Day 57- I Feel Like This Is Where They Would Film "Swamp People: Thailand Edition" If There Was Such A Thing

Waking up on Monday morning, I started my day off the way I normally do: sitting on the toilet while a frog stares at me hopelessly while he tries to slither under my indoor/outdoor shower door, only to realize that his green slimy girth is preventing him from maneuvering under said door.  Either way, it is ridiculously hard to focus on pinching out a loaf when you have this bug-eyed amphibian staring at you and making "ribbit-ribbit" noises as if to say, "just let me in and I will make all your troubles disappear".  Not happening frog!  More than likely the frog was probably just bored as there were only three occupied villas in the entire resort, so I probably just seemed like the easiest target to piss off on a muggy Monday morning.



Looking out at the beach from our resort.

Aloe and Bacardi Breezers. What more could a girl need in life?

Despite our near death ridiculously embarrassing experience on our motorbike the day before, Colleen and I were not yet deterred on two-wheel transportation.  We decided to drive a good hour and a half or so outside of town to find a waterfall we had been told about.  With our trusty map, the two of us set out and before we knew it we were whizzing down the freeway looking like Harry and Lloyd a la "Dumb and Dumber".  Driving mopeds on the freeway is pretty standard stuff for most people in this part of the world, but for a couple of cakers like us, it can be a slightly terrifying experience as large trucks and other assorted automobiles zip past you at high speeds.  Eventually after surviving the highway, we found ourselves on some pretty shady back roads (see: rough dirt roads) and had been travelling for over an hour and a half.  Factor in that we were miles from any real form of civilization and there were dogs (obviously rabid) barking at us anytime we pulled over.  For once in my life, common sense prevailed and we decided that it was in our best interest to turn back as the roads were getting rougher, the houses fewer and farther between, and the fuel was over half spent. Meh, I'm sure it was an ugly waterfall anyway!  During this whole adventure, I would like to point out that my lovely, albeit extremely white girlfriend was wearing a coat in the +33°C weather to protect her skin from the sun as she was still recovering from her severe case of sunburn.  What a trooper I tell ya!



Back country.  Keep your butthole tight!



Like a boss.


Nice outfit...if you were Amish.

Rolling back into the town of Ban Krut, our fuel was now almost on empty and as soon as we hit the outskirts of town our moped started to "putt".  Since neither of us know anything about cars and/or bikes we were not sure what was happening.  My guess was that we were either out of gas or had gotten a flat tire.  So, we pulled over, bought a couple rounds of watermelon popsicles and assessed the situation.  Shortly thereafter our back tire started to deflate and I can only thank Buddha for how lucky we were to get a flat tire in town and not out in the middle of the sticks, where we would have possibly been facing a twelve hour walk, all the while pushing our motorbike in the blazing sun and possibly getting harassed by Thai bush people (not sure if this is a real thing).  Instead, we pushed the bike a hundred or so meters down the road to the local gas station, which in actuality was a woman selling glass Pepsi bottles full of gasoline in front of her shanty.  She instructed us to walk the bike around the corner where there was a repair shop.  Back in Canada, such things as visiting a mechanic scare me, normally because most of them are shysters and love to rape you financially.  I wasn't really sure what to expect here, especially since we were foreigners.  When it was all said and done, we needed to get a new inner tube for our tire and we were presented with a bill for parts and labor totaling....$3.50!  Yes, this was some of the best bad luck ever!

The happening town of Ban Krut.

With our newly minted tire, we decided to head back to our new favorite restaurant in all of Asia, Kasama's, to grab some lunch.  It was then off to the pharmacy to pick up some Afterbite.  I am pretty sure with all of the products Colleen was purchasing, we could almost open up our own pharmacy, as we were now toting around Afterbite, three different types of Aloe, sunscreen, tattoo sunscreen, bug repellent, bug killer, and bed bug killer.  It's safe to say that if anyone took a match to either one of our backpacks we would be quite fucked (see: blowup).  Following our misadventure earlier in the day, Colleen and I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing which entailed me going for an extended walk by myself along the beach. Yup, just a man by his lonesome, walking the beach with some stray dogs and millions of sand crabs.

That night was to be our last in Ban Krut before heading further south, so naturally we had to go to our new favorite restaurant in the world, Kasama's for the last supper.  Hoping to enjoy a peaceful dinner, our dreams were quickly dashed when we discovered we had some crazy guy sitting at the table beside us who was yelling at everyone in Italian.  After asking the owner what the guy's deal was, all he could confirm for us was that the dude was in fact a few noodles short of a full Pad Thai (sorry, I had to test out that joke!).  Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, we were not able to figure out what the Italian Stallion was raging on about, other than the fact the he had some type of gruesome leg injury and kept pointing it out to Colleen and I.  This went on for an extended period of time until the owner thankfully summoned us over to the bar after we had finished eating and we watched "Guinness World Records" with him.  I never thought that a viewing of "Guinness World Records" would save me from a dire situation.  I always kind of figured it would be the other way around. 

Back at our resort we were greeted by one of the local stray dogs who was waiting for us outside of our room.  Taking pity on him, I decided to feed him some barbecue chips and a glass of water.  Apparently, malnourished Thai street dogs do in fact not like barbecue chips and are quite picky about what they eat.  So, instead of eating, the cute, sad-eyed, street dog who walked with a limp parked himself outside our door for the remainder of the night and waited for me to give him a non-Frito Lay's based product.  But alas, I had nothing else to give and we shall assume the dog went on to live a happy life.

