten the night before. Not our best moments, but they happened, so it belongs in the blog, no censorship, this isn't communist Russia! 

  

  In his natural state, The Jabo.

• Later in the day, Jabo took a small nap. I wasn't tired and wanted to walk around. I decided to leave him a note in case he woke up and wondered where I had gone.

  

  Sadly, I returned empty handed. GOT HEEM

• On the last day we were in Patong, we had decided that we would fly to Bangkok for our last few days in Thailand. Our flight was the following day at 2pm. There were earlier flights, but I specifically chose this later one so that the nocturnal Jabo wouldn't be so grouchy. For our last night in town, we decided we wouldn't go out. That we would just stay in, and watch a movie at the hostel. Yeah, that didn't work. We went out with our friends, and at about 3am, I called it a night. I asked Jabo if he was too, but no, he definitely wanted to make his last night in Patong count. I reminded him that we had a flight to catch, so if he could just sleep at the hostel, so we wouldn't miss the flight, that would be awesome. He promised me he would, and that, worst comes to worst, he would be back to the hostel at 10 am. The airport, is 1 hour away from where we were staying. So, though the flight was at 2pm, we had to leave the hotel by noon. I go to sleep. Wake up at 10am, and peek into Jabo's capsule. It's empty. No sign of him.
  "No big deal," I think, "I'll text him, go shower and get ready, and he'll be back by the time I'm done."
  After getting ready, I check my phone. He still has not answered. Hasn't even received his texts. That means his phone is dead. I'm not worried for his safety, but I do start to wonder if we'll miss our flight. I pace back and forth, sending him increasingly urgent texts. By the end I'm screaming at him (in all caps). It's now noon. The shuttle that we paid for comes by to pick us up. I take his laptop from his backpack, put it in mine, leave all his stuff in his capsule, and get on the shuttle. If he can't make it to the god-damn shuttle, he can just meet me in Bangkok whenever he finally comes to his senses.
  The shuttle takes just under 1.5 hours to make it to the airport. I have about 30 minutes until we take off, so I buy myself lunch at some fast food joint. I'm just about done eating, when I catch a glimpse of The Jabo, with his golden crazy hair, wandering around the terminal. Turns out, he woke up around 1pm, plugged in his phone, and realized he was completely screwed he was so late. He got a ride from the girl on her scooter, got his bags, and then flagged down a taxi. He told him that he needed to get to the airport in 30 minutes.That same trip took me nearly 1.5 hours. He told the taxi driver that he would double the fair. In SouthEast Asia, your dollars go a long way, and so driving like a maniac, the driver made it.
• Getting off the plane in Bangkok, it had been more than 10 hours since his last cigarette, and Nicotine Withdrawal Jabo was starting to come out. As people were filing out of the plane, the lady in front of us, trying to pull her luggage, was not moving fast enough for The Jabo. Shoving his way through the crowded airplane, he could be heard screaming things like "It's like watching f%$#ing monkeys drag sacks of rocks!"

  

  Namastay in bed.

The Jabo arrives...Koh Lanta continued

The Jabo arrives...Koh Lanta continued

When we got back from the epic snorkeling trip, we went to my aunt and uncles hotel room only to find Jabo sitting on their porch, cigarette in hand.

I made all of the introductions and just like that, he became part of the clan.

That night, we ate at Tony's.
Antoine and Juliette drew him a picture for his collection.

We were the only ones in the whole bar/restaurant.
Tony would come and sit down with us at our table and drink beer with us.

Though he didn't speak anything but Thai, and we couldn't understand a word of what each other was saying, he still hung out and we all had a good time together.

You see, Tony lives and works on the beach.

About 30 yards from the restaurant, there is a camouflaged colored tent at the edge of the tree line. That is his tent. He lives there.

When night set, he would start a fire right in front of his tent, with whatever wood was available.

By this point it must have been our 3rd or 4th night in a row eating there. We had tried other restaurants, but this one was authentic.

