Tales From a Female Traveller

See You In Mexico

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Now that B has gone home to continue on with "normal" life, I am left alone to ponder our holiday. It’s a shame we aren’t able to hang together at home in my lounge room or on his front veranda with the sun getting in my eyes, there’s no one to remember funny stories with or talk about the crap times and the good times with. So here I am sitting in a restaurant named Chokedee in Krabi Town, and there are couples of people everywhere. To my left there is a couple of Swedish guys and in front of me, immersed in their novels sit a pair of girls. People walk up and down the strip looking at the shops and I hardly see anyone alone. It’s strange really, that I’ve met hardly any single travellers. As I sit here watching them interact and laugh at what I assume was the previous night’s adventures I think back to the great time I shared with my friend for a month and a half of travel through South East Asia.
The amount of stupid things we did are going to make such great stories for our respective grandkids, granted, they’ll probably be bored to death by that stage and have gotten themselves into so much worse by their standards that whatever we have to say will be the type of thing that only really matters to the both of us. A kind of "you had to be there" situation, but they’ll be our stories and we’ll treasure them forever and never have to regret not doing it.
So I would like to mention a few memorable moments we shared and experienced during our first big trip together. Some of them WILL be "you had to be there" moments but I’m sure all of you will understand.
The first memorable moment that sticks out in my mind was the bus ride to Chiang Mai during our first week in Thailand. We had been on such a long ride which started from getting stuffed about by a horribly dishonest cab driver back in Bangkok who almost forced us to miss the whole trip, that when it started to get dark after a WHOLE day of travelling on a bus that broke down every five minutes… I just lost all sense of composure and went a little crazy. Those of you who’ve read "You Stick a Toilet Seat Pillow on My Head and Tell Me I Look Stupid" will remember this well. The day had been SO stressful and it was so hot and the bus was playing a ridiculous form of soft porn, making us VERY uncomfortable sitting near the Monks on the bus that when I looked at the neck pillow I decided it would look just smashing as a head ornament on B. From then on out we giggled like school kids with a dirty issue of Dolly Doctor and ended up having the best bus ride of our lives. Complete hilarity. I’m sure the other people on the bus had NO idea what was going on but no one said anything the whole trip and in the end we just didn’t care about the silence and continued with our fits of giggles... after that the mood on the bus seemed to lighten and people began to talk amongst themselves.
I’ll also never forget breaking ALL the rules from the travel bible (Lonely Planet). We had arrived late in Chiang Mai thanks to the glorious bus trip that even though it was 10:30 at night, we still decided to walk into town to the Night Market where we saw Australia lose to Italy… anyway, after we had exhausted the Night Market option we decided that seeing it wasn’t far to the Backpacker Meeting Place, and seeing as we were too stubborn to pay for a taxi, we would walk back. BIG mistake. That night was THE first night we both feared for our lives… not because of strange lurking people… they were fine, they just continued on with the lurking and the sinister behaviour... but because of the dogs… so many rabid dogs. I am normally great at direction and can always find my way, but this night it was SO dark in those back streets, and I was only wearing a singlet top (BIG no no), we were both carrying backpacks (another big no no of a night) and neither of us had gotten a rabies shot (a calculated risk, plus we were close to the Red Cross Hospital back in Bangkok so we didn’t think it was a big issue)… that I lost my bearings and we took a wrong turn into an alley where a pack of dogs decided that they were going to try and make us their midnight snack. As we walked briskly along and realised it was the wrong way we turned back and headed the way we had come in only to run into a pack of dogs. One dog started following close on our heels and B hates dogs… or more accurately… they hate him… so he was a little more than panicked, as was I… "Just keep walking." I would warn… "Do NOT look at them and just keep walking." Thankfully the tactic worked and we managed not to provoke anything from them, but hearing it a step behind us, coughing and spluttering as it growled at us was the scariest sound and we were very lucky to escape it. Suffice to say we laughed about how stupid it was later and vowed never to break the bible’s rules again.
The next moment that comes to mind is the infamous cab smashing incident. And yet again, it was at the crux of another stressful day. When B opened the door of our cab and it was hit by another taxi my whole body just stiffened. Our first instincts were to run, but we knew that would be wrong anywhere and our decency glued us to the scene. Within minutes my mind was thinking about the movie Bangkok Hilton with Nicole Kidman and I found myself ordering B not sign ANYTHING… all I could think about was all those movies about Thai jails that I’d seen and I didn’t wanna end up like Claire Danes and Kate Bekingsale in some horrible female prison never seeing the light of day again. After it was all over and after we had actually made our flight to Cambodia we looked at each other on the plane and just laughed at the ridiculousness of it all, the fact that we DIDN’T end up in jail and got off pretty much scott free was amazing… we’ll never forget that one.. and B, you gotta tell your Mum about it some time…
During our Trek in Chiang Mai I was so exhausted that B ended up carrying my pack as well as his own up a very vertical mountain until we reached the Ka-ren Hill Tribe we were to stay with and by the time night fell we had mostly gotten very drunk, not because we drank a particularly large amount of alcohol, but more due to the high altitude mixed with our exhaustion… the whingeing Pom James was stung by a scorpion and everyone erupted into fits of laughter at his bitching and moaning about how much it hurt, which continued until bed time. When James decided to sleep without a shirt I crapped on about bugs so much that after a long pause for deliberation he quickly put back on his shirt, sending a round of giggles through the shelter the eight of us were staying in. Once everything was quiet I still wasn’t finished with my giggle mood and said into the darkness "Maaarge… close your eeeeyes." At which point B was laughing so hard and trying NOT to that the whole shelter was moving as he fought to keep his laughter back. "I know you’re laughing." I said... "I can feel the floor moving."… at this point the whole shelter broke the silence with a chorus of laughter and it continued that way until our sides hurt…
The water fight with the kids in Cambodia is another memorable moment. First it was B and I pitted against the kids, then it was me and the girls against B and the boys, then it was everyone against me, everyone against B and an all out free for all water fight. One of the best times interacting with the kids we’d had all trip.
Then there’s our victorious win at the Funky Monkey trivia night, B though it was gold that we’d managed to win a whole Sunday roast (which we would miss due to me being sick) by answering a total of zero questions right, and myself about 2 that it was just too funny.
B also caused me to explode with fits of laughter when he referred to the Vietnamese Dong as "Funny Money"… or was it the Laos Kip? I don’t remember when or where this was exactly... but it was the funniest thing I had heard in days and couldn’t stop laughing… then when I was having dinner with a South African gentleman in Phuket he also referred to the Thai Baht as funny money, sending me into giggles at which point I had to explain my obtuse reaction, which struck up a conversation about funny events that had occurred on our travels. I still laugh about it now.
Finally, the most recent memory that fills my brain is of when B was ready to leave for Sydney and we were at Bangkok International Airport. I hate goodbyes, I don’t handle them particularly well and I’d rather pretend that they’re not happening and just get on with it. So when we saw the photo booth I INSISTED we have some shots together. We had the whole airport coming buy to see what the hysterical laughter was all about and they ended up seeing B and I packed into a tiny booth pulling faces at a tiny camera. I’m sure we brought smiles to the faces of a lot of people that day; I know it still brings a big one to my own and whenever I feel down and need a laugh… I just look at those shots.
There were a lot more moments like this, and it’s the type of thing where you need the other person there with you as you talk about them to remember them correctly, but I couldn’t have wished for a better travel partner.
So thanks B. I miss you. See you in Mexico. **wink wink, nudge nudge**

posted by Lucyspeak @ 4:34 pm