Travel Diaries: Thailand pt.3
Mia and I went back to the night bazaar, for the third evening in a row, and eagerly anticipated Eden’s arrival. She was due to attend a music festival in Phuket, South Thailand, but in a dramatic turn of events, sold her ticket at the last minute and was mid-flight coming to meet us. Whilst running from stall to stall, looting their contents, we bumped into Shane and Alex, the two Canadian blokes from the day before. Shane had a scary resemblance to Woody Harrelson, if the actor swung the other way and wore only tank tops.
We informed them of our big news, and they were the first to congratulate us on our engagement in person. We spent an hour or so mimicking their accents in our campest voices, and agreed to have a drink with them and play pool. Shane said I reminded him of Niall Wilson, the Olympic gymnast from Leeds. It must’ve been my accent, because I don’t look anything like him, especially not from the neck down, but it was a welcome comparison as it made a change from the Ron Weasley comments. The area surrounding the night bazaar was packed with bars and restaurants lining the streets. We found ourselves in a huge space with as many pool tables as normal tables, each few square metres having its own pop-up bar. We claimed a pool table outside the Welcome Bar, run by an elderly Thai lady who had lived most of her life in Seattle. She was hard-working and gregarious, and evidently a character within the Chiang Mai bar scene. She reminded me of a well-known, gritty British barmaid or landlady - Thailand’s Peggy Mitchell.
Myself, Mia, Shane and Alex were starting to loosen up a bit, and the blokes got camper and camper as the night went on. They were drinking “gay water”, a beverage they had named themselves. When we asked them what it was, they said “it’s just vodka with soda water and lime juice”, to which I obviously replied “well what makes it gay then?” They responded by challenging me to name a gay man that doesn’t drink it. I offered Dale Winton, but they didn’t know who he was, and I don’t think they actually wanted me to name any gay men anyway. My next guess was going to be Paul O’Grady, but I’ll save him for the next time I find myself in this situation.
Eden rocked up as we were sinking our fourth gay water, and soon followed suit. Me and Mia made it all about us, as we often do, and claimed the evening to be our engagement celebrations. We drank into the early hours, myself being the first to call it a night, and I was woke up to Mia braying on our bedroom door at the Prince Hotel, as I’d locked her out.
The next day we returned to the Sukhothai restaurant where I’d had the life-changing beef noodles, this time with Shane and Alex. I was in two minds whether to try and emulate the experience I’d had the previous day, but I didn’t want to overdo it and tarnish the fond memories I had, so opted for the pork soup instead. I won’t go into too much detail, but it was pork three ways on a bed of noodles in a broth, it was nice, but I found it rude that it was on the same menu, or even the same street as the beef.
Back at the hotel we made friends with a black and white cat, X̂wn (pronounced wan), meaning fat in English. The cat wasn’t fat so it didn’t really make sense, but she would come up in the lift with us, follow us to our room, and even get on our bed!
That evening we’d planned to go to a Drag Show with Shane and Alex. It really isn’t my thing, but I went in with an open mind and came out flabbergasted. It was amazing - the outfits, the props, the performances, the fact that these Thai blokes were sexier than half of the women I’d seen on the whole trip so far… I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and refused to believe they were born with the same genitalia as myself. I want this diary to be as honest as possible, but my Nanna is reading, so I’m a bit reluctant to go into more detail. Red-blooded but confused, we left after the first round of acts, and went back to the Welcome Bar to see Peggy.
I’d had enough of the gay water, so was sinking bottles of Chang when I got a message from my good friend Will, asking for my prediction for the upcoming Villa match. I’d got mixed up with my days and time zones, and thought the game was in 24 hours, not ten minutes. The next bar along had a TV and was showing the snooker, so I asked them to switch it off and put the Villa on. They kindly obliged, and the whole bar stopped what they were doing and sat crowded around me, eyes fixed on the screen. We didn’t have many chances in the first half, but every time the ball went anywhere near the Arsenal box, the Thai people, in unison, would shout “oooohhhhhh”. They were getting into it more than me.
They’d switched off everything but the television, ready for closure. They were obviously keeping it on for me, as much as they were enjoying it. At the half time whistle, 1-0 down, I said my goodbyes to the Chiang Mai Aston Villa fan club and let them go to bed. We attempted to source some booze to take back to the hotel, but couldn’t find any and soon found ourselves bidding Shane and Alex a good night. I’d tuned in to the audio commentary for the second half of the match, and went to sleep a happy chap.
The next morning we were woken up by a frantic and distressed Eden. She had been walking on the tiles around the pool, when her foot slipped into a grate and sliced open her big toe. She hobbled and waddled into our room, hyperventilating, repeatedly saying “I can’t look at it… I’m going to be sick”. Forethoughts raced through my head as I tried to consider what sort of implications this was going to have. Would we need to go to hospital? Is she going to have to have it amputated? How much would that even cost? Will she hobble around for ever? She’d be a sniper’s nightmare. Maybe she’s just grazed it. Are we still going to be able to do everything we want to do? Eden was no stranger to holiday injuries, and Mia kept pretty calm, but I didn’t really know what was going on so tried to stay out of it.
We gave Shane a quick call, he was a veterinary surgeon back on Vancouver Island, and was the closest thing we had to a doctor. He’s had experience dealing with everything from tigers to mice, so surely a bird from Bramley would be a walk in the park for him. The damsel in distress and her nine-and-a-half toes limped up to Shane and Alex’s room and underwent a makeshift surgery. Our Canadian friend kindly cleaned her foot with a “q-tip” and wrapped her toe up with a couple of “band-aids”. He recommended she doesn’t get her foot wet or walk on it too much, which really put a spanner in the works in terms of activities.
Given we were a bit stuck and had nothing better to do, we took the opportunity to plan our onward travel. Mia was in charge of accommodation, Eden was the activities manager, and I was the transport executive. We booked our journey to Pai, a small town ninety miles north of our current location, known for its hippie scene and relaxed atmosphere. From there we would return to Chiang Mai, go on to Chiang Rai, before getting a two-day slow boat down the Mekong River into Laos.
With our bags packed and toes bandaged, we bode a fond farewell to Bill and the rest of the Prince Hotel, as we were changing hotels to save some cash. We had two days left in Chiang Mai, and checked into the 248 Street Hostel, which we would call home for the next couple of nights. It was a fairly uneventful evening, followed by a terrible night’s sleep due to what sounded like gunshots through the night. I thought I had a terrible dream whereby a demon was stood at the side of my bed shaking me, but when we all got up the next morning, Mia informed me she had to get up through the night and shake me to stop me from snoring.
The next day we took a trip to the Tweechol Botanical Garden, a beautiful piece of agriculture which is dreamy and well-cared for. We took a beach blanket with us, laid it down on the grass, and basked in the sun to the sound of Kings of Leon and Coldplay (their early stuff, anything after 2008 is absolute garbage). It reminded me of being a kid in Spain. I felt child-like, not just because of the music, but also in the sense that I had felt like I no responsibilities, no concerns. I lay there in a vegetative state with eyes closed. As Alfred Hitchcock defined it, “happiness is a clear horizon… nothing to worry about”. I was happy.