~Brentski~



"Fine, don't eat my barbecue chips you dickhead."



Day 56- Women Are Good For Three Things: Cooking, Cleaning, And Not Driving Mopeds!

Waking up the next morning, I was relieved to see my girlfriend had actually slept through the night in her "bug sheet" and I must admit that the specialty bed linen she was sporting was starting to look like a good idea after discovering a multitude of fresh invertebrates in our room that morning.  Our "resort" (I use that word rather loosely) had a complimentary American breakfast, which was surprisingly not bad providing you don't mind your breakfast meats a little under cooked.  Come to think of it, almost everywhere we had eaten breakfast in Thailand so far featured vastly undercooked morning meats.  Ah well, hadn't killed us yet!


Local traffic.

Now that my growing belly was sufficiently full, we hit up our flamboyant resort manager who had told us the previous day that he could arrange a moped/motorbike rental for us.  With that in mind, the hotel manager and the laundry man/gardener/guy who I have no idea what he really does took off on a motorbike together and returned a short while later with our sexy new rental.  I had not driven one in a few years and Colleen had not driven one ever, so it was safe to assume that shit was going to go wrong somewhere!  After giving us a quick minute-long tutorial in the parking lot of the resort, Colleen and I were on our way.  Since we were staying about a ten minute ride out of the town centre, we had a bit of time to acclimate to our little rice rocket before we saw any real traffic.  Our initial tour of the town went surprisingly smooth as we checked out some of the beaches and did some shopping.  Feeling like I was now the Mario Andretti of back country moped drivers in Thailand, we ventured onwards and headed towards a gigantic Buddha statue that was nestled on top of a huge hillside cliff overlooking the ocean.  Upon approach we were greeted with some intense inclines on some of the hills and quite frankly my girlfriend did not trust my driving skills enough to let me drive her up these verticals.  So, while I enjoyed the benefits of modern technology and glided to the top, Colleen was left to march her ass up the hill like a peasant-woman.  I must say though, she almost had the last laugh though because as I was nearing the top some people were lighting off firecrackers that sounded like gunshots and I nearly had a heart attack and crashed the bike.  Apparently, it is good luck to light off firecrackers near Buddha statues or some shit.  Would have been nice to know beforehand.  At the summit we did the typical tourist things (eat ice cream, take pictures, wonder why everyone loves this fat-Buddha fellow so much) before heading on our way to fill our stomachs again.



Happier times.  Before we hopped on the bike of death.



How could I not score women? Look at me!



Big Buddha. He's kind of a big deal in these parts.

Back in town we opted to check out a Thai-Italian restaurant called Kasama's.  We had read about it in one of our guidebooks and I must say it did not disappoint.  It was a cute (yes, I just used that word) restaurant with friendly staff and awesome food.  For whatever reason, maybe it was all the sun getting to her brain, after lunch Colleen decided that she wanted needed to learn how to drive the motorbike.  I tried to tell her that maybe learning to drive a moped on the main street of a town was not the wisest of ideas, but alas she persisted and I gave her a quick tutorial on how to use the throttle, brakes, ignition etc.  Eager to drive, Colleen assured me she was good to go, so we strapped on our helmets and she got in the driver seat while I hopped on the back and clung to her for dear life.  Within a split second of Colleen starting the bike up, we were both thrown off the bike as she floored the throttle all the way back.  Now picture this: The two of us looking like the dumbest tourists in the world laying in the middle of the street while our motorized vehicle is about fifty feet away with nobody driving it!  After we were thrown from the bike it took on a mind of its own and eventually crashed to the ground.  I wish that was the end of the story, but alas it wasn't.  When the bike hit the ground it fell on the side which had the throttle handle so the bike continued to go at full speed, but now it was just doing sideways donuts in the middle of the road, all the while getting scraped to shit!  In my panicked state I rushed over and after getting molested by the bike with a couple of brutal shots I was eventually able to get a hold of the throttle and turn the damn thing off.  By this point there was a handful of Thai people standing around looking at us and one man came running over and told me that he was going to teach me how to drive it.  After some hand signals between the two of us, I was eventually able to inform him that I was in fact a moped master and it was just a failed driving lesson with my significant other.  Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt in the incident, as we both sustained only minor scrapes and cuts and a couple of bruised biker egos.  The bike on the other hand was now home to a few scratches, but that would be a problem to worry about in a couple of days when we returned it!

Local taxi cabs. Would not work too well in Inuvik.

Back at the resort, I decided to nurse my wounds by going for a lonely beach walk.  Colleen was not up for it given her recent accident combined with her still brutal sunburn.  That night, we went back to Kasama's for dinner, and yes for those of you wondering... I drove both ways!  I had some Italian-Thai fusion pasta which was delicious while Colleen, well she had three jumbo margaritas.  On the ride home, Colleen who was feeling quite fine after her three swimming pool-sized margaritas keep asking me if I was okay to drive.  You know what's more annoying than being trapped in a car with a drunk person while you are sober?  Having them on the back of your moped...a moped they already crashed that day!  Just kidding dear, you're the best moped passenger ever.  Back at the resort we had a couple more Bacardi Breezers (the choice of real men worldwide) before I nestled the burn victim into her customized bug sheets.  After all, she was going to need her rest, we had a big day of moped riding ahead of us!



That only counts as one standard drink right?



Colleen in Kasama's.

Any restaurant that has a bathroom filled with porn gets an "A" in my books.

~Brentski~