Tony the bro twirling a stick, just doing Tony things

He played Bob Marley songs all day everyday. And he sold mushroom shakes. He also smoked all day every day. But every local on the Thai islands are constantly high off weed and tripping on mushrooms all day everyday, so that wasn't unusual.

We got to change the music to whatever we wanted, and since Charlotte and I both love Jack Johnson, we would put on his music and have our own little singalongs all night long.

At one point, Tony goes to his tent and comes back with an armful of things.

They were presents, for us.
He gave my uncle a cowboy hat, Juliette a communist cap, Jabo got a hello kitty cap, Antoine and I got some sort of orange and red bandanna that was originally a skirt and I cannot remember what the others received.

So we gave him things too. My uncle gave him a flashlight and I gave him a flashing American Flag pin. He was so grateful and immediately put the pin on his hat holding the flashlight in his hand.

Then, on the sand in front of our table, facing the ocean, he started to dig 7 small holes.
He put a candle in the first hole, and then handed me a broken CD.
He gestured for me to dig with him.
So I started digging and putting his candles in the holes.

Then he brought out some sort of makeshift stand with christmas lights and random ornaments on it.  Everything that man owns was given to him by tourists or found on the beach.

He put the stand on the sand and brought out a couple others.
Then, he grabbed some sort of rings made of wood and set them on top of the stand.
He asked Jabo to light the wooden rings on fire while I lit the candles.

We were all laughing and smiling, enjoying Tony's crazy game.

What the hell was he doing, we had no idea?!

Once everything was completely set up and all the fires were lit, he sat down with us.

Then he tried to explain something. Here's what he did and said:

Sitting down, he points to the fire, ornaments, and candles.
Then he points to himself and then to my aunt.
Repeatedly.
After some guessing we finally understand that he is talking about some sort of wife or girlfriend he had.
When we say "girlfriend" he says "YES!" and nods with emphasis.
Then he points to himself and says "girlfriend" and then he says "motorbike."
He mimics driving on a motorbike and says his girlfriend was behind him on the bike.

Okay...now we're even more confused than before.
We just keep smiling and try to understand。。。

He says "holiday" and then says Koh PiPi.
Okay so him and his girlfriend were on holiday on Koh PiPi.

Then he mimics driving some more and says "Tsunami" and makes huge wave-like motions with his hands.

We get really quite.　We're no longer smiling.

He makes a sign of a wave crashing hard onto a moving motorbike.
Then says "Toni, girlfriend, Tsunami."
Then he says "girlfriend" and makes a slitting motion across his own throat, indicating she died when the Tsunami hit.

Then he points to the blazing candles and wood, along with his strange stand made up of found objects.

We're now dead quiet. Toni's fun game, wasn't a game at all, but a nightly religious ritual he performed for his dead girlfriend.

And he liked us, so he decided to include us.

At first we were all quite and somber, but Tony quickly riled us back up by smiling and laughing.
This wasn't supposed to be a sad thing!

Toni, with his found objects shrine in the background.

Either way, we got to experience some sort of awesome Thai religious thing from a very nice man.

We took pictures with him that night in front of the fire and ceremony.

I love doing things that tourists never get to do.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, we had all decided to go on another snorkeling/boat trip.

Once again, we hired one of those long-tail boats and started to head out to something called "Emerald Cave."

Apparently, back in the day, some lucky pirates had seen a underwater cave opening from their giant pirate ship.

I can only assume that after some swashbuckling arguments, the short dude with no parrot, no eye-patch and no peg leg, was chosen to go into the cave.
Those are the only ways to gain respect in the pirate community, this is common knowledge.

Well what this dude found was something out of a Hollywood pirate movie. After swimming through a couple hundred yards of pitch darkness, he emerged into the daylight onto a beach!
Pirates hid their treasures in that cove, only accessible through some crazy sub-sea passage.

Now the pirate cave has been discovered and is a common place for tourists to go.
This once beautiful, remote, hidden gem is now flogged with school children and tourists.
I'm not saying this is Obama's fault, I'm just saying that I never had to share a hidden pirate cove in Thailand while Bush was President.

