A Long Way to the Bottom: February 21st – February 27th

February 27, 2019 SamuelLMoney Leave a comment

The View From The Top

Due to some miscommunication (and definitely not Ryan leaving his computer on US time), we set our return to Bangkok a day earlier than we needed it. We had the perfect set up in Koh Phangan, and neither of us were fans of Bangkok, so we ate the cost of the non refundable ferry/bus/train tickets and booked for the next day. With our extra day, we grabbed scooters and headed to Malibu Beach. This is the location of the other group of volleyball players on the island. Far from the tourism of Haad Rin beach, a low key area held a beautiful landscape and a much quieter beach area. We checked out the two courts, one free near the water and one for reservations surrounded by trees near a restaurant. The sand was nice, but we didn’t have time to play. Our new friend Florian was about to play at a ping pong tournament nearby.

We took off for the ping pong tournament, had to make an emergency stop for gas and a necessary 7/11 run, so we ended up arriving right as his game finished. The ping pong tournament took place at a little boutique homestay called Carpe Diem. As we walked up the finely manicured gravel path, we saw a small pool and bar and private rooms. As we turned the corner, we saw the ping pong table and a group of people, some familiar faces from volleyball. We wanted to just watch some points, but the level of play was so high that we ended up staying to watch through finals. Afterwards, Maria offered to show us a more private beach on the island.

The private beach provides a solid sunset view

A short ride and we walked down a long set of stairs to a private section of beach with open water, just in time for sunset. The view was insane and Maria and her family offered to teach us to play Kubb, a Swedish lawn game where you throw wooden rods to knock over other wooden pieces. We played two games (I won both, Ryan did not.) and enjoyed the sunset. Hunger kicked in, time to have Indian for the first time since it poisoned me. Last night of beach, so we grabbed some drinks on the beach and laid around under the moonlight until it was time to get up. Florian wanted us to come play doubles, so we had to get moving early.

In the morning, we took off to Malibu Beach and played some doubles while Maria grabbed some more cool shots. Then we took off and returned our scooters, checked out of our hotel and haggled a songthaew to take us to the ferry port. Two hours on a ferry boat and then we got into a mini bus to the train station. Like a fool, I made a comment about this being the first public transportation that went well and arrived on time. We had a few hours to burn before our train would come.
We were in an area entirely devoid of tourists. Local markets were strewn about. Somehow, Ryan found the nicest coffee shop I have ever seen and we posted up to use their electricity. While we charged, we took turns roaming the shops. We got entire packets of homemade snacks for ten baht, which is about thirty American cents. Ryan had been looking for a power bank, so he picked up a pink one with a dog on it for super cheap and I tried out a bunch of different food. An hour until our train, time to head to the station.

Around this point, I messaged Dani to tell her how great my week in Koh Phangan had been, and that I was genuinely worried that things were going to well and something had to go wrong. We arrived early to the train station, asked a worker where our train would come and began to wait. Our train arrived slightly behind schedule and we got to the door. People began unloading things so we continued to wait. A woman stood in the doorway. The train made some noise, so we decided it was time to get on. The woman shook her hand no. We showed her the ticket and she shook her hand no again. The train left. We asked a guard, he called over the walkie, the train slowed down and then continued moving. He took us to the ticket counter.

I explained the situation as best I could with the language barrier, but it wasn’t going well. They wanted us to buy another ticket and we just wanted them to let us on the next train due to the worker telling us no. All the while the next train is arriving. We are basically arguing at this point so I just asked to buy a ticket and will handle the money after. She tells us there is no second class (padded seat with fan/air con) for the next three trains. We tell her just to give us a ticket. We get on the bus with the locals. It is just benches in an open train car. Each seat is wide enough for my butt to dangle over the edge with my head against the wall. The sound of the train is so loud that I can’t hear music with noise cancelling headphones on. I chuckled as I message Dani that I was correct.

The Snowball Effect

We power through the train ride. I don’t necessarily know that I slept at all on the twelve hour night train ride, but I do know that I was unconscious. We arrive in Bangkok and feel a tinge of happiness. They opened a Taco Bell in Bangkok since last time we were there. We head there and get some food. It’s like a knockoff of American Taco Bell, but good enough. Thai people love spicy, so of course their Taco Bell comes standard with Fire sauce on everything. A coworker from Rockwell tells me she is staying a few minutes from where we are staying.

I walk over to see Robyn and check out where she is staying. She is in Southeast Asia doing some work for Rockwell. The points she’s accrued from all the travel have her in a two bedroom suite, a little different from where I am staying. We trade some Asia stories and I think about what I walked away from. She heads to the airport and I go get Ryan.

We have seen Bangkok and the sand courts don’t have any play going on, so I suggest we find a gaming cafe. We search google results for a few hours, all to no avail, but we find one as we are about to give up. Fifty baht for three hours, less than two American dollars. We spend a few hours playing Apex Legends and then head home. I mention that the sleep on the train probably left my body all wonky, so I am worried about waking up for our 7:40am flight.

