A Grand Adventure - Day 5 - Genie

I'll preface this blog post with a short comment about this being one of the best days I've had yet in Thailand - perhaps ever.

It was a bright and shining Friday morning and we all got up nice and early in order to take advantage of a beautiful day. We got on the moped, got 1km away, and BAM! we hit a nail and our tire was immediately flattened.

This was not the first time something like this has happened. The drill is pretty easy. We got off the bike and I walked it down to the nearest repair shop (there's one about every km in Thailand). Twenty minutes and 200B later, we were back on the road.

We thought we were headed for the southern tip of the island. There was a national park and we all wanted to see it. We headed along the main road of the island, up a mountain, back down the mountain, and saw signs for Old Town.

We thought this was odd. Old Town was on the wrong side of the island that we thought we were going to.

The universe was picking our adventures. I'm not one to really argue that premise.

We were heading into Old Town when we saw a police moped. I quickly swerved down a side street and we looked intently for parking. (3G1M is ... less legal and I don't have a Thai driver's licence because I'm not from the state of California, New York, or Chicago. Don't get me started on this. Ok. I'm started. There will probably be a followup on the fiascoes of attempting to get a driver's licence in Thailand.)

We ended up parking on the outskirts of Old Town and walking toward the middle. There were a number of shops already open and we stopped into several of them looking at the various items for sale. It was everything you would expect from a small, tourist-driven town.

I needed a cup of coffee and the other two were hungry. We looked for somewhere to get breakfast and decided to patronize an establishment called The Old House Cafe and Art Gallery on the Sea. We were starting to pick seats near the front door when one of the employees pointed toward the back and said "sit out".

We walked to the back of the cafe to discover they had a small dock jutting right out into the Andaman sea covered in small wooden tables. It smelled like salt water and coffee.

Sitting down at a table near the end, we asked our waitress for ten minutes and looked through their menu. It was everything we wanted. I got a lunch combo (available at 10am because Thailand, like me, does not approve of breakfast on the average morning) of a double espresso, passionfruit juice, yogurt parfait, and cheese sandwich for 220B. That's 7$.

Amanda got a burger, fries, and a hot cocoa. Everything was flawless. The coffee was sublime. The juice was very clearly hand-squeezed and fresh that morning. And the cheese was NOT American Cheese.

Also we had this view:

You can't tell me I'm crazy for falling in love with this place.

However, the Pokemon Go Halloween event had started and Amanda and I had stuff to do. We had adventuring to see. There were things to be done that fed addictions other than my coffee craving. We set off on foot and continued toward the middle of Old Town. 

We passed a Chinese temple on a pier. We stopped and looked. It was very beautiful.

王忠三. Wang zhong san. This roughly translates, according to three years of Chinese classes now over half a decade ago, to Three Loyal Kings or really King Loyal Three.

We kept moving along until we came to the official Koh Lanta Old Town Pier. We proceeded to take piles of photos.

While walking along the pier we saw a number of fish that had been pulled from the water. Roxi and I saved a number that were still alive before realizing that they were baitfish and people were coming back for them. 

Oops?

We also saw the couple we met on the van the day before on the pier. We traded taking pictures of each other so we could all have some shots with everyone in the group. 

Moving right along, we stopped into another shop after the pier and found bracelets for everyone. They're cute and handwoven and beaded by the shopkeeper's mother who was painting wooden elephants when we were looking around the small shop. Mine is a dark yellow and brown. It's delightfully dull. 

At this point, everyone was in a swimsuit and we were on the wrong side of the island to do any swimming. We snagged one last thing from Old Town: gelato from 2 Scoops Gelato. Amanda got Affogato, I got Mint Chip, and Roxi got the Old Town Special. 

We biked back up the terrifying mountain. Amanda has a video of this hill... but as I'm writing this, she is in Laos... so I can't exactly just get it from her. Then back down the mountain. We found the correct turn to take us to the bottom of the island and made it all the way to Bamboo Beach (almost the bottom)

Bamboo beach is about 2km long and we had to share it for the afternoon with six other people.

Our lives were so hard. 

