Thailand Supershow: Thursday

Oh man, I am sorry about that wait. Trying to pound blog posts out while teaching intensives was not the best choice. Another not-so-great choice: 9 hour workdays, and waking up at 8am 4 days a week. Thanks, job. Anyhoo, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, we can move right on to Thursday:

I wake up, proud of myself for having survived last night, ominous tarot prophecies be damned. Actually, I can give myself a pat on the back there: after Jessie went to bed, I wasn't quite tired, so I decided I would go back down to the beach for another drink, maybe another shake, and see what happened. It was when I got past the porch (and noticed that our dog had moved to another, perhaps cooler, porch) that I realized I couldn't remember the way back to the beach, and even if I was to make it there and get even more fucked up, there was no way I'd be able to make it back to the guest house. Rape-free, at least. The whole situation seemed to be exactly what that Tower card wanted, and I wasn't going to give it the satisfaction. After giving the dog another couple belly rubs, I went back into our room and retired. I am pretty sure this rare moment of lucidity is the only reason I'm not dead, in a Thai prison, or worshiped as a skinny god somewhere.

So anyways, with that crisis averted I was in good sorts on Thursday morning, which is the morning we had decided to finally ride a goddamn elephant. Taxi cabs around the islands always have a laminated tourist map in the back so passengers can just point to whatever touristy thing they want to be taken to, and we gave a truly vigorous point to that little laminated elephant picture.

At the elephant ride place:

This is their backup elephant, I guess. He was just hanging out. The elephant we took was already suited up and ready to dance:

Oh yeah. We doing this. Me and the elephant are gonna have the greatest time and we'll bond so when I'm gone and the moon is full he'll let out a soft elephant cry and his owners will shake their heads wistfully, trying to console the gentle beast, but to no avail.

So, that whole elephant cry thing actually came true. Although instead it was more of an elephant scream, and it was because the owner was hitting it in the head with this fun number:

Every time the elephant would stop to eat some grass, or to freak out at a passing car, the owner would just wail on its skull with that wicked-looking hammer/velociraptor claw tool.

Oh yeah, and we passed the rare and mythical Elephant Shityard:


And some wild cock. Cocks.


It wasn't all dung-fields and elephant-abusing though. We had some good views:




Back at the camp (about half an hour short of our promised hour ride, I am almost positive) we stopped for some pictures. Here we are astride our noble companion:


And another (with our tour guide trying his damndest to lean out of the way):


And another, now that the elephant is tired of posing:


Now that we could cross "Ride the fuck out of an elephant" off our to-do lists, we still had some time to kill before catching the ferry back to Ko Samui. There was a waterfall on the taxi's tourist map, why not check that out?

After about 80 billion hours of walking through stifling hot jungle, we reach where the waterfall is supposed to be. There's some sort of guesthouse built in the area, and a foreigner hanging out asks us if we're here to see the waterfall. We give the affirmative, he takes a sip of his drink, chuckles, and points us to this:


No, that's no trick of scale or proportion, dear reader. Here I am, standing next to the mighty waterfall in all its thunderous glory:

Fuck you, Nature. Seriously. Fuck. You. Also, a special fuck you to the cab driver who picked us up and confided that "the waterfall might have dried up a little this time of year". Fuck you and everything you stand for.

We did, however, successfully relax on the beach.


Or at least, Jessie did.


Meanwhile, I had to "use the facilities" something fierce, and apparently there were no bathrooms anywhere around the beach, Thailand, or the world. I finally found the back of a restaurant I could use (and by that I mean the bathroom in the back, I didn't shit in an alley or something) and bought a beer. After all that hard work it was time again to visit a pharmacy, since I had to throw away everything before our plane flight to Ko Samui, and I didn't have the foresight to realize I would have to throw away everything again tomorrow before the flight to Pattaya.