I wake up at 8:10am, I head over to Ryan’s bed, he’s asleep too. I tell him I slept through four alarms, he tells me he never even set one. We book another flight and I head out to get breakfast, call my dad and finish the blog post I was days late on. I come back in a better mood and we hit Taco Bell a second time. Then we head back to the gaming cafe. We come back early and get some sleep. A short flight and we arrive in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Good Morning, Vietnam

We make it through immigration and take a local bus to Old Quarter and throw our stuff at our hostel. Now we begin our search for our rides. We are looking for Honda Wins to take all the way down Vietnam, over two thousand kilometers. Like always, I do a ton of research. There are no real Honda Wins in Vietnam. You can find some reliable Vietnamese and Indonesian copies and some unreliable Chinese copies. We scour Facebook, Craigslist and local shops looking for the best deals. We find some bikes for under three hundred dollars and decide to grab them the next day. We check out the city a bit, but after becoming so comfortable on the islands, the city immediately makes me irritable.

We head over to the shop that offered us the best deal. The woman working tells us the bikes are at her other shop and they will send someone to get us. Silly us, we thought they would send a scooter and we would each ride on the back of a scooter. This is Vietnam. We both got on the back of one scooter. No mirrors and the driver never turned his head. We whipped onto the highway and blew red lights. Arrived in one piece for the owner of the shop to tell us that the deal the woman offered us was insane. Tried to talk us into the real prices, but we were good. We did some more research. Most of the people posting blog posts about buying the Vietnamese bikes for low prices either got extremely lucky buying from other travelers or they were sold Chinese copies with Detech (Vietnamese company) engine covers. We meet up with the English guys who offer to sell us some scooters.

We learned to ride motorcycles in Laos, but we have gotten plenty of scooter experience on this trip. Motorcycles are way cooler. They look cooler, they feel cooler and changing gears feels cool. Realistically though, the scooters tend to be more reliable and we have much more experience on them and don’t have to worry about gears in the insanity that is Vietnam. The bikes the guys offer us have a few more issues than we care to deal with so I message dealers about the scooters.

The mechanic we were going to take whatever bike we bought has some scooters for sale so we check them out. We look at the Nuovo 3, but for a little cheaper we grab the Nuovo 1 and an Attila. We grab them for a price that we should easily recuperate upon hitting Ho Chi Minh City. We ask that they be washed and have a few things added and looked at and we head back to the hostel. We head to check out the Old Quarter area and grab some dinner. Mostly travelers partying, but there are some cool hidden things. We head to the Skyline bar to check out the view from the rooftop bars and then head home.

On the Road Again

We wake up and check out of our hostel. Quick taxi to the shop and we grab our scooters. Ryan cracks a joke about how no matter what bikes we got, his would be fine and mine would have problems. That has been the theme since I met him. We leave the shop and go grab some gas. My blinkers are already not working. Oh well. We find some helmet shops and I go back and forth on the three quarter helmets I have been wearing or a full motorcycle helmet. After feeling around, we both decide on modular helmets, a full sized helmet with raising face shield, where the bigger place part covering the chin also raises. Heavier than the other options, but a good mix of safety and breathability.We head on our way to Ninh Binh.

Taking the highway, Hanoi to Ninh Binh is about two hours. The highway is where all the cars and trucks go wild. We stick to the other roads and it’s about four hours. Around the two hour mark, we stop to grab food. The area we are in doesn’t seem to use much English, which is where I usually just use a smile. Ryan doesn’t have that luck, he uses Google to tell them he is a vegetarian. They laugh at us a bit and bring him a large plate of vegetables and fried tofu, me a plates of fried eggs and what I assume is pork, and some rice to share. Ryan grabs a Red Bull and we devour the plate full of food. The whole thing ends up costing us about three American dollars. We head off the next two hours.

Vietnam looks like someone told designer to use all of the available landscapes to make the most beautiful thing they can imagine. It’s all rivers and mountains and rice paddies. I lead the way and every few seconds think “I wonder if Ryan wants a picture of that”. Even if we stopped every five minutes, we would still miss pictures. We stop once or twice and make our way to Trang An. Hidden among small mountainous hills similar to those found in Halong Bay, we find our homestay. Ryan informs me that my rear lights have not worked the entire time.

I head to a nearby mechanic and they fix my blinker and lights in under ten minutes for less than two dollars. We take off to find an ATM. About a kilometer later, I feel something give, my bike slows and my throttle has no resistance. Ryan is leading and continues to the ATM, I sit in the dark and text him what happened. I figure it is the throttle cable and start walking the bike back to the shop. This is standard, I just left a shop and this happens. I walk the bike back the kilometer in the dark. Ryan shows up and begins to crack jokes and ride behind me. As we arrive, the shop is closed. Ryan rides around to find another shop and the shop workers begin to leave the shop. They recognize me and fix my now busted throttle cable. In starting up the engine, it floods and kickstarting is required. He tells me the price and I just hand him a handful of money for working on it after they closed. My total for the two repairs is still under four American dollars.