There were also wild monkeys (the same as on Koh Phi Phi) that decided our bike was their newest toy!

They also tried to look through our bags, but thankfully they were scared away by one of the other six people who happened to be walking by. 

We spent the next hours swimming, exploring tidal pools, walking along the beach, and finding pretty shells. 

It was then getting later in the afternoon. Having no interest in driving through the mountains with three wet girls one moped, we left Bamboo Beach (some people call this the most beautiful beach on Koh Lanta. Those people are wrong. We aren't there yet though. Quit trying to skip ahead!) and headed back to change and look for dinner.

Freshly bathed and ready for an evening, we were all famished! Roxi remembered seeing a sign for "The Best Indian Food" on our drive down and we set off looking for it.

We ended finding it. It was incredibly closed for low season and down the scariest little alleyway full of mud and dirt and people coming through the trees to look at who was disturbing the quiet. Needless to say, we promptly left. 

We went to find the other Indian restaurant raved about online. 

It was also closed for low season. 

The universe and Amanda always walk the middle path. We remembered a Greek place we had seen on the side of the road and decided Greek sounded lovely!

We ended up at The Greek Taverna (El Greco). The owner and our waitress was named Maria and she was in immigrant from Greece who had established this restaurant in 2010. She asked where we were from and when we said "America", she laughed and said she gets a lot of Americans looking to avoid Thai food. We then explained to her that we were merely on a brief excursion from Thai food as we were teachers further north. 

We proceeded to get way too much food at The Greek Taverna and we put away every single bite. 

Maria made fun of me for licking the bowl that the tzatziki was served in ... and then promptly brought all three of us another bowl. She certainly knew what she was doing. 

We finished dinner and somehow managed to walk to the bike. We were all so full and everyone at the restaurant had been so wonderful. Maria had her Thai family all gather with us so that we could take a picture with all of us. It was honestly a joy. 

At this point, we were exhausted and stuffed full but we were nowhere near done with the evening. Amanda had heard of a karaoke bar with a singing competitions on Fridays. 

We got there to find it already well in session. We snagged a table, ordered the first round of drinks, and started looking through the songbooks. 

Roxi decided against singing for the evening, but Amanda and I were more than happy to steal her microphone time. 

Amanda: 

Valerie (in the style of Glee)

There's a Fine, Fine Line (Avenue Q)

It's My Party

Take Me or Leave Me (Duet with me!)

Me:

Out Tonight (Rent)

Telephone (Reba McEntire) (This is also my best karaoke song. I only do it for two reasons: showing off and winning karaoke contests. A special thank you to my college friend, Tanya, for this one.)

Before He Cheats (Kelly Clarkson)

Take Me or Leave Me (Duet with Amanda!)

Next to Me (Emeli Sande)

Tough Lover (Christina Aguilera)

For every song we sang, we got a free shot of tequila. 

I was driving so I only drank two drinks at the very beginning of the evening and then split the rest between my friends.

A little before midnight, the results were in. The six top singers were all called to the stage and it was announced that Amanda got 2nd and I won the whole evening!

In total, we won 2 buckets (750B and 550B) and 12 shots (100B each). I also won a 1000B note! That's a total of 3,500B (115$) in winnings! 

In total, we spent about 540B on drinks and tips (18$) which put us at earning a little under 100$ for the evening. 

For how much money that is in Thailand, we were on a tourist island during the low season. Prices for hotels were lower than in high season, but still expensive because of where we were located. 

We won more than the amount that our hotel cost for 5 nights. 

Eventually, because I wasn't drinking and my friends are lightweights, we realized we weren't going to use all our winnings. I pocketed our cash adding it to our "fun money" stash and we gave Amanda's bucket to a man named Thomas who had been very encouraging to everyone singing. He's the man walking behind me in my "best singer" photo! He and his wife were very thankful for the free bucket of booze. 

With both Roxi and Amanda in a state of intoxication, we carefully made our way back to the hotel. 

For some insane reason, we decided that now was the time to go swimming. We headed back to the hotel, grabbed suits, and went to a nearby beach for an evening dip. 

