koh tao... part II

ok, i'll be honest, after looking back at my time on koh tao i realize that it wasn't as all sunshine and rainbows.  in fact, it was more like lightning and thunder, and lots of laughing, mainly at myself.  first let me start off by saying i did have an amazing experience for the ten days i was on that godforsaken island; it was a completely different adventure that i wouldn't trade for the world.  but i should have known what i was getting myself into from the boat ride over...

i was pretty stoked on the bus ride from bangkok down to chumphon where i was to catch a boat to the island of koh tao located on the eastern territory of southern thailand. it was raining pretty harsh once i arrived at the docks at 5:30am.  about 60 cramped, tired travelers waited in the waiting area for the next two hours while watching harry potter 5.  yes, harry potter 5, the worst one of the seven movies.  i figured it coulda been worse.  but i didn't.  i should have.

the boat ride was practically tragic.  the ride was supposed to be an hour and a half but took three with the boat flowing side to side with around 10ft waves.  and of the 60ish passengers, i kid you not, i'd say at LEAST 20 of them were puking, with another 20 blanch as a cloud running from their seats to the upper deck outside.  all you could here was blaghk, oooghk, a@kla**phh, as;dl";a>[`1jk.  it was sick and wrong and totally frickin disgusting, but it was also pretty comical with everyone yaking in unison and victims rushing here and there.  luckily, i was fine tho, as my super powers of meditation and zen mastery got me thru the squalls.

uninjured, i got off the boat and got in the back of a pick-up truck with converted seats along the edges of the bed.  i arrived at my hotel/resort and started my scuba lessons.  this part of the trip was awesome as learning about scuba diving is really fascinating and really enjoyable mainly because i've never experienced anything like it.  i've been snorkeling before and i kinda thought they'd be similar.

we were supposed to start actual diving in the gulf of thailand on the second day of class but thanks to the "worst weather the gulf has experienced in over ten years" we did some techniques in the resort's pool instead.  meh, i'd make the best of it as we waited for the weather to better.  so of course i thought "muay thai!"  muay thai training was really one of the main reasons i wanted to go to the southern islands.  i had this grand idea of training for a couple of months and living on a beach and riding my rented motorcycle to the gym everyday and life would be great and i would be happy and i would be so awesome.  that didn't work out.  at all.

i rode into the buckets of rain thinking that i was super cool for being so determined to take my first class in real muay thai.  "maybe the instructor would see my motivation," i thought.  maybe he would realize that i rode two miles in the rain and thru flooded streets with water up to my knees to get to class.  maybe he would stand me in front of the class and give a speech of how dedicated and awesome i was, and tell all of his students that i was a shining example of what muay thai fighters should aspire to be.  "you're the son i never had," he'd prolly say to me after his hour long speech.  even tho i wouldn't really know how to respond i'd say the first thing that comes to my mind, "the wise man is the man who knows what he doesn't know."  ...wait, what??  did i just spew one of socrates' most cliched quotes of all time?  oh well, he wouldn't understand me with his broken english anyways, but i'd be able to see the admiration in his eyes.

fuck no.  it was the exact opposite.  i showed up for class, with around 20 other students, half of them foreigners, gassed out in the first hour, and when i took my hand wraps off i had some kind of skin rash all along my arms.  i payed 300 baht for the class, rode off back into the torrential downpour, stopped at like four pharmacies to find a proper medication for the skin hives/welts/rash, and then back to a freezing cold shower in my hotel room where i would die poor and lonely.

at least the medication worked.

the next day: "no scuba diving due to weather."  i had the whole day to myself again.  what should i do...  i ruled out muay thai/skin disease, so i decided it was a good idea to go for a swim even if it was raining worse than the day before.  the last time i was in thailand with jeremy madison, i remember one of the very best times we had was swimming in the gulf while it was raining.  no one was on the beach and we played this game where we would throw coconuts at each other and whoever moved first would lose.  even tho i had no one to throw coconuts at i'm sure i could still have a good time.  "this is going to be awesome," i thought.  well, i was wrong.

i got to the only beach that was accessible by road and made my way to the water.  this particular beach was particularly dirty as it had trash in the water and longboats everywhere.  buuut, there was no one on it.  cool.  so i swam around for awhile enjoying the freedom and open waters.  thinking this was a good experience i headed back in.  i don't know, maybe around ten feet from the shore, for some reason, i noticed taking a really heavy step into the water.  as my foot landed, it came down on a coral.  a sharp coral.  the type of sharp coral that cuts your frickin foot open an inch long and half an inch deep.  well, well, well, mother nature, if you're trying to kill me you're on your way.  it's not like it was devastatingly painful but putting pressure on it was annoying as all hell and i couldn't walk without noticing it.  if i at least had the choice of doing muay thai before, the option was out of the question now.  since that incident eight days ago it has healed quite a bit, but it's still there.

it was a lot worse

after waking up the next morning, the time for scuba diving finally came!  i was excited.  after eight days of getting beat up on, i was gonna scuba dive in the gulf!!  long story short, it was great but not without injury.  the fins i wore on the first day were way too small so the top of my heals got really cut up from the constant friction of kicking.  the cuts weren't too bad after the two dives on the first day but the next day of scuba-ing i obviously had to wear fins again.  sooo, the second day of wearing them made the cuts twice as bad and for the past four days my heals have been covered in puss, then light scaring, then the scars would reopen from walking and get all pussed-over again.  they've come to the point of almost being unnoticeable, almost.  they were only a little more painful than the cut on the bottom of my foot, but with the powers of the coral incident and fin fiasco combined they have made walking a damn nightmare.  so i've been limping around for the past week looking like another tourist who can't handle thailand.

seeing how much i've written so far i realize there probably aren't many people still reading this, so i'll sum up the rest of the trip right here: the thai navy came to the island and 'rescued' people to their battleship along with helicopters picking folks up on soccer fields and transporting them to the ship; my computer wouldn't start at one point and i couldn't have it fixed until i got to bangkok (the service guy told me an ant was stuck in the fan); spent waaay too much money in the ten days i was on koh tao; and ate the worst food i've had since i left the states.  whaaah, whaaah, i know.  but in all honesty, i was laughing the whole time.  it was just too damn funny that one incident kept appearing after another, and it all happened on this godforsaken island!  it was quite a ride and looking back i'm really glad to have lived it, and i wouldn't trade it for any other experience.

buuut i wouldn't do it again.  one and done :)

happy traveling everyone!

p.s. i forgot to add that the right side of my bottom retainer broke off in my mouth, too.