After about an hour of boat-riding, we arrive to the Emerald Cave.
I randomly snapped a pretty cool picture of Antoine diving into the water.

We had a sort of "tour guide" with us.

In reality, it was just the dude who had been sleeping on our tiny boat next to the other guy driving.

Whatever, in Thailand, everyone is a guide.

We swim up to the cave in beautiful clear blue waters, duck under the cave into a shady region, and follow the guide holding a flashlight.

At first, the light from outside pretty much illuminates the inside of the cavern.

This is the last known photograph of these three.

However, the second we turned the first corner, that light vanished faster than Malaysian flight MH370.

 Plunged in total darkness, The Jabo and I immediately got separated by a long line of schoolchildren wearing life jackets.

I also couldn't see my family, and so I simply assumed that the entire thing was a trap, and that the locals were actually going to tie us all on a large stick, and slowly roast us over an open flame.

Emerging from the beast's belly

SPOILER ALERT: none of us were spit-roasted and instead we emerged to find an awesome beach-cove entirely surrounded by steep cliffs.

We snapped a couple pictures, and though absolutely magical and awesome, it was pretty crowded, so we decided to go back to the boat relatively quickly. There was some snorkeling to be done.

Jabo has an incredible ability to sleep absolutely anywhere. 

Practically under any conditions.

He would sleep on the ferries, on the loud long-tail boats, on the beach, in buses, planes, trains, outside on the sidewalk like a homeless (Tokyo), anywhere.

It is so impressive, and anyone who knows Jabo is aware that if he "Wakes up" by only opening his left eye, then he is not awake at all. He'll even talk to you, or intereact in another way, but he is not awake. 

Before my family left, we snapped a fun picture of my two cousins whispering "GAYYYYYY" into his ears while he passed out on a ferry.

Left eye slightly beginning to open...

Moving on to another snorkeling spot, we encountered the most fish I have seen in my life.

Some people exaggerate and say things like "there were so many fish you couldn't even see" or "I literally had to push the fish away there were so many."

Well that's what actually happened to us. 

Look.

These guys were assholes.

They would swarm our bodies as we entered the water.

And they were unsure as to whether or not we were edible, so every now and again, one of these jerks would come and nibble the side of your torso, or a leg.

 

It was all good fun though, and we'd take turns getting on the boat and throwing pieces of bread onto the ones snorkeling below.

The fish would attack the bread like a piranhas, hurling themselves at the person in the water in the process.

Just look at those slimy, beady-eyed monsters....and the fish.

 We also found more clown-fish, and this time they were pretty shallow.
I tried my hardest to get a picture with it, but those guys are kinda sneaky.
I was about to quit, when I simply asked it to tell me a joke.
He said something about a sea-cucumber and before he could get out his punchline, I dove in there and photobombed him.

Classic clown-fish photobomb.

Nemo, the BroFish, and yours truly.

I tried my hardest to find sharks, but no such luck in Thailand.
Just as we were about to pack it in and call it a day, I did manage to see two very rare sea-creatures.
The first was a venomous/aggressive Lion-fish. He was chilling at the bottom on some deep sand, and would flair up his poison spikes when I would get too close.

Lionfish

On my way up from seeing that fish, I caught a glimpse of something no-one had previously seen in Thailand.

Not only is this sea-creature incredibly pale, but he is usually seen drinking Big Chang.

I present, Thailand Jabo.

The machine-gun has been Photoshopped out of his hands

One of the last days we spent on the island, we wanted to go check out Koh Pi Pi, to see the famous "Beach" from the Leonardo DiCaprio movie.

We got a boat to take us all the way out there, and sort of failed.

I mean, we failed in seeing "The Beach."

There isn't really such a thing as failing when you're trapped on amazing tropical islands.

We all hung out on the beach all day, ate some food, went swimming, and Jabo and I tried to snorkle with sharks (no success).

