Thailand - Park I

It’s been a crazy last 3 months for us, a lot of travel both individual and together to end 2010. We decided we should take advantage of this opportunity to get out and see a little more of this region of the world while we were still here. So we made the decision to go to Thailand and spend our Christmas holiday on the beaches of Ko Samui (also can be spelled as Koh Samui, I’m not sure which is correct).

We packed on Friday night and made ready to leave out for Pudong airport early Saturday morning. Saturday I got up early, showered and made some coffee to wake up. Shortly after the coffee was made and just as Tammy got up to shower, the lights went out (along with everything else). Damnit! I assumed we blew a fuse with too many heaters running. I went around and turned off the outlets and went to look at the fuse box (in the dark, it wasn’t yet 7:00). Nothing was tripped but I still flipped each and every fuse to ensure that they were all reset. Nothing happened but I did the Chinese thing (oh-oh, I’m starting to become a local). I continued to flip each and every switch thinking perhaps there was another trick to this. After the 3rd time with nothing happening, I went out into the hallway and noted that the hall light wasn’t working. Other buildings around us had power but I could not see lights on in our building. Upon further review, our building had lost power for whatever reason and there was no hot water or heat. Now, this could be thought of as some kind of ominous warning sign (similar to the Amityville Horror, “Get out!”) but we tried not to look to far into it. Tammy had not showered and had a decision to make, shower and freeze or go without showering. She put her hair up and made the call, no shower (no surprises there, the water temp would’ve been freezing and that is a really bad start to the day, no shower was actually the better option). The power did come back on about 20 minutes before we left but there was no time left to shower so it was a test of deodorant day.

At the Pudong International Airport we checked in and looked for a currency exchange station to change our Chinese Yuan for the Thailand Baht (The Baht is about 6-to-1 versus the Yuan and about 30-to-1 versus the Dollar). Oddly enough, when we found the place, the agent indicated they had no Thai Baht. Really, a currency exchange center without currency from every country in the region?!?! That seemed strange since I had never encountered this problem before but what could we do? I shrugged and hoped that I could get the money changed out in Bangkok. We ate our PB&J sandwiches in the airport and waited on our flight to “paradise”. Lucky for me it seems the European couple sitting next to me on the plane also had a problem with their shower in the morning and the deodorant just wasn’t up to par. We’ve all heard how the Europeans don’t have the same hygiene standards as the US, well they were holding up their end of the deal (and not in a good way). It was a short 4 hour flight to Bangkok where we had a 3 hour layover to grab some food and get ready for the very short 1 hour flight. There is one interesting thing to note about flying on Chinese airlines. They have a standard Western toilet on the plane (well, duh) but you have to remember that many of the Chinese are accustomed to a squatty potty and that’s what they are comfortable with. They believe the Western toilet is dirty because everyone’s touched it with their butts so it’s not like the squatty which has fewer germs (nothing to sit on, nothing to spread the germs). Because of this, you will see shoe prints on the toilets in many restrooms (as the ladies, they see it all the time) and it was no different on the plane. There were shoe prints on the toilet seat. Consider that for a moment; the size of the restroom on a plane, the angle of the walls, etc and then think about how you would squat on this toilet. It can’t be comfortable and if you hit turbulence, it’s got to be much more difficult to keep your balance. Too much information….perhaps but it’s probably something you didn’t know (and didn’t want to know).

The Bangkok airport had interesting architecture where everything looked like big tunnels/tubes. It had some gardens around the terminals that you can see from the walkways. It’s really a nice airport and not like we expected. We had to process through customs, pick up our bags and then re-check them because we changed airlines. We also changed our cash here but we got robbed by the exchange place. I know the exchange rate was 6 Baht to 1 RMB but they gave me 4 Baht to 1 RMB and had a nice exchange fee just to add insult to injury. [SCOTT’S TRAVEL ADVICE: Before you leave the US use a place like Bank of America to exchange money just to have some pocket money for the country where you are traveling for food or whatever at the airport. Then wait and use the ATMs for your money, you pay a fee but you get a much better exchange rate.] Anyhow, there’s a good food court in the concourse with both Western and Asian options. The boys saw Burger King and their decision was made. Tammy and I noticed the Thai food area and immediately went over and got a Noodle Soup and Pad Thai. We both really like Thai food so we were looking forward to the trip for the food as much as the beach (well, almost as much). Then it was time to board the flight and head to the island. We used the ramp stairs to disembark from the plane and were picked up by a trolley car (you know, open car with seats facing each other that can seat about 20 people) to the “terminal”. The terminal was designed to look like a hut with no walls and just a roof. That’s exactly what it was; it was a wooden roof and no walls with a luggage carousel in the middle. Seriously, it was like stepping into an airplane terminal from Gilligan’s Island (it was a little surreal). Although it was raining, it was nice and warm outside (about 9:00 pm) about 80 degrees (when we left China it was in the 20’s). We had a driver meet us at the airport to take us to the Villa Tannamera, our home for the next week.