By this point, I was getting tired of valium (zing! 'cause, it makes you tired? no?) and ineffectual ritalin and was wracking my brains for something new to try that I could conceivably get without a prescription. My conversations with pharmacists became a lot more like this:

Me: Can I get something for, I dunno, pain relief? Like, bad pain?
Pharmacist: What kind of pain?
Me: Fuck, I dunno. Back pain? That's the worst, right?
Pharmacist: Here be drugs.

When I finally got back to Jessie at the beach, I was too worn out to rent a jetski, and just swam around for awhile till we had to catch the ferry to Ko Samui. My memory of our night in Ko Samui is a little fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure we just went to a ping pong show or two and drank a bunch. However, I will wait for the post about Friday in Pattaya before I give the skinny on ping pong shows, because Pattaya is infamously sleazy, and also because I have to wake up super early to teach tomorrow. See, we all suffer.

Thailand Supershow: Wednesday

Alright, Wednesday! Now we're talking! We're finally saying goodbye to Phuket and catching a plane to Ko Samui (because fuck taking an 8 hour bus ride and then a 4 hour ferry), and then the boat to Ko Pha Ngan. But first, bungee jumping!

After checking out and making our guest house cook us breakfast extra late, I asked the front desk about where to bungee jump. She informs me that there are two places: one run by New Zealanders that is in Patong Beach, 60 meters high, and uninsured, and another run by Australians that is outside Patong Beach, 50 meters high, and fully insured. Looks like we're going with the Kiwis.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the jump (although Jessie might), so instead here a photo of the handsome laminated certificate I received:


And a t-shirt that is two sizes too big:

Anyways, the jump itself was pretty cool. Basically they take you to the top of a crane and you jump over a large pool/lake deal. 60 meters doesn't seem too high until you realize you've been in that crane elevator 2 minutes and you're still not at the top. My favorite part was when right before I was about to jump, the guy asks if I mind getting a little wet, I jump, and find out that you actually hit the water and get submerged for a few seconds on that first drop. It was a good 10 or 15 minutes before I realized afterward that my face was covered in snot. Then on to Ko Samui!

The only photo of that journey is this sign in the bathroom:

I'm not one to judge, but I think a toilet that cannot flush toilet paper is, well, not the best. Anyways, the airport at Ko Samui is amazing, but more on that tomorrow. Next, we took the ferry to Ko Pha Ngan, checked into our guest house (that cost a bit more than we would've liked, but it was near the beach and you know what I don't have to explain myself to you! you're not my mom!) and after a little while of fucking around in an internet cafe it was night.

Nighttime on the beach. Here, we have the infamous Magic Mountain:

But we will come back to you. First we needed food. Look at this starving face:

Heartbreaking.

Jessie agrees that food is in order:


So does her new Totoro bag:

You always know best, Totoro.

The restaurant we were sitting at also had a full bar and bucket drink selection.

Bucket drinks are exactly what they sound like (and very similar to those I have had at Bar Guess in previous blog posts, but at a third of the price): a bucket full of cheap, strong liquor and a mixer like Red Bull or something equally heinous.

After eating, it was finally time to check out Magic Mountain. Can you guess what they're known for?


That's right: Meth-I mean, Mushroom shakes!

Totoro looks excited, even if Jessie is unimpressed.


The place was unsurprisingly very mellow and ambient inside:


After 2 shakes at 15 dollars a pop, I've taken about all the hallucinogenics my wallet can handle. While the shakes actually tasted pretty decent, unfortunately I didn't experience any hallucinations, just a decent head high. Certainly not a high worth 30 bucks.

Walking back to the beach, we pass an old guy doing tarot card readings on a blanket in the sand. I've never done a tarot reading before, but then I've never paid 30 bucks for a decent buzz before. We were breaking some barriers tonight.