On the boat there (or maybe on the way back), as Jabo snoozed in the back, Antoine and I had meaningful bro-talks for a couple hours. 

Catching up is awesome, especially when you each have over a year's worth of material to talk about.

After a long day, we all went to Tony's, had some beers and went to sleep.

Jabo and I went back to our little hut on the beach.

The dude we were renting the hut from, also owned the bar.

To put it lightly he was a hippie.

To put it realistically, he is the type of dude who should have stopped traveling 30 years ago.

Too much of a good thing is bad, ask Heath Ledger.

Anyways, it was getting semi-late on this quiet island, so I brush my teeth and go to sleep, as Jabo smokes a cigarette outside.

I hear him start talking to the bar-owner, and take that time to open an attachment I had downloaded from my email earlier in the day.

Just a few days prior, I had received an email from my mom informing me that my great-aunt / second grandmother had passed away. She had been my grandfather's older sister and had been around my whole childhood.

When I first read the email a few days before, I was filled with a deep sadness, but since I didn't really want to bring down everyone around me, I didn't say anything and kept on acting normal.

We were doing such fun things that took up the entirety of the days that, though I didn't forget, I hadn't allowed the sadness to creep into my mind.

Then my sister wrote my grandfather a letter.

Instead of writing it in an email, she typed it in a word document and sent it to him.

That letter was so well written and heartfelt, that he forwarded it to the entire family and eventually read it out-loud at her funeral.

That is the thing that I decided to read that night.

Within seconds, I start to get choked up.

Then tears start running down my cheeks.

Next thing you know I'm actually having a hard time breathing and am crying like I hadn't since I was in elementary school.

My aunt was a wonderful person and I loved her. 

The pain I felt was both for her, and my grandpa, her brother.

Right at the peak of my sadness is when Jabo comes into the room.

He sees that I'm upset and asks for some details.

Seeing that I don't really want to talk, he leaves me alone again.

This is where the evening stops being sad, and starts getting very, very weird and funny.

I think my great-aunt Gabi would have laughed at the whole situation.

Jabo comes back into the hut...with the creepy dude from the bar/hotel!

They are offering me a beer and convince me to go outside on the beach with them.

Jabo had all of the best intentions in getting me out of the room, and he was so chill about the whole thing. But even he couldn't foresee the weirdness that was about to occur.

We sit down on the beach.

It's the three of us: Jabo, myself, and the owner (I can't remember his name so we'll call him Jeffrey).

He makes us try to form a circle, which is really difficult with three people.

Satisfied with our lopsided triangle sitting arrangement, he hands each of us some incense stick things.

He lights his and then hands me his lighter.

As I'm trying to light this thing, he is mumbling something under his breath, and wafting the smoke from his burning stick into the air.

Jabo and I kind of look at each other with a weird look, but decide to accept this as a local tradition.

By the way, Jeffrey is a white American from Seattle who moved to Thailand many years ago. He's not a local.

We each get our incense lit, and as we stick them into the sand, Jeffrey wafts over them as if to gather the smoke and spreads it over himself and us two.

If anyone has seen that episode of FRIENDS where Phoebe "cleanses" Ross's aura by picking away at invisible things surrounding him, this looked similar. But it was much creepier and he was serious.

Dis ain't no sitcom.

Jabo and I were still going along with it at this point.

Jefferey asks me to say a few words about Gaby, and though I felt awkward and didn't really want to, I said a couple sentences.

Then Jeff started wafting more smoke and pulled out some sort of strange smoking apparatus, stuffing something into the bowl. He takes a hit and passes it to me. I decline, as does Jabo. We literally had no idea what this guy was doing.

Then he starts rambling about some sort of crazy universe theory about god-knows what.

Just when we think it cannot get any stranger, this absolutely HAMMERED person comes stumbling towards us in the total darkness. As the shape of this body emerges from the backdrop of the beach, Jeffrey catches the drunkard. He lovingly brings the drunk woman onto an outdoor patio with mattresses, directly in front of our hut, and lays her down.