We head home and decide to stop for dinner. Ryan sees a restaurant with a sign with the word that means vegetarian, so we stop. He orders what he thinks is vegetarian rice and I get goat with rice on recommendation for our waiter. The food arrives and Ryan gets what looks like rice crispies and some soup. I get a sizzling plate full of goat and garlic, and a big bowl of white rice. Ryan dips the rice into the soup and eats a bit before asking me to try the mushrooms. I have eaten a good amount of mushrooms in my life, and these mushrooms are definitely beef. The karma for teasing me about my bike has come quickly. I eat my food with a smile and Ryan tries to figure out what else to eat. We get up to pay and realize this restaurant is about six times more expensive than all of the other ones we have seen. A reminder not to follow Ryan places.

We head back to the hostel where Ryan gets more food and I get some Oreos. We make some plans for what to do in the Ninh Binh area the following day and what route to take to the next city the day after that and I head to bed to write this post. So meta.

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Home Away From Home: February 14th – February 20th

February 24, 2019 SamuelLMoney Leave a comment

The day before the Koh Samui tournament, we decided to get some last minute training in and ended up helping with the set up for the tournament. The tournament is run by a California native who lives in Koh Samui and runs it as a non profit just to have a fun event. This year he received sponsorships from a number of Koh Samui establishments, with two of them being Hooters and Hard Rock. Hooters in Thailand is such an interesting thing because in the states, it is a risque establishment. It would be considered an adult restaurant. In Thailand, it is a short distance from actual strip clubs, so it ends up being like a family restaurant. We still get a good laugh thatwe ended up eating dinner together at Hooter’s on Valentines’s Day. We went to collect our welcome package, which included a custom Koh Samui Open jersey, a Hooters calendar, a mixtape, a water bottle and some other goodies. The package included a Hooters tshirt, which I gave to a Dutch girl in our hostel room and was rewarded with the knowledge that most Europeans do not know what Hooters is.

The International Debut

The first day of the tournament, the main court was lowered to women’s height and the net closer to the water was used for some men’s games. The net closer to the water had considerably more wind coming onto the court, making dealing with the unfamiliar ball even more of a task. We played our first game against a friend we had made earlier in the week, a German named Florian who was quite a bit above our skill level, who was playing alongside the owner of Beach Volleyball Thailand. It was nowhere near our best showing and we did not come out on top. Ryan posted some of the game on his facebook, if you feel like watching us fail. Game two would be the following morning against the first player I played with in pickup on the island and his tall American partner. We played them in two games before leaving Friday night and barely lost both times.

We didn’t get cool names for the bracket

The second day, we came to play. We were on the second court again. We adjusted to the wind and kept aggressive. Ryan’s serves stayed in and the wind tossed them around, perfectly hitting the lines. Our first international win, we’ll take it. Our next game would be on court one against a very tall Russian that we played against our very first day in Phuket. I believe the score of that game was like four to twenty one, so we refused to let that happen again. Our game took place at two, announced over the loud speaker, with all of the people we had made friends with watching. The entirety of this game is on Ryan’s facebook, but unfortunately, we did not come out on top. A few mistakes at the end cost us the game. A line shot from Ryan at the end went just wide to end the game, with the entire crowd saying it was actually in after the game was called. Insult to injury, nobody could have spoken up a few minutes earlier. Oh well, our first showing ended one win and two losses.

We stayed to support our other friends and returned the following day to watch the semis and finals. Finals was between a Slovenian pro team and a Russian team that seemed outgunned. The taller Russian had other plans though, demolishing every ball that was passed above his head. Taking on two and hitting down from behind the ten foot line, he overwhelmed the Slovenian team and they won the match in only two games. A good showing and we decide to go home.

We had had scooters for about a week at this point. As I got to my scooter and got my helmet on, the scooter wouldn’t turn on. I tried everything, but no luck. I pushed it into the lot and tried some more. Ryan pulled his bike over to mine and told me his bike would not start either. Did someone kill our bikes? Did we both somehow kill our bikes? We had learned how to kickstart bikes in Laos, which isn’t exactly ideal in sandals. My bike started up after a few kicks. Ryan’s wouldn’t even kick down. A few minutes later, a group of younger Thai guys started looking at Ryan’s bike, trying everything. They pulled another bike over, took the battery out of his bike and threw in the battery from the other bike and got it started. Then they switched the batteries back and told him not to stop. Thai kindness wins again. We head home to get some sleep before playing in the morning.

The courts the day after the tournament. So empty.

I wake up and head to the gym one last time. It is about eighty five degrees and none of the fans are on. After about a twenty minute workout, I am pretty much drenched in sweat. I meet up with Ryan and friends for some games. A group of German FIVB playing girls showed up at the same time as the guys and dropped the net to women’s height to run drills. The four of them played some games and finished up as I arrived. We were going to run some drills but the other net had to be taken down and the Germans “didn’t have time” to reset the net to men’s height before leaving, so we just headed back. I thought I would have enough time for a haircut before our ferry so I found a barbershop.