Now, I have to mention the “small world” thing again. At the Pudong Airport, we ran into the SSIS Elementary school principle and his family. It turns out that they were also headed to Thailand and they were on our flight to Bangkok. We never really asked for their final destination but when we got to our terminal for the flight to Ko Samui, there they were. They were on an earlier flight than us so we wished each other a good vacation and went on our separate ways. Well, when we arrive at the Villa who do we see sitting out on the deck? That’s right, the principal and family. This was really strange because there are a huge number of places to stay on the island and the chances that they would not only be at the same place but in the bungalow right across the pool, that has to be odds that Vegas would love.

At the Villa, we were met by Tan, the resident manager. Tan showed us to our bungalow and gave us a brief introduction to the place. A quick description, the kids shared a room with two beds and a shower that had partially open windows (meaning the window had two sections but was never fully closed so the local creatures could get in). The Master Bedroom was across the hall and had an open shower, meaning there was no ceiling over the shower area. The toilet was just under a ceiling but the shower, you looked up and you saw sky. You have to remember that this was an island getaway and wasn’t a place where you would have someone wiping your backside when you clapped your hands (Wipers!). It only had AC in the two bedrooms and no AC in the kitchenette/living room. There was a porch around the front and side that face the swimming pool. Then, just a 30 meter walk away was the beach which was the reason for the choice of this hotel. The rain had stopped by now so we just soaked it all in and started to get ready for “island time”. We knew there were some things we wanted to do but mostly we wanted to relax and isn’t that the goal of every vacation.

Another pleasant surprise was that when we turned on the TV (it was the kids, really) and we got Fox News. Woo-Hoo, Fox News!!! We traveled all the way to Thailand to see Fox News…Sheperd Smith, Bill O’Reilly, Mike Huckabee, Glenn Beck, the morning show, etc. In China, we get CNN and BBC which may give us news but it’s not the same. I know there are those that believe that Fox is biased but from the perspective of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, it’s straight and everything else is crooked. This is the same for the “news outlets” that had the monopoly for years. We REALLY missed Fox News and we enjoyed the chance to watch it again even if only for a short time.

The next morning, we got up and dressed in our shorts and sandals and took the long 20 step walk to breakfast. The Villa offered a basic breakfast (coffee, juice, some cereal options, milk or yogurt and toast or croissant) that turned out to be a pleasant surprise. They offered eggs if you wanted them for extra cost so Jacob took full advantage and had an omelet every day (along with the full complement of the other options; cereal, milk, apple juice and toast, he was killing me with the extra $3 every day on our bill). Tan spoke with us about what we could do and how to get things done. Tan turned out to be the perfect host for us, we could tell him every morning what we wanted to do and he would make the arrangements (I am sure this would be similar to other places on the island) for us. If we wanted a car and driver, he would make the arrangements. If we need laundry done, he would have it done. It was all about the service he provided to us that made the trip work. He would talk to us about our customs and the Thai customs. We usually spent 15-20 minutes just talking to him every morning after we ate breakfast. He is a nice man and worked very hard to make us feel welcome.

The first day we decided to do the elephant trek where we got to ride on an elephant on a jungle trek and see one of the waterfalls on the island. We arranged for the car to get us and when it did, it was a little surprise for us. It was a pickup truck with bench seats in the back that were covered with a tarp (much like traveling in the back of a pickup in the Army). We could see out the sides and watch the scenery as we drove around to get to the elephant trek. Some observations on the ride;
· Motorcycles are everywhere in Thailand, not electric scooters, motorcycles of all shapes and sizes. It was like the e-bikes in China, families were riding on the motorcycles, individuals, etc.
· Gas was sold on the side of the road in bottles for the motorcycles. It looked like shelves of whiskey bottles but it was actually gas.
· They drive on the wrong side of the road in Thailand
· There were sandbags along many of the road and signs noting flooding around the island. In November they had 15 straight days of rain and there were huge floods all over the island which had a very negative impact on the locals.
· There were small, street-side eateries everywhere. Little stalls, some with a few tables and others with no tables. These, along with Thai massage shops were everywhere on the route. We also saw a 7-11 at virtually every other intersection, these were everywhere like a Waffle House in the southern US.

