Day Tripper

Tuesday – 30^th March 2010

**ATTENTION**

For the remainder of my short trip around Thailand, internet access will be at a premium (roughly 2 baht/minute). This unfortunately means I will not be updating the blog as regularly as you might have hoped. What I decided to do to fix that is write entries in word and then just copy them into the blog once I’m back on free internet. So in a few days, you will be getting a massive amount of updates. And now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

I left Bangkok this morning to begin the final leg of my trip southward. My final stop (there were only two, though) is Krabi. Krabi is at the southwestern tip of Thailand, pretty close to peninsular Malaysia. As I was driving down the highway toward the Bangkok airport, I realized I was a little sad to be leaving. This surprised me because I did not know what to expect coming into Bangkok. But despite my relatively short time there, I really enjoyed myself. The city has a very unique energy (as I think I posted previously) and I was legitimately upset I was going to miss it. I barely got to see the city, as it is a huge, sprawling metropolis, but I had a great time seeing the places I did. I have questioned whether I could really live in Chiang Mai for an extended period of time while I was there, but with Bangkok I could instantly see myself living there and building a life (not to say that is what I’m planning).

But my trip was moving forward, and so were my plane tickets, so onward I went. I met a nice (albeit typical) couple on the flight down - a white expat with a Thai girlfriend. These two were both older, so I wonder if it was a legitimate couple. Either way, they were nice enough to share a taxi with me from the airport. After suffering through the stifling Chiang Mai and Bangkok heat, I expected the weather to be similar in Krabi, but with a cool ocean breeze interspersed. Turns out, this time of year Krabi gets a good amount of rain, and this afternoon was no exception. We landed in the middle of a pretty good storm and I realized I was completely unprepared for this kind of weather.

To get to Tonsai, where I am staying, you actually have to take a boat from the beach at Ao Nong (part of Krabi) around the cape to the Tonsai beach. I bought a ticket and waited for more people to buy tickets so the boat could fill up and leave. As I stood there I watched how these Thais interacted with the western tourists. I immediately saw they acted much differently than people in Chiang Mai, or even Bangkok. These Thais seemed somewhat hostile and offput by the westerners here. I thought about it and realized that they do have a somewhat legitimate reason for acting this way, as we westerners have basically exploited there home for our leisure. I saw many more white people than Thais, something that I had never experienced yet. Perhaps they are bitter about that. Or maybe the rain was just a downer for everyone. Whatever the case may be, they all seemed to have an attitude with the westerners. That sentiment continued once I got to Tonsai. I walked to the local rock climbing store because they also run a guesthouse, and asked to see a room. I hadn’t made a reservation yet, mainly because no place here takes online reservations. The guy I asked actually seemed upset I wanted to see a room and interrupted him doing nothing but lying around because of the rain. But he begrudgingly took me to see an uninspired room. It was literally a bed surrounded by thin walls and a bathroom attached. Needless to say, between the ‘tude and the room, I opted to pay a little extra and get some hospitality and comfort (relatively speaking), plus free breakfast in the morning at a different guesthouse down the road.

After settling into the room I did end up getting, I walked down to get some dinner at the only place I saw on the way in. I sat down at the table and looked around to get a sense of the people as I waited for a menu. I noticed everyone was sitting with friends, and I got to thinking that I was a little disheartened to be traveling alone. Not only here, where having a climbing partner would be great, but in general, I would love to have someone to travel with. Maybe this is my subconscious attempt at a metaphor we can all infer, but it would be nice to visit these places I’ve been and share that with someone else. The more I travel, and the more people I meet, the more I realize that it is the connections we have and make that matter. I could go visit the most amazing places in the world, but if I have no one to share those memories and places with, why go in the first place? I know I’m very extroverted, but I think this feeling goes deeper than that. So if anyone’s up for a new adventure, look me up.

I’d love to write more, but I’m getting sleepy, and looking back at this post, it’s pretty long by itself. I’ll be sure to post more tomorrow or so.