Koh Samui has cool views that aren’t a beach

We have had a number of instances of Thai guys wanting to take pictures with us, especially the ones we play volleyball with. No big deal. Laugh, take a picture, walk away. I showed the barber the usual picture I use for haircuts, a straight on picture from a wedding this past summer and tell him some numbers. As he shaves the sides, he asks if the picture was of me. After I answer, he calls someone into the room. They begin speaking Thai and I recognize the Thai word for handsome and begin to laugh. The barber asks if I speak Thai. Another worker walks in and asks if I have Instagram. I awkwardly say yes and my haircut is postponed for me to type in my username. I look at my watch, fifteen minutes until I need to be at the port for my ferry. The haircut continues. It comes to an end and the usual cleaning up is done. The barber asks to take some pictures. Sure, go ahead. A few more minutes of this and I am edging towards the door. As I open it, he asks to take a picture of the picture I showed him to start. The haircut went well, so sure. He takes the picture and I immediately exit to the ferry and arrive back just in time.

Thai Prices, Please

Koh Samui is essentially a tourist island you would take a family to. If that is the case, then Koh Phangan is a backpacker party island. The prices are similar to the less touristy Northern Thailand, but it attracts a lot more tourists. The beaches get packed every month for the Full Moon party. The beach fills with party goers and the locals sling buckets full of liquor and mixers and the beach rages all night. Bars blast music, there are fire shows and fire jump roping and people stay on the beach past sunrise. Essentially a bunch of drunk tourists cover themselves in neon paint and stumble arond a beach, but it is an interesting sight. Our second tournament took place on Haad Rin beach on February 20th, as did the February Full Moon Party.

Most of my traveling is very planned, but with the length of this trip, I have been trying to be more spontaneous and plan things as I go. I didn’t realize the Full Moon Party was happening and failed to book anything before everything cheap was sold out. Whoops. A girl I had met told me she could get us a hotel room right where we needed to be for considerably cheaper than our other options. Ignoring the fact that this would be a super easy set up to murder us both and take our belongings, we took her up on the offer. Maria was gracious enough not to kill us and basically handled everything for us on the island. She had been coming to the island for years and had a group of cool people traveling with her, so it was a great situation we had stumbled upon. She taught me some Polish, so now I am learning Polish, Thai and Russian for anyone keeping count. We head to the beach to check out the playing spot.

Our photographer doesn’t like my American sense of humor

A few of the people we made friends with on Koh Samui were also playing in Koh Phangan, the first time on the trip that we had a group of friends to hang out with. We all went to the beach to play some games. The sand on Koh Phangan is almost silky, a sharp contrast to the gravel sand of Koh Samui. We got some games in and were told that we would get tournament information later that night.

The first tournament ran very well and everyone in the community was more than willing to help out. I am not one to speak ill of a situation, but it’s my site, so I’ll post the truth. Not having tournament information the night before a tournament is offputting. We didn’t know what time to wake up or even where on the beach the games would be. The group chat for the tournament was flooded with questions but no answers. We were told to arrive at noon for a captain’s meeting but were also told we wouldn’t play until one and that we didn’t have to show up until we played. Anyone who has been anywhere hot knows that one oclock is the worst time to be outside. The sun is out with a vengeance.

Oh well, we came to play, so we showed up at noon. We arrived to nets and lines on the ground five minutes before the first games were supposed to start. We were asked to help, so we did. For the same price to play as the smoothly run first tournament, we were building the courts at the last minute. We helped put things together for the first tournament, but just to speed things. Had we not helped, they would have gotten done, just slower. This time, had we not helped, I am not sure it would have. After about an hour of setting up, we were told to take a group picture. As cool as the Koh Samui jersey was, it was almost entirely yellow, so probably won’t be a regular wear for me. For this reason, we were excited to get different jerseys for this tournament. Everyone else had on different colored FIVB style jerseys with ones and twos on them. Awesome. We tried to get some for the picture and found out the only matching ones were yellow and we were told we had to match colors. We took the pictures and immediately took them off.

I spend most of my time during games in the sand

We played our three pool games against a strong set of teams and failed to come out on top in any of our games. The competition was strong and we didn’t play particularly well. Maria was a saving grace again, offering to take some pictures of us while we played with her DSLR. Not having any cool pictures of us playing, we were ecstatic at the offer. We stuck around to check out our other friends playing and decided to fix the jersey issue. We traded in the yellow jerseys for two red ones and mine has “RUS” on the back. Score. We head home and check out the island.

The second day, we make ourselves scarce to avoid more physical labor. The prices on Koh Phangan facilitate us shopping a bit more so we take advantage. We head over to cheer our friends on for semis and to check out the Slovenian team in finals again, but this time against our friends from Phuket. Not looking to make the same mistakes as on Samui, they lose the first game and then win the next two to take it. The tournament ended around 6:30, so the Full Moon party was being set up.

