Asian Journal - Chapter 4 - Not such a happy camper (March 2000)

After flying back into Thailand I headed directly East hoping to make my way across the Cambodian border for a couple of days, then chill out for a few days on one of the islands off the coast. I’d heard various good and terrible tales about this land border, but left confident as I boarded the bus to Trat, Thailand’s Eastern border town, known for its gem trade and smuggling of consumer goods. The trip out went smoothly and en-route I met a couple of English and American guys who were on holiday from Japan where they were teaching English. They too planned to travel to one of the islands, Ko Chang, but by the time we arrived in the port town it was getting late so we decided to find a place to stay for the night and get ourselves some rest. Next morning Rob, from Surrey didn't look too good. By 10am he looked worse and come 11.30am he was in the local hospital with a drip in his arm. Things in general weren’t looking healthy! In his best English the doctor explained that Rob had some kind of fever, was severely dehydrated and couldn't be moved for a couple of days. This put me in a bit of an awkward situation as I really didn't have a couple of days to spare but I didn't want to turn my back on these guys when one of their friends was in a bad way. They needed some space to decided what they were going to do and it was whilst I was sitting outside in the shade, pouring over the Lonely Planet, I got talking to another English guy who'd just got off one of the smaller boats. We talked about Ko Chang and the border crossing for a while and he mentioned he'd just come back from a wonderful little island South of Ko Chang, which he promised was the perfect place to chilling out. ‘The Book’ made virtually no mention of Ko Mak so in that spilt second I decided to forget Cambodia, by-pass Ko Chang and head further South to this little tropical oasis. On returning to the hospital Rob had turned from white to green and the Americans had been chosen to stay and mind Rob whilst Rowan, the other English guy was going to be sent ahead to find a good destination for when Rob was well enough to travel. I explained my plan and was surprised when they decided to follow my lead. We sailed that afternoon and after 3 hours on the water arrived at the beautiful island of Ko Mak. I swear that the illustrator for the book 'Where the wild things are!' had spent time here. The sea was jade green, the beaches ice white and the coastline fringed with dense palm forests in which any number of scary monsters could have lived. Monsters or not, this was the stuff island dreams are made of. I soon settled into the swing of things, hung my hammock on my bungalow porch and tucked into a fresh coconut. Whilst sitting back to watch the first of many glorious sunsets I met Phelim from Ireland. We got talking and discovered we had both lived in Newtown in Sydney at the same time, we'd virtually lived next door to each other in Australia, and now we were beach neighbours on this small island in Thailand! Phelim only had a couple of weeks left until he flew back to the Emerald Isle and was determine to top up the tan for the folks back home. After a lazy day on the beach we were surprised when the islands tractor pulled up loaded with Mark and a marginally healthier Rob. His fever had broken the night before and by lunchtime they'd decided he was well enough to travel, so long as he took it easy. Rob really had no choice other than to sit back and relax now. No TV, no radio, in fact no power, except a generator that worked the minimal lighting and the milkshake machine! After 4 days of doing next to nothing and having read every inch of English text on the island I got itchy feet and I decided it was time to move on. Ko Samet lies just off the Thai coast about 3 hours from Bangkok and given that it was on our way back into the capital Phelim and I decided it would be the perfect place to break the return trip to the city. I'd heard about the island from a couple of friends who had sung the praises of the place, and indeed the Lonely Planet itself described it as ‘a quiet haven with amazing beaches and a relaxed atmosphere’. It sounded perfect but I have to admit that I really did have second thoughts about leaving my hut on Ko Mak. Could anything really be any better than this? Is the grass really greener? Nothing could have prepared us for what greeted us as we stepped off the boat on the northern tip of Ko Samet. Countless beach bars, banging techno tunes and the waves were awash with jet-skis. This was definitely not what it said in 'The Book'. Trying to ignore the deafening bass we set off to find a place to stay for the night. In Bangkok the going rate for a good, clean room with a fan is 120B. In Ko Mak the cost of a beachfront bungalow with no lights, no fan and a mossie net is 80B. At Tumtin, the only hotel with a vacancy on the island, the cost for a tiny, dirty room with no window was 350B(non-negotiable). By now i'd crossed from borderline miserable to positively not a happy. It was