Bali, Kuta

Bali, Indonesia is around 3 hours from Phuket, direct flight with AirAsia and cheap, $80. That's where Nils and I agreed to meet for a few drinks. Cheap flights 4 times a week only, so I arrived a day early to prep everything for the arrival of the Boss.

I booked some semi-decent hotel in Kuta which was supposed to be the heart of Bali parties. According to the hotels own homepage it was a 3 star hotel, I would consider if it earned any stars at all. The room smelled horribly and I guess the hotel knew the problem, because they had installed a smell thing which would automatically spray some kind of lemon spray to make the stench less. The bathroom was way below standard, there were small 1cm black worms coming up from the water outlet, that was kind of disgusting.

But the hotel had a decent pool and a bar as well, so it could not be all that bad.

Nils arrived the next day and it didn't take more than 15min before we were at a bar with a beer in the hand, welcome Marquard!
We did not have any particular plan, so I had booked the hotel for 2 extra nights and the idea was then that we would come up with something to do or somewhere to go.
The next day however, we spent the most of the day at the pool. Kuta was really warm compared to Patong, maybe because we were in the city where there was no wind and we were just roasting in the sun.

I expected going to Kuta to find some authentic Balinese cuisine, what ever that would be. I was a little disappointed when I read the menus and it was all American, Australian and European foods there, with a few local menus thrown in. There are plenty of chain restaurants, McDonalds, Buppa Gump Shrimp factory and whatever they are called, so people can really feel at home on Bali.

We wanted to try some buggy driving, similar to ATV, but bigger engines and sitting much lower like a small car. We signed up at one of the countless booths on the street selling tours. Everything set and we headed for the bars. When we came back to the hotel however the guy selling the tours were waiting for us. Unfortunately the only company doing the tours were celebrating the boss's son's marriage and so all tours were canceled for two days. Hmm, we had been talking about river rafting too and we decided to give that a chance instead.
Next morning we were picked up really early by a young guy Wayan. There was another Indonesian couple in the car on their honeymoon, the guy didn't speak that good English. We had approximately 2 hours drive ahead of us, I got the rear seat of the car, big mistake. Apparently we were a little late because of traffic in Kuta, so when we came to the country side, the driver drove like he was some kind of race car driver. The car literally jumped a few times, and with me in the back seat I jumped even more.
Kind of stressful when they are driving on the wrong side of the streets, especially for Nils who was in the front seat, but without the usual steering wheel and pedals, haha
Finally we arrived and stumbled out of the car more or less awake, shaken and not feeling all too good, but some fresh air in the jungle cured that.
We got out gear, helmet and life west and I started mounting the GoPro camera, because I really wanted video of this ride. We went down to the boat and found some half deflated boat and joked around that this was our boat. It was, haha. Our little Balinese guide found a pump and started working, but then I had to intervene and volunteered Nillerman to start using his humongous muscles for something useful. 10 minutes later the boat was ready to go and we jumped in.
The weather in Bali is close to 100% humidity so I was a little worried about how the GoPro would react once the camera got into the colder water. Of course it fogged up after a few minutes and eventually froze, so much for those videos.
The ride down was great, the young couple we had in the boat were really kind too and laughing all the time. We passed a lot of boats full of young red-neck Australian, they didn't look like they were enjoying themselves at all. In fact they were just in our way so we ran over a few of their boats. Afterall, he had put the two biggest weight in the front and we went do the river like a speedboat, haha
At the end of the ride we were had a 4 meters drop off a waterfall. We got reorganized in the boat and tied down the oars and set off. For a second I think people stopped breathing, but the landing was actually quite soft, I guess they tried that stuff before. This was my first river-rafting experience, maybe not the wildest ever, but now I am ready for more, yeah
Back in Kuta there was not that much to do actually. The disco's were full of the same kind of redneck teenagers as we met on the river rafting, not exactly. The slower bars were occupied with older guys couldn't hang with the younger crowd. We were stuck in the middle and had to search hard. But we found our spot in Kuta too, a Mexican place that served the best Mojitos on the street. At least the more we got, the better they tasted, haha
Kuta, I did not see much of it, but from what I saw, it is definitely not my cup of tea. Off to find a better place on Bali, I know it exists