The beach drinking scene is very welcoming in Koh Phangan

Booze in Thailand is particularly cheap. You can get two bottles of liquor and two liters for less than twenty American dollars. All over the beach, they sell buckets containing a mixer and a three hundred and seventy five milliliter bottle of liquor. These cost about five American dollars. A dangerous amount of drink and we received a number of warnings about people putting more than liquor into the drinks being sold. We had some drinks back at our place and checked out the scenery. It is standard fare to be covered in neon paint and glitter, but not feeling particularly eager to have either on any of my things, we attended as observers.

Blasting music, drunk people jumping over flaming ropes and a decent variety of light shows abound as the beach was literally covered in people. We roamed around and found some friends to hang out with before remembering that I care more about food than drunk people. We hit up a local burger joint that does the best attempt at a burger that we have seen in Asia and I decide it is time to get some sleep.

Next, we will check out some other parts of Koh Phangan and then begin the journey back to Bangkok to head to Vietnam before coming back to Koh Phangan for training with Olympic players.

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Complaining That I Can’t Complain: February 7th – February 13th

February 13, 2019 SamuelLMoney Leave a comment

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.

Sunrise over the eastern coast of Phuket

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.

Have to make up for a month of rest days

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.

Asia, Thailand, Traveling

Life’s a Beach: January 31st – February 6th

February 7, 2019 SamuelLMoney Leave a comment

Hotter Than Hell

The irony of the dubbed “Real Sin City” being as hot as Hell (near the top, if you’ve read Dante’s Inferno) is almost poetic. When we arrived, Google warned us of the number of school closings due to extremely high pollution levels. They are trying many things to counteract it, but there are just so many cars, scooters and people in a small area, it begins to feel futile. We have spent days in the direct sunlight, but you can feel how the pollution traps the heat in the city. It’s like walking through jello, the humidity is overwhelming. Day two of Bangkok and we decide to do some sight seeing. We begin to walk around the city, checking out a highly rated bookstore that is closed when we arrive. We walk to the Grand Palace to check out the hype. A beautiful and massive complex with ornate buildings, but like most valued places in Thailand, knees and shoulders must be covered. We assumed this would be the case, but it’s so hot and we’ve seen so many similar places, we decide the outside views will suffice.

Two staples of my childhood (ignore the no pictures sign)

A further walk to Chinatown finds us in a big shopping mall filled with Chinese/Japanese culture items. Floor after floor of video game and character statue shop. Bad news for Ryan. He gets to spend about an hour listening to me exclaim all of my favorite characters cast in intricate details at shockingly low prices. A quick shoot around and we find many places that will likely contain meat or fish sauces and not know that it matters and kill Ryan, so he grabs some noodles from a place describing themselves as vegetarian and we begin to head back towards our hostel. I find a little touristy looking restaurant by the river and grab some Massaman and rice as Ryan yells at me for letting him buy the street side noodles. A quick lunch and we head next door to a kitty cafe so Ryan can get his cat fix and we can hide in the air conditioning.

We head back to the hostel and grab our stuff. We grab a night at a party hostel away from Khao San Road and closer to Nana Plaza. Party hostels in Europe/South America tend to be more of “Get to know all of these people over drinks and then go out together in the city and let anyone not going out enjoy the peace”, whereas our experience in Asia has been more of “Everyone here will awkwardly push drinks at you and yell all night and maybe you can overpay us to take you to some bars”. We arrive at the highly rated hostel and the beds are super comfy and the dorms are separate from the bar area. It’s been a long hot day so I start reading and Ryan takes a nap. The lights flip on and two girls are in our room offering to pour shots in our mouth and telling us that if you go to the bar without pants on, they will give you free vodka. Upon entering the hostel to check in, it was all guys at the hostel check in. Nothing sounds less inviting to me as an adult male than a group of men getting free alcohol for not wearing pants, so I can’t even imagine how offputting it would be if I was a female, especially solo traveling. We pass and they offer us some insane prices on going on a bar crawl later, double pass.

We decide to check out the other go to places for debauchery in Bangkok, Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza. Luckily, Ryan and I have similar stances about these types of thing. I don’t want to take part, you can’t have my money but I do want to at least see what it’s all about, so we go people watching. Soi Cowboy is a brightly lit street lined with bars. Outside of the bars are scantily clad Thai women dancing and grabbing at your arms to bring you into their bar. Most tourist places in any city in Thailand are filled with white males in bars with young, pretty Thai girls, nothing new. We shoot over to Nana Plaza, a three story structure filled with what amounts to strip clubs. We walk through and evade the grabs into each bar. We pick one and hop inside for a drink. Girls dancing, interludes for solo/duo acts and more Thai girls sitting with white males, convincing them to by the exorbitantly priced drinks. That’s enough for us, there has to be something worthwhile around here.

