Eimer points out that Indians do not travel light. Mom on her own with three young children? No less than 6 king-size suitcases – though probably for a 6-month visit to the cousins in the US.
Once inside, we are rewarded for our efforts with an unsolicited upgrade to first class. Score! Of course, I pick the absolute SLOWEST line at passport control, though on the back end of our trip we find that a slow check isn’t necessarily a thorough one…
Just past security, we run into Bret, who’s on his way to Mountain View for a week. He seems to be drinking his way to California and is a little upset we’re not willing to join him in a swig of whiskey.
I sleep through my upgrade – including the cheese & fruit platter (sniff) – but it’s been a long week of visits to college campuses in Delhi, and I’m well in need of the 3-hour power nap.
Getting to Ko Samet (i.e. Samet Island) turns out to be quite the mission: bus from the airport to the bus terminal, from the bus terminal to Pattaya, from Pattaya to Rayong, from Rayong to Ban Phe (in an open-back truck), where, 5 hours and 4 buses later, we (finally!) get on a boat to the island. Besides the boat, the best part of the trip is walking up and down the aisles of the 7-Eleven at the bus terminal in Bangkok: shiny floors, well-stocked shelves, goodies from home and then some, and all the usual toiletries. I am all smiles even though it is only 6am.
As the speedboat approaches Ao Prow, a tractor reverses a makeshift dock into the water, and once our luggage, Eimer and I are safely on the mobile platform, the tractor deposits us on the shore.
Our room isn’t ready for another hour, so we lunch on the beachfront terrace, drinking to two blissful days in island paradise. Although the afternoon is overcast, the clouds can hardly mar my mellow mood – I’m intent on putting the 1,000 page Shantaram to rest and really enjoy digging into a complimentary basket of fruit I’ve never seen before and need a Google images search to name (rambutan, longan, and my new fave: dragon fruit).
We greet the evening with a round of cocktails that are as heavenly as our island and then head off to the east coast, where the kids go to boogie. The entire island is a nature preserve and our taxi - a lime green pick-up truck with open-air benches in the back - bumps us slowly along the packed earth road that connects the two sides of the island.
The east side is HAPPENING (well, as happening as a tropical island’s going to get): candlelit dinner on the beach and fire throwers for entertainment, with hookah pipes, pitchers of Singha and live music to follow. Eimer makes a friend – another 30-yr old with braces (!) and we have a wild time playing connect four and dancing it UP.
I’ve dusted off my denim miniskirt for the occasion – it feels good to be in a place where I’m not made to feel naked for not covering up my knees and elbows. Having been in India for almost 3 months, I can’t help comparing: Thailand seems to be streets ahead and India, well, India seems hopelessly backwards: depressively conservative, dangerously unhygienic and happy to settle for mediocrity. It’s not the best way to think, and I reprimand these thoughts, but they creep back: “Why can’t they just pull their socks up?” If the rest of the Asian world can do it, why not India?
I also start to wonder what Indians think of the state of their own country when they travel to places like Thailand. It’s a perspective I can’t fathom.
The following morning is a lovely, sunny one – all lounging on the beach and frolicking in the turquoise water. Eimer and I discover that Indian sunscreen is a different kettle of fish as we both get burnt, despite slopping on the factor 30.
Lunch is grand – ocean views, fresh green papaya salad and one very fine Italian man within eye’s reach – yum.
At 5 o’clock we reluctantly take the last boat to Ban Phe, where we catch a (direct!) bus to Bangkok. Monsoon hits Thailand Sunday evening, and the bus journey is painfully slow, especially for Eimer, whose singed skin makes her shiver uncontrollably. I plug in my ipod and nodding in and out of sleep, I watch the rain splatter the bus windows and wonder what it will be like to return to London.
The sky’s been wrung pretty much dry by the time we hit Bangkok, and both Eimer and I stare with wide eyes and open jaws at the modernity of everything around us: lights, buildings, designer brands, massive McDonalds…even Starbucks (I’d developed a terrible fondness for tall skim lattes in London.)
We take a taxi from the Ekumai bus terminal to Khao San Road – tourist CENTRAL – but a good base for less than 24 hours in Bangkok. About 5 minutes into the 45-minute drive, I realise our driver’s got a disconcerting full-body nervous tick. Every time he jerks, I cringe, thinking we’re about to veer into a tuk tuk or an overladen scooter. To make matters worse, the driver decides one piece of gum isn’t sufficient and proceeds to shove about 4 pieces in his mouth, chewing louder than a bloody cow on speed. The intermittent jerking is not too funny on its own, but coupled with the wide-open mouth gum smacking, and I spend the rest of the ride trying (rather unsuccessfully) to stifle my laughter. Eimer and I almost piss ourselves laughing when back in Hyderabad, we try to convey to Andrew just how idiosyncratic Bangkok drivers can be.
Although a world apart from island bliss, Bangkok has its own magic. For one, the street food is not only edible, but also damn good. The food you get in restaurants is damn good too. I love the iridescent pink taxis, the golden Buddhas that sparkle in the hot hot sun, the jewel-encrusted temples, the stylish outfits of the petite Thai girls, and of course, the shopping!
I have cause to think of London yet again as in one of the many temples we step into on our whirlwind tuk tuk tour of Bangkok’s Buddhas, I meet Andy, originally from Malaysia, but lives and works in London Victoria. What does he do in London? He’s a chef. Where? At the Mango Tree – the Thai restaurant just around the corner from the London office, which I love. Small world.
On a high from how much we love Thailand, it’s a long way down when the Thai Airways agent who’s checking us in wants to know how Eimer intends to get BACK into India on her single entry visa. Crap. An honest oversight – she had understood ‘SINGLE’ to mean her marital status. It’s touch and go for a while; the agent fully expects Eimer to stay in Thailand, pay a trip to the Indian embassy in Bangkok, get another visa and only then go back to India. Given my own experience with the Indian embassy in London, I estimate that would take a good week or two to sort.
Fortunately, though, Eimer’s flight back to Dublin is due to leave about 30 hours after our plane’s scheduled arrival in Hyderabad. We convince the agent she’s not going to leave the airport – she’s not really going back into India, you see. A lot of reading of the rules later, he explains that any layover greater than 24 hours requires a valid entry visa. Eimer’s damn lucky Thai people are so nice – he considers it, converses in hushed tones with his manager…and issues our boarding passes.
We are relieved but not in the clear – we have no idea what will happen at Indian immigration – especially as we learn that two terrorist bombs went off in Hyderabad on Saturday – dozens are dead and security is tight. It’s a tense flight – I think on the one hand that the officials in India are renowned for being very bribe-able but at the other extreme – is this a jail-able offense? Eimer and I say very little to each other on the way back to Hyderabad – I do try to reassure her, though: “Worst case scenario, they don’t let you leave the airport. I take your keys, pack your stuff, bring it back to the airport tomorrow night, and you’re home free.” Of course, I keep thoughts of Indian prisons to myself.
At immigration, Eimer studies the counters before picking a line – who’s got the friendlier face? We get in one queue but then she changes her mind. I stay put while she goes to another line – when I see where she’s settled, I think, fuck, she’s screwed. She’s gone and chosen the same slow guy who scrutinised our passports on the way out! I’m through ages before of her, and I wait, trying not to keep track of where she is in the queue because it’s making me anxious. A good twenty minutes later, I see her at the desk, out of the corner of my eye, and my heart races in empathy…here we go.
But then she’s through! Such immense relief. In retrospect, if the guy lets her leave on a roundtrip ticket and a single entry visa, it’s only fair that he let her come back in as well…
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