- Consider any new vocabulary or idioms that you find.
- Download the pdf of the whole book if you are interested.
- Remember that the content of the extract could appear in your exam.
- Feel free to comment on this post using the 'Comments' below.
FARANG, CHANG, RED BULL, AND BHANG
THAILAND
Ko Samui — Big Buddha Beach
I woke up unaware of where I was and something seemed to be licking my feet, possibly a dog. My head was tilted to the right nestling on sand, and in my distorted field of view I could see a few people sitting on the beach, beers in hand, talking animatedly about nothing important. I raised my head. It wasn’t a dog licking my feet, it was the waves lapping up against them as they hit the shore. I was soaking wet, as was my wallet and my money belt containing close to five hundred dollars in cash, my plane tickets and my passport. My head was throbbing and my vision was so unfocused I couldn’t even tell if I recognised anybody around me without going right up to them and staring them in the face for a few seconds. I’d have called out their names but I couldn’t remember anyone’s names. After breathing directly into one guy’s face I realised I had never seen him before.
‘Where am I?’ I asked, my words slurred and indistinct.
Either he couldn’t speak English or perhaps in my current state, I couldn’t, but I got no response. He looked at me like he had just scraped me off his shoe until I wandered off up the beach, past some bungalows and towards the road. I had to get home, wherever the hell that was. I hit the road, nothing was familiar. Not just my location, but nothing. Shapes such as trees and houses were completely new to me. I looked about the dimly lit street, which seemed empty and imposing. Where the hell was I?
Then it all came flooding back.
I was on Ko Samui, in southern Thailand. I had arrived that afternoon with my two flatmates from home, Banga and his girlfriend Mel. We’d gotten into Bangkok late and headed immediately south to the islands. I went to school with Banga and the one thing we both share is a common love of binge drinking. Mel had never travelled before and after some initial distress at the smell and filth upon landing in Bangkok she decided that Thailand wasn’t so bad after all and had actually started to enjoy herself. We had planned to meet up with Banga’s brother, Billy, and his girlfriend Ag. Billy is immensely tall and good-natured whilst Ag, who immigrated from Poland when she was six years old, is not immensely tall but just as good-natured. We had decided not to tell them that I was coming to Thailand and so, when we arrived at their bungalows ‘Shambala’, I hid in Banga’s and Mel’s bathroom as everybody hugged and laughed in the next room. I waited for my moment and then emerged triumphantly. Billy and Ag looked briefly stunned and then came rushing over.
‘This is great! I didn’t know you were coming!’ Ag said.
‘It was meant to be a surprise,’ I replied.
We chatted excitedly for a bit and then there was a pause.
‘Umm, but we didn’t book you a room. And they’re full,’ Billy said after a bit.
‘Oh,’ I replied.
There was another pause.
‘Well I’m sure you can find somewhere else just up the beach there,’ Ag said reassuringly.
I nodded. ‘Oh, I’m sure I will.’
So I picked up my heavy pack and trudged out of the room.
‘Come back when you find somewhere. We can have a drink!’ Banga called after me as he ordered an ice cold Chang and they all set off laughing to the beachfront restaurant.
I pondered over the pros and cons of our little joke as I walked up the road, stopping to ask at every place I saw. They were all full. We were staying on a beach called Big Buddha, aptly named after the gigantic golden statue of Buddha that stands prominently on a headland at one end. Unfortunately, I didn’t know this. Banga hadn’t been sure where it was we were going. We had gotten a songthaew from the ferry stop and we just jumped out when he recognised something, as he had been to Samui before. A songthaew incidentally, is a ute with two rows of seats in the back, facing inwards, and usually with a roof. They are the main form of transport on the Thai islands unless you want to rent a motorcycle. In any case, Banga had thought we were on Bo Phut Beach, and had told me as such. I discovered later that this was a crucial piece of misinformation.
Which led to my predicament. I managed to find a place, a good five hundred metres up the beach and when I got back down we decided to have some beverages to celebrate our arrival. I had heard all about Thai Red Bull and how it was so much stronger than at home. I didn’t think that would be a particularly difficult thing as the Red Bull in Australia has no effect on me whatsoever, so when Banga suggested I drink a Vodka Red Bull I was game. In fact, I ended up having about five of them, and I had already been drinking copious amounts of Chang. To cut a long story short, I woke up, waves lapping against my feet and lying in the sand, completely unaware of where I was. The problem, as I have since discovered, is that the Red Bull gives you so much energy that you’re awake long after you should have passed out from too much drinking. Not only are you awake, but you have the energy to act upon every uninhibited impulse that happens to flash through your mind. I spoke to Billy and Banga the next day to check on what had happened.
‘Well,’ began Banga, ‘You started getting very loud and disturbing the other guests at Shambala so we decided to walk you home.’
‘Yes. But the biggest problem with that was that you were unable to walk,’ added Billy.
‘Okay, but why was I so wet?’
‘Well you were unable to walk, but you were able to swim,’ he replied, ‘You said you were going to swim home and ran off into the water fully clothed before we could stop you.’
I thought this over. It sounded plausible. My clothes had been soaking as was my money belt. I had been forced to hang thousand baht notes up on the clothesline in my bungalow when I finally made it home.
‘But wait a minute, if you were walking me home then how come I woke up on the beach?’
