Beached

It’s certainly been a while since we’ve rapped at ya, but our vacation has been interrupted by a call to arms, a call to fight with the brave Thai rebels of the People's Alliance for Democracy, taking to task a corrupt puppet government by stopping the tourist industry at the source, Bangkok International Airport.

JK x 3, we’ve been at the beach every day.

At first we didn’t care for Koh Lanta, because it isn't possible to get around the island on foot. Then we rented a motorbike and things were looking up as new beaches became accessible. Then, well, I “crashed” the bike inching down a steep, muddy hill at about 3 km per hour. It slipped to the right and the muffler stung Nicole’s leg for an instant, which was one instant too many. One nasty burn later, and Koh Lanta is fine, but Nicole hates motorbikes.

Caring for the burn and coping with the pain (let’s not forget about my crippling guilt) has taken up a great deal of time and energy since the incident. Nicole started her trip by learning a bit of Japanese pharmacy and has been ending it by familiarizing herself with, at least, the basic layout of retail Thai pharmacies.

But since she’s a “trooper”, we’ve still been beaching and playing like mad. We moved on from Koh Lanta to Railay, and stayed in a specific nook called Ton Sai, packed with rock climbers from around the world (but mostly Canada) there to traverse the unique and abundant cliffs which border the beaches and…pretty much everything on the island. They also have a couple of great beaches on other parts of Railay, and, best of all, no motorbikes needed. Everything was a short walk away.

Even though Nicole didn’t want to get her wound wet, we still tanned and swam and ate corn on the beaches for a couple days while we enjoyed our first hours of true sunshine since the beginning of Koh Tao. We also figured out a way for me to lift Nicole into the water and keep her leg elevated so she can have relaxing, albeit restricted, dips. It's kind of like she's a baby.

We also saw a huge clan of monkeys eating corn and bananas served by fat, rich Europeans.

On our third day in Ton Sai, Nicole got up early and had a rock-climbing lesson. I slept till 11. Nicole got back and was all jazzed on climbing, so we stayed one more day and did some Deep Water Soloing, which is basically climbing unharnessed on cliffs above deep water so you can either A) climb until you fall, B) climb until you're too scared to go higher and want to jump. Nicole made it further and higher than everyone but the most experienced climbing douches, I mean, studs.

With Nicole’s new favorite hobby secured (or is it SCUBA?), we traveled back across the mainland to the island of Koh Pangnan, which is about thirty minutes from Koh Tao. They have massive moon parties here, with the full moon varieties sometimes attracting more than 10,000 people and all styles of obnoxious electronic music (Psych-trance, anyone?) for dancing that lasts until way past Snoop Dogg goes to bed.

The half-moon party is in two days, and it takes place in the jungle, drawing about 2,000 people. We're going to paint our bodies in fluorescent pinks and greens, take a bunch of ecstacy and relive our (non-existent) raving days of the early 90s.