Kop khun krabs mate
Handzel summer excursion 2024 part II: Burnt to an absolute crisp
Fact and Figures rummages through one of her numerous first aid kits. She produces some anti-sickness tablets that are now nine years out of date.
Although the Wife appears to be overheating and is suffering from motion sickness —while I am on death’s doorstep — we decide we are better off waiting until we return to Koh Samui (***brought to you by 7-Eleven — giving customers what they want, every 75 yards***). (What? — Ed). We can either go to one of the island’s numerous pharmacies (there appear to be a minimum of three for every 100-metre stretch) or we can ask our maid, Tak (yes, that is her name), what the best remedy could be. Although this could be a dangerous course of action. Tak laughs after every sentence she utters and is probably a hard cannabis user.
Another alternative is to have a cup of tea. The English Gentleman does this on a regular basis and no maladies ever seem to visit him.
Our sickness has been brought on by a nine-and-a-half-hour journey out of the Gulf of Thailand into the South China Sea (you might want to check your timings and geography — Ed). Our reward for such a journey — apart from illness — is some time snorkelling in choppy waters and looking at strange fish, while praying that a sting ray or shark does not kill us.
The Record-breaking Champion Drag Racer from Down Under is not with us. He has succumbed to the terrible ill-effects of eating a dodgy chicken satay stick, which, when combined with watching live Muay Thai bouts and two different types of Thai lager, can render a man incapable of mobility or clarity of thought for up to 72 hours. The guidebooks do not mention this hazard — a clear case of gross negligence.
The English Gentleman is fine, of course. This is because — along with his tea-drinking — he wears vests, which keep you warm in the winter, cool in the summer and ward off hangovers and sea sickness. Even when you are not actually wearing them. They still impart their miraculous properties for up to 24 hours after taking them off (er — just how much time did you spend in the sun without appropriate shade and clothing? — Ed).
We visit a small tropical island. I hardly see any of it, as I spend most of my time violently spraying myself with an obligatory Thai bathroom water hose. This is because I have got myself into a bit of a pickle following the consumption of a papaya salad the day before. I asked for it ‘mild’, but the waitress must have misheard me and proceeded to tell the chef to go ‘wild’.
When we return to the mainland that evening our Surrogate Holiday Mother reminds us that we have all achieved something on this day. Some of us have survived an extremely wild and long boat ride without projectile vomiting. Some of us have overcome our fears of the deep blue sea. Some of us have burnt parts of our body to a crisp. And some of us have worked out that Thai people make up whacky names for themselves when dealing with Westerners. Probably for their own amusement. I’m looking at you AK-47 (but he’s not looking at you — Ed.)
At a 7-Eleven, we buy enough water to fill the Gulf of Thailand.
My horse riding instructor, Jan, tells me he is hungover. I can smell the booze off him and he is at least four metres away from me.
Jan misses the lamb back at home in Namibia. And the beef. I do not ask him if he has tried slimy chicken feet. This is because every inch of my being is concentrating on not falling off a horse.
‘Have you ever been to Africa my friend?’
‘No.’
‘You should go.’
If I survive this trip I’ll consider it, I think to myself.
‘Relax your elbows,’ says Jan. ‘Sit back. Drop your elbows… that’s it. A little more. Steer her head, tell her where you want to go… keep those heels back, hips back, shoulders back. Sit straight. That’s it…’
Jan is a masterful instructor. Before I know it, I am in full control of my horse.
The children and some of the adults are waiting for us on the beach.
‘Just like John Wayne,’ says The English Gentleman. I find it hard to disagree with him.
The Wife looks at me in awe, although she may just have heatstroke and thinks I am a ghost. It is 8 a.m. in the morning. The children cannot believe how regal I look, as I majestically cover metre after metre of the golden sand with effortless grace. I wave at them. They wave back and return to building sand castles with the Little Aussie Bloke.
Beyond the horizon, the sun beams. I think of how many mornings our star has seen. Too many to count on the hands of ten thousand multi-armed false deities, that is for sure. Many of the Crusaders would have travelled on such noble animals, (as The English Gentleman righty calls them). I briefly wonder if the gentle horse I am on is related to one such ancestor, who would have travelled far distances and fought for the Holy Land. I wonder if I would have had the courage to be a Crusader.
Jan breaks my daydreaming.
‘What the ****,’ he says, attempting to bound away from me. ‘What’s her name again?’ he asks me, as he runs away. I tell him.
