Joy is Never a Waste

Sitting in an air conditioned room playing video games on a beautiful, tropical island seems like a waste. Trust me, plenty of people told me. But I’ve been playing video games since long before I could read, so I genuinely enjoy the experience. So most of the seventh was spent playing video games, with a break to grab some food and check out the local Muay Thai area. We played with some other people in the area, one of which happened to be a UFC fighter that I had watched before and not realized it was him. I planned to book a bus from Phuket to Koh Samui the following day, but they sold out, so I was stuck in Phuket for another day.

We had a mix up with another hotel, so Ryan had an extra night I could use and it gave me more time to sit and play video games. I woke up at 6am and rode my scooter to the eastern coast to check out a view of the sunrise that I had been told about, my first sunrise of the trip. Afterwards, I checked out a local market and booked my scooter for another day. I then rushed back to the hotel and played video games. It’s good to indulge from time to time. The computers came preloaded with DotA2, a game that I had invested thousands of hours into while at Ohio State. The urge to give it a try and see how it has changed was strong, but Ryan was nice enough to uninstall it for me before I got on the computer. A few more hours of Apex Legends and I took off for the beach to play some volleyball.

The ride to the beach was about thirty minutes and filled with construction and traffic. The scooter skills are slowly improving, I note as I weave between cars stopped in traffic and follow locals over sidewalks and around potholes. I get to the beach and see a few locals we had met. One of them is playing with a woman taller than me, brimming with muscles. I am introduced and told she used to play for the Thai national team until she got bored. Got bored of playing on a national team. Today, there is no fours, only doubles. Thank god.

My stamina has drastically increased over the few days we have been playing in the humid heat. My one handed digs are back to their normal annoyingness, saving my lack of experience and positioning mistakes from being my ruin. I am learning to hit short and deep shots with the Mikasa ball. My hopes for this tournament have drastically increased. I play until about 9pm and relax in the ocean for a bit to get the sand off while wondering if ocean attacks are more or less likely when it’s dark.

Back to the hotel for a shower. I am still covered in sand, which I notice as I step onto the bathroom towel and it instantly turns black. I take a shower and realize I haven’t eaten since about noon. A short walk away is a Mcdonald’s, not my favorite but the Thai diet is severely lacking in the sodium levels I am accustomed to. This may seem like a detriment to the American diet, but the sodium helps to keep the body hydrated, which I have been struggling with for the past week of playing in the sun. We found some electrolyte powders, but I could still use some more sodium. I grab a meal for cheaper than most of the restaurants in Phuket and people watch for a bit. I grab a small McFlurry for less than a dollar and head back to the hotel. I get my bags together and begin figuring out the logistics of my next day adventure.

Get Me Out of Phuket

Here’s the predicament: I have to return a scooter, walk to the first bus terminal and take a shuttle to the second, exchange my confirmation for a physical ticket and get on a bus by 9am. The scooter rental owner refuses to show up until 8am, so I pray he doesn’t share the Lao penchant for being late. It is a fifteen minute walk to the first bus terminal and at least a fifteen minute ride to the next one, if it leaves the moment I get there. I don’t feel like being in Phuket for another day, so I am up at 7:30am.

I grab my things and check out. A quick ride to the scooter rental place and I give him a call to ensure he will arrive at 8am. He shows up at 8:01, close enough. A few motor taxis stop near me and offer me a ride. I don’t feel like having my first motor taxi experience with a thirty pound bag on my back, so I opt to walk to the terminal. I arrive and the shuttle is not there. They tell me it will arrive in around twenty minutes. We’re at 8:15am now. I don’t have twenty minutes to wait. A taxi is about four hundred baht, or thirteen dollars, for a twelve minute ride. I walk over the motor taxis and ask the price. They tell me one hundred baht, about three dollars. Here we go, first ride with both bags on. The woman takes my bigger bag and throws it in front of her, score.

Being on the back requires you to trust the person in front, and this is her job, so I guess I do. I am not sure what leaning etiquette is for a passenger, so I try to lean as I see necessary. She is whipping between cars while I am sure we are exceeding the maximum capacity of this scooter. She gets me there in one piece and I pay her the baht. I exchange my ticket and throw my bag under the bus. A group does the same. I realize I didn’t take any of the things I might want for the seven hour journey out of my bag. Oh well, I have my tablet. I grab a window seat and lean it back with hopes that no one sits behind me. I hop off the bus to grab some snacks since I haven’t eaten and return to find two people behind me. There are maybe five other people on the bus and they sit behind me…so I move up one.

The ride is pleasant enough. Nice views of the ocean while I finish season three of The Punisher. The contrast between the view and the show is laughable. The bus arrives to the ferry station and I grab a Thai dish with some rice. Mistake, it is the spiciest thing I have eaten in weeks. I devour it as quickly as possible and drain my water bottle into my mouth to subside the heat. I find a free water purifier and refill. I ask the bus driver where my big bag is and he tells me it is on the bus, awesome. Onto the ferry I go. Beautiful views immediately. I grab a bench seat at the top.

