by Ben Trovato on Jul 22nd, 2010
Getting off Phi Phi Island before the Wanted posters went up, we fled east – maybe it was west – to the mainland town of Krabi. The ferry was packed with sunburned farangs dressed as extras from a scene from The Beach that ended up on the cutting room floor. Farang is Thai for foreigner. Personally, I think it means “idiot”, but the locals are too polite to let on.
At the pier we were set upon by roving bands of drug dealers. I kept saying: “Don’t mind if I do.” Brenda recognised them as taxi drivers and haggled like a pro for a ride to the hotel. When Brenda haggles, she somehow increases the price.
The driver was friendly, chatting happily away in gibberish, until he discovered that we had no money. We were just as surprised. His mood turned ugly and we went off to find an auto teller at a speed that would have made Lewis Hamilton uncomfortable.
In Thailand, if you get angry, you lose face. This man was driving with a quarter of a face. Brenda thought it tremendous fun.
One night in Krabi was marginally less memorable than one night in Paris, so the next morning we caught a speedboat to a speck of an island called Koh Yao Noi. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. Even the peasants catch speedboats in these parts. And they aren’t glamorous peasants. Not by a long shot. One had a recently stitched axe wound in his head. Come to think of it, that is rather glamorous. A lot of girls like nothing more than rubbing a freshly split cranium held together with high-tensile fishing line. Around Kalk Bay harbour, anyway.
At the Yao Noi pier, a taxi driver reluctantly unfurled himself from his hammock and asked an outrageous amount to take us where we didn’t know if we wanted to go. I beat him down to within R2.50 of his asking price and he refused to budge. I stormed off on a matter of principle. It’s not easy to storm anywhere while dragging a giant blue suitcase whose wheels are locked with rust, sand and roadkill. I went maybe 9m and collapsed against a sign that said “motodike to rent”.
“The throttle is on the right and the brakes …” Brenda was off before I could finish. I found her around the first corner inspecting the gash on her knee. “It’s just a scratch,” she said. “The brakes are …” and she was gone again.
We took refuge at Dengue Fever Central in a hut that was constantly threatened by the high tide.
The World Cup final was on that night and the hovel had no television. Even worse, they had no alcohol, probably because it was run by Muslims. I know this because the place was seething in cats. In these parts, Buddhists have dogs and Muslims have cats. I don’t know what the Christians have. Nervous breakdowns, probably.
So we went to a bar run by a Thai called Matt and a Canadian called Sharon. Being low season, they were thrilled to see us. Matt stayed in his hammock while Sharon took a while to refocus her thousand-yard stare. Since all the games were played at 1.30am local time, we had seven hours to kill before kickoff. All that kept us awake was a pool table, a well-stocked bar and a powerful sense that nobody here cared if we lived or died.
The next morning we mounted our motodikes and set off to explore the island, which is 12km long but longer if you take the heavily rutted dirt track that we were repeatedly warned not to take. Brenda fell off three times, but it was the fourth that impressed me the most. Not having listened to my advice about the throttle, she accelerated up the side of a mountain, ploughed into a palm tree and miraculously survived a shower of falling coconuts. I laughed so much that I fell off my own motodike and then it wasn’t so funny.
We were deep in rubber-tapping territory, being watched by people who looked as if they had never seen motodikes. Crippled with fear and thirst, we eventually arrived on a beach called Paradise. Turns out that the road to paradise is not paved at all. And if it is, it’s with Brenda’s blood.
It felt good to get back to Phuket. The neon signs. The speakers of English. The hustlers trying to sell me a suit. I needed opium but no one was offering, so we checked into a dive on Patong beach and, once again, made for Bangla Road, the red, yellow, blue and green light district of Phuket.
“Hey mister, you want taxi.” “Hey boss, you want tour?” I liked it more when they called me Mister Boss. It reminded me of a time gone by, a time when white people were accorded the respect they deserved.
Brenda had warned me not to go out in a red shirt. She seemed to think I would be mistaken for a revolutionary. Being twice the size of the average Thai, I would have to have been a mercenary hired to return that corrupt thug Thaksin Shinawhatshisface to power.
“Hey mister boss, where you from?” It sounds like an innocent enough question, but if you stop to engage, you’re going to walk away with a boat trip to Jane Blond Island (Scaramanga’s hideaway), a pair of elasticised Muay Thai shorts that will reduce your chances of ever having children and a ticket to a ping-pong show guaranteed to change the way you look at the sport.
“We’re from South Africa,” said Brenda. “Ah! World Cup!” shouted the hustlers. This is what we will forever be known for. “Yes,” I said defensively, “but we also had apartheid.”