Day 19 - 20 Phuket to Bangkok-Tokyo

Greetings from Tokyo! Every time I say that this is the last time, I find a way to do one more entry on my blog. The Narita International Airport has a free internet cafe sponsored by Yahoo! where about 50 laptops are available free of charge to anyone filling out their name, passport number and nationality! They give you a little thumb drive which activates the laptop, and I figure they are using that to record what websites we are surfing. Fine by me.

Backtracking to Phuket... Nora was leaving us, as she was getting on an overnight bus to Bangkok. We said our goodbyes (I kind of thought it would be a tearful goodbye for Lai and Hannah, but it wasn't) and sent her on her way. The girls went to a camera shop to go download their almost full memory sticks onto a CD while I was at the internet cafe. Of course, when I was done and waiting for them to come back, a bus to Phuket zoomed by, and I worried that it was the last one of the day. When we asked the travel agent, they said they didn`t know. That`s the frustrating thing about bus schedules in Thailand -- no one knows what it is!!! Anyway, the girls came back and I told them that a bus passed by just a few minutes ago, and we were bummed as we sat in the sweltering sun, worrid that we would have to spend another 1,000B to take a taxi to Phuket. But our spirits soared as I spotted a bus coming our way, and we boarded a deluxe air-con bus! We were so excited to leave Khao Lak. Khao Lak has turned out to be the best diving destination that is very hard to leave, not because we love it but because it is not very convenient to transportation.

We rolled into Phuket town after dark, and it seemed to be a small town but with a pretty happening main drag. Still, it wasn't at all what I was expecting with the fancy resorts and lots of farang. Then again, bus stations are never in a good part of town, so that might have been the issue. With my Lonely Planet in hand, we tried to shake the tuk tuk drivers and taxi drivers offering to give us a ride to our guest house by making walking motions with my fingers indicating that we don't need a lift. But here we were again, arriving at night with no reservations, walking around with our packs on our backs. Hey that rhymes! We went to the most recommended guest house with me in the lead, the two girls trailing behind me asking if we were almost there yet. It was hot, and our packs are heavy, and when we finally found it, they told us it was full. The next closest one was one that Lonely Planet said was old and musty, and THAT turned out to be a generous description. We were so desperate to dump our stuff that we took a double (the girls shared a twin bed) and when we walked in, we were greeted by a 2 inch cockroach scuttling along the floor. The bathroom was dingy, and had no hot water. The girls have been traveling in places without hot water, but this old lady had hot water everywhere except the liveaboard.

We went out for dinner, walking around aimlessly again before settling on a fancy-ish cafe and Chinese restaurant. I know, it sounds strange but it was nice. While discussing our menu choices, a white girl sitting alone helped us -- we were wondering what 'congee' is, and I thought it might be a shellfish (conch) or a kind of fish, and she corrected us that it was a rice soup (okayu in Japanese). I invited her to sit at our table, and she was another Brit, from the north, even. She was traveling for a little while after spending 6 months in Hong Kong as an attorney for her firm. She had just gotten back from her trip to see the Temples of Angkor, and she showed me her amazing (I mean postcard-quality) sunrise photos. I am SO JEALOUS! I gave her my email address and asked her to send it to me, so you guys can see it too when I publish it on Shutterfly like I took it myself (hehehehehe). Laura was staying at a different guest house than us so we said goodbye and safe journey before heading back to our scary/dumpy guest house.

When the hotels have been not-so-nice, I have been sleeping in my sleep sack -- mine is deluxe because it's made of 100% CoolMax. It's a handy dandy little thing, like a thin sleeping bag so that you don't have to touch the sheets/blankets of your fine lodging establishment if it doesn't life up to your standards. We had the air con on max so I was a bit chilly, and woke up about every hour from the noise outside and from the loud air con unit. One time I woke up and I was completely inside my sleep sack and had NO IDEA where I was. I thought I had been kidnapped and the bodies in the bed next to mine were Cambodian bad guys and I needed to figure out how to get away without waking them up. I think I watch too many movies. It took me about a full 5 minutes to realize that I was in the shitty guest house with Lai and Hannah.

