Thursday, August 24, 2017

An unrelated Trilogy of Tours.

Before my flight, I very carefully had used a bar of dove soap and a wash cloth in the airport bathroom, as in all my stress and running around, personal hygiene had fallen by the wayside, and I was wafting pretty pungent. With a fresh shirt and fresh armpits, ready for my 24+ hour flight. Bangkok was warm, rain sometimes threatened but never really materialized. The weather has been amazing so far, actually. It's never too hot, never too sunny, and only rains when it's convenient, like when I'm in doors, sleeping or need to cool off a little.

The flight went very well. I slept most of it, and when I was awake I was well entertained on my new iPad. The layover in the Qatar was quite nice. 


How to set your airport apart from the rest? Install a giant teddy bear in the center of it, of course. 



Or install an elaborate children's play area. Doha International Aiprot in Qatar.

I had an interesting experience trying to find an immigration card at Customs. I saw people filling them out but the card holders were all empty. I spent a good 45+ minutes running around (notice a theme developing?) trying to find an immigration card to fill out. Whenever I'd try to ask someone they didn't speak English and weren't very interested in my gesticulations for substitute means of communications. When someone did figure out what I was after, they'd point vaguely and say something more vague about where to get the cards. If I found someone official looking, their vagueries were equally puzzling, with vague gestures in vague directions. Finally I found three nice Thai girls who very happily gave me a card and showed me exactly how to fill out the form. The stark contrast to the previous 45+ minutes was as puzzling as it was pleasant. The customs process was surprisingly easy after that.



Beach in Pattaya, located a little over 100km south of Bangkok. 




After not enough time in Bangkok for sight seeing, and a pleasant enough stay in Pattaya I decided to book Phuket fairly last minute. Very glad I did. Found a very cool Hostel online near Patong Beach. 

On the way from the airport after landing in Phuket I signed up for 3 tours without doing any research. Very touristy affairs, but still very fun. I call it the Unrelated Trilogy.

1st tour visits sites from the movie The Beach. 
"All American Tourist"

2nd tour is reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.



and the 3rd tour visits scenes from James Bond.


Somehow lowtech James Bond isn't quite as cool....

I don't have many pics from the first tour (and it wasn't very picturesque anyway) because my phone was almost dead when I left on the tour, because I almost missed the tour, because I was enjoying yet another late night out and had fallen asleep without setting my alarm, as Thailand has quite the nightlife.

Sometime after booking my flight to Thailand, I was feeling a little reticent about traveling alone to a country with such a different culture and not speaking the language, but it's been mostly fine. It's pretty eye opening when I start realizing how different each culture's experience is due to each nation's individual customs and climate. For example, I met a fair number of arabs on my tours. I was pleasantly surprised and a little puzzled when two Arab guys were so happy to meet me. They were like "we were hoping we would meet an American!" I thought Americans for sure had fallen out of favor by now with the rest of the world? To my surprise I'm often well received by all corners of the globe.  

When the time came to choose between three white water rafting adventures, a moderate 5k one, a 7k with rougher rapids and a 9k with roughest rapids, I of course wanted to do the 9k. The arabs, apparently, wanted me to join their raft, but I was to learn that one didn't know how to put on a helmet and the other didn't know how to swim. Since I really wanted to do the 9k and they really wanted to hang out with me I managed to convince them that the 9k would be fine.

We were approaching some rough water after taking a dip in a supposedly calm part of the river, and one was having some trouble getting back into the boat because the current was actually quite strong. After some struggling we managed to haul him aboard (the same thing had happened to me a bit earlier as well as we were approaching some rapids, but I hadn't taken my helmet off), and while I was helping him get back into the middle seat for ballast, we were telling the other to get his helmet on. That's when I noticed that he had yet to figure out that you need to unbuckle the strap to the helmet *before* you put it on (similar style to a horseback riding helmet). So I frantically unbuckle it for him, get it on his head and clumsily buckle it again, the straps all twisted, just as we were hitting the rapids. I carefully fling myself back into my position on my side of the boat as the raft buckles and hops beneath me.

Our guide was super cool. And even though the one who couldn't swim was very hesitatant about the trip, and even though the guide's balance between joking around and ensuring everyone was safe felt greatly skewed towards screwing around over safety, by the end of the trip they both thanked me, especially the one who couldn't swim, saying that I made him feel safe and confident. I sort of took it for granted doing a guided rafting tour wasn't a big a deal, but I had to remember for some people, water isn't really part of their culture, whether it's a still pool, or a rough river.

The drive back was a ride in itself. The two guides were sitting on the boat on a trailer behind the very bare jeep we were in the back of with small little benches running along its sides. The driver clearly had done the trip a million times and it was quite the hair raising ride, careening around corners. It was fun watching the two guides on the raft on the trailer behind totally comfortable, one expressionless and the leader with an easy grin. 

One of the things I love about Southeast Asia is that their idea of how safe things needs to be and how litigious they need to be is right in line with mine. So, yeah, as I was hoping, it was easy to feel like I was in the raft in Temple of Doom that goes down a whitewater river.

I managed to enlist Shortround as my trusty guide, seen here all grown up and steadfastly leading the way on an elephant. But when I noticed that, for some reason, the rest of the tour group was nowhere to be seen, doubt suddenly set in. I realized I wasn't actually too familiar with the customs and rituals of where I was and being that this tour felt very reminiscent of the film The Temple of Doom, I couldn't push out the idea that I was being lead ahead from the rest of the group because I was to be used for some kind of human sacrifice.


To be continued....

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