Ko Phi Phi Don

We figured that there must be more to Phuket than just partying, well, it was actually Thomas who had a moment of sanity. Everywhere there were tickets being sold to visit the Phi Phi islands, two islands East of the Phuket island of which only one of them is inhabited.
Martin had already set foot on this island, and had warned me about a tourist hell. We had many discussion what his and my version of tourist hell is, but after hearing his description I was a bit skeptical about Phi Phi. Thomas wanted to stay two days, I voted for one day, with the option to extend if it was good.

We bought a ticket which had an open return date within the next year, so if it was really good, we could stay a little longer. Early morning, only 45 minutes late, we got picked up at our hotel and we drove to Phuket town. We all got some stickers so the crew could see where we were going and jumped on our little boat. Had we come a little earlier, then we could have gotten some good seats, now we were sitting outside and the back of the boat, which seemed almost nice. That was until we got out into open water, one wave after the other generated so much water mist that we slowly got soaked. And the trip was around 2 hours so there were many more waves to come. But at least the boat sold beers, so we got ourselves a morning beer

We arrived at the island and I really did look like some paradise island commercial. Blue clear water, white sandy beaches with palm trees all the way to the beach and blue sky. Pretty nice.
Then we went ashore and of course we had to pay to enter the island. It was not a lot, but why is that not included in the ticket already, I just feel like being ripped off again and again.
It was a very cramped feeling that hit me when we entered the first street, the 3 meter narrow streets filled with young backpackers, merchants trying to sell their stuff and confused new people standing around not knowing where to go. Difficult to explain, but I disliked it, maybe I should have liked it as it was just a big city squeezed into a smaller one eliminating the need for cars. Everywhere there were workers transporting stuff on carts and most local people bicycling or driving around on their scooter, making beep beep sounds all the time.

The Islands were made famous back in 2000 when Leonardo DiCaprio made the movie, The Beach. Now backpackers from all over the world traveled to this once pretty anonymous island. They come in hundreds and if not thousands and look to be 20-25 years old.

The young people go to the islands on party boats, maybe Captain Bob's Booze Cruise or similar once, jump from one beach to the next in the hundreds making sure everyone can see and hear them.
At night the entire island is transformed into one big hippie kind of party, all the small bars along the beach serving buckets of alcohol and people juggling for example with fire. The dance music is pumping hard from every place, trying to overpower their neighbor next door.