I always wake up first, and decided that I was not about to shower in the scary bathroom with no hot water when I was already freezing from the air conditioning. Both of the girls managed to take very quick showers and we were just about ready when our cab driver knocked on the door just before 6am. Once at Phuket Airport, we said our goodbyes and they headed off to the international terminal to catch their flight to Singapore. I camped out on a massage chair until a rep showed up at the Orient Thai Airlines counter so I can try to standby on the earlier flight to Bangkok (I didn't want to pay for a taxi to the airport by myself). After several visits to the counter, I got on the earlier flight but didn't have enough time to call Sam Noppadol to let him know that I was coming in earlier. I figured it was early anyway (woke him up last time I called at 9am) so I would rather wait until I was in Bangkok and wait for him if need be.

Once I got to Bangkok, I called and reached Sam to find out that he was unavailable for the day due to an emergency meeting for work. I told him no worries, and that I would go into town and do some shopping and say goodbye to Bangkok. He really seemed upset that he had no way of reaching me, so I promised I would call him again around 5pm. While in the restroom, I saw a girl I recognized from my flight talking to a farang about needing to take a shower but that she was leaving Bangkok that night. I approached this girl, and we decided that the best thing for us to do was to get a room in Bangkok so we can shower. In fact, because it was our last day, we decided to go to the D&D, a very popular hotel on Khao San Road with a swimming pool up top. This is where Nanda and I got my first Thai massage. Carolina is a 21 year old girl from Israel, though she is ethnically Argentinian. She had just finished her 3 years in the military (mandatory for all Israelis, even women!) and had been in Thailand for the last 3 months. We shared a cab into the city and managed to get a room, though it wasn't ready for us so early in the day. We went out for some street food and walked around a bit, but it was a really really really hot day and Carolina was really really really hung over. After lunch, we headed to the pool and enjoyed cooling off. Carolina is a free spirit with the personality of a puppy -- she approaches people with reckless abandon (and this is coming from me, so you can imagine what she is like) and expects them to all adore her. She is very charming, but I saw that she knew lots of people at the pool, and not all of them seemed as excited as she was to see them. She bounced from one guy to another in the pool and I chatted with some but wound up chatting it up with two Australian girls and hanging out with them for most of the time. Sam and Bianca are friends from college, and Sam was chatting with some Canadian boys (she was topless and the Canadian boys seemed really excited about that). Around 4pm, I was getting bored so I told Carolina that I was going to walk around a bit and do some last minute shopping. I had to pick up a Buddha for Laura Blacklock per her request (I hope she likes the 'subduing Mara' pose, because that one is my favorite) and picked up some funny panties (Chanel, Adidas, Puma) for Sasha and a knockoff Adidas warmup jacket for the plane ride home (I lost my Nike DriFit jacket in Chiang Mai). There really isn't alot of good shopping on Khao San Road, other than cheap shirts, cheap designer knockoffs, pirated CDs and the like. I called Sam at 5pm and he said he was done with his meeting, so we should get together for dinner. He said he would pick me up at 6pm in front of the Burger King off of Khao San Road. I rushed back, showered, packed and went to tell Carolina my plan. I told her to be ready at 8pm so that when Sam drops me off at the hotel to change for the flight, she would be ready to go.

Keep in mind that I only met Sam and his wife once, and that was 2 or 3 years ago. Sam told me that he would pick me up in a black Honda CRV so that's what I was looking for, but they actually came in his mom's BMW. I could tell they weren't sure if I was the right person either, because Janice rolled down the window and said, Asami??? I got to meet their 14 month baby boy, Tahs(sp?). We drove to a lovely riverside restaurant (when they asked me what I wasnted to eat, I told them that I can't get enough of Thai food) where we were able to see the sunset while enjoying a nice breeze. It turns out that Janice has a journalist friend who wrote a review on this restaurant and recommended it to them, and even said to use her name to get a 10% discount. The food was absolutely delicious -- I told them that I eat anything (even proudly proclaimed my crickets conquest), so they ordered what they thought would be best, but asked to make it a bit less spicy for me. We had fried chicken, coconut soup, a cold but spicy mushroom salad, some Chinese-style fried fish all with white rice. It was the best meal I had on my entire trip, the most wonderful ending of my travels in Thailand. I told Sam that because he got his entire family together for me on their day off and because he picked me up and is taking me to the airport, I wanted to treat. But they refused, so I told them that they have to come visit Chicago again or let me visit again and I will pay next time. I KNEW they were going to do that, but what could I do!? It was really, really nice to get to spend time with both of them and I was so happy... until we rushed back to the hotel to pick up Carolina and my stuff.

