Goofballs and Dumbos

After Vietnam, we arrived in Bangkok, Thailand. We connected in Malaysia on the way, which I really didn’t know was a country—just thought it was from Zoolander. It looked like a fun, tropical place; maybe next time. We found a taxi and messed around with directions. Apparently many taxi drivers cannot read English, who would have guessed? I can imagine a Thai tourist coming to New York and giving the taxi driver a note written in Thai. Better yet, can you imagine a Thai tourist going to New York knowing one, maybe two words of English? That was us in Thailand—American goofballs not speaking the language.

Anyways, the guy nods and we get settled in. At some point in the ride the driver realized he didn’t know where we were going so decided to pull to the side of the road. In the middle of the highway. We sat on the shoulder as he called random people asking them where the hotel was. We finally get going again and begin to realize just how bad of a driver this guy is. I have been in my share of taxis all over the world but this guy really took the cake. I do not know how he could possible be a taxi driver. He was either sharply breaking or gunning it all the way to the hotel and seemed to have no real control over the vehicle. He almost hit a few pedestrians and was very close to causing an accident or two, but somehow we made it to the hotel in one piece, one lucky piece. Maybe I had left all the bad luck in the hotel toilet in Vietnam.

We got settled and felt exhausted from the travel. Clayton left a few hours later to pick up a special guest from the airport. This person wishes to remain anonymous, for reasons I am not quite sure of, so I will give her a penname. Let’s go with something fun and slightly Asian… Coco. So Clayton endures another potentially dangerous taxi ride across the city to pick up his darling Coco, and then uses his body to shield her from harm as he takes yet another risky trip back to the hotel. Coco announced her presence to the hotel room by loudly knocking on Robert and my door at 1am. It was a delight.

The next day we had a big tour planned. Robert, Clayton, Coco, and I were picked up and we headed to a nearby hostel to pick up another new member on the trip. SAMUEL WYZAN, a dear friend of mine that studied with me in Valencia, who happened to be traveling Thailand the same time as us. Yea right, he stalks me.

Our first stop was the floating market, a super touristy market that is.. you got it: floating. It is sort of like a rural Venice, minus the overpriced coffee. You sit in a long, thin paddleboat and are carted from merchant to merchant all selling just about the same stuff. 

A shot from my spot in the boat, note the authentic fan Coco is rocking.

We got out of the touristy mess of things and enjoyed some local iced coffee. It was iced coffee, condensed milk, and sugar. The sweetness was almost too much, but it was certainly refreshing. Afterward, we got out and wandered around the market place, trying to bargain with stubborn venders. 

Then we headed back to the tour bus and were taken to death railroad. This was a bizarre stop on the tour. It was an obviously touristy area surrounding the railroad that was constructed by imprisoned Chinese. Many of them died of heat exhaustion and other diseases, giving the name ‘death railroad.’ 

Here is the crew, minus Coco, chilling at DEATH RAILROAD.

There were cheesy love songs playing, fruit for sale, and tons of Asians taking weird pictures. There was a young Asian girl with a photographer following her around. She was modeling and posing, throwing out lazy peace signs and dramatic looks. They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but we imitated her for the rest of the trip because she looked absolutely ridiculous.

Next stop on the tour was the elephant bath. Now I know what you are thinking, how do you fit in a bathtub with an elephant? I was thinking the same thing. To my pleasant surprise, it meant you accompany your elephant and trainer into a murky river with a strong current and participate in a number of forced, awkward activities. Elephants are big--granted--and they weigh tons, or a ton, I am not sure exactly. I read a nice review of the place we went and said it was great, until one elephant had enough and threw a car down a hill.

We follow our elephants down to the river where they are standing in about three feet deep water. We are divided up, Robert got his own, Clayton and Coco together, and Sam and I had the pleasure of sharing an elephant. Romantic, I know. We awkwardly climbed on top of this massive, hairy animal with the trainer and the elephants were commanded to squirt us with water for about five minutes. Each trainer had a stick with a curved metal hook on one side it would use to prod the elephant if it wasn’t cooperating. It really calmed my nerves knowing the trainer behind me was poking the elephant every couple of seconds. At least I could push Sam down and hopefully swim my way to safety if anything went wrong.

Next we were instructed to play ‘Rodeo’ with the elephants. Just what I was hoping for, and elephant bucking me into a shallow murky river. We hadn’t signed insurance waivers. We mounted the elephant one at a time and then were violently shaken back and forth until we fell off. I fell right next to the elephant and surfaced looking right up into his eye. He could have lifted his front leg and stepped on me. That would have been a way to go.

This is me getting thrown off the elephant, a sweet pic I think.

We then had a photo session with the elephants, the trainers told us to sit on their trunks one at a time and they would lift us out of the water for a picture. Brainwashing and animal cruelty at its finest. I am sure the elephant woke up that morning just itching to lift heavy, soggy, ungrateful tourists out of the water on their trunks. You get it by now, I felt bad for the elephants. 

Next we had a ‘water fight’ with them. We stood in a line and splashed the elephants and they were instructed to shoot water at us. I was just waiting for one of us to splash one of them in the eye and we learn the real definition of a water fight. It started raining as we were ‘playing’ with them, and it made the whole activity feel quite surreal.

After a few more pictures we were told to ride them to their camp. Camp meaning the place where they were chained in between rides. Sam and my elephant wasn’t listening very well, taking time to reach out with its long trunk for the bushes along the way. It was yelled at a few times, and prodded with the hooked stick by the handler who was walking next to it. We were about twelve feet off the ground on top of a hungry elephant that was being made to walk us soggy tourists back to the holding area. I didn’t have a worry in the world. That was until the elephant sped up momentarily to stay ahead of the elephant behind us. That was when Sam grabbed me for dear life. Or something like that.

The next day in Bangkok involved cooking class, dancing, lady boys, and scorpions. Stay tuned.