I and Island

Getting out of Bangkok proved harder than getting in, but since leaving Bangkok is always a good thing, and considering my destination, I was more than happy to expend the extra effort.

Bangkok has the size of Los Angeles, the shape of New York, and the soul of Detroit. It's a clogged, dense, manic city with a throb that shifts but never wanes. My hotel, The Atlanta, is located at the tip of Sukhumwit, one of several red light districts in the city. Sukhumwit is a district named after a main artery that radiates from the center of Bangkok. Actually, it radiates for hundreds of kilometers all the way to the Cambodian border.

On the advice of The Atlanta's front desk man, I took an alternate route to the end of Sukhumwit the street and the begining of Sukhumwit the motorway, also known as Highway 3. In fifteen minutes, and much in line with my style, I was thoroughly lost. Police officers and friendly pedestrians upon hearing of my destination didn't even attempt to give me detailed directions - they just pointed in the general direction. And that pretty much worked. After thirty minutes I found my way back to Sukhumwit the street and decided not to take any more chances with fancy shortcuts. Sukhumwit the street sits below the elevated tollway and for most of the morning and afternoon supports gridlocked traffic in both directions. This day was no exception. Bangkok's motorcyclists are not ones to sit idly. While buses, taxis, vans and fancy foreign cars sit with bored diligence, the motorbikes dexterously snake through the interstitial narrow gaps and alleys. Following a long train of delivery boys, students and motorbike taxis gave me an exciting tour of the gutters, potholes and sidewalks of Sukhumwit. I learned from my impromptu driving instructors that barreling down a crowded sidewalk is cool as long as you keep one finger on the horn the whole time. Also if a lane is free, it should be taken, even if it is on the side of oncoming traffic. An hour driving like this gave me an elevated risk of lung cancer and several ideas for new reality tv shows.

One problem with Thailand is that I'm no longer the fastest vehicle on the road. That honor goes to whomever has the most expensive German sedan. Truckers are also quite quick, and nearly blind. The trucks here have mirror-tinted glass all around, so when they almost run you off the road you can't even give them a satisfying sneer. In Thailand, I'm one of the slowest vehicles on the road, which is both annoying and slightly dangerous.

You can tell how corrupt a country is by the number and sorts of cars that have government license plates. In Cambodia, almost every fancy car has government plates. But a fancy car in Cambodia is a Hyundai Sonata. In Thailand I am repeatedly passed by convoys of large, long, matching black Mercedes moving at about 250km/hr. They flash their lights and will drive within inches of you if you don't get out of their way in time. Either I'm crossing paths with the president of Thailand very frequently, or the average assistant minister of forestry here makes $2M a year including kickbacks.

I had some money problems in Bangkok and ended up leaving town with a full tank of gas and only 40baht in my pocket. That's about two bucks. My ATM daily limit was maxed and I wouldn't be able to pull out cash till the next night. Somewhere along the line I was going to need to get gas and to do that I was going to need to get cash. My only hope was a cash advance from my Visa card. Just as I was pondering where the best town to find a foreigner friendly bank would be I ran out of gas. I had left my reserve switch on and thus had drained my tank completely without any warning. Drifting from 120 to 0 along the side of the road, some death metal playing on the iPod, I sat atop my bike for a minute and cursed myself.

Across the road was a little brick house. I froggered across the highway and sheepishly knocked on the door. An old man with an impressive collection of silver teeth packed into his generous smile answered the door. I did some international signing explaining my situation. Apparently he had not received his latest issue of International Handsign Monthly. He smiled anyway and invited me in, the pungent scent of Thai whiskey trailing behind him. Eventually I made my predicament clear to him and he shuffled into his car port and returned with two clear bottles filled with red liquid of different tints. Gasoline? Nod. Gasoline? Nod. Okay. Okay.

I poured the two litres of gas into my tank, hoping to God that I was actually putting gasoline in my bike versus deisel or lamp oil. The man followed me over and watched with a big satisfied grin as I started up the bike. I handed him the empty bottles which he promptly threw into the jungle next to the road. He wouldn't accept any money at first, but after I insisted he took my forty baht and gave me a handful of boiled peanuts in change.

The next town had a bank and that was another, more boring fiasco, which resulted in me not being able to get a cash advance from either bank in town. Eventually, somehow, from the deepest crevice of my brain, next to the part that controls my breathing and generally keeps me from peeing my pants, I found the PIN number to my Visa card and used it to get cash from an ATM.

I was late to Laem Ngop and in fifteen minutes found a secure place for my bike, found the appropriate ferry to Ko Kham, ate lunch and chatted up some German chicks.

Ko Kham is a tiny island off of the small island of Ko Mak which is off of the large island of Ko Chang. Kham has a beach which is nothing more than a brilliant white sand bar, extending 20 meters at high tide and 40 meters at low tide. The sand slopes rapidly down into tropically warm water which for a hundred meters gets no more than chest deep. The effect, with the palm trees and the little thatch bungalows, is like the cover of Conde Nast Traveller with a headline shouting, The 14 Best Island Getaways You've Never Heard Of. And apparently nobody heard of Ko Kham, because I was the only tourist on the island.

On my second day there, the local militia caught what looked to be a small crocodile, about one meter long. They cut its throat, bled it, charred it, skinned it and cooked it up over an open fire. Then they chopped it up, bones and all, and stir fried it with ginger and garlic. The consistency was a cross between squid and chicken and it tasted a lot like ginger and garlic. Apparently this was a small specimen and they were happy to exterminate it as it would only return later to eat some chickens like its momma did earlier that month.

Ko Kham was luxurious as long as I was on the beach. My bungalow however had a mosquito net that looked like something Cher would wear to the Grammys - sparkly, red and full of holes. Between the mosquitos and the sand flys I probably donated a liter of blood to the local fauna. Does that put me at the top or the bottom of the food chain?

Next was Ko Mak. Also empty, I found a bungalow on the edge of a small mangrove copse facing the channel between the two islands. I leave the double doors and large windows open at night and am rewarded by cool ocean breezes at night and a sunrise alarm clock every morning. A hammock on my little deck offers the perfect spot to read a bit while the sun comes up and the resort awakens.

A couple of nights ago I went to a party on the the other side of the island, invited by Noi, the manager at my resort. The night started quietly enough and ended with a mix of Thais and tourists dancing arm in arm and singing along to local pop tunes. One guy was wearing these super cool wraparound goggles with a straw tucked in the band mimicking a Britney-style microphone. He played a large water bottle bongo and drank straight from the Thai whiskey bottle. That's like drinking straight from the Liquid Drain-O bottle.

Everyone made friends and I was offered a job for next high season as a bartender at my resort.

Most have my time is spent laying in the sun reading or floating in the sea watching the clouds go by. It's a high pressure affair, but I feel that by doing my small part, I'm making the world a better place.

I've got another story about my short shorts swimming trunks, but I'm still a little to embarrassed to tell that one. Give it time.