He chases after Facts and Figures. She has broken into a gallop and Jan is worried that she may fall and injure herself; he has already had an injury this morning on an earlier ride. I try to break into a gallop myself and gently press my heel against the horse, as Jan told me to. She comes to an immediate halt.
Facts and Figures manages to turn her horse around and heads back towards us. I attempt to steer my horse in the general direction of the other riders, but she remains stationary. She must be struggling with the heat. One of Jan’s underlings is able to get her moving and guides her onto the correct path. I assume he has placed industrial-strength smelling salts near her nostrils without me noticing. There can be no other explanation.
As we trot back to the horse riding centre, I can sense that Facts and Figures and the Goddaughter want to pick my brains as, despite being experienced riders, they can see that I am probably the most natural horse rider they have ever seen. Even Jan probably wants to know my secret, but does not want to lose face in front of his underlings.
I pat my horse and stroke her mane before we leave. ‘Thank you,’ I tell her. She snorts and kicks her hind legs out at me. I take that as a playful ‘saa-watt-di-krab’ (you fancy yourself as quite the linguist don’t you? — Ed).
A dead monk sits preserved in a glass box. He is wearing shades.
The children have no idea as to what to make of it. We walk barefooted around the glass box. The Record-breaking Champion Drag Racer from Down Under looks as if he is in a daze. This is probably because I have told him about my inability to pump up the left rear tyre on our hired car. I have explained that it was very difficult to attach the air-pumping hose thingy-majiggy to the air cap sticking-out-thingy.
My right buttock is in immense pain after slipping on some rocks near a waterfall. I also smell like a wet dog who has rolled around in a dirty shallow pool of dead fish.
The Wife says Facts and Figures will have some ointment that can ease the pain. ‘She is prepared for all eventualities,’ she says.
When I fell, the heavens had just opened. A welcome burst of rain that cooled us down for a brief moment, but had the unfortunate side effect of making the edges of the waterfall a death trap. I wonder if I should write to the King, giving him some pointers as to the merits of some basic health & safety measures.
‘Why is that guy sitting there with sunglasses on?’ asks one of the children.
‘Maybe he liked wearing them when he was alive,’ I say.
‘He’s weird.’
We leave the dead monk and walk around an adjacent temple. A Buddhist monk —who is very much still alive — is sweeping leaves away from the walkway towards the temple. He ushers us along with a very un-Zen-like firm wave and some blunt instructions in Thai. I hobble along holding my throbbing right buttock, and apologise by saying ‘thank you’ in Thai, incorrectly. He gives me another look, perhaps wondering if I am a lazy sexy boy.
One of the children keeps his eyes on the monk, fearful that he will use his broom to attack us.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘He’s not a Shaolin monk.’
‘Huh?’
‘Never mind.’
Our Surrogate Holiday Mother has arranged for us to have an authentic Thai takeaway in the back garden of the villa.
It is a still and beautiful night, save for a dark foreboding cloud out at sea that has streaks of lightning shooting through it. Later on, the storm will reach us, as The Record-breaking Champion Drag Racer from Down Under predicted it would, with the help of his weather app. The storm will keep me up for most of the night. As will strange animal noises.
It is a fantastic takeaway, delivered by a worker from the restaurant two doors down from us on the beach. He pops his head around from behind a bush. We all cheer, apart from the children, who refuse to even look at Thai food.
The Goddaughter wants to play some music through some speakers from her phone. Prior to the holiday, she asked everyone to provide her with some songs for a holiday playlist. There is a glitch in the plan, however, as I provided a written list and she cannot read my writing.
‘What does this say?’ the Goddaughter asks me.
‘I’m not quite sure,’ I say.
‘Your handwriting is terrible,’ says one of the children.
I re-write the list for the Goddaughter. She squints as she reads it.
The Wife hands out mosquito repellent bracelets to everyone. She puts one on each of her ankles and wrists.
She wakes up the next morning covered in mosquito bites.
The Little Aussie Bloke is refusing to eat breakfast and the children are going wild in the pool.
The English Gentleman is cooking about a 120 eggs as they ‘need eating’. I have failed at my third attempt to make a coffee with the strange coffee capsule machine.
Our Surrogate Holiday Mother is deep in thought. She may be slightly concerned that we have not planned the day down to the exact minute. That, or she is working out how to talk to us all about the behaviour of our offspring.
The Wife thinks we may need more water, despite there being 12 two-litre bottles of the stuff on one of the counters.
As far as I can tell, everyone is burnt to a crisp.
