Now that Colleen and I were officially advanced divers
(unofficially I was still a pathetic excuse for a man when it came to diving),
it was time for us to leave Koh Tao and travel onwards to everybody's favorite
Asian city-state, Singapore. We actually
had to leave Koh Tao though because our 30 day Thai visas were up, and quite
frankly Southeastern Asian jails scare the living shit out of me. Colleen was quite sad to be leaving, as the
island was most definitely her choice for best locale we had visited since
leaving Canada five weeks earlier.
In the name of cheapness and trying to save a few bucks, we
I had booked the "night" boat out that evening. With that in mind, we had a full day to
kill. I can think of no better way to
start off what was sure to be a long and
agonizing day in the scorching heat than to have your power not working which
in turn forced me to have the coldest shower of my fucking life. Needless
to say, my now inverted penis was not happy about this situation. Colleen
and I ended up spending the better part of the day bouncing between various
restaurants and internet cafes as we attempted to seek refuge from the
crippling heat. Factor in that both of
us had feet that were heavily bandaged and blistered from a combination of
scuba diving, cheap sandals, and a moped accident and you my friend have a
couple who were cranky to say the least.
Rather pathetically the highlight of my afternoon was watching a cat
catch and subsequently kill the same mouse numerous times while I drank a
smoothie and pondered why my balls felt like they were crazy-glued to my inner
thighs. As the sun began to set we made
our way over to Chopper's to watch some other newbie divers' videos and say
goodbye to some of the fast friends we had made. I could tell Colleen really wanted to stay,
and she was already talking about coming back in a couple of weeks after our
trip to Singapore, but alas it was time to move on.
As the evening continued to creep up on us, it was time for
us to gear up for the "night boat" trip. We had heard a few horror stories that week
from other travelers who had been foolish enough to travel to the mainland
using the overnight budget option. I
tried to remain as positive as possible, but Colleen was already starting to
expect the worst when our shuttle bus showed up to drive us to the pier. What I mean by shuttle bus of course is a
pickup truck with benches in the back where the driver crammed an ungodly
amount of us into said back of truck and then proceeded to pile all of our luggage directly on top of
us. Comfortable it was not. Thankfully we made it to the pier without
losing any souls along the way, although things weren't looking overly
promising on the boat front. Let's just
say we weren't exactly staring at the five-and-a-half-star cruise ship we had
enjoyed so much a couple of months prior.
There were hundreds of people everywhere, a combination of backpackers
and locals looking to take advantage of the cheap overnight ferry. The best way to describe the boarding process
would be to compare it to how they round up cattle en masse. I had a
feeling it was going to be an interesting night.
 |
| Loading up the night boat. This should be fun... |
Chaos and human-cattle herding aside, we eventually found
our way onto the ship and the first thought that popped into my mind was,
"holy fuck, this is what I imagine a floating concentration camp to look
like". There were literally
hundreds of people lying everywhere, packed shoulder-to-shoulder on flimsy mattresses
that reminded me of those mats we used to use in gym class in public
school. The thing was these mattresses
were (presumably) dirtier and less comfortable.
By this point Colleen was in full on panic mode and I am pretty sure she
was pondering swimming to the main land instead of spending her entire night on
this human rights travesty of a boat.
 |
| The Koh Tao-Suratthani Night Boat. Jail would have been a step up. |
With our boarding cards in our hands, we marched up to the
second level of the boat to find our assigned beds floor space for the
night. Seeing as how things were going
so well already for us, it was only natural that a group of dirty ass Spanish
hippies had setup shop on our living quarters.
This is what my life had come to: arguing with greasy, non-showering,
unemployable Spaniards about who was going to sleep on this poor excuse for a
mat. Eventually they thankfully fucked
off, but by this point Colleen had started to notice that there was a trail of
ants near the head of her mattress and giant mosquitoes circling overhead
just waiting for her to pass out so she could donate some blood. I argued with her and attempted to calm her
down, but alas there was no way in hell that she was going to rest that
night. Factor in all the characters
around us drinking hard liquor and smoking weed and you have a recipe for a
long night if you were attempting to get some sleep. All of this started to send Colleen over the
edge and the final straw came a couple of minutes later when a giant red ant
came sauntering across Colleen's bed.
With that, Colleen proclaimed there was no way she could sleep here (I
admittedly was pissed with her, but looking back I can't blame her) and we
packed up our stuff and made our way downstairs to a picnic table at the rear
of the boat. The two of us ended up
sitting there with a rotating cast of other people who were presumably afraid
of the bugs and/or people for the next seven-and-a-half hours, often slipping
in and out of consciousness while my arms and legs kept also falling asleep
from the weird and contorted shapes I was making. There also happened to be a lady who spent
almost the entire night in the bathroom that was located a few feet away from
us as she was throwing up excessively and could barely stand up. Literally it was the closest thing to death I
had seen since that time we got a Llama drunk on wine byproducts (that's a
whole other story!). It goes without
saying that we barely slept all night, but hey at least we weren't killed by
ants!
 |
| Attempting to sleep on a picnic table at the back of the boat. |
 |
| How much does Colleen love her life right now? |
Having travelled on probably hundreds of different boats on
four continents, I can easily say that this was the most memorable boat ride of
my life. While it was terrible at the
time, when I look back on our Asian trip it was strangely one of the things I
remember most. Having said that, I DO
NOT RECOMMEND IT!!!
~Brentski~
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