After sitting for a while, I check out the rest of the boat. I realize my Tevas have given me a ludicrous tan line on my feet so I look to rectify this. I lay down on a bench that exposes my legs to the sun and covers the rest of me with nice shade. As a bonus, the seat I chose catches a cross breeze, so the wind goes right over me and cools me off. I lay down and begin reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. I wake up about an hour later as the ferry approaches Koh Samui.

I notice everyone has their bags and I do not see anyone from my bus. A panic sets in as I realize everything I currently own is located in that bag. I begin asking ferry workers where the bag might be, and they stare at me blankly with the language barrier. I run around the boat before stepping off to see if the luggage is somewhere. No luck. No worries, I will find the office for that company and ask them to help me. I exit the ferry station and ask where the Phantip office is. They point me off in the distance. A motor taxi tells me it is far. I ask how far the walk is and he says too far to walk and charges me thirty baht. I get off the motorbike less than two minute ride later and see my bag being unloaded, the entire bus was on the ferry. I pay the man his thirty baht and walk away, he can enjoy his karma. A couple I met earlier on the bus offers to let me share their songthaew and I agree before realize that they had not haggled at all. Whatever, more tax for being a farang.

The hostel I wanted to stay at is fully booked, so I book one next door and begin checking out the island. I grab a motorbike for more than I would normally pay since it is already 6pm and hit an atm. I shoot over to the beach we will be playing the tournament at and arrive just after the sun sets. The court is empty. I check out a few gyms I am interested in training at and realize the martial arts prices here are insane, even by American standards. I check out dinner at a highly rated hostel close by and decide to book the next night there. I try to get some sleep as some other travelers in their late teens yell about how excited they are to go to the bar.

Sam in Samui

I find a highly rated motorbike rental place, that will pick up and drop off the bikes to you, which only charges about sixty percent of the standard price. I get in contact with the owner and he tells me that he is currently fully booked for the whole week. He suggests me some other places that refuse to give me the deal we have been getting, even though I am renting two bikes for over a week. I happen to ask my new hostel and they are offering close to the original places price. I book Ryan and I a week there and a week of bikes and give them my laundry to be done. A week of stay and motorbikes for two people costs me less than one hundred and fifty dollars, but that’s significantly more than the other travelers who are only spending five dollars a night to stay. The owner pours me a coconut shake and pushes it towards me.

I toss my stuff upstairs and check out the area. I head back to the volleyball courts and start to do some exercises on the beach. People show up to play and I sit near the court to get picked up. The wind is much stronger here than Phuket and the sand on the court is more like small gravel than sand. The wind carries serves in all directions and I shank most of my passes. I dive for a save, a standard tool for my playstyle, and stand up to find my entire leg covered in abrasions. I assume after that display, I will not be playing again.

A little later, I get asked to play with a local. A much better showing this time. I get the feel back for this ball and start to get the hang of the ball moving in the wind. Two games later and I realize the bottoms of my feet have been destroyed by essentially playing on gravel. I rinse off in the ocean and go to meet up with Ryan for dinner.

Ryan and I have pretty similar tastes in food, outside of the whole vegetarian thing. This works out perfectly, because when one of us wants to splurge on a particular style of food, the other is usually in agreement. We have had Indian quite a few times on this trip, as well as Mexican. Ryan’s first night, we went to a restaurant that gave him ten percent off for the hostel he was staying in. We order massaman curry pretty much any chance we get. We have scoured cities for it. This particular restaurant offered a massaman curry burrito for a price that we probably would have avoided otherwise, but it was well worth it.

The following day, Ryan gets his motorbike and we do some roaming. I plan to be in much better shape but the time we leave the second island, so I check out a few local gyms. The cheapest Muay Thai gym is about sixty American dollars for a week, that’s like two full days of travel in Thailand and more than I would pay in the States, no thanks. I check out some other regular gyms and find one super close to my hostel. No air conditioning, open air gym, plenty of equipment from the seventies, but covers all of the bases and a plethora of fans. Eight hundred baht, or twenty six American dollars, for a week, not my favorite but it will have to do. The real kicker is that it was thirty American dollars for two weeks, but we would only be there for a week. In my excitement of finally getting to work out again, I go a little too hard, attributing the fatigue to the fact that it is currently ninety degrees in the gym.

I leave the gym to meet Ryan at the courts. There are a few new faces, but mostly the same I met the previous day. Ryan and I embarrass ourselves game one, this ball does not like us. We sit around and warm up, a better second showing. The local from the first day, Kee, grabs me to play again and we win two games. We meet the tournament coordinator, a Californian with a pretty good hold on the Thai language, and discuss this devastating sand and he informs us that new sand will be coming in the next day. Ryan and I bike around and find a good deal on a set of Indian food and eat ourselves full for a decent price (for Indian food in Thailand at least).