Maybe I would have been doing the same 20 years ago, but now it is just a little annoying. I know, I know, a sign of being old? At least I found my spot on the beach instead that suited me, cold beer and an excellent view if I should say so myself
The beach and the bay seems to be very flat, at low tide, most of the taxi boats waiting in the water were on the sand and people had to walk far out to swim. I would have thought that the surface underneath the water would be all sandy and smooth too, but most of the area is covered in rocky bottom, not very nice to walk out in to the water on. The are might be full of fish or other things that would be painful to step on.
Back in 2003 when the big tsunami hit Indonesia and Thailand, the Phi Phi islands were not spared, and it is not difficult to see why. The island seems to consist of two higher ground islands, connected with a flat piece of sandy beach stretch maybe a few hundred meters wide, but only 1 or 2 meters above the water line. The entire inhabited area was overrun by a big wave, leaving nothing by debris everywhere. The damages are still evident on the South side of the island, where the concrete shore lies crumbled in the sand.
Looked like partying was the theme of the bigger Phi Phi island, we bought tickets to go around and see the smaller one, that included visiting the monkey beach, the beach from the movie by the same name
16 people were cramped on a boat, that had 8 life jackets, safety first in Thailand. The moment we headed out, it started raining, heavily. On top of that it was pretty windy going out and also low tide, so when we hit the first beach, which was the monkey beach, the "captain" just told us that this was the monkey beach and continued. There was a loud boooh from the younger part of the boat who seemed to have more skills navigating a boat in low tide among corals.
We continued around the windy side of the island, choppy waves and now and then a few drops of water hit us, enough to get my sunglasses wet again and again, annoying. Finally we cleared the Eastside of the island and went South around it and the waves calmed down. We came to a bay where there was a place to get ashore, but again because of the low tide, that was not possible. This seemed like it was going to turn out to be just a ride in a boat around an island, haha
A few minutes later we turned into a lagoon, this was where the movie had been shot. The concept of the movie was that the beach was hidden, and of course if you don't know it is there, it is true, but this one was easy to find from the waters. In the movie they had added some additional islands covering the entry of the lagoon, to make it more difficult to find.
The place was already full of other boats and people snorkeling around the area.
Of course Thomas and I had not been given snorkeling gear like everyone else, so when they jumped in, we stood there looking stupid. They eventually found 2 other pairs for us, the one I got though had been spending the last 5 years on the bottom on an oil tank. Disgusting. Thomas went around a little and I threw in a few biscuits to lure the fish to him. It was incredible how many assembled in a few seconds, I am guessing hundreds. Some girls did not like it at all and came out of the water pretty fast, haha
After the snorkeling we went to the island and got to check out the inside of it, which still had the set of the movie. We were actually running for the Bar sign that we saw on the beach and after 30 minutes of running around concluding there was not place to get a beer, we ended up next to the beach where we had come ashore to discover that this was where the bar was located. Aha.
One of the party boats were on the beach as well, and what could have been a nice place to relax for a while, became an inferno of teenage noise. Luckily they had to leave again and we got a few seconds on the beach without them. During out stay on the island, the low tide had bottomed out and the water was starting to rise again.
We were going to go past the monkey beach on the way back, a lot of the people on board was really excited. First though we had to cross the rough waters between the island, which turned out to be a nerve wrecking experience. Knowing there was only life vests for half the people and sitting on the front being hit in the face on every 1-2 meter wave, the ride back was not really fun, at least not until we had made it past the really bumpy water. We had been soaked beyond all recognition for around 30 minutes, at least Thomas and I were laughing about the while situation, many others were just freezing their butts off.
We finally made it to the monkey island, but again the captain said the water was too shallow to go closer. He could anchor for half an hour and let the people who really wanted to go, swim ashore on their own. A few guys jumped in and we stood there for a second freezing. Actually the ocean water should be warmer than how we felt on-board and it was.
Thomas swam to the beach, I was a minute or so after him. After swimming for a few minutes I hit the coral reef with my hands and looked down. 30cm below there was a reef or coral with sharp edges, with big waves and no mask to see where exactly the rocks were, a few of us decided to swim back to the boat. A few other guys made it to the beach, only to discover that there were no monkeys today. On the way back one of the guys stepped on something and screamed out loud in the water. When he came back, it was apparent he had stepped on a sea urchin and his foot had 7 or 8 black hole from the spines of the sea urchin. He did not know what to do so the captain came over, took his flip flop and hit his food hard a few times, to break the spines in the skin. Turns out they are mostly calcium and will be absorbed from the body, it would be more dangerous trying to get the spines out without the proper equipment. He told him to soak the foot in lemon juice over night and it should be alright in a few days time. The guy didn't exactly know what to believe, he was just watching his foot turn blue on the way back. Another couple on board calmed him down that she had tried the same a few years back and she was still alive.
We thought we were going to have a Guinness at the local Irish pub we found on the way back from another bar at the beach, but no Guinness, only loud dance music. That had nothing to do with an Irish pub, just bait to lure innocent tourists like us into their bar.
Next morning it was time to leave the H.C.Andersen hotel, which on the Internet was marked as 2-3 stars hotel. These stars come cheap nowadays it seems, don't even know if it should have 1 star.
We got the best seats in the house on the way back, all in the front of the boat below the captains windows. Pretty neat place to get a little nap, before returning to the mayhem of Patong again.
Did I seem a little negative around Phi Phi islands? The beaches were beautiful, the surroundings likewise, but there was just something about it I didn't get along with. I might even agree with Martin that this was a tourist hell, but a special one. Worth to see, yes, going back, probably not