I knocked on the door at 8:20pm -- traffic was bad -- and I heard the shower running. She wasn't ready! I knocked again, more frantically, and said that it was me. She said she's coming about 20 times before she finally opened the door to reveal a guy in the room -- Nathan from South Africa, who I met earlier at the pool. Sigh. Well, she's 20, I guess I should have figured something like that was going to happen. But she was so not ready that we took another 10 minutes to get downstairs, and the front desk would not let us leave until they had confirmed that we hadn't trashed the room (I am realizing that this is probably a recurring problem for them). They have to do that because they take cash when you check in, which means they have no recourse if a guest destroys the place or steals something from the room. Plus, you may have seen on CNN that there have been protests in Bangkok for the resignation of the Prime Minister, snarling traffic further in an always gridlocked city. Sam seemed stressed about getting us to the airport quickly, but I told him that when I last flew internationally out of Bangkok, I arrived 20 min before the flight and managed to get on. I thanked Sam and Janice profusely for spending time with me, for the most delicious dinner, and for the ride to the airport. I really hope I can repay them sometime soon.

Sunday night at the end of the month in Bangkok's airport is super busy, and I have to say that BKK is the single most crazy, disorganized airport I have ever been in. There are massive groups of tourists with no clue where to go, just standing around blocking traffic every where you turn. Carolina was freaking out about going home -- her parents don't know that she's coming back today, and her boyfriend won't pick her up now that she has flirted with too many boys during her 3 months. Plus, she hasn't traveled much so she was completely overwhelmed. I figured out where we both had to go, and went to check in before meeting up with her in her area.

Flying into Israel is quite an ordeal, and they have their own checkpoints and security processes. She first got interviewed by a guy who shooed me away, then had to have her bags opened and inspected. When I went in line with her to get her boarding pass, they told me that I wasn't allowed to be in the area unless I was flying with El-Al Airlines. The security folks asked her if I had given her any packages, and I could have been fined. Carolina never went to a currency exchange to cash her travelers checks because she was at the pool all day, so we had to take care of that. We went through getting our boarding pass, paying the departure tax, getting our departure voucher stapled to the boarding pass and went to our gates -- right next to each other -- as she whimpered and clung to my arm. She was so glad to have me there because she wouldn't have figured it all out on her own (but someone would have done it for her, she's that kind of person). As she was writing down her email address for me, I took a picture of her, only to have a woman tell me that I was not allowed to take photos at the gate. Good god, it's not like I took pictures of the aircraft! I always thought I would love to visit Israel, but it really isn't worth all the trouble they put you through. She wrote me a sweet note about how happy she was to meet me and to keep in touch. I was happy to have someone share my cab ride and hotel room too, but I was really glad I ran into her on my last day because I would NOT have wanted to babysit her any more than I already had to!

I sat next to a Thai man who thought I was Thai and started talking to me. I asked him if he was visiting Japan or continuing on somewhere else, and he said he lives in Chicago. In fact, he lives at Broadway and Foster, just 10 blocks south of me! Crazy stuff. The world really is a small place. He slept while I watched Elizabethtown and Into the Blue on board, trying to stay awake so I can sleep when I get on my second flight.

So here we are, just about caught up to the present. I still have 4 hours to kill, but this airport has lots of cool ways to spend time. The free internet cafe is fantastic, and there are audio/visual rooms where you can pay to listen to music or watch movies. There are reclining chairs in the relaxation area, as well as Japanese and English CNN on huge flat screen TVs. I might go visit the massage area (but it will probably be too expensive) after cruising through the Duty Free Shops.

So this time, it's really goodbye, and I will talk to you soon in Chicago!!!

love,
asami