We walked down the hill to the beach only to find that the tide had come in and there was no beach! We walked along the rocky edge of the water for fifteen minutes until the bugs were too bad and then headed back to the bike. At some point, Amanda smacked her foot on something and broke her big toenail 80% of the way off!

By the time we were home and in bed, it was nearing 3:30am. We decided on a later meetup time the next day and everyone promptly crashed!

A Grand Adventure - Day 4 - Genie

Checkout at the Sasi House was 11am and our shuttle we booked through them to Koh Lanta left at 11:30am.

Roxi decided we should make something of our morning, so we got up early, got a quick breakfast and walked to a different park. On our walk there, we spotted small not lizards and not fish. We had no idea what they were. My best guess was some type of salamander. However, as they were on the quicksand 30ft below, they were very hard to see and photograph. I described them the best I could, zoomed in that iPhone camera all the way, and sent an email to my dad.

Within 30 minutes, I had my answer: mudskippers! Thanks, Dad!


We kept walking until we hit the park. It was a very cute little walking path designed for little children. It had both the Thai and English alphabets and numbers 0-10 in both language. As you looped around the path, there was an animal or statue of something that started with that letter/sound.

We had a blast going around the Thai alphabet looking at the animal, trying to remember the Thai name for it, and then guessing what the character was. For example, there was a monkey. Monkey in Thai is 'ling'. Therefore, we assumed that character was the "L" sound.

Believe it or not, the English alphabet was slightly easier.

At this point we were all hungry and I was hankering after a cup of coffee. We stopped at a little coffee shop where they advertised to handmake all their bread. I couldn't turn that down! I got an English Muffin, butter, and a Thai Style Coffee. It was everthing I wanted and more. A TSC is just 2/3 cold press espresso 1/3 sweetened condensed milk. They're addicting. It's an almost sickly sweet, thick, very strong coffee.

Also the English Muffin was sublime, but let's be perfectly honest about my 16 years of committed and passionate love for coffee...

It's real.

Some people have cancer sticks. Some people have injectable meth.

I have dark, creamy caffeine in the form of bean water.

My name is Genie Thiss and I'm a coffee addict.

Moving forward:

We made it back to the hotel and checked out. Our van showed up promptly on Thai timetables at noon and whisked us and 2 other tourists off to the main bus terminal.

From there, a nice man asked us where on Koh Lanta we were going. When we shrugged and said we didn't know, he got very flustered with us. For the consistent Thai mood of "the plan is no plan", when you actually STATE that your plan is to go with the flow, they lose their minds.

He showed us a spot on the map and said our best bet was to be dropped off by this specific 7-11.

Apparently there were a slew of well-priced hotels and/or moped rentals near there and it was the "locals downtown".

So with this GPS pinpoint in mind, I went back into my bookings.com app and went on the hunt for another hotel.

At this point, we had to make some decisions about how long we wanted to stay in Koh Lanta.

Based on pictures we had seen and how much we all just wanted to chill on a beach, we booked a 3 night stay at the PhongPhiPat Mansion. Soon after the bookings were complete (Roxi opted for her own room which turned out to be the greatest of ideas considering how cheap it was), the new van arrived to take us to Koh Lanta.

Side note: I was today taught by my Thai co-teacher how to say Koh Lanta correctly. It's 'Koh' like you'd expect (rhymes with toe) and then 'Lan' (like Lana Del Rey without the -a Del Rey) TINY PAUSE 'tah' (like in TAH DAH!)

An hour in the van. Then another twenty five minutes of in the van on a ferry across to Koh Lanta.

Then another forty five minutes of dropping people at various resorts before we arrived at our stop.
I hopped out as soon as I could, thankful to be off the bumping and twisting roads. Even the Dramamine wasn't helping at this point. The semi-circular canal was Brown. Dog. Mad.

It was a short, 12 minute walk from the 7-11 to our hotel. Technically we had passed RIGHT by it on the drive, but I was too sick to notice and two other people had been trying to make small talk with me. It was unbearable for multiple reasons. However, they were nice enough: a couple from Canada doing their university "student teaching" via a program in Thailand.