Patong, part 2

To get from Ao Nang to Patong, I yet again had to use the Thai mafia minivan system. I got a ticket for 350 baht this time going the entire way in a minivan. Having a little more experience than last time, I told the clerk selling me the ticket about my last experience and she (like the other one in Patong last time) ensured me that this was the best minivan system in the area and they only used AC minivans.
The van picked me up around 10.45 in the morning, only 45 minutes late. We drove around picked up people from other hotels too, now I see why it was late. Not everyone was as ready as they should be. With the minivan full, we were then driven to a connection point that was already full of tourists. Of course they had a restaurant and other shops where you could get something until your ride was "ready". We all got a sticker so the chaotic looking system could tell us apart.
But the system worked, I at least ended up almost close to my hotel. The reservation was not in my name, so the lady was a little surprised when I showed up, as the other guest was not to arrive before 2 at night.
I got settled, and decided to go for a walk around the city to see if everything was still the same. Nothing had changed, luckily. Got some way too spicy food and had to buy more than one beer to survive, didn't even plan on that, but no complaints from my side.
At 2am the mystery guest arrived and I even had to pay for the taxi, but that's expected from a gentleman, right? The cold beer came out of the fridge and there was Thomas himself, ready for some vacation in the most quiet part of Thailand, haha
Patong is only one of the beaches on the Phuket Island, maybe one of the best ones, but there are plenty more. One day Thomas and I wanted to go to another beach to break the pattern, don't ask me why, haha. We asked the lady at the guest house where we were staying, if there were any other beaches worth going to from Patong. She said that the Paladie beach was one of the best and we decided to give it a shot. We looked at the map for 20 minutes or so, and just could not find it. We went to her and asked again, and she said it could not be found on the map. Secret beach, wow, now we were locals. We had to get a ride somehow and started asking the tuc-tuc's around the corner, they all waved us away and pointed to the taxi. He wanted a whopping 500 baht to take us there and after talking to a few of the drivers, it seemed that nobody wanted to go there for less. Bollocks.
The ride there went up and down over mountains, through the jungle, past many warning signs and far far away from civilization, but we finally arrived. Then we paid another 100 baht to get to the beach, because it was privately owned. This however included the sunbed on the beach and people on the beach taking orders for drinks. We sat down, and next to us were a Danish family who had run out of sunscreen it seemed, lobster family. A few beds away, there were some older men who had a lot of younger men around them... No comments. But then the beach must be good, right? Well, a short strip of sand out to the water, the rest was stony corals on whis you could probably cut your feet or step of some naste fish hiding. At least they served beer on the beach, but the old guys took up all the time of the younger Thai working there. No comment. My patience ran out and I went to get the beers myself, and finally, now we could enjoy Paradise Beach. Then it started raining, haha. Screew that, we had come this far, paid this much, we were going to suck it up and enjoy it. The rain stopped, the sun came out and we asked if we could get an umbrella to protect out natively paperwhite color. Nope, it was too windy was the response. WTF, on the other beaches they knew how to handle this, this was getting a little annoying. We took our stuff and moved back from the beach to a few chairs in the background that were in the shade and a few sips of a beer later things calmed down. Then it started raining again...
We called the guy to get us back to good old Patong, and we waited for 30 min. Called him again, he was on his way. Waited another 20 min and called him again, sorry guys, no time. Arghhhhh. Luckily there was a tuk-tuk leaving back to Patong full of people (don't ask me how it got here) we bummed a ride back with them for 150 baht, a steal!
Some guys told me that looking like a homeless guy would keep stalkers and robbers away, so I had some stupid idea not to get a haircut and a shave on the entire trip. A few weeks after leaving I had to shave though, I looked not only like a homeless, but a homeless bum. In Patong it was time to shed some hair and around the corner we found a lady with direct connections to Paris. She even gave Thomas a clean shave, even though Mr Nordin looked pretty tense a few times, haha