There Are Worse Places to Diet

A hostel dorm is an oddly intimate place. You are agreeing to share a room with three to fifteen strangers. It supplies some experiences that exist in few other situations. Firstly, if you are alone or only with one other person, you become immediately close with strangers. You are the only ones each of you know in that country, and maybe that speak your native tongue, and it brings a sense of immediately closeness. Second, you basically live together, so things like being in your underwear when you meet, isn’t that unusual. Finally, everyone there is traveling, whether it is for a few days or for years, and knows that most of traveling isn’t pretty or glamorous, Everyone has stories of injuries or sickness or general bad occurrences.

Most hostels are a dorm room with a bathroom and shower in a separate communal room. The one we are in has one bathroom in the room for six people with a door made of slats that angle down and let the sunlight through. I wake up at six am with the feeling after a Spartan race, nothing on my body feels like it wants to be there anymore. I hurt all over, my head is throbbing and my stomach is actively trying to leave. Everyone is asleep, I go to the bathroom, it is definitely food poisoning. I try to go back to sleep, the pain persists. A long time ago, I learned I could make myself throw up on command just by thinking about it and decide that will fix this situation like it had two weeks before. No luck, but I do find out that Indian food is nowhere near as good on the way back up, and in fact, is my least favorite thing to throw up. I finally fall back to sleep.

I wake up with the pain now my prominent and notice everyone else is awake. I hop back in the bathroom. I have seated maybe three feet from everyone as they talk, separated only by a thin wooden door covered in slits, and try to be quiet as my stomach evacuates all the poison from my body. I reenter the room to notice only Ryan remains. We discuss how sick I am and Ryan heads off to a nearby cafe to sit on his laptop. The girls in our room return and inquire about my sickness. They invite me to the beach and I decline. I lay and regret life decisions for a while and decide to go be miserable somewhere beautiful.

I scoot over to Ryan and work on this blog at the cafe. A beautiful porch overlooking the beach and majestic blue water for miles until Koh Phangan, our next destination. I grab an Italian soda(which is mostly syrup) and some “chocolate bread”(toast with nutella and chocolate drizzle) to try to ease my stomach. I catch up to our current day and notice a netting area with pillows suspended above the beach. I lay there, wanting to watch a movie or something, but realize that if I reach for my tablet or water, I will likely vomit all over this beautiful cafe. As I stare into the distance, I chuckle at the poetic irony of feeling the worst I have felt in a while in one of the most stunning places I have ever been. I check my watch and notice volleyball has started. I summon my strength and tell Ryan we are leaving. Pushing my body to its physical limit in the hot sun is the only responsible way to rectify my current situation.

Again, our first game is rough. The wind is worse than before. We get better as we go. I feel better as the games go on and we swim in the ocean to rinse off. I feel much better but very hungry. I decide I will hit the gym on the way home, not to waste the money I have spent on the gym pass. As we make it to the gym, it becomes apparent that the adrenaline has worn off. My entire body hurts and I feel the sickness return. We each eat two people worth of food and I go lay in the room as my head pounds like a gorilla showing its dominance. I decide sleep is in order.

Who Wears Short Shorts

Ryan and I both have a good amount of Italian in our blood, so shortly after arriving to the islands, both of us got very dark. I am not sure about Ryan, but this is true for me everywhere my shorts are not. The only board shorts I brought were my longer red ones, so my tan only exists to my knee. Europeans all wear short shorts or speedos, so I set off for some short shorts. We will receive a fifty percent off coupon for a popular swimwear brand, 69Slam, so we go to check them out. Awesome designs and good materials, but cost over sixty American a pair. We look around the mall and find a pair of Speedo short shorts for twenty American. They don’t stretch well enough for volleyball and I realize I will need compression shorts for underneath that do not extend past them. We check out just the compression shorts since that’s what a lot of Europeans wear, but they too are about sixty American. We roam around and find a pair of FILA soccer shorts with compression shorts built in. The compression part extends past the outer short, but otherwise they are perfect. We pick up both pairs for about twenty six American dollars.

We get to the courts early to run some drills. As we arrive, there are already about six people there and they are setting up the net. New sand has been brought in, much softer than the gravel from before. We get a game in. I am lulled by the softer sand into my usual diving. Mistake, this sand is just a finer version of the gravel before. I feel the fronts of my shins burn from the abrasions. My serve comes back, I am hitting shots and serve receive is somewhat successful. We meet some Americans from Hawaii and discuss international volleyball. They tell us they have played some FIVB and tell us how easy it is to get in, noted. We play until it is too dark to see the ball and hop into the ocean. We eat way too much massaman curry and I hit the gym until the owner kicks me out. The tournament is two days away.

We will finish training, play the Koh Samui tournament and then head to Koh Phangan for another tournament and the famous Full Moon beach party. Then we will take another night bus to Bangkok to fly to Hanoi. Then it is time to put our motorcycle lessons to use riding through Vietnam.