Travel Diaries: Thailand pt.4

I’ve made a lifetime of memories in the last three days. Genuinely, I’m struggling to recall a funner, funnier, more life-changing 72 hours. It’s difficult to articulate the experience - how am I supposed to put three days of solid laughter into words? We’ve made some friends for life, and how I can feel real love for these people after only knowing them for a matter of hours is beyond me. They haven’t even been introduced into the diary yet!

At the same time though, it’s difficult to try and negate guilt. Whilst I’m out here having the time of my life, my close family are trying to navigate through some of the most turbulent events life can throw at someone. It feels wrong to be having so much fun when I know others aren’t, and the inevitability that such awful events would happen whilst I was away from home is beyond frustrating. The distance makes me feel so detached and, in a strange way, subsequently unaffected by what’s happening at home… which, in turn, makes me feel even worse. One can leave everything behind physically, but not emotionally. However, I know nobody would want me to feel guilty, and I like to think the diary can pose as a form of distraction with the antics I’m getting up to over here.

***

After the trip to the Tweechol Botanical Gardens, we returned to our hostel and headed up to the rooftop to watch the sunset, sink some Changs, and make the most of our £7 playing cards. We invited a couple of glum-looking chaps to play with us, they were Max and Stelios, from England and Holland, respectively. Max was a nice lad, a couple of years younger than me but just as lustful for travel, particularly to war zones. Stelios was a handsome Dutchman (there’s no escaping them) who spoke five languages and was completing a masters degree in Middle Eastern politics. Absolute bingo, right up my street. I told him I’d done my dissertation at Uni on the morality of photography in conflict zones, focussing on the Afghanistan War. He seemed interested, but didn’t ask to read it. It would probably be too much for him anyway - perhaps he’d find the travel diary an easier read.

There was a pair of Australian girls on the table next to us, also sinking Changs, and skilled in the art of opening beer bottles with lighters. We thought we’d better recruit them considering we didn’t have a bottle opener, and they soon joined us at our table. They were Helena and Tanya (pronounced Hel-ey-na and… Tanya), friends for over twenty years in Brisbane, and both of German descent. We taught everyone the game “Fingers”, reintroduced to us by Max and Hugo back in Goa. Each player places a finger on an inanimate object, usually an ashtray, and takes it in turns to count up to three. On three, players can keep their fingers on or quickly remove them, as the counter shouts out a number - a guess as to how many fingers remain on the ashtray. If the counter gets it right, they then need to look at the group and say, “thank you for a lovely game of fingers”, with a completely straight face. No smiling, no celebrating, no high-fiving, nothing. If they break character, they put their finger back on the ashtray and stay in the game. It’s also important to note that there’s nothing stopping the rest of the group from trying to make the other person laugh.

It’s a really fun game, and a great way to get people in a good mood and break the ice. Helena was slow on the uptake, even now after we’ve played it a thousand times. She lags and glitches, always a couple of seconds behind. We then played some card games and laughed the night away, before exchanging contact details and going to bed ready for our cooking class the next day.

The following morning I nipped for an omelette and was served raw egg, I didn’t eat it, but didn’t mind too much as I wanted to save some room for the dishes we’d be making with Daddy Kitchen in the afternoon. Just before we got picked up, I nipped to the barbers for a quick shape-up and a beard trim. We got into the back of a pick up truck to go to the cooking class, and in there were two lads from Hamburg, Jannik and Jonas. I instantly clicked with them, as I often do with Germans, due to their intense love for football. We picked up a few more people along the way, a Canadian couple, who turned out to be insufferable, and a group of girls from Doncaster, one of whom was heartbroken over a 22-year-old Irish boy called Keith. We all told her to get a grip, as nobody should be heartbroken over a lad named Keith.

We stopped off at a market, whereby our teacher/instructor introduced herself. She was called Snow White (presumably not her real name) and had an ugly cannabis tattoo on her left calf. She showed us what kind of ingredients we’d be working with; lemongrass, coriander, tofu, ginger, chillis… all staples of Thai cuisine. We were then shoved back into the pick up truck and taken to the cooking school. Snow White handed us a “menu”, and asked us to select what we’d like to make. We could choose one soup, one noodle dish, and one curry, and we would then all make mango sticky rice for desert. Rhonda and Marcus, the Canadian couple, were having a hard time choosing what to make. Rhonda was vegetarian but didn’t eat egg, and was noticeably disappointed at the lack of vegan options. I use the term noticeably because she spoke to Snow White like shit, doing her best impression of one of the seven dwarfs, pointedly Grumpy. Snow White told her she could take the prawns out of the prawn soup and she reluctantly accepted.