Even vacation in Patong starts to show a pattern. After some breakfast, it is time to check out the beach, just to make sure everything is ok. The same guy starting to recognize us, knows what we want. 100 baht a day for the beach bed, and then he will come every hour and adjust the umbrella to make sure we don't get burned.
When we look thirsty he will exchange the empty beer bottle with a new one. The ladies on the beach keep an eye on who is hungry, who needs an aloe vera treatment because of sunburn the previous day, who has broken sunglasses and needs a new pair. All for money of course, but life is pretty easy sometimes
At around 16 or so, it is time to get up from the beach and grab a drink, a Piña Colada of course, at one of the local happy hour places.
After a few tries we found one bar with a very funny lady bartending, Blue Lotus bar. Every day after the beach it was time for a small chit-chat, one of those people you could ask anything about Patong and the people there. And so we did and got a lot of interesting information, no value to people who were not there.
Then it is time to find some food. Patong has a huge selection of different foods from all over the world. There are lots of Scandinavians who obviously moved here opening a restaurant, Skål, Rundertårn, Lelle's, Viking Food etc. We visited one of them, they offered a Danish dish (hakkebøf) that I had not had for many years. It was ok, but with the great selection of Thai food they have here it was almost waste of a meal.
Another night we went to an Austrian Beer garden, where we ordered some Wiehnerschitzels and two large beers. After having sucked too many Piña Coladas during happy hour, I am sorry to say that Thomas was able to drink the beer faster than I was. Ouch, that hurt! That must go down into the history books...
The seafood here is great and everywhere. The bad thing is if one is eating 1 or 2 people only, because all the seafood is ordered as a whole. If you want lobster, you gotta get one yourself, quite expensive and big. The same with fish and squids, hard to eat alone. Thai food is good here, I really like the curry dishes to be a little thick and creamy, that's how they do it here in most places. Simply delicious.
There are always live bands playing multiple places along the party street, a few beers will make the music sound better than it is, but overall good value for money. There is no covercharge anywhere, they just want people to buy booze - and that we do!
One night we were walking home, we suddenly heard ACDC play, or that's what a few beers will do to you, but it was around 2 at night, so we went in just to watch the last song. Haha, that was not the last one, they kept playing for another hour, actually quite a good concert. When they finished, there was another band getting ready to play. Non-stop action here, gotta love it.


The most notorious place in Patong is Soi Bangla, this is one of the best party streets in Thailand, maybe even in South-East-Asia. Most of the bars are so-called lady-bars.

Girls work there to keep guests (mostly men) company, they play games, talk and just make people feel good there. After a while, they either start playing the games for money, and they know what they are doing or they will beg you for a drink. Buy them a drink and they will be your best friend for the next 20 minutes, then you have to add another quarter to the machine and it works a little longer. There are Go Go bars where girls are dancing on stages, with and without clothes, even though Thai law specificly states that nudity is illegal. There are shows that I can't describe, for your eyes only.

There are bars with men who chose to go he woman way, partly or fully. Anyway, some of these former guys look very very much like girls, it is hard to tell the difference just by looking. Talking to them is very interesting, because the first thing you notice is that they have a deeper voice than myself, haha. I guess we both looked like we were just there to check it out, so they were just kidding around with us too. Talking to them and they are just as normal as we are, just they don't consider themselves men anymore, not gay either, but really do want to be women, a little strange to describe.
When most bars close, others will either open or at least the traffic there will boom. Night clubs are really late night clubs where people go after the regular bars turn off the light at 2 or 3 at night. Walking down the street you suddenly bump into a polar beer of course.
Most people working in the busy bars go out for a drink and some restaurant food themselves after work. That's when it is worth keeping an eye on where they go, usually to the best bars or restaurants in Patong. We went out with a few locals and soon discovered that Thai food there is not just any Thai food, we found some really good places and usually ended up the same places every evening, talk about being adventurous, haha
Just before another day is about to start, there is a fierce fight for people to come and get the last massage of the night. The massage comes in different flavors and there is always someone ready to offer some little extra services, for money of course.
Around the city there are always a lot of food carts and during the night they are everywhere. Anything you want to eat, you can get it. Those late night tacos, burritos or kebab sandwich turn out to be a little boring when you have options like fried chicken feet, chicken intestine, grilled squid on a stick and other delicious dishes to choose from.
One problem being in Patong however is that, there are only 24 hours a day, damn.