‘Well you didn’t know where you lived. You were pretty sure we had come to the right place when you saw a bunch of guys sitting around a plastic table on the beach drinking, but when you approached them you tripped and knocked the table over and all their beers, so they weren’t too friendly after that.’
A memory came back to me. A frosty silence when I asked that blurry figure on the beach where I was. No wonder he wouldn’t talk to me.
‘And then you refused to get up and couldn’t tell us your room number so we left you there. We figured you’d get up and go home eventually.’
They were right. I did get up and go home. . . eventually. When I stumbled up to the road I had been so drunk I hadn’t even realised that I was just outside my own bungalows. I had flagged down a passing motorcycle and asked him if he would drive me to Bo Phut Beach. This he did, and when I got off I realised that I had no idea where I was. I scratched my head (well tried to, but accidentally poked myself in the eye) and attempted to think of another way of going about this. Bo Phut Beach was clearly not where I was, or else I would recognise it. I tried to recall instead the name of my bungalows. They were called Sunset Song 2, but the only word I could remember was Sunset. Now the thing about Thailand is, the Thais are some of the friendliest people in the world. They’ll always help you out and do it with a smile, so even at three in the morning I had no trouble finding another motorcycle to take me to my destination.
‘I need to get to Sunset. . . something. Sunset. . . ’ I stammered, shivering a little in my sodden clothes. The Thais may be some of the friendliest people in the world, but when it comes to naming bungalows and guesthouses they lack imagination. Every second place on the island has Sunset or Beach or Sunrise or Sea in the title.
He dropped me off at the end of a dirt road outside a locked gate of a massive resort complex called Sunset Resort. I shook my head.
‘This isn’t it!’ I exclaimed.
I was feeling a little desperate now. I had been driving around for half an hour or more and I had no idea where I was. My Thai was about as bad as his English and he became angry at me. He wanted money for petrol which I agreed to give him, if he got me home. Looking back I can see how stupid such a request was. He needed petrol to drive me around searching (out of the goodness of his heart and perhaps the possibility of a small tip) for a place that I didn’t know the name or location of, but I refused to give him money for the petrol he needed to do that until he got me there. My logic was not working at full capacity and I was getting a little bit scared. I became even more scared when he got off the bike and shoved me backwards, demanding money. Now I am not a fighter, but I raised my fists in front of my face to protect myself, and he just shook his head and got back on his bike.
‘Screw you!’ he called back at me as he drove away. His English was impeccable in that particular instance but I felt a little better. I had scared him off. I certainly showed him, I thought, as I stood in the pitch darkness at the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. I found a main road through some blind stumbling and soon found myself perched on the back of yet another bike, heading for Bo Phut Beach. It was all wrong again, and I walked up the beach, thinking maybe I was just at the far end of it and would see my place if I walked the length of it. I arrived at a small wooden bar at the far end without having seen anything familiar. The bar was literally just that. A bar in the sand, playing reggae music. The two young Thai guys working there looked up in surprise as I approached. It must have been getting on to five in the morning.
‘You want a beer?’ one asked, and I admit that thethought did cross my mind, but I turned it down. The last thing I needed was more alcohol. Maybe just a Red Bull to keep myself awake. . .
‘You lost?’ the bartender asked and I nodded.
‘I’m looking for a place called Sunset. . . ’ I began and he just nodded.
I think he had seen this kind of thing before. ‘When I close the bar, I’ll give you a lift,’ he said, ‘About fifteen minutes.’
I shrugged. Sure, whatever. I didn’t honestly expect to get home but a change of scenery would be nice. So we sat around talking and suddenly something in my mind clicked. I must have been sobering up. ‘Sunset Song! That’s what it’s called! Sunset freaking Song!’
I was so overjoyed that I had remembered that I didn’t even notice the look of confusion that crossed his face. It turned out, as we were cruising around Samui that he didn’t know where Sunset Song was. We stopped once at a lonely crossroads at one point. Lonely that is except for the five Thai guys sitting around on a little bamboo structure getting drunk. One of them wandered up and said something to my bartender, and then peered at me through the gloom. He face spread into a broad smile and he started to laugh so much he could barely stand up. I looked at him, a bit bemused until I realised what was going on. He was the guy who had dropped me at the end of the dirt road, about an hour and a half earlier. My bartender was beginning to sense that he might be stuck with me, but he kept driving and within a few minutes we met an old man who knew where Sunset Song was.
‘Not Bo Phut. Big Buddha!’ he said.
I could have kissed that old man, and perhaps I did, I don’t really remember. Those two words and I was home within five minutes. We roared up the road on his Honda Dream (Bo Phut is the next beach along) and soon the huge gold Buddha appeared in my vision, like a guide. There it was, Sunset Song 2, just where I’d left it. I got off the bike exhausted and delved into my pocket, showering my new best friend with money, and making him promise to give the other guy some petrol money if he saw him again. He assured me that he would and with that I went into my bungalow, just as the sun was peeking up over the horizon.
‘Hang on,’ Billy said, interrupting my story, ‘Are you telling me you spent three hours or more driving around trying to get back to the exact place that we left you?’
I nodded, bowing my head with shame.
‘You’re an idiot!’ he declared.
‘You really are,’ Banga agreed.
[to be continued...]
Download the whole book HERE if you're interested!
No comments:
Post a Comment