I sit down and do the reading, trying my hardest not to fall over or laugh uncontrollably or vomit or something as the shrooms start to kick in a little more. The cards tell the man that I am good with money, I will live a long time, and I am incredibly trustworthy and honest. So far so true. Finally he looks at my future, and my last card is The Tower. I don't know how much you know about Tarot, but I know enough to know that's pretty much the worst thing that can happen in a Tarot reading. Even the old guy has trouble soft-pedaling it, and tells me to "Be careful in the future when you, uh, do, hm, anything". You got it, Oh Wise Sage. Jessie then gets her Tarot read, which was far more positive than mine, and we head off down the beach to places where I can no doubt be healthy and honest and possibly fraught with disaster.

What to do, what to do? Oh, I guess we could get wasted on one of those buckets. Man Totoro, you crazy. You crazy, man. But yeah let's do that. Along the beach were about a dozen of these stalls selling nothing but bucket drinks:


Now, you may think Thailand's canny tourist marketing has noticed that foreigners like Swearing (a lot), but I prefer to imagine that there's one bucket drink salesman with Tourette's, and the rest of these stalls like to show solidarity. Filthy, profane solidarity. We decide to go to the JAMIE stall, because, come on. If you would like to find it yourself, it is located conveniently between the ROMEO FUCK MY PUSSY SEX BUCKET stall and the EVERYBODY FUCKING BUCKET JOHNNY BOY CLUB stall.


We order a vodka and Red Bull bucket for about 3 bucks, and split it between us. The guy then starts giving us homemade necklaces and rings, and informs us that if we buy 4 more buckets, we'll get one free. Excuse me, Mr. JAMIE ROCKSTAR Fucking Strong BoomBoom BUCKET, but do I look like some kind of rampant alcoholic to you?! Wait, fuck.

At least I was the prettiest alcoholic at the I DON'T GIVE A FUCK I JUST WANT TO FUCK ball.

Between the bucket and the mushrooms hitting their peak, I was in a pretty good state when the fire dancer guys came out:





They did some pretty neat stuff like throwing their fire dealies around the beach to each other and (usually) catching them.

Alas, eventually we had to retire to our guesthouse, but first Who's a good dog?! Yes you are! Yes you are!

This lovable scamp started following us around, and camped out on our porch while we lay wasted in a hammock.

Goodbye forever, Adopted Dog In Ko Pha Ngan. We had some good times together.

Tomorrow: We ride an elephant, see the world's most disappointing waterfall, and I'll finally give the dirt on ping pong shows! Probably the post you don't want your grandparents to read.

Thailand Supershow: Tuesday

So that whole "daily post" thing has turned into a "every 2 or 3 days when I'm not out drinking or taking a nap or something" thing, so I'm sorry for that. In consolation, you get extra pics of people beating the shit out of each other. Enjoy.

So now that it was Tuesday, we checked out of our Nai Thon Beach hotel and stashed our shit in our new digs in Patong Beach. Half the price, one fourth the beauty and service, but they had breakfast in the morning, and a DVD player in the room. One of the things I was determined to see in Thailand was a Muay Thai match, and I was in luck; the previous day I'd passed a booth selling tickets to what I was told was a particularly big fight:

The Pech Sombat International! At least, it was big enough to have cars driving everywhere with loudspeakers telling everyone to go to it. Good enough for me! I forked over about 60 bucks for VIP seats and prepared myself for a night of good old-fashioned mortal kombat. But first, snorkeling.

Unfortunately, we were too late to get to Phi Phi Leh without staying the night there, and since I had my (non-refundable) Muay Thai ticket for that night, we decided to nix that idea and just found a boat touring a shitload of other islands. Of course, we could've gone to Phi Phi and then tried to find a private boat to take us back, but come on. The Beach movie wasn't that good anyways.

Here we are on said boat:


...And that's about it for photos of that excursion. It was full of swimming around beautiful beaches, me getting horribly sunburned (even though it was cloudy, WTF skin o'mine), and speaking Korean with some other tourists. Oh yeah, and getting fucking stung by a fucking jellyfish on my fucking face! Here's a picture about 4 days later, and you can still see the sting (it's the red line going down the center of my cheek):

Fucking jellyfish, seriously. How does something with no brain manage to be such a dick.