After selecting our chosen meals, we were invited to stand at a workstation and put on an apron, ready to prep our ingredients. On the station was a round chopping board and a meat cleaver. I used to work as a chef, if I dare use that term, and in my experience a meat cleaver was generally used for slashing through thick pieces of meat. But, Snow White instructed us to dice up some lemongrass, which proved tedious and difficult given the chopping board was only as big as a saucer. After chopping through herbs that definitely didn’t need to be diced with an axe, we went over to the stoves and started cooking. I opted for the local hot and sour chicken soup, and started by crumbling a chicken stock cube into some boiling water. I threw the rest of my ingredients in; white onion, chilli, ginger, oyster sauce, lime leaves - along with some pre-diced chicken pieces, which poached almost instantaneously as they hit the water. The flavours were great, and I took a lot of enjoyment out of making it all myself, even though the fact I was paying to make my own meal didn’t really sit right with me. Everyone was enjoying it, even Keith’s biggest fan was beginning to loosen up, but Rhonda wasn’t being very happy or bashful. She was slagging everything off for the fun of it, refusing to take part in certain tasks, and questioning everything Snow White told us to do. Chicken phaneang curry and a pad Thai followed next, both beautifully authentic dishes, bursting with explosive flavour. We finished off with the mango sticky rice and left gluttonous and full.

I exchanged contact details with Jannik, after briefly discussing the possibility of going to the night bazaar for a drink later that evening. It was the German guys’ first full day in Chiang Mai, and our last, before our four-hour bus journey through the intensely windy mountain roads leading up to Pai. The bus was due to depart at 6am, and we were thus reluctant to meet Jannik and Jonas for a beer. I dropped them a message to let them know we wouldn’t be attending, but stressed that if we have any crossover time in Pai, we would meet up.

The sun began to set over Chiang Mai, which was our signal to venture up to the rooftop. Much like the previous day, we found Helena and Tanya up there. We had a much more civilised evening than the one before, chatting for hours with a lot less beer. Tanya had some great stories, born to a South African mother and German father, she had lived on an island in Cambodia for a short time and spent a year or two Berlin. She spoke decent German, a fascinating language, and told us about a word, “beziehungsweise”, which was essentially a sentence filler but didn’t really have an English translation. Helena opened up to us and shared her reasons for travelling, and explained why it was so important to her. Let me just say, that I’ve never met anyone so deserving to have a happy and prosperous life - she’s a true warrior, and has had Tanya by her side as an absolute rock through everything. They’re a dream pair and I’m honoured to have met them. They were travelling to Pai the day after us, and we made a group chat to arrange to meet up once we were all settled in.

The following morning we were up before sunrise for our journey to the hippie town of Pai. The trip is infamous, prone to giving even the most seasoned travellers motion sickness - so much so, that it even recommends taking vomit prevention medicine on the bus ticket. We got off to a bad start, as the company had booked thirteen people on a twelve seater van. Eden had pulled the short straw and had been allocated to the non-existent seat, meaning she couldn’t get on the same van as us. Even Kai “Can I Speak to the Manager” Austerfield and Eden “I Want a Full Refund” Kaye-Priestley struggled to mediate the situation, despite repeatedly saying to the driver “this is ridiculous”. There’s no such thing as customer service when you’re in the arse-end of Thailand and paying £4 for a bus ticket. I mean, it’s fair enough, you get what you pay for.