We arrived at the elephant trek without much incident. We were late arriving but it didn’t really seem to matter, we were on island time. We could see many elephants milling about with their keepers and others with people aboard heading out on their trek. There were also 4x4 trucks with seats on top of the truck and bench seats on back. We didn’t know what those were for but we found out later. We walked over to the platform to get ready to climb aboard the elephants. They could come up and you would grab the rope to help you to swing over to your seat and then tie the strap to keep you “locked in”. Jacob and I climbed aboard our elephant and headed out in front of Warren and Tammy. Our “driver” had purple feet and I wasn’t really sure why until later but it was to identify him and his elephant. His elephant had a purple spot on his head so you knew which animal went to which driver by the colors (color matching, a novel concept). The driver was a young guy and he guided the elephant using his feet on the ears of the elephant. A little tap on the lower right ear turned the elephant to the right. He also used voice commands to get the elephant to do what he wanted (as much as you can get something that large to do what you want, it was quite obvious to me that if the elephant decided to do what it wanted, that’s what we all were going to do). It was a bumpy, herky-jerky ride but we set off and walked around the area. You thought you would have whiplash at first but once you became accustomed to the movement, it wasn’t all that bad. Along the way we passed cages of monkeys that the driver used a stick to get them to turn and face our direction. There were also some deer, birds and alligators that we passed by. We went on a trek through the “jungle” and walked alongside a small stream and then passed by a small traditional village with the slightly raised house and the straw roofs. You could see the mixture of the trees, the coconut palms mixed in with the standard trees, you could see where one type of tree stopped and the others began. It was very interesting to see the different types of trees. Just after the village the elephants made the decision it was snack time. We had purchased some bananas to feed the elephants but it wasn’t enough. Their trunk would come back and you would give them one green banana and they would grab it and eat it and then reach back for more. Since we had very few bananas, they started to forage a little for some extra food. The drivers got off the elephants and allowed us to sit up on the neck of these animals as opposed to being perched on a chair on the back of the elephants. This is when we got the real feel of the animal. They had tough leather skin and just long, coarse hairs on the heads of these beasts. I had a hard time keeping a good balance while sitting in this position but it was kind of fun, Warren did the same on his elephant. The elephant was being fed by the driver as we were perched on it’s head. I was afraid to touch the ears so I would not turn the animal the wrong way. I was also very conscious that this animal was in control and I didn’t want an angry elephant (I’ve watched Dumbo, I know what happens to an angry elephant). We got to ride on the neck of the elephant for about 10-15 minutes and then it was back to the “cushy” seat in back. It was an interesting ride and although it was 60 minutes, it didn’t seem that long. We were back to the “hangar” to get off of the elephant.

We asked about the waterfall since we didn’t see it on the trek. They indicated that we had to either walk (30 minutes) or ride to the waterfall on the 4x4 trucks. We decided on the ride (which turned out to be the absolute right decision). Warren and I sat on top of the cab of the truck as we pulled out and started along the muddy track towards the waterfall. We crossed the stream and then headed along the very uneven and washed out road to the waterfall. It took about 10 minutes and it would’ve taken a lot longer than 30 minutes to walk this path. It was treacherous and without the 4 wheel drive, we would never have made it. There were several areas where the wheels were slipping as we headed up and down the “road”. II wasn’t sure which was the more bumpy ride; the elephant or the truck. When we arrived, we were told we had 20 minutes so we walked out to the waterfall and took photos quickly. It was an interesting area and really required more time to explore the area but with the time limit we saw what we could and got ready to leave (if the truck was leaving, we were going to be on it). Both of the kids took the cab seats for the ride back down the mountain to the starting point. Once we arrived, they asked us to sit in one of the huts while we waited for the driver to take us back to the Villa.

Once we got back, it was relax and hop in the pool for a little bit. We had decided to try a restaurant by the hotel for dinner. Tammy and I ate the Thai cuisine while Jacob and Warren went more Italian (pizza and carbonara). It was good food and we were able to sit outside while we ate and just people watch. Although the airport was very close and we knew when every plane was arriving or departing, it was very relaxing. After dinner, we just went back and did nothing at the Villa except sit on the deck and watch the planes come and go for the rest of the night. It may sound very irritating that we were so close to the airport that the planes would interrupt your day for those 30 seconds while they came in to land or after they took off but it didn’t really bother us much. The last plane came in about 10:00pm and the first plane came in about 6:30am which became our wakeup call. It actually became a running joke; I mean we were on the beach, so we didn’t let it bother us much (why stress over something we could not control). We were on island time, which became the motto for the trip.