Woke up today and the sky was blue, instead of what has become our usual cloudy and threatening, so decided it was time for a field trip. So, after my morning swim and tropical fruit salad, I took a taxi to Thong Sala, and got supplies for the afternoon. My first stop is the bakery, as I want to pack some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, as I think where I’m going is a bit off the grid and requires lunch in tow.
I’ve been to the bakery before, and know they have bread (obviously), and they sell homemade peanut butter and homemade jams, so this should be easy. So I look on the menu, expecting to order it directly, and it’s not there. I ask the girl behind the counter, and she looks confused, so the owner yells back for someone else to come out. A young guy comes out and asks what I’m trying to order, so I tell him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He looks confused. “What is jelly?” He asks, the word not coming out of his mouth sounding like a word at all.
Forgetting that they sell it there, I try to describe jelly, that it was sweet, could be made from strawberry or grape. He says, “Oh, it is like jam?” Bingo. So, once we’re on board that for all intents and purposes, jam is the same as jelly, we’re off and running again. “And you want to put peanut butter and jam on bread, as a sandwich?” This has never come up before? It just seems hard to believe.
I describe it to him, and he goes into the back. Finally, he comes out with four toasted pieces of bread (which I normally wouldn’t do for PB&J), and two ceramic clam shells, one with jam in it, one with peanut butter. “I didn’t want to do it wrong,” he says, “So, you can put it together, then I’ll wrap them up for you.” So, aside from the fact that the peanut butter in the clam shell is half what I’d normally put on one sandwich let alone two, I start assembling them. And the owner, the cashier, and the guy I’ve been dealing with, all stand in front of my table and watch me make this foreign delicacy. Crazy…
After that, I get two big bottles of water, and two cans of diet Coke, and pop them in my backpack with my PB&J, laptop, camera, and iPod. I head over to the motorbike taxi stand, and tell them I want to go to the Chinese Temple. Similar to my doing editing at Wat Khoa Tam, I figure I’ll work on the novel this afternoon at the Chinese Temple. So, despite paying more than it seems it should cost (150 baht), we’re off to the temple.
Echoing other elements of this trip, it seems strange that someone who doesn’t even have a bicycle in San Francisco because of safety concerns jumps on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet, and starts winding into the rainforest with his laptop and heavy bottles of water strapped on his back. But, seriously, it doesn’t even register as strange, you just sort of run with it. Also, just like I did for Full Moon Party, I’m trying to wear flip-flops as much as possible, since the locals seem to live in them and do everything in them, so even though in my head they aren’t motorcycle-riding gear, I wear them. It’s never an issue.
The mototrcycle driver leaves me off at the Chinese Temple, which is really in the middle of nowhere, although it seems like a reasonable hike to the beach on the north of the island from there. I think he’s more perplexed that I plan to stay there and leave him depart, since it is a bit out of the ordinary. If you wanted to cross this off your itinerary and feel you saw it all, that would probably take five to ten minutes.
Finally, he turns around and says he’ll wait for me. I tell him I’ll be here long time, four or five hours, too long to wait. He seems suspicious, like I don’t yet know how little there is to do here. Of course, what I plan to do here is in my backpack, this is just a backdrop.
What will I do when I’m done, he asks. I tell him I’ll walk to the pier, and get a ride back to Thong Sala. This doesn’t sit right with him, either. First I want to go where there’s nothing to do for a long time, then I plan to walk on the road, in the afternoon, to the pier that’s further away from the place I want to go to? “I’ll come back for you,” he says. I tell him he doesn’t need to, but he asks, “what time?”
I say I’ll be here until at least 4 or 5. It is shortly after 11:30 a.m. when this conversation is happening. I figure this will show him I really have planned to stay here most of the day. He says, “I pick you up at 4?”
Finally, I cave in and say, “Sure.” Part of me wonders if it’s the right thing to do, since I may not get up this way again, and never saw the beaches on the north side yet. But there is something nice about having a ride swoop in and grab me here later. He is as hesitant about this plan as he is of my entire day. “You sure? 4 o clock?” Yes, I’ll be here. “You promise?” Yes, 4 o clock. He finally comes over to shake on it. I shake his hand, and say “See you at 4.” He turns around and we’re both probably thinking it’s unlikely we’ll see each other again today. I think he’ll bail on me, because he still thinks there’s no way I’ll be at the temple this long.
The temple is nice, one of these crazy things that seem so perfect yet out of place. According to Lonely Planet, the temple gives people luck. And it was created about 20 years ago after a visiting woman had a vision of the Chinese Buddha who instructed her to build a fire-light for the island. So, in the middle of the jungle, there is now this colorful, inspirational place. I imagine someone seeing nothing but jungle here and turning it into something unique, a crude metaphor I extend to me coming there with my novel today.
I walk around, deciding where to perch for the afternoon. The actual temple seems too decadent for working on the novel.I decide to use the obvious place, some concrete tables and benches off to the side of the temple, which are also under a canopy of trees.
Either the book is getting better, or I’m too lenient, but I’m really finding I’m not editing as much as I thought I would. I mean, sure, there are whole sections getting changed, deleted, rewritten, and all of that, but structurally, it seems fine to me. This of course makes me suspicious, as my impulse is to think I’m being too soft in paradise rather than thinking the book might actually be shaping up. Who can tell… I just keep pushing ahead.
After three and a half hours, I am getting restless, and decide to walk down the road to the waterfall, which I think is close to the temple. I’ll just double back and get here before 4 p.m.
I walk for a bit, and see Wat Pa Saeng Tham, and decide to check it out, may as well see another temple in the jungle. This one’s a bit rustic, and looks like they’re in the process of rebuilding. A female monk greets me in English and takes me to what seems to be a meditation hall. She shows me how to bow three times before Buddha, and then invites me to see 30+ oil paintings around the open-air hall, showing Siddharta’s path to becoming the Buddha.