We arrived at our hotel and a very kind looking Thai woman named Noy greeted us outside of the neighboring convenience store. Turns out that her family ran both the small guesthouse and store - and they lived in the back of the store! She showed us to our rooms and took my passport as collateral for a beautiful and almost brand-spankin-new moped. While I was planning to rent the more expensive and higher CC engine bike, she insisted on it when she found out that all three of us would be on one bike. She, along with every other Thai, assumed that 3G1M was a joke.

3 Girls, 1 Moped is never a joke.

For a 3 night stay and 2 days of a moped, it cost myself and Amanda together less than 75USD. Roxi came in at about 67USD for 3 nights and 1 day of moped. Our rooms were identical: main room serving as a bedroom with a nice, queen sized bed. It had a large hanging wardrobe with more hanging space than Amanda and I have in our regular apartment, a desk, two side tables, a couple plastic chairs, and a mini-fridge. It sported both a wall-mounted fan and air conditioning unit. There was a small, 1970s style step down into both the kitchen and the bathroom. The bathroom had a sink, shower, and toilet - and all three of them barely overlapped. Nong Khai royalty only has bathrooms mostly this nice. The kitchen was a 12sqft step down that was literally just a kitchen sink and 1sqft of counter-space. But that was enough for us to do laundry in it for the duration of our stay, saving us a number of "cash money bahts".

At this point, we unpacked and my body betrayed me in the best possible way: I passed out cold.

When I awoke (only because of Amanda's prodding), we found helmets and took off looking for dinner. It was our first 3G1M experience since Nong Khai and I thought there may be a re-adjustment period. Turns out that when you get experience driving in Bangkok rush hour and then you get a bike worth 2 month's salary, muscle memory and shiny toys equal a successful adventure. The hardest part was the main road which more resembled a waffle than a pancake.

We drove and drove until finally Amanda spotted "the place" for dinner.

I will once again remind you that Amanda made all good and reasoned decisions on this trip.

We pulled a sharp U-Turn (legal and encouraged in Thailand) and pulled into Patty's Secret Garden.

We made no mistakes other than maybe the phrase "treat yo self". Admittedly, we only treated ourselves to fancy drinks. Anything other than Thai whiskey and beer run at about the same price you'd pay for it back home. So when I say I got an espresso martini, I mean I paid Winona prices for it. Admittedly, in downtown Winona, I would have paid about 8-10USD for the one drink. In downtown Minneapolis, I'd consider it a steal at 12-15USD. I got it at Patty's for the equivalent of 7USD. And this was a "tourist establishment". Our waitress spoke broken English and everything.

Our bartender was from Scotland!

On top of the espresso martini, over the course of the evening, the ladies and I split:

A drink called an orgasm. It was pretty dang good...

Amaretto Sour
Mudslides (2)
Brandy Espresso
Bruschetta
Prawn, carrot, potato, sweet potato, garlic and basil yellow curry with rice (in the shape of a heart)
Veggie Pad Thai
Banana toffee/ice cream/cashew dessert

In total that was 6 drinks, an appetizer, two entrees, and a huge dessert coming in at a whopping 2000B. That's 66USD. For Thailand, that's an absurd amount of money, but we are on a "treat yo self" vacation so long as we still have cash in our wallets and we aren't planning on continuing to drink like this.

And it was delicious.

To add, there was an ... interesting mural that looked like Jimmy Fallon wearing a dress. ... Ok actually it was quite creepy.

We spent almost 3 1/2 hours at PSG. (Don't worry, Mom, there was no booze in my system and I was far more drunk from the amount of sugar in that dessert!) We drove back to the hotel making only the fastest of stops at a 7-11 to grab detergent for some sink-laundry.

We went to bed well-fed, happy, and air conditioned. Our laundry was done and hanging, we were clean, and we were all looking forward to a full day of island exploring come tomorrow.

Amanda's two baht: When we spotted the mudskippers that morning I wanted to call the mudkips...which is a Pokemon. I vaguely remembered something from high school biology about mudskippers but could only remember the mud part. I also wanted to add this photo from the restaurant we went to. They had fun flower lights all over the place.