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| A swing that hung from the tree in the back of our guest house |
Rise at six fifty, the sun has been up
for less than half an hour. Gather my laptop and all its chords as
well as, my camera and iPod before laying them all in my suitcase.
Out the door and at the bus station twenty minutes early when a taxi
out front asks me where I'm going. Where am I going? Koh Chang, and
no I don't want a taxi ride there, I don't care how fast you can
drive. Then it occurs to me that I may not have a choice as I
realize I have left the bus tickets for my companion and I back at
the house. I grab a taxi back to the house telling him to go fast
while I try and communicate that I've forgotten my bus ticket even
though I don't know the word for ticket. I make it back to the bus,
my friend waiting out front and they don't even want to see our
tickets they just want us on the bus. We pull away, the last
passengers to board and in five hours we'll be sitting on a ferry as
it trudges across the thin channel of water that separates the
mainland and Koh Chang.
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| A three headed elephant that stands thirty meters high and has, literally, a museum in it |
Chang is the Thai word for Elephant
thus the meaning of Koh Chang is elephant island, the name of the
island comes from the distinctive shape of the rock at the head of
the island. Elephants themselves are not native to the island
although while I was on the island I did see elephants and had a
dream about elephants swimming, which by the way they can.
The island's size is roughly that of
San Francisco although it is markedly longer and more narrow. The
residential population is next to nothing as everyone on the island
is employed in some fashion by the tourist industry. It's easy to
see the quickly developing resorts and spas but there are still so
many plots of land and jungle that are nearly untouched. Who knows
how long it will stay that way?
We bounced along the road in a song
tao, it's a pickup truck that someone put a cage on the back of with
two benches in it. Song tao literally means two bench. The staff at
the beach side resort looked to be just getting over their hang overs
as we rocked up to the counter of the bar/restaurant. They didn't
know who we were they didn't have a room ready and they didn't appear
to be too concerned with any of this. They gave us a room but asked
us with a surprising amount of politeness if we wouldn't mind
switching rooms later in the evening as someone else had reserved a
room that specifically had air-con. I drank a beer and did some
reading and writing as I looked out over the rocky beach that was Gu
Bay. gu is a word that means my, mine, or ours. The locals actually
do use the English word for Bay. As it turns out gu is a rather rude
word to use with someone you're not very close to. As is the word
for you, yours or theirs, which is mung. However amongst friends it
is the choice word to use when describing ownership and is not taken
rudely. The staff at this shabby little resort that boasted fourteen
guesthouses made out of cinder blocks and plastic roofing seemed to
take the word to heart and so they listed the rules of the resort
un-apologetically on the wall of the restaurant.
- The owner and manager are always right.
- If owner and manager do anything wrong please go back to the No. 1 rule.
- If you are not happy with us, pay everything and get the fuck off.
- Look after your own shit.
- You can get crazy but do not make any trouble.
- All guests should speak English when the manager is around. :)
Additional rules that were written
near the bar read, Bar is self service, pick up your own drinks.
Please pay and order at the bar. No bar and kitchen tabs. Open 8:00
to 21:00. Bar opens and closes when I say.
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| Nana and I nearly breaking the branch of the tree the swing hung from |
Despite these rules the staff was
exceedingly nice to us and kept a tab for us and often brought us our
drinks as well as being willing to come to us and take our order.
However the fact that I was traveling with an exceedingly polite and
well mannered half Thai girl probably aided us in our cause. There
were also many examples all around us of why the staff held so
closely to the rude connotations of the word gu. They prepared a
drink for a girl, a banana shake and when they announced it was
finished she motioned for them to bring it to her. They ignored her
and announced once more that it was ready. Then she motioned again
and said I want to taste it and make sure it's good. The girl was
British and the staff gave no response, they left it on the counter
and then threw out the remainder of the shake which they usually
would use to refill the drink after it had been drank down a small
way. This sort of behavior was distressing and since the rules were
posted it was inexcusable.
The first night we remained at the
guesthouse and got to know the staff. A very cool collection of
people. Kim-Chi, Boy, and Sun, who respectively made up a management
team for boy who was an aspiring musician with some considerable
talent in the Thai style of indie-rock. The second night we danced
like maniacs at a club on the ironically named Lonely Beach. It was
a full moon and all the islands throw a big party every full moon.
The the third day was the most exciting.
Kim-Chi casually and half jokingly
asked my companion if I could climb a tree to get them a coconut.
She said yes and then having understood them I stood up and began to
walk out to the lawn where there were a host of coconut trees
surrounding the pool. I began to climb one much to everyone's
surprise but when I was halfway up, about fifteen feet, Kim-Chi told
me to climb a different tree because it was thinner around. I
debated this logic but trusted in his experience. I know realize the
error of my ways in following his logic as his gut alone would
exclude him from ever climbing one of these long thin trees. I
began up the second try, already rather tired and with some scrapes
on my forearms and chest. In two minutes I'd ascended to the top of
this tree, probably twenty five feet and locked my legs around the
trunk so that I could wrestle with the coconuts that hung upon it. I
was not completely confident in the security of my legs to support me
twenty-five feet up this thin tree so I could only use one hand to
turn the coconut. Kim-Chi just kept saying turn it turn it and I
kept turning it and at some point I realized that I was nearing that
stage of exhaustion where muscle failure was a serious concern. Not
wanting to break anything I relented and began sliding down the trunk
of this tree and in the process managed to scrape off most of the
skin on the arches of my feet as well as add significantly to the
cuts on the insides of my forearms. I gingerly walked over to the
outdoor shower next to the pool and rinsed off. The tree had
defeated me and as I watched a thin stream of blood flow from my feet
into the drain, washed away by the clear stream of water I realized
that all of the Thai people around were huddled in pairs staring at
me and their phones with which they had taken photos of the crazy
farang who climbed the palm tree. Kim-Chi bought me a beer and my
companion bought me a shot and I cleaned my wounds.
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| At least it's still not infected! |
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| guest only |