Now onto the fight! Here's a flier from the event so you can follow along!


I was on my own, as Jessie had no interest in seeing a fight, thus setting back her gender by 50 years. Sorry Jessie, but I don't make the rules. After I got a couple beers and made my way to the VIP seating. Holy cow, that guy was not kidding about my seat, it was about 2 feet from the ropes. Also, holy cow, the first round is going to be 90-pound kids going at it! Some photos of the children who can't be older than 13, about to tear each to shreds:

Before each match, the fighters would walk around to each corner and bow their head at the post.

And then they do a thing where they go around the center on their knees:


And now for the good stuff that is also awful because man are they tiny:


One of these kids eventually took a blow to the ribs and went down (I want to say it was blue shorts, but who can remember) so hard that his eyes rolled back and he started to foam at the mouth. About 3 feet from where I was sitting. I've never seen it take 2 smelling salts to wake someone up before, much less a kid. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the down, because exploiting such an event would have been terrible. Also, like I said, I was 3 feet away from the hooplah, including the judge who I was sitting next to, and it might've gotten a bit awkward to snap a photo next to his trainer and the doctors.

Onto the next fight!

That's all I've got. It was probably pretty boring.

But fight 3 was the first girlfight of the evening! First up, we have this tall glass of water, "TELEZAR" from Sweden:

The little ceremony in the center:

And her opponent, YODNAMPECH from...Bangrong?

No photos of how that fight ended. I think the Thai girl won, but if there are any TELEZAR fans among my readers, do feel free to correct me.

Fight 4, WILLIAM from AMERICA! Whoo, AMERICA!


Jesus, he's like a foot taller than the other guy, I whispered to the white guy sitting next to me, whose girlfriend was clearly not enjoying herself.

With all that extra reach, height, and American spirit, the match ended pretty much as you'd expect:

The Thai referee here was doing a Chris Tucker impression and screaming "You got knocked the fuck out!" at the downed fighter. Come on, I wouldn't lie to you. Anyways, AMERICA WHOO:


Fight 5! And these Thai fellas did not waste any time laying into each other:

Like I said, these seats were really close to the ring. I remember actually feeling some sweat hit me at one point, and it may have been here:

Gross. Anyways, here they are being adorable and giving each other a post-match hug. Or they're clinching again, my memory's fuzzy.


And red shorts wins! Way to go, Red!

Moving on to fight 6, and the second girlfight of the night! Here we have the chiseled beauty of TAZEE, from Switzerland:

And the exotic and terrifying beauty of her opponent, CHENTEL of Italy:


And here we have another entry in the "maybe this is where I got sweat on" contest:

Still gross. Not sure what's happening in this next fight, some sort of post-fight ground ritual again:


But in the end, Italy reigns supreme!

Whoo, Chentel! That's a fucking sweet belt:

Growr.

Fight 7, and another white guy! At least this time JONO from Australia only has a funny name, and not a full foot on his opponent.


But it still ends the same:

Tough luck, MONSIAM from Rawai.

And now, what I guess was supposed to be the premier fight because there's an explosion graphic around some Thai writing in the flier:

Buuuuut that's the only photo I've got. You rule, Blue Shorts!

Later that night, Jessie and I bought some bootleg DVDs that either didn't work or were really shitty cams, and then I -think- we might've gone to a ping pong show or two. I can't remember which night we first went, so instead I'm just going to give ping pong shows their own post later on.

Tomorrow (ha!) I'll try to update with Wednesday, where we go to Ko Pha Ngan for the night, I go bungee jumping, and mushroom shakes are had and then tarot cards are read. Which totally ominous card did I get while trying to keep my stoned shit together?! You'll have to read to find out. That is how it works.