We see a sign for a rooftop bar and do some quick research. There’s a super high rated rooftop bar called Octave that is just a short train ride away. We’ve been wanting to take the rail line, so this is perfect. We shoot over and arrive to a Marriot hotel. One of my favorite travel tips is that acting like you belong somewhere will usually get you into most places. “Excuse me, I forgot my keycard in *insert place you want to be*, can you swipe me in?” will get you a lot of places. We head up to the forty fifth floor of the building, where we are greeted with “Dinner or bar?” to which we reply “Bar”. The women motions us to another elevator. Up to the forty eighth floor. The drink prices are insane, but so is the view. In all of Bangkok, we can see a small handful of buildings that are at the same height as us. A quick trot up some stairs and we are at the forty ninth floor, the top, filled with modern lighting and tables filled with nicely dressed patrons. We grab a table and snap some pics of the view. A waiter brings us a menu, no need. We hop to the other side for some more pics and to enjoy the breeze and then head back. One more day until the beach.

Day three, when a trip extends past a week or two, it requires you to live your life as normal. Things like laundry and haircuts have to be factored in. Days to relax and just lay around become treasured. Before I left, I learned to how to give myself the exact style of fade haircut I like, only problem being that there is nowhere in a hostel to cut hair without blasting hair all over everything. That being said, Ryan and I head to a Thai barbershop, show the barbers pictures of us with the haircuts we want and they go off. It ends up costing about four dollars and comes out pretty near perfect for there being no exchange of words. We find a big mall for Ryan to grab some clothing items and for me to check out the movie “Glass”.

Travel In Your Dreams

After the mall, we go on a search for some food, we end up taking a route that takes us the long way back to our hostel. Almost an hour of walking and we fail to find a Thai restaurant….in Thailand. Bangkok isn’t my favorite. We get back to the hostel and I check the route to the bus station. It is 5pm at this point and our bus is at 6:30pm. Google informs me that our thirty minute taxi to the bus station is now just under an hour. Oh no, no time for food. We walk down the street and deal with a few taxis offering us flat rates to the bus station. Word to the wise, don’t ever take those deals. We find one offering to use the meter. We are currently at 5:12pm and the ride has jumped to over an hour. We sit in the backseat as I watch Google slowly increase the trip time and watch our ETA slowly slip past 6:30pm. Online, this is shown as the last overnight bus down to Phuket.

We arrive at 6:40pm and throw the money to the taxi driver and begin frantically searching for the ticket booth for Phuket to exchange our confirmation for an actual ticket. As we walk up, a woman looks at us from a distance and yells “Phuket?”. We head to her and she keeps saying 6:50pm. We tell her “6:30pm” and show her the ticket. She laughs, tells us we are good looking and has the girl behind the counter print us two tickets for the 6:50pm bus. It is 6:50pm then, she tells us to run. We run to the bus. As we walk up to the upper deck of the bus and grab our seats in the front, we remember that we didn’t eat before our haircuts to save room for a good Thai meal after, which didn’t end up happening. We sit on the bus for twenty minutes waiting to leave when we could have grabbed snacks. No luck. The bus takes off. The overnight bus lets us recline and we are right against the front. Pretty terrifying to watch the bus swing around corners and too close to other vehicles in the night from that view.

At midnight, we hit a rest stop. We hop off to use the restroom, grab drinks and an unhealthy amount of food. As we get back on, I find out I can fully recline my seat without being in the person behind me’s way. Straight to sleep. I wake up around 4am, watch an episode of the Punisher and fall back asleep. I wake up around 6am and realize we are supposed to arrive at 7am so I stay up. Nothing in Southeast Asia runs on time and we have been picking up and dropping off locals, so we arrive at the bus station around 10am. The bus terminal is nowhere near the downtown area, so we hop in the back of a songthaew (converted truck) and get to the downtown area for 15 baht (about $0.50). We hop out near some scooter rental places.

All of the scooter places in touristy areas charge crazy prices compared to the rest of Thailand, but we aren’t rookies anymore. We are staying a thirty minute ride away from the rental places but plan to come to that part of town before leaving the area. We rent two scooters for six days, so we have leverage as far as bargaining. We grab the scooters at 75% of their usual rate. Here comes the tricky part, we have our entire bags with us and the scooters have no storage. Time for those bike lessons to be worth it. We throw our bags on our back and whip through the traffic, weaving around cars stuck in traffic like some real locals. We arrive at our beachfront hostel and drop our stuff. We have noticed that the hotter an area, the less likely the common areas of the hostel have fans/air conditioning, and this is no exception. We head to the beach.

Remember: No Russian

The water is a blue that looks almost fake. The sun causes the sand to feel like hot coals and it stays about eighty five degrees. We hop in the water and it’s the perfect temperature. Just a little cool. The sand underneath is soft with seemingly no debris. I don’t think I have mentioned it in any of these posts, but after realizing that everyone else traveling is bilingual, we decided to pick up some Russian to have a second language to discuss things in when we need some privacy in public. As we walk down the beach, all we hear is Russian. It seems everyone we encounter is Russian. The restaurants and stores all have signs in Russian. We are on the southern coast of Thailand. We do a little research and find out Phuket has been less than affectionately nicknamed “Little Russia” due to the high number of Russian tourists.