I give up on the beverage-making, rub some coffee granules into my gums and continue to pour beer into the sink. The night before I left bottles of Chang in the freezer and the tops burst off them. It is a complete waste and will require another visit to 7-Eleven. Not between 2pm and 5pm though. One cannot purchase alcohol between these times in the kingdom of Thailand. Nobody knows why. Not even the King. Maybe I will ask him why when I send him the health & safety memo.
The debris from breakfast is strewn all over the place. Bits of cereal can be found all over the floor. The smell of burnt toast permeates the air. Nutella is smeared over chairs and the fridge handles. The children walk in from the pool asking if they can have soft drinks and sweets, dripping water everywhere and stepping on small lumps of butter, which have somehow found their way to the back door. The Wife shouts. The English Gentleman makes a cup of tea. Our Surrogate Holiday Mother frantically sketches out a timeline of activities for the day.
‘Would anyone like to see a temple today?’ she asks.
The maids walk in, breaking an awkward silence. They say ‘sahwaydeekai’ and then leave in horror after quickly scanning the kitchen-diner. The Wife chases after them with another bundle of dirty clothes.
Facts and Figures patiently explains why breakfast is the most important meal of the day to the Little Aussie Bloke. He does not appear to be receptive to her advice. I find another bottle of beer in the freezer and wonder if it can be salvaged.
It is all too much for the Goddaughter, who stays in bed. She is probably still attempting to decipher my song list. Our Surrogate Holiday Mother suspects she may be spending too much time on social media.
‘Does she have Snapchat?’ asks one of the children.
‘Yes.’
‘Can I have Snapchat?’
‘Not right now. We’ve talked about this already.’
‘Not fair.’
The children sit down and start having their third breakfast of the day, spilling orange juice and milk all over the table and completely distracting the Little Aussie Bloke, who was almost on the verge of starting his own petit dejeuner.
It is also all too much for the Record-breaking Champion Drag Racer from Down Under. He walks out onto the beach, which our villa backs onto, grabs a kayak and paddles his way out into the sea. Nobody is quite sure whether or not he will return. I assume that Facts and Figures has a mini drone hidden away somewhere that she can dispatch, if needs be, to locate him.
We feed the elephants. I stay at least a trunk’s length away from them.
One of the animals keeps trying to steal food from its relative’s mouth, after the relative has done all the hard work by picking up the food with its trunk. An elephant sanctuary worker attempts to nip the theft in the bud, but the stealing continues. I fear that the thieving elephant may turn on the worker and trample him to death. I take a few more steps backwards.
One of the other elephant sanctuary workers tells us that elephants spend most of their waking hours eating.
‘That’s what I felt like on the river market boat with ‘Katie’,’ I say, to no one in particular (see part I of this series). No one responds or acknowledges my comment. I throw another lump of rotten mango towards one of the elephants. He ignores it.
The Wife appears to be overheating.
‘Anyone want a drink?’ I ask.
‘Me! me!’ shout the children.
We go and get refreshments. They have their third soft drink of the day.
It is 10 a.m.
At a 7-Eleven we buy more water than a herd of elephants could drink in a month.
I ask a shop assistant if it is OK to freeze Chang beer. He looks at me as if I have insulted the King.
On the way out, the children see two stray dogs lounging in the late afternoon heat. They give them a very wide berth.
My crotch is dangerously close to being set on fire.
Some pyromaniac brandishing two burning sticks is rotating them in between my legs. I am trapped, sat on a bean bag that has absorbed three gallons of my sweat so far.
Everyone laughs and videos me. I hope I can get to the sea fast enough before the only part of my body that has not so far been burnt to a crisp is set alight.
Earlier, all was well. The pyromaniac and his insane friends were treating us to a type of circus show by the beach, which backs onto the bar/restaurant we are at. They throw burning sticks, and mallets, and hula hoops and goodness knows what else up in the air; in between their legs; etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Then they approach the public and the horror begins.
When the pyromaniac is done, he doffs a cap in anticipation of some sort of payment. I give him all the Baht I have in my pocket, hoping I will never see him again.
I head to the public toilet and violently spray myself using an obligatory Thai bathroom water hose.
Thankfully, there is no lasting damage.
At a 7-Eleven we buy enough water to put the pyromaniacs out of business for good.
The wife tries to drive the rental car in the supermarket car park. It shunts back and forth. The children complain. My whiplash returns.
‘I’ve never driven an automatic before,’ she says.
‘I wouldn’t have guessed. You’re a natural.’