only Phelim’s quick reactions that saved the blessed Lonely Planet from being flung into the Gulf of Thailand that night and as a lay in my bed listening to 'Hotel California' for the 14th time from the bar below. I convinced myself things would be better tomorrow in the morning, but at 3pm the following day I swung my pack onto the deck of the boat and was more than pleased to see Ko Samet disappear over the horizon behind me. If I wanted to go to Ibiza I would have gone to Ibiza, Ko Samui or any of the other islands the Lonely Planet describes as party places, but Ko Samet was not what I was looking for. ‘The Bible’ lied! I arrived back in Bangkok 4 days early than planned, depressed at the thought of having left the perfect isle of Ko Mak, and driven insane by the city heat and humidity (thank God for air-conditioned shopping malls). Staying in the city however did allow me to meet some genuinely interesting Thai people but also a few more equally disheartened backpackers. Bangkok has become a major international stopover for those travelling East-West, or vise-versa, and is often the first port of call for travellers heading to Australia from the UK. Given this it is not a bad place for your first eastern experience. Upon arrival you instantly know you’re no longer in a fully developed westernise society, yet being a major commercial centre Bangkok has all the trapping and conveniences of a modern metropolis. Its shopping centres are huge. Theres a sky-train to convey you from one plush plaza to another. MacDonalds, Boots and Baskins Robins greet you at every turn and the likes of internet cafes, ATMs and western press are all easy to come by, lulling you into a false sense of familiarity and security. However once outside these conveniences you need your wits about you, and they are best kept taped to your body, along with your money & passport, at all times. Bangkok looks western, but moves to the pulse of an Eastern drum…One complaint I heard over and over from travellers was of the tuk-tuk drivers. By far the quickest, most readily available and suicidal form of transport in the city the tuk-tuk is a 3 wheeled taxi-cab powered by lawnmower engine and licensed to carry a minimum of 12 people, or 16 chickens at any one time. The drivers know all the short cuts and all the silk houses in town so you can be sure to visit at least 3 tailors a day if using them as your preferred mode of tourist transport. It’s a nifty scam the drivers have going. You jump in and randomly name your tourist destination of choice and they automatically name a price that’s 4 times the Thai cost for the same trip. You then haggle, they pull faces and a cost of half the original fee is finally, painfully, arrived at. Feeling smug at having just negotiated a bargain you clamber in the back of the cab and they grin in the rear-view mirror whilst mentally totting up the amount of money they’re going to be able to get out of you today. Then you’re off! Hurtling towards 3 lanes of oncoming traffic, sharp left, sharp right, a U-turn across the central reservation curb. There is no stopping these guys, and no way of following your route should you need to know where you are. At this point you’re tuk-tuk driver fodder. You’re lost, in a strange city, and this man in front of you is the only person looking reasonably friendly. Surprise, surprise you glance around and notice you’ve come to rest outside a silk house! Why, oh why, do tuk-tuk drivers bring you here? The answer is easy. They are paid to. Each time they bring a ‘customer’ to the store they receive a petrol voucher. Fuel is expensive here, without fuel they cannot work, so if they receive free fuel then they can continue to drive whilst pocketing the extortionate fares they’re making from you. When you come out of the silk-house they’re waiting patiently and will, if paid the correct amount of money, continue on to the destination of your choice, or return you to a recognisable part of town, from which you can make you own way home. The end result of this scam? 1 happy tuk-tuk driver, 1 happy silk-house owner and 1 angry tourist who has wasted half a day, been fleeced for a reasonable sum of Thai money and still hasn’t managed to see The Grand Palace/ Floating Market/ or Reclining Buddha.One Japanese girl I met had spent 2 days trying to see the city in this way, each evening returning more tired, frustrated and poorer than the last. For a country that realises so heavily on tourism I was surprised this level of corruption was allowed to exist. Thailand certainly has many faces, that of its quiet, serene tropical islands and that of its tourist-scamming, money-grabbing side and I guess it’s a shame that most travellers will only have contact with 1% of the nation, the dollar-greedy gang. I had fallen in love with my island paradise but Thailand by now was tainted for me, and my only thought was to leave the country and move on. Besides, I was more than keen to replace some of the pollution-heavy air in my lungs with pure, clean Himalayan breeze blowing just a few hours flying time from here