That afternoon, we spent some time at the hotel pool after lunch. It was nothing fancy—the water wasn’t particularly clear and the plastic lining was coming off the bottom—but it was a great way to cool down and stay in the shade in the afternoon. While we were there, this Irish guy who lived on the island (who was most remarkable, to me, for the central role that marijuana clearly played in his life) told us about a view point and laguna nearby. We set off to hike to these points, but ran into a Canadian girl we had met, who was covered in red mud and said that she’d been unable to get to the laguna because the going was too rough. That was enough to convince Carla to stick with her original plan of reading and writing all afternoon, and enough to convince me that this journey was not to be missed.
I started up the path to the viewpoint, and it was definitely more interesting than your average trail—it was a steep climb up a slippery slope, with ropes strung here and there to help on the ascent. I was wearing my Vibrams, which are a great shoe for scrambling, and I felt pretty confident climbing, just as long as I could use both hands and feet.
At the top I spoke to some other guys who had been to the laguna and they agreed it was technically challenging. It was late enough that I doubted more people would be coming, and I decided that I shouldn’t go alone (is anyone proud of me for such uncharacteristic prudence?) so I was on the way back down when I ran into a group of Americans coming up. I asked if they were going to the laguna and they said yes, so I joined them.
We got to the top and began the descent, and soon we got to a place where there was a 20-foot drop, with a rope hanging over the edge. This guy Mike went first—lord knows how—and then helped me to get my feet into progressively lower loops on this slimy rope until I was close enough to the ground to jump, with his guidance. He helped the rest of the group down the same way. In all there were three drop-offs like that, where you had to lower yourself on ropes. After the fact, and based on the fact that nobody fell or was injured, I’d have to say that it wasn’t too hard… but in the moment it was SUCH a thrill.
At the bottom, we got our reward: a still, clear lagoon surrounded on all sides by jutting cliffs. I floated in the middle and looking up, all I could see was an eye of blue sky rimmed with foliage, with birds flying to and fro across it. The air was absolutely still.
Coming back up the trail was another adventure, since you couldn’t very well shimmy up a rope, so we had to find places to free-climb up. This is not something I normally do without trepidation, but they guys spotted me and it ended up being easy enough. I was pretty impressed by the people I was with (and those who make this trip in general). I am a decently athletic person, but I would have never attempted it without the help of my new friends.
Then we went to the lookout point (again, for me) and watched the sunset—AMAZING!! And the whole adventure was capped off with me going down the first path alone in the dark. I felt like Jane of the jungle, grabbing all these ropes and roots to guide me along a dimly lit mud path.
That day was also Carla’s birthday! So we had a nice dinner of grilled fish and sides (I had red snapper, Carla had shark) and then went dancing at the one bar that had a club-like scene. Right when we got there, this guy approached Carla and we ended up sitting with him and his buddy. They were Canadian and they were (unsurprisingly) very nice. A little boring, but nice for sure. They wouldn’t dance with us, and of course we were there to dance, so… we hit the dance floor. Alone. And went crazy!
I don’t think there are many people in my life who will dance with me when the floor is otherwise empty, but I’ve known since this one Harvey Mudd party my senior year that Carla is one who can get a party started (or just dance alone with me until we’re tired and leave the party to continue to be not-started). So we were shaking our thing, sweat pouring down our faces, to such an extent that the bartender gave us a free bucket (remember, a small plastic beach pail containing a 5th of cheap alcohol, a soda, and a red bull on ice). Man, the contents of buckets is gross! I love the taste of alcohol, from two buck chuck to PBR, but I could NOT take down one of these buckets! It tasted vaguely like you went to the soda fountain and mixed all the options into a paper cup, then let all the ice melt and the soda has gone flat. With rotgut alcohol. I don’t even know if I can say I’ve outgrown such a thing—I might have never been able to stomach it. But I didn’t come to Thailand in college, so it’s hard to say.
So we danced and we danced HARD. It was a lot of fun, and eventually other people danced too. We left at 2:30 and the party was still going.
Wow this post got huge. To sum up the next few days: we went with the two nice Canadians the next day, took a ferry, rented motorbikes, and rode behind them to a temple above 1200 steps. We got really sweaty. Like, REALLY sweaty. When I wiped my face, it didn’t remove the sweat, it just moved it around. We went to a market and had CHEAP pad thai and iced coffees (about $1 for both) and I found out that I’m one of very few white people who like Durian fruit. We went back and had an early night (I basically went face down on the bed and missed dinner). The next day I went scuba diving and Carla went canoeing through mangrove forests with a Canadian tour group. The next day we decided at the last minute to go to Ko Phi Phi, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. So around noon we got on a water taxi that took us to a pier, where a van took us to another pier, then a big boat took us to Ko Phi Phi.
No comments:
Post a Comment