I try to glean as much as possible from the experiences we've been given through this relocation. I know how much we’ve sacrificed to be here and I also know how lucky we are to have these opportunities. I’m learning that my usual self, the one who is a little bit control freak and slightly (charmingly!) obsessive about planning, tends to jam as much experience, manufactured or otherwise, into these adventures so we don’t miss out on anything. This has a tendency to backfire. So, going forward, I’m going to employ a fresh new outlook to our travels. A little something I’m going to call W.W.T.B.D. (or, What Would Tony Bourdain Do?). Now that’s a guy who can navigate the globe and experience each new place just like a local would. He’s relaxed about it, eats good food, doesn’t ask too many questions, and he would never, ever pay to ride an elephant.
We chose to break into Thailand by visiting Krabi, a region south of Phuket, known for spectacular beaches surrounded by massive limestone formations. We arrived in Krabi on a Friday morning. It was overcast, wickedly hot and humid, and because of the onset of rainy season, a virtual ghost town. Our first rookie move was to head to the spa and feel justified
spending way too many baht on spa treatments, because what else were we going to do? It was practically raining outside. We were rubbed and scrubbed and masked for two hours, only to find out that while we were lounging inside the sun was shining and sleepy little Krabi was alive and well. We hightailed it to the pool, grabbed a beer from the swim up bar and watched the sun go down. (Lesson #1: Never stay at a hotel with perks like a swim up bar. It always sounds like a great idea but you quickly learn that it’s no longer fun to be in Cancun over Spring Break. You end up sipping a syrupy mai tai next to some hairy backed fat man who’s avoiding his children. The ones who are yipping and splashing at the other end of the pool.)Our next venture into naiveté happened when we booked a morning shuttle to a group boat tour to Ko Phi Phi (pronounced Ko Pee Pee), a rumored “heaven on earth” landscaped with white sand and turquoise water). Think Leo DeCaprio in The Beach. Literally. It was filmed there. We woke up at the crack of dawn, met up with the rest of the group and shuttled off at 8am only to drive 20 miles and sit at the dock waiting for our boat until they decided to tell us the trip had been cancelled due to weather. Of course it was. (Lesson #2: Never sign up for group tours. They’re for the people who think visiting San Francisco includes a stop at Fisherman’s Wharf.) This idle time led us to our (my) next hair-brained scheme – an elephant safari. A one hour ride atop a gentle giant? How can this be bad?
Christian was skeptical from the onset. I was seduced by the prospect of encountering a magnificent beast with sweetly flapping ears, long curly eyelashes, and a trunk that she’d extend out toward me for a nuzzle or perhaps a peanut. I’d hop onto her trunk and she’d sit me gently on her back and we’d set off for a jungle tour where we’d encounter some of her furry friends. When she finished showing me her happy home, we’d head back and I would feed her bananas and wash her with a long scrubby brush. We’d promise to write and she’d paint me a picture and we’d part ways, both enriched by the experience.
The fact that we were the only people who signed up for the tour should have been enough to encourage the cancelling of this plan but I still clung to my dream of frolicking with a wild animal so we went with it. We arrived at Nosey Parker, the elephant safari where all the posters reminded us that they “treated their animals like royalty”! Once our girl was herded toward us and we climbed the tower to deposit our extra 300+ combined pounds onto the strange rattan seat that was PVC piped to her back, reality came rushing at me. We were perched up there like the Beverly Hillbillies, my extra large bag of beach items squished in between us, our ignorance shining for all the world to see.
It became very clear, very quickly that this was not going to be the experience I dreamed up in my head. You could feel the poor gal struggling to carry us, my cargo, the guide, and his evil metal tipped instrument over rocky, uneven terrain. There was no path unless you count a large creek and extremely narrow pathways better suited for an animal with the same girth as a cat. Our elephant would let out the most heartbreaking moan and refuse to budge until coerced by the aforementioned wooden instrument. One heavy whack to her head by the guide and I lost it, tears streaming down my face, as I realized my own involvement in this awfulness. This was five minutes into the hour long tour. We carried on (we had no choice, really, we were in the middle of a jungle and atop a very tall animal), posed for uncomfortable pictures and continued to witness this mighty beast struggle and moan her way through our safari adventure. The one we paid money to experience. At least my outburst stopped the mahout from openly whacking her again.
At the end of the trek, we tried to communicate our sincerest
apologies to the sweet girl by stuffing as many pineapples as we could into her trunk and I vowed to never ever solicit wildlife for entertainment again. Christian, who was never all that psyched about the adventure in the first place and who like me, was visibly shaken by the awfulness of it all, perked right up. His travel-mate had just been cured of her incessant need to experience a new country by doing all the things that the internet tells her to do. You know, all the things the locals never, ever do. He’ll never again be subjected to a dolphin ride (but it’ll be just like Flipper!), a zoological night tour (you get to see monkeys IN THE DARK!), or a sign language course with an orangutan (although this I could be talked into). And this leads us to Lesson #3: Don’t be me on vacation.After a solemn car trip back to the hotel, we got gussied up for our big trek into Krabi Town. We took a shuttle with several other hotel guests and drove for about 45 minutes, stopping along the way at Ao Nang , a quaint little seaside community with loads of restaurants and shops. Under my tutelage, we skipped over that tourist trap to reach our final destination, Krabi Town. This was the spot to be. I read it on the internet and the hotel staff backed me up! (Lesson #4: Never listen to hotel staff. They’re paid to make you feel like you know what you’re doing.) We left the shuttle, took two steps, and realized we had a made a huge mistake. We were plopped right into an average, random neighborhood in Krabi. Imagine visiting San Francisco as a tourist and being dropped off in a strip mall in Daly City. No café’s, no photo opp’s, just an old music store where they were still making a go of it slinging tapes (you know, the rectangular thingies you’d stick into decks and music would play?), and a night market consisting of a bouncy house, an entire booth devoted to croc's, and a place to buy deep fried potatoes on a stick. As redeeming as a fried food item on a stick can be, it didn’t make up for the rain that started to fall. Another day bites the dust.
Our last day in Thailand, we were determined to seek redemption. While we waited out the rain in Krabi Town the night before, we met a fellow American who had been in Thailand for the last six months. Nevermind what he was probably doing there (alone, so far from home), he gave us a few tips and we headed back to Ao Nang, the picturesque town we had passed up the night before. From there we took a longboat to Railay Beach. As soon as we hit the shores of Railay, we knew we had found Thailand. The beauty of the shoreline was breathtaking. Aqua colored water, white sand, a plethora of shops and café’s that didn’t appear to be modeled after a set at Universal Studios. We enjoyed a simple but enjoyable day of hanging on the beach, swimming in the ocean, and relaxing at a seaside café. Turns out you don’t have to Frommer your way through a vacation to find the good stuff.
Thailand is a beautiful place. The ocean is warm. The sand is soft and white. The food is every bit as delicious as you'd imagine it would be. The people who live there are incredibly gracious and welcoming (not counting the few who need a lesson or two on the magnificence of the mighty elephant). Mishaps aside, we were treated to a view of a spectacular corner of the world and we returned home feeling grateful we had another tale to tell. Life is pretty sweet!
To check out the rest of our pictures from Thailand, head here.