I keep double-taking on the altar, as there is what seems to be a mummified monk sitting in a glass cube on the right. I ask the monk, is he real? I know Koh Samui makes a big deal about having a mummified monk there. It’s even a star on the island map that says “mummified monk,” so it seems strange to find one randomly with no fanfare. She tells me that he built this wat, and tries to convey how being a mummy makes him even closer to nirvana, but that part’s sketchy for me.
I ask if we’re close to the waterfall, and she says something in Thai, another monk comes out and points up the hill. That seems to be the direction I came from, and the waterfall is supposed to be further down the road, on the other side. He pantomines me going up and over this hill, then says “30 minutes.” I thank him, but can’t imagine a waterfall is in my future. After more temple fragments here and there, and a flight of stairs helping you traverse a hill, I am back at the Chinese Temple. I figure that’s a sign, so I forgo the waterfall, restart my Macbook Air, and do some more work on the novel.
At 3:40, my driver returns and whisks me back to Thong Sala. I decide I’m way overdue for eating durian, so I pick one up from one of my regular fruit stands. She gets the durian started for me, but then packs it up in a bag, wrapped in newspaper, to protect me and everything else from its spiky exterior. Often described as “like eating an amazing gourmet custard in a sewer,” durian is an acquired taste. I keep debating whether I’ve acquired it, which is a really clear sign you haven’t. I buy a small one, since I’m eating it alone.
Once home, the small durian seems like a mistake, because the size of the stuff between the durian pods takes up a lot of space, and the pits within the durian don’t seem any smaller, so you mainly just get a lot less durian flesh for your baht. It also brings up how good any custard would have to be for you to endure eating it in what smells like a festering port-a-potty that’s filled and been out in the humid summer for a week. That said, I can appreciate why people eat it. It is unique, the strands of flesh that turn into pudding in your mouth.
I stop mourning my lack of edible durian, though, since I think I’m not on the acquired taste side of the house. I pack up the shell, pits, and everything else, and walk them out to the main road, not sure which bits may stink up my resort after the fact. I think I ate the part that smells awful, though. Eating durian warms your body, it’s a strange thing. And, as I walk to the garbage can on the main road, I feel my body drift, like the thing gave me a buzz, as well. Drunk on durian? Who knows?
Walking back from dumping the durian remains, I hear a constant thud on the ground. I see a guy standing in the field, holding a rope that goes up into the trees above him, and from the palm trees, green coconuts and being tossed down. It takes a beat to sort out that he has a monkey on a long leash, and its job is to toss the ripe coconuts down. The man seems bored beyond belief, looking up to make sure he doesn’t get hit, but otherwise looks like he can’t wait for this to be over. And it just seems wrong to work with a monkey and to be this bored. He really seems to have no role here. He’s not gathering the coconuts. His job is just holding the monkey’s leash. The monkey doesn’t throw them all down, either, so it seems like he knows what he’s doing up there.
I had a falafel craving today, but on my return to Thong Sala, the meditteranean place wasn’t open, so I went home. I decide to bike into town later, and all three places I know that serve falafel are all closed, so that seems strange. I have some basil, tofu stir-fry and call it a day without any falafel.
The ladies all know me by now (and by lady, I mean prostitute, that is the standard term here), since I ride my bike into town most nights. So I just get more waves and ‘hellos’ now, and less cries for sex and to take them home. You never know, though. The other night, three ladies ran out into the street ahead of my bike and did a Charlie’s Angel pose making fake guns with their fingers, trying to get me to stop. They don’t have any customers, may as well do something to break up the night.
Last night, at a different lady bar, about 8 ran out and formed a wall, blocking the entire lane from curb the dividing line, so I’d stop my bike, then the tallest one walks over to me and straddles my front wheel. I need to be careful, though, as this is one of the girls that I’m pretty sure is a ladyboy. So you can’t just say you’re gay and get out of it, if it’s a ladyboy. Some ladyboys, I’ve been told, are girls above the waist and boys below. Some are girls above and below the waist, although I have to question if the person in question has breasts and a fake vagina, how is that still a ladyboy? Just a lady at that point, no?
She wanted me to stay, have a drink, then she’d come home with me. I tell her no, I need to go, that I’m getting ready to go swimming. I immediately wonder why I’d mention swimming, which was my plan upon returning, as a late night skinny dip is probably not out of the question for a lady. She asks where I’m staying, and I tell her the name of the resort next door. They should be closed up by now, and the only obvious error here is they don’t have a pool, but I don’t think ladies come track you down anyway. The whole time I was in the pool, though, I kept imagining a dozen ladies and ladyboys showing up and jumping naked into the pool. I’d definitely see how well I clocked the ladyboys, if that happened. But, thankfully, it was just a quiet night, and I swam alone, under the stars.
Considering I rarely go out much in San Francisco, the irony isn’t lost on me that I’m staying in the party capital of Southeast Asia (according to the T-shirts). Last night was the famous Full Moon Party, and travelers going through all different corners of Asia descended on our little island for the traditional all-night beach rave in Haad Rin.
I tell the owner about Oasis, and what we do, and finally showed him the image posted above, with the two logos. He doesn’t look happy, but says it is interesing how similar they look. He says he’s going to ask his designer about it, but that he wasn’t aware of their logo coming from anywhere else. He says it is on everything, showing me stationary, business cards, and such. Just to make sure he knows my intention, I tell him I think it’s funny, and at least it’s a gay bar using it. I tell him I should get a free T-shirt at least, but he doesn’t have T-shirts. I head across the street to the Male Box, which is now sort of open.