He comes back and starts preaching to us how he wished someone would do the same thing for someone he loved if ever they found themselves in an intoxicated situation such as the one that lady found herself in.

He keeps rambling about loving every living thing and how the universe has a plan for everything and everyone.

He sounds like when Kanye West rattles about being a genius.

Everyone is listening, but no one has the slightest clue of what he's talking about.

All of a sudden, the drunken, haggered woman comes back from the shadows and we can hear her rummaging through something. 

Then, some light hits her face and body.

It is now completely clear that this is no woman at all, but a LadyBoy that is drugged out of it's mind.

The universe-feeling, peace-loving hippie, Jeffrey, stands up and starts CHASING this LadyBoy!

He is running after it hitting his hands together and making noises like you would to scare a wild animal.

This scares the LadyCreature, and the Jeffrey chases it all the way back away across the beach, clapping and snarling the whole time like a gorilla.

Jabo and I stare at each other.

Our eyes are wide. 

We're both thinking the same thing.

What the F$%# just happened?!

Jeffrey comes back, and sits down like nothing happened.

He then starts talking about one-love and pure-love, or something similar.

Then he gets even creepier in his low, soft manner of speaking.

He softly grazes Jabo's foot with his and lightly touches my hand while saying something that sounds very deep if you've had 20 beers. Which we hadn't.

Jabo freaks out and we both stand up, saying we need to go to bed immediately.

We lock ourselves in the room and now the roles have shifted.

Instead of him trying to console me, I have to calm down a frightened Jabo who is convinced either the LadyBoy or the creepy owner are going to sneak into our hut during the night.

Pretty soon, we're both laughing uncontrollably, exhausted on our beds.

Jabo managed to turn a very sad time for me into quite a joyous, albeit weird, one.

Thanks buddy.

 

Completely unrelated, but at one point during the few days we spent in that hut, I woke up because a mosquito had somehow snuck under our mosquito net and bit my hand.

Now this wouldn't normally wake me up, but this mosquito was vicious.

I woke up, with a sharp pain in my left hand.

Since it was completely dark, I forced myself to go back to sleep.

The next morning, the light of day revealed the truth.

It was no mosquito, but a spider.

And this thing had feasted on my hand.

It quite literally bit my entire palm, and all the way up and down each finger.

My hand swelled up and hurt for about 14 days.

All of that, and I didn't even get the super-strength and web-throwing powers I anticipated.

Guess I don't get my own movies or comic-book

While we were all in Koh Lanta together, Jabo would keep telling Antoine how much better he is than him at soccer.

"Little boy, I will destroy you, I'll show you how futball is supposed to be played."
Antoine would respond "Okay, tonight, when we get back to the beach, let's play."

And, everyday, without fail, we would all forget until it was too late.

Until the last day arrived, they played on the beach for a solid 8 minutes.

Within 3 steps, Jabo was out of breath and red in the face, coughing up his smoker lungs on the beach, while Antoine would juggle circles around him.

Props must be given to Jabo, he went out there and gave it his all, but sometimes, it's just not good enough.

Full disclosure: I didn't even try to go out and compete against him, because I knew my PHENOMENAL skills would simply crush my cousin's dreams.

Sadly, my family's time in Thailand had run out.

They were flying out of the airport on Phuket and Jabo and I had no plans.

We decided to accompany them to Phuket and said our goodbyes.

It was one hell of a vacation, and they'll forever have a huge part in my GlobeTrotting adventure.

My uncle, fighting the sun, one ray at a time.

Krabi, Koh Lanta & Koh Rok . . . Finding Nemo

Krabi 

Getting Krabi was just a base for us to go from.
With only one day there before taking a boat to Koh Lanta, we had time to visit one beach.

My uncle picked one that was surrounded by mountainous cliffs, and therefore only accessible by boat. Railay beach.