As we got off the bus, my stomach felt like I might possibly die. Drink some water, eat some food, no luck. Food poisoning again? Perfect. We see on Facebook that there is volleyball in the afternoon on the beach we are staying at. I’ve been through worse for things I like less, I self induce some sickness relief and go swim in the ocean, body feels much better. Off to the beach we go. Some doubles but mostly games of threes, which is uncommon anywhere we have ever been. We sit around and wait for our chance to get on a court. With all the Russian we have learned, we haven’t gotten to “Can we play?” or “Does anyone have next?”, homework for later. We wait around like shy children. We finally get our chance to get on the court and realize that no one is going to warm up. We have next to no experience with the FIVB ball, haven’t played in the wind since the summer, haven’t played at all in almost a month and it is humid as hell. The first game does not go well. The court reverts back to the same six people playing. There are a slew of courts down the beach, and no one is letting new people in. A few failed attempts to buy our own ball with no luck. We go swim and head home.

Day two, we check out a hotel we booked for later in the week that we heard doesn’t match its online pictures. Definitely not, very low quality, time to get a refund. We find a new one that is advertised for gamers, but has high quality amenities at an insanely cheap price. It matches its online persona, life is cool. We zip around on scooters and check out another beach and an awesome viewpoint of the beach we are staying. Back to the beach to track down a ball. We ask around and are told someone there sells balls. Just our luck, he has none with him. A little better luck, he offers to let us come play fours. Usually my selling point is endurance, I don’t get tired easily. Add in a lack of eating, subtle dehydration and an insane amount of humidity, and that all goes out the window. We play for five or six hours and Ryan and I are both unable to stand when they finally offer to let us play doubles. Back to the hostel for some food and rest.

It is hot and I am out of shape, but it is pretty

The player we met to sell us a ball finds me on Facebook. He sees we have a mutual friend in the tournament director for another island and we chat about the tournament. He is playing the same one as us in a few weeks and offers to let us join in on training. We meet up with him and buy a ball. Finally, we can get some unobstructed practice time with this new ball. We practice a bit and head home to take care of some stuff.

Most of the other cities we have been in have been super cheap. Like full portion meals for one dollar cheap. Phuket is insanely touristy, we are paying close to American prices for meals. I decide to track down a supermarket. A quick zip around the city and I find a miniature Sam’s Club. Similar prices to the local marts, but a much larger selection. As a reference, the “English breakfast set” at our hostel is about one hundred baht, or just over three dollars. This set is two pieces of toast, what looks like one egg, two pieces of bacon and tea or coffee. At the hostel, we have a kettle, a toaster and a microwave. I pick up a pack of noodle cups, a bag of Chinese carrots (as thick as my wrist), a loaf of wheat bread, two sticks of salted butter and eight hundred milliliters of chocolate milk for one hundred and seventy baht, or just under six dollars. I remember that I have to carry all of this back on my scooter, time for another learning experience.

This is not what it usually looks like when I sit down to write this stuff

Ryan and I make some dumb decisions but our favorite one is to wait until around noon to go outside and walk around. The sun is out in full force and we always regret. Today, we decide not to do this for likely the first time in over a month and hide at a cafe with a beach view to relax. I worked on this post (super meta) and Ryan worked on some stuff. Ryan decided to continue on his computer and I headed to volleyball.

Like Riding A Bike

It’s been a over a month since we have played with any consistency, the air here is super thick and the ball is completely different, so playing started as a bit disheartening. Plays I would normally make with relative ease had become impossible. My normal Spartan level of endurance had dwindled to a sickening frailty when you add the weeks of sitting on buses, humidity and direct sun. So training has been in order. After a few days, things start feeling like normal. Movements because muscle reactions instead of thought about choices. At this point, we’re playing four or five hours a day. We make some locals friends and feel a little more confident about the tournament coming up.,

Some of the friends we made from volleyball invite us out for barbeque. I am never one to turn down an invitation to get food. Mostly because I love food, but also because it’s always such a joyous occasion to be socializing in. We arrive at the location they sent us and they are sitting in front of table top girls with basins of buttery looking liquid around them. We immediately notice that it is all meat and seafood. Sorry, Ryan’s stomach, but they promise there are vegetables and eggs. The Asian people as a whole seem to have a very fast and loose approach to how they view vegetarianism, rarely seeming to understand that vegetarian dishes shouldn’t be cooked in animal fat or eating the broth of a soup containing meat is basically still eating meat. Ryan has done his best to be diligent about avoiding any meat or seafood, including regularly asking for no fish sauce or oyster sauce to be made with any of his meals (a very common base for Thai sauces). As the grill is loaded up with shrimp for me (even though I have already grabbed myself a plate of meat as I do not really take to seafood), Ryan adds vegetables, noodles and eggs to the surrounding basin. Our friends assure us this is vegetarian but Ryan and I whisper back and forth about his impending demise. He eats the delicious concoction as a eat plates of meat and we continue to socialize.