We popped some anti-vomit tablets and strapped ourselves in, keeping in touch with Eden throughout the journey. To our dismay, there were three spare seats on Eden’s bus, so we could have actually stuck together. But, the drive wasn’t that bad. It was impossible to sleep, our bodies and heads rocking from left to right, doing “ze headvobble” as we went around each sharp curve. This must be where Paul McCartney got his inspiration for “The Long and Winding Road”. I’d read somewhere that travel sickness comes from your body not moving the same way as your eyes (terrible description, just Google it), so I thought it best to just look forward and focus on the road as if I was driving. I witnessed some of the most beautiful scenery I’d seen so far, it really felt like driving through a painting. Travelling up and above the clouds, 500m above sea level, a glance out of the window can make one feel like they’re in a mid-2000s computer home screen.

We arrived in Pai at around 10am, we jumped off the bus, and the Villa shirt I was wearing provoked a conversation with a fellow fan. We’d lost 1-0 to Monaco in the Champions League just some ten hours earlier, and that was the main topic of conversation. Eden’s bus pulled up shortly after and we were reunited. We dropped our bags at the Revolution Riverside Hostel and set out for some breakfast to kill time before we could check in. After we’d eaten, myself and Mia decided to go for a short walk and explore the town. Eden opted to stay at the hostel; sunbathing, because her toe hadn’t yet grown back, and, in an event that sent shockwaves through us all, was beginning to get a new blister.

We returned a couple of hours later after seeing what Pai had to offer. It was a charming little place, the atmosphere unrivalled by anywhere else we’d been so far. I sat by the river and observed what I assume was a man and his two young children. With trousers rolled up to their knees, they paddled on the other side of the river with an old tatty fishing net. I admired them from a distance, and thought about how contrasting our lives are. They live so simply, yet so happily. Thai people are the most accommodating and jubilant people I’ve ever come across. They don’t share the same worries and concerns as us, there is no such thing as materialism, and they live for each day. I felt like the rowdy Western tourists were disturbing the peace, but Pai really thrives on tourism, and the tour companies sell themselves on supporting local communities.

We cracked open some Changs after checking in and sat in the outdoor common area. The digs are described as a “party-hostel”, but we were surprised to discover how deserted the bar area was. We were the only ones drinking, our moods deteriorating with each sip of beer. We wanted to meet people, but didn’t have the energy to put ourselves out there. Nobody seemed worthy of our company anyway, and the fact we were searching for it meant that it was never going to come. After a brief second wind at around 7pm due to some free food being dished out, we thought it best to go to a couple of bars to try and meet some new people that way. I nipped to the room to get changed, and was frightened half to death by Brad, a 29-year-old lad from Windsor with Antiguan heritage. He was the latest addition to our dorm room, joining us and four Swedish girls, and was absolutely knackered after the journey from Chiang Mai to Pai, which he had done on his moped single-handedly. We got on straight away, and I told him he was coming out with us, whether he liked it or not.

We dragged him out to Pai Pub and introduced him to the game Fingers. He loved it, and in turn, introduced us to “the honk”, which is a type of laughter that takes over every inch of his body, reminiscent of a blast of the horn from a North Sea oil tanker. We drank, played pool, and laughed at Brad’s flawless impersonation of a Creole/Patois/Caribbean accent. We called it a night around 1am, oiled up and ready for bed. Myself, the girls, and Brad, were all brushing our teethes (plural) when one of the Swedish girls began screaming frantically. The poor girl must suffer from night terrors, and her friends were no stranger to it, as they jumped down from their bunks and into bed with her to calm her down. She was screaming “Elsa!” with genuine fear, presumably a relative of hers, or perhaps she’s just a big Frozen fan. We brushed in unison whilst the girl threw around her limbs frantically whilst performing the most bloodcurdling scream I’ve ever heard. She calmed down eventually, and we all went to sleep.

The following morning I woke up to a message from Jannik, who said he and Jonas had changed their plans around and we’re coming to Pai that day. We arranged to meet the following day for “tipsy tubing”, whereby you float down the Pai river in rubber rings whilst drinking. We nipped for breakfast with Brad and got to know him a little bit better. He’d travelled Laos and Vietnam already in the past, and had come over to have a crack at Thailand solo. After breakfast, I jumped on the back of his moped and we went to go visit the White Buddha statue whilst the girls sunbathed. It was great spending time with him, we had such a similar sense of humour and there was no discomfort whatsoever. A few hours later, the Aussie girls arrived, and we planned to go watch the sunset at Pai Canyon.