It is a bit rock climbing spot and has pretty sweet beaches.
Some are actually quite gross and dirty, but the one we stayed on was really nice.

Fam love

We stayed the entire day there, and just talked laying in the sun. We saw a couple monkeys walking around the island, but I had seen so many in Cambodia that I didn't even bother to take pictures. At this point, monkeys are just like antelope to me. But much meaner. Which is why I had to fight a monkey. But this happened much later with the Jabo, and is a story for another blog.

My uncle and I went on a nice long walk and just talked about life in general, it was awesome.

He insisted on taking this picture of him in his new house. He's waiting for my father.

On the ride to Krabi from Khao Sok, Antoine told me all about the Eminem concert he went to in August. I was and am so jealous. Except now I can tell him that I officially bought front row tickets for the show in NYC in August, so hopefully he reads this.

When we first got to the beach, Antoine and my uncle found something quite particular.

And by particular, of course I mean that they found a penis shrine.
You read that right, a penis shrine.

So, I think I may have mentioned this before, but the people of south-east asia worship phalluses (phalli?)

So this has been explained to me by several people, but apparently it has nothing to do with Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism. It dates back to even before that, and all the people regardless of religion adhere to the cock worshiping.

Asking a local about it on Krabi, I was told the fisherman offer dicks to the gods and pray that they catch many fish and come back safely. The phallus is supposed to symbolize human fertility and prosperity. Later in Bali, Indonesia, a taxi driver told Jabo and I that everyone has a penis statue at home.

Every morning you rub the penis for good luck.

And again at night.

Rub the penis, get good luck..

South-East Asia is awesome.

.

.

That night, we wandered around Krabi and took in the local sights while my cousins purchased Thailand souvenirs.

I found a lady selling bracelets. She could write anything on these bracelets. I took a quick glimpse and for some reason, the first one I actually read was "GOD IS LOVE"....then I read all of the others and nearly choked laughing. 

CAUTION: do not look at the image if you get offended by vulgar language.

I also found one of the best advertising signs I have seen in Asia. It was so effective that we had Changs at that bar, even though it wasn't happy hour.

Chang is the Thai beer, in case I have never mentioned it before.

Chang is fun because though it says 6% alcohol on the bottle, it's Thailand...
So it is an AVERAGE of 6%.
In reality, it ranges from 5%－9% and you never know which one you get until you finish the bottle.
Big Chang will ruin your life kids, and it is the funnest beer in the world.
BIG CHANGGGGG!

The next morning, after sleeping in our huge villa, we got picked up by the world's fanciest van that took us to the ship dock. Then we would head to Koh Lanta, where my family's vacation would end.

The van felt like The Bellagio hotel in Vegas, I don't know how else to describe it.

Our boat was nearly 2 hours late, but that is to be expected, it's Thailand.

It's only irritating if you keep western standards. Just assume things like this will happen, and take it easy.

I'm turning into a no worries hippie when it comes to things being late or stuff not going according to plan.

At one point, on the way to Koh Lanta, the boat stops and is quickly surrounded on all sides by small boats. 

It felt like we were being hijacked.

Except these small boats were picking people up from the big boat to take them to smaller islands without us having to stop in any port.

One of the kids working on one of the small boats was priceless. He was holding a sign with the name of the resort he was working for.

But it looked like he was protesting for some cause we didn't know about. The name of the resort was Freedom.

Occupy Thailand

Koh Lanta

Jabo wasn't going to show up until two nights later, so that first night I stayed in my cousins room in the nice resort they had reserved.

I kept having to sneak around because the resort people did not know I was staying there.

The next day, though my Aunt was very apprehensive about the whole idea, I convinced them we should rent scooters and check out the entire island.

It worked great, we had 3 scooters. The three guys driving each with one of the girls behind us.

We went all around the island and stopped at awesome beaches while taking an awesome scooter road trip. 

My cousin Antoine was especially excited because he drives a 50cc scooter back home and the one he rented was 125cc.

