Minced Pies for Eyes

This morning I had two tickets to Bangkok.  This is a sign of poor planning, but for once in my life I don’t really care.  For the past five days, I’ve been marooned on Koh Tao, the furthest island you can get out to by regular passenger ferry off the east coast of Thailand.  

Here are the feelings about traveling that I’ve gathered up on this trip.  It’s not about the places you go; it’s about the people you meet.  Traveling has become such a cliche that it seems most people tick off destinations just for their social resume.  Let’s see how many countries we can squeeze into three weeks.  Every time I go somewhere new, I wonder how I’m going to be absorbed by the place.  I have the understanding that, sure, there’s a good show to be seen as represented by the paragraphs in the travel guidebooks, and for many people that’s all that gets premiered.  No behind the scenes.  No figuring it out on their own.  That’s pretty sad.

Koh Tao is one of the premiere diving destinations in the world.  It’s a quiet, peaceful little island, with only a handful of streets to walk.  I stayed in a seedy little motel on the fourth floor, dorm style, with shared bathroom facilities.  Us fourth floor kids formed a bit of a club, and spent a fair amount of time shooting the shit sitting in the open breezeway outside our rooms.  I learned cockney from Gary . . . fridge freezer for geezer, apples and pears for stairs, having a bubble bath for laugh.  Jantzen taught me about youthful abandon.  Cat reminded us to live from the heart.  Traveling is about giving something up to make room for “the new.”  There’s only so much room in each of us, so please don’t forget to do your spring cleaning.

As I’ve come to find out, it’s a pretty big chore to get “off” these islands.  I knew I was leaving on the fifth of February, but I didn’t exactly check my departure time from the airport.  It takes three hours to get to the Surat Thani Airport from Koh Samui by ferry and bus.  You can imagine how my heart sank when I realized I was supposed to fly out at 8:45 am and I was absolutely set on spending one last night on Koh Samui.  I self convinced that there was some magical high speed ferry that left at 5 am.  Then I grabbed Kaz and hauled him over for his first trip to Koh Samui after living on Koh Tao for five months.

After walking down the gangplank, a taxi driver asked us, “Where to?”  “No idea!” We examined the map and picked the closest town.  It was still a twenty minute drive, and I felt my escape plan slipping away.  We got dropped off on your typical crap tourist beach street, no different from Phuket or Myrtle Beach.  Gross.  Take me back to Koh Tao.  I found the most lovely Israeli travel agent and explained my predicament.    She’s been living on the island for 8 years, just reading books, watching the ocean, and perfecting her seven languages.  She feared for my safety in carrying out the Surat Thani trip, because it would mean leaving Koh Samui that night and finding accommodations in the middle of nowhere with not a white person in sight.  And that is how I ended up spending a small fortune to fly from Koh Samui to Bangkok this morning to make my connection to Hanoi.  It was one last night to carve my name in the sand and watch the ocean cleanse the palette for the next barrage of FOBs (fresh off the boat).  I wish I could have seen it 30 years ago before it became another Any Town tourist destination.  As my taxi to the airport pulled off the main drag at 5 am, I saw my fair share of young white men stumbling out of clubs with the music still booming, pretty little thai girls shortly in tow.