Ryan throws some more food into the water as I begin to cook red meat. The others inform me that I need to add something to the grill to keep the meat from sticking. They begin swabbing it with a chunk of animal fat, double sorry, Ryan’s stomach. The fat begins to dribble off of the red meat I am cooking, cascading down into the liquid, triple sorry. Ryan and I discuss how it is worth it and how it is likely that he has slowly been microdosing meat and seafood this entire trip. A theory to be tested in the morning.

We finish up and they bring us a handful food of these tiny colorful cones. Cold to the touch, popsicles, we assume. Rip them open and the consistency feels like that of tapioca bobas. Each flavor is better than the last. One of our friends walks over with a bowl full of ice cream. Sorry abs, we have found all you can eat ice cream. Two bowls of ice cream and about fifteen jelly popsicles later and we all pay and get ready to leave. After a short conversation, we realize we will likely not get a chance to play with our new friends. We exchange social medias and bid them farewell.

This Is Sam Luck

One of the first days in Phuket, a couple was leaving our hostel to go to the nearby party area. They were quoted five hundred baht for a taxi which would take them fiften minutes. This is equivalent to about seventeen American dollars. Their other option was to take a local bus for less than one hundred baht, but would take two hours. Them being two travelers with big bags, I couldn’t really help, but wasn’t pleased with the extortion of travelers.

A roommate of ours was heading to the area and I could hear him being quoted a similar price. An exorbitant amount for a long term traveler. He was just one guy with two smaller bags. Time to rack up some good karma points. We offered him to hop on the back of Ryan’s scooter with his smaller bag on his back while we strapped his bigger bag to the back of mine. My first experience with riding with a strapped down bag just to be ready for future travel. A quick fifteen minute ride to save him a handful of money and we checked out an area of the island that we didn’t see. He paid for our lunch and we parted ways to go play volleyball.

On the last day of the week, we moved to a nicer hotel. One geared towards gamers, which is funny given Ryan’s and my own penchant for wasting hours gaming, but with their amenities and competitive price, it was a no brainer. Three pools, big rooms, a rooftop terrace and a gaming room, luxuries we haven’t seen in a while. The top floor contained murals of Overwatch characters, a PS4 with new games, a Nintendo switch and rows of gaming rigs with peripherals, some even including streaming equipment. I guess gaming will be required at some point.

We went to pick up a friend from the harbour and Ryan met to bring the bag back and she got on the back of my scooter. As we started the thirty minute journey, a local stopped me, pointed at the exhaust on my scooter and made a concerned face. The exhaust and handle bars of my scooter shine with a case hardened paint job, so I thought he was referring to that. He began to point more furiously at the back and as the look of confusion on my face increased, he grabbed the back tire. I asked Ryan to take a look and he assured me everything was fine.

As we rode, I knew things like sharp turning would be difficult, as that requires a precise shifting of the body weight, and now there is another body at a different location on the bike. As we took the first sharp turn, I feel the back tire attempt to go straight. When turning, if you apply throttle, the back tire wants to go forward and the front tire is what makes it turn, so I assume the added weight to the back tire causes this scenario. From then on a begin to take the turns a little more carefully. Then I begin to feel the back tire sliding on small faults in the road. It’s okay, only fifteen more minutes to ride. Then the bike starts kicking like a wooden rollercoaster that is far past its maintenance point. I pull into a nearby parking lot and see that the tire is entirely flat. Ryan’s diagnosis has failed me.

Ryan comes to get our friend while I attempt to find a motorbike shop as several locals give me entirely separate directions. Without the added wait, the bike is basically hopping with each rotation of the wheel. I go a few minutes down the road to where Google says there is a local shop, closed down, damn. I stop in a nearby hotel and they inform me it is a ten minute ride to the closest place. Ten minutes on a functioning bike, I bet. I start riding and realize my little, hoppy, no tire scooter has to take me down this main road. Cars are stopping in front of me, scooters are whizzing around, and the normal dexterity allotted by riding a scooter is completely removed without the back tire. About ten minutes of white knuckling my handlebars and I get stuck behind a stopped car as everyone refuses to let me go around. I look at the woman next to me and point to my tire and ask where to get it fixed, she yells twenty baht at me. Damn you, language barrier. A nearby man comes over and points in the direction I was headed and says five minutes. Five more minutes? So I am half way. I go around the car and another block down I see the shop. I have never been happier for someone to give me false information.

I roll into the shop and point at my tire. The young Thai worker immediately throws the bike on the back stand and pops the tire off. I sit there sweating as he works, waiting to hear what my grand total will be for this little adventure. A quick fifteen minutes and my tire is fixed with nail removed. I pull out my wallet and he says one fifty, which is about five dollars. Awesome. I hand him his money and head back on my now functioning scooter.

A day or so of relaxation and I will be heading to Koh Samui on a bus a day or so before Ryan. I am a bit more neurotic about training stuff so want to get there early. Then the real training starts and we will be gearing up for our back to back tournaments.

Samuel L. Massari

Monthly Archives: February 2019