We kept talking about how awesome it would be if my mom, dad and sister were with us too.
So my uncle decided to dedicate a picture especially for her.

With our scooters, we found a beach with very few people.

Though I remember taking pictures, I can't seem to find the ones of the fort we built.
It was a survivor style fort we made on the beach, just to show that the beach was ours.

The water was amazingly warm and perfectly clear.

Life is hard on koh lanta.

We stopped at what Koh Lanta calls it's "Sea Gypsy Village."

Sea Gypsies are squaters like every other gypsy, but they are based on boats and come onto shore illegally, wherever they feel like.

They don't really have a permanent residence.

When the Tsunami hit Koh Lanta and the rest of Thailand a few years ago, part of the island was devastated. Including the sea gypsy "homes."

Luckily, the King of Thailand is a really nice guy, and after the Tsunami, he gave all the sea gypsies citizenship. So now they're legal.

So we went to their village.

The ride there was really fun, but the village is exactly what I expected a gypsy village to look like. It was dirty and filled with people just sitting around.

Luckily, I had a few empty vials, so while I was there, I filled up on gypsy tears.

Everyone knows gypsy tears protect against AIDS and communism.

I'll be selling them to anyone interested when I return, but be ready to pay a premium for the tears.

On the way to the village we stopped for lunch and went into a hammock shop. I think the owner was a cat, who had it's own miniature hammock. But I can't be sure, he didn't speak english.

That night, we watched the sunset over the beach.

We had drinks and dinner at this tiny little shack on the beach.

It was called NoNang bar, but just called it Tony's.

That's because the only waiter/bartender in the place was this Thai guy named Tony (or Tommy it was hard to understand, because he didn't speak any english at all).

Tony was badass and looked like a Thai Captain Jack Sparrow.

He never wore a shirt and usually had some sort of bandanna around his head.

That first night he showed us a huge book filled with color drawings from all of the guests he has had.

The people that he likes, he asks them to draw a picture.

Of anything, the beach, your home, or anything that comes to your mind.

My uncle drew him something and then he gave us his drawing that he made that day.

We vowed to go back to Tony's.

Day view of Tony's

And we did. Almost every night.

Jabo was supposed to meet us in Koh Lanta that night. However, he partied too hard the night before in Phuket, and missed his boat. 

Koh Rok

Therefore the next day, he missed out on the best snorkeling trip I have ever been on.

The trip took us to 3 different islands, one hour off of the coast of Koh Lanta.

I forget the names of all of them but, the best one was undoubtedly Koh Rok island.

We even saw a Komodo dragon there!

I have never seen anything like this in my life.

And the visibility...MY GOD!

I could see just as far underneath the water, as I could on land.

Just unbelievable.

Luckily, I had my underwater camera this time, so I can actually show examples.

But even the pictures don't do the place justice.

At one point, I saw a　HUGE moray eel at the bottom on the coral. It was easily 6 or 7 feet long. I took a picture and a video but there isn't really a reference so it's tough to correctly gauge it's size.

I don't know if uploading videos work on this, I've never tried before....

My goal the entire time, was to find the anemone fish (or clown fish) that the movie Finding Nemo made famous.

And I found some! They are just as bright and colorful in real life as they are in the animated movie!

They're such bros!

They just chill in their sea anemone the entire time with their family, just like in the movie.

However, one thing that the movie doesn't tell you is that these fish have little man syndrome.

The second I would get too close, the Papa Clown Fish (Marlin) would come up to my mask and pretend to attack me.

He would actually open and close his mouth snapping it's tiny teeth at me. I've seen them do this to other fish when they get too close. With fish it actually works, so the clownfish look tough.

But when I would just float there after they barked at me (they actually make a barking noise underwater when they snap) the fish would get confused and kind of retreat before fake attacking me again.

These are the first ones I found, they were really deep.

I ran into several fish that were territorial like that, but all clown fish had little man syndrome. All I'm saying is that if they were human males, they would drive a huge lifted truck.

When we got back....The Jabo was there.