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July 24, 2006
Thrillseeker
There’s this idea of returning to Thailand, to the island, and it appeals. Squeakfeather is a little worried - he thinks it was a bit scary and intense last time. But, you know, it's MEANT to be an adventure.
Like one day when Digby and I were hanging out in the shallows, cause that was the cool place to hang, and Dig found a pippy. ‘A pippy!’ he told me, so we were clear. Then he got a whole bunch of sand in his hand, and put the pippy on top – the idea being that we would trick the pippy into burying itself in his hand sand. Ha ha!
So we were quiet for a while, as quiet as two ‘drunk’ sea ogres can be, waiting for the pippy to bury itself. We tried dripping water onto it, to simulate ‘the ocean’. That didn’t work. After a couple minutes we began to get impatient. ‘C’mon pippy,’ we threatened, ‘we can’t stand around here all day waiting for you to bury yourself. In a couple hours we have a sunset to watch! Get with the program! How dare you disobey us! We could kill you right now if we wanted, pippy!’
We were pippy bullies, hindered only by our target not understanding English. People on the beach might have been watching us, we wouldn’t have noticed. Anyway there was always something crazy going on in the shallows, that was just the kind of scene it was.
Then, suddenly, the pippy moved! It sprang open, and this thing flicked out of it, a white thing like a switchblade! In that moment, to our minds, the pippy was going to knife us! We shrieked in terror and dropped it, fleeing into the deeper waters where pippyies don’t swim.
So Squeakfeather had a point, really. Thailand isn’t for the faint hearted. Only for those who live for adventure.
Is that the kind of man I am?
Another day when Dig and I were hanging tough in the shallows, ‘drunk’ again ... about a hundred people suddenly erupted out of the jungle, every one of them wearing a white t-shirt. And we, in our state, we thought it was Militia Day. Militia Day: the one day of the year when all the Thais can stop being friendly and instead hunt the tourists!
‘Your wealth is no good today farang!’ they would shout as they chased us with machetes through the restaurant.
‘But we buy cocktails!’ we protest.
‘No farang, today you die.’
As it turns out, it wasn’t Militia Day, only school-children-going-to-the-beach-day. Close call, one might think, but somehow it was even scarier. All these hundred little white-shirted Thai kids had an assignment to find English speakers and ask them questions! So two freaked-out sea ogres lift themselves out of the sea and try to sneak back to their bungalows as quietly as they can. Slinking through the jungle, trying to hide from Thai kids who want to ask them what their favourite colour is! Oh no!
I’ll say that the food on the island was absolutely awesome – however, after a couple of weeks, we all just began to crave something that wasn’t full of lemongrass and chilli. Something stodgy, something western. Something to make our shit smell like home again.
I wanted a pizza. Oh yes. I’ve was like ‘I’ve had it! I’ve been too stoned for too long not to have a pizza! 10 000 baht for the man who brings me a pizza!’
‘You hear that?’ said the Thais. ‘The farang has offered a king’s ransom for a pizza! The race is on!’
And what a race it was, a great race, long boats cresting the tops of waves, steaming pizza dishes held high above the spray of the sea.
Perhaps it shall be so once more, oh Thailand.
Squeakfeather can sleep in his matchbox full of gumleaves.
Posted by Sam Bowring at July 24, 2006 10:53 PM