We drive back to the villa. I have flashbacks of almost running over a couple on a scooter when we first arrived on Koh Samui.
The wife tries to indicate, but puts the windscreen wipers on instead. We narrowly avoid colliding with multiple vehicles and running over stray animals.
I do a double-take near the villa, as I think I have spotted Tak (yes, that is her name) leaving a cannabis shop.
‘Why are all those people standing on the back of that truck?’ asks one of the children.
‘I have no idea.’
Our Surrogate Holiday Mother arranges (through one of our maids) for us to have a massage.
I struggle to breath as the masseur turns my neck to the left, which gives me immense gyp. She proceeds to pummel my back with her elbows, knees and fists. Perhaps she has some colonial ancestry overhang she is taking out on me. I try to tell her that I am of Polish heritage and we never ventured into this part of the world with any imperial designs, but I cannot speak as my mouth is embedded into my pillow. The pain in my left shoulder is excruciating. I want to cry, but my eye ducts are also so firmly implanted into my pillow that no moisture can enter or leave them.
The Wife is enjoying her own massage. She started off the whole episode by asking for a ‘gentle’ massage — mainly because her back is burnt to a crisp.
When we are done, my masseur makes it clear that I should have another massage the next day, as my right shoulder is still tight.
I give her all the Baht I can find in the bedroom, hoping to never see her again.
The Record-breaking Champion Drag Racer from Down Under is carrying three cold beers across the beach as he heads towards The English Gentleman.
Facts and Figures is nowhere to be seen. I assume she is dealing with the Little Aussie Bloke, who is probably trying to hitch a ride on a pig.
That is because pigs wander all over the island we are on. The Thais have imaginatively called it “Pig Island”.
In an attempt to stop overheating, some of us are in the sea. I attempt to float on my back in the sea unaided, but begin to sink. The Wife despairs. I head off to drink one of the beers. It is one of the best things I have ever drunk.
Tourists and locals on the beach stare at us, presumably because most of us are burnt to a crisp.
The Wife asks me to take pictures of her, our Surrogate Holiday Mother and some of the children in the water.
‘Can you take it again? The angle isn’t quite right'.
[…]
‘No, I look terrible. Again.’
[…]
‘We look really special. Again.’
[…]
Twenty takes later and the Wife is happy.
‘Why is this place called Pig Island?’ asks one of the children.
‘Because pigs roam freely all over it,’ I say.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
2 hours earlier (I think, maybe, who knows) …
I am trying to get back on the boat, but the elderly Japanese couple are not moving. They are clinging onto the boat’s ladder for dear life, even though they are both wearing lifejackets. And there was me thinking Japan was surrounded by water.
I am seriously overheating. The blazing sun bounces off the transparent plastic kayak, causing me to sweat profusely into my lifejacket. One of the children keeps steering us away from the boat with his oar, despite my explicit and clear instructions not to do so.
I attempt to remain calm, but I am frantically blinking sun cream and sweat out of my eyes.
Eventually, the Japanese couple swim off and stick their faces in the sea, either because they are fed up with one of crew shouting at them, or because they are going to commit Harakiri by drowning for dishonouring their family’s name due to a fear of the salty water.
On returning to the boat we watch some of our fellow passengers use a giant inflatable slide to re-enter the sea. I decide against joining them.
There is a hose at the back of the boat that sprays fresh water. I use it to ease some of the chaffing that a combination of the sun and salty water has afflicted upon me.
9 hours later (possibly)…
We take it in turns to take pictures of ourselves at the bow of the ship.
The other passengers stare at us, probably wondering why we are all sweating so much — and why we are all burnt to a crisp.
At a 7-Eleven we buy enough water to sink AK-47’s boat. For a change, the children buy some incredibly unhealthy snacks and sweets. The wife buys some Aloe Vera gel as Tak (yes, that is her name) says it is the best thing for sunburn. Although it is about 7 days too late to do anything about it now.
We say goodbye to the Record-breaking Champion Drag Racer from Down Under, Facts and Figures, and the Little Aussie Bloke at the open-air airport as they are due to fly off an hour or so before us.
Before we part, the Wife and Facts and Figures complain that their “tans” have disappeared.
I buy an iced coffee. The Wife drinks most of it as she appears to be overheating. I remain extremely clammy.
I blink sweat out of my eyes as I read the departures board. Our flight is delayed by at least an hour.
‘Looks like we’re stuck here for a bit longer kids.’
They don’t seem to mind that much.
See Part I for my latest Progress Report.
Take it easy. And kop khun krab for reading.