It was hardly a hidden gem, but nevertheless a beautiful spot. The mise-en-scene made me feel like I was in New Mexico or Nevada. The six of us didn’t stop laughing at hilariously childish jokes, most definitely disturbing the tranquility of the setting for everyone else. After a minivan ride back to the hostel in the flashiest vehicle in Pai, soundtracked by laughter, we ventured out and went to a few bars. The first we went to was bizarrely playing the 1961 classic “Runaway” by Del Shannon, it instantly reminded me of my good friend Sean, and I had to drop him a message to let him know. We were sat outside a bar playing fingers, and whilst Helena was buffering at her turn, Jannik and Jonas appeared out of nowhere! They sat down and we introduced them to Helena, Tanya, and Brad, and had the biggest bloody game of Fingers ever, whilst laughing as we tried to get Jannik and Jonas to define “beziehungsweise”.

We woke up sore-headed the next morning and got mentally and physically prepared for “Tipsy Tubing”. Mia and Eden had definitely done their research, and couldn’t contain their excitement for the event, but I didn’t really know what to expect. We were pre-drinking in the hostel bar for an hour before our pick up at noon. With the whole gang in attendance, in addition to the 250 other people who were also partaking in the event, we sank some Soju, a Korean fruity rice wine, drank neat at around 15% ABV. I felt like I’d been cast on Love Island by mistake - drogues of 18-30 year olds with next to nothing on, all flaunting their chiselled physiques. I felt a bit self conscious, but the rice wine helped calm my nerves. Besides, I can’t blame them, if I had a six-pack I probably wouldn’t own any t-shirts either.

We were packed into the back of a pick up truck like cattle and set course for the river. With nothing to hold on to, every time the driver turned a corner or brake checked the pick up truck behind him, we would fall into each other like bowling pins. I’ve had safer journeys, but we got there in one piece. We got to the riverside to find a wooden hut which was keeping lots of Chang and Soju ice cold for us. Just next to this shack was a slightly taller one, resembling a wooden fort of sorts, housing a Thai DJ playing some R&B classics.

After half an hour at the riverside, we were instructed to sit in the rings and get ready to set sail. The eight of us grabbed each others limbs to try and stick together, but got separated more or less straight away. The current was stronger than it looked, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t a bit worried at some points. The more Soju I drank, however, the less worried I got. Immoderate indulgence and debauchery followed, myself probably being the most pissed out of everyone, with plenty of photo and video footage to prove it. We stopped off at a riverside bar to top up our drinks and dance around like fools to another DJ spinning some bangers. The rest of the tubing, in all honesty, is a bit of a blur. Even if it wasn’t a blur, it’s really difficult to put into words *how fun* it actually was. We had such a great dynamic, and I felt like I’d known these people for years. It was one of those where you just had to be there.

Nanna, please note: I don’t encourage the excessive consumption of alcohol, it’s not big and it’s not clever. I’m just being honest.

We were thrown back into the cattle trailer and started making our way back towards the centre of Pai. When I returned to the van, I noticed that one of my sandals was missing, so I spent the majority of the evening boasting just the one piece of footwear. Now I was the sniper’s nightmare.

The troops were beginning to drop off like flies. Tanya and Helena disappeared, Brad went to bed, and Jonas was in a different trailer so we hadn’t seen him for hours. We continued to laugh about “bezhiungsweise” and I jokingly mentioned I might get it tattoo’d. Jannik then offered me €50 to get it done. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I woke up the next morning with a German word on my ankle that I can’t spell, pronounce, nor even define.

Mia and Jannik were in attendance throughout the entirety of the artistic procedure, but Eden had gone to “get some water”. Almost forty-five minutes later she had still not returned, and had instead been having a drink with Michael, a stubby little bald man from the North East who was a teacher in China. Mia was naturally worried sick, I was too but had to keep my cool because I had a man with a needle writing “beziehungsweise” on my leg. I couldn’t hear myself think over Jannik laughing, on FaceTime to his parents presumably saying “look at what this stupid English idiot is doing” in German.

Eden returned, without water, just as the artist was finishing the second S (not a reference to the SS) and informed us that she’d arranged to have breakfast with Michael tomorrow at 10am. It was time for bed…