Ao Nang, Krabi

After Khao Lak and the diving trip, we had been discussing where to go. Somehow Martin had come up with a free apartment in a place called Ao Nang, close to Krabi. I had never heard about the place before and was afraid it was going to be just like Khao Lak. But since I had a few days to burn anyway, I decided to tag along after having read about Ao Nang on the Internet.

We hired a taxi driver to drive us and just when he drove out of Khao Lak, Christian made a comment that he thought we had gotten the most sensitive and responsible driver, who drove carefully and in an orderly manner.10 minutes later the roads got narrow and twisty and at some point the taxi was speeding through the wrong lane passing everything it could on it's way. Oncoming traffic, no problem, just a pair of flashing lights and people would move. Sometimes... At some point, Christian sitting behind Martin in the car jumped up screaming, "Pas nu på for satan" to the Thai taxi driver. Sorry boss, sorry. I tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder and said, "We are not in a hurry". I am pretty sure he did not understand too much English because moments later we were again flying through the traffic.
We finally arrived and I gave him some tip for driving fast, and he told me that someone had told him to hurry. Apparently that was the only word he understood in my sentence, hahaha
The place turned out to be a 5 level apartment on a hillside, we were given 2 rooms to share.
We settled and decided to explore the area. It seemed to be a little far from everything, but after a few minutes walk we came to the beach, where there were plenty of restaurants and even a few bars where we could get a drink and get fully acclimatized for the new town.

Next morning Martin had been reading a book about Thailand and we decided to take the boat to Railey Beach, which was 10 minutes away in a taxi boat, by the way the only way to get there. There are no roads or alternative routes. The taxi boat takes 8 people, but 5 is enough. If there are only 3 people, they will wait until 2 more comes around.
The entire area here is well known for it's lime stone cliffs, that are very popular among people who know how to climb. It wasn't easy to see from a distance, but these places were quite flat and mostly vertical.
We arrived at the beach and wow, it was beautiful. Even more beautiful when we were sitting in a beach bar overlooking the bay and mountains on both sides, something my camera could not capture in one picture.
Martin had a friend who was spending his time between jobs on a nearby beach, Ton Sai beach, which was even more deserted compared to this one. To get to the beach, we had to go through a jungle path, and of course we ended up taking the wrong route and so went through the entire jungle of this place.
Up over hills, down through mud holes, through thick vegetation where no man had ever been before. We also passed a lot of "resorts" in the jungle, I bet some of these must be super cheap as there is nothing there. We finally made it to the beach and just had to pass out. It was close to 35 degrees and walking in the jungle for an hour without too much to drink, bad mistake. So we had to hydrate on a proper made Pina Colada asap, haha.
We left with the last taxi boat back to Ao Nang for dinner and the guys wanted some massage. I have never been a big fan of massage, in fact I think it it hurts and I get really sore afterward. They suggested I should take the oil massage which is not very tough, but I guess it all depends on who is giving the massage. The place we went to had just opened and the Thai lady who owned the place was here just for a few weeks before going back to LA. Strange to find someone who spoke fluently English, I had not heard that for a while now.
So I had my first massage ever, an oil massage. I must have been too tense and a little afraid of getting injured. But they were right, this type was not very hard and I must have reached relaxation at some point because I did doze off a few times. I am never going to be an addict of this, at least I don't think so.
We checked out some better food place this night, as we went out a lot earlier. After dinner it was time to check out the party scene of Ao Nang. The guide book had said it was very family tourist minded city, so I had no expectations what so ever.
Every corner was packed with the small tuc-tuc's, now I am wondering if every place in Thailand has their own version of tuc-tuc. Some of them were really pimped up, someone here has too much time
Lots of places with Scandinavian flags around and people trying to sell stuff to us started speaking some kind of Danish or Swedish to us. Travel to Thailand to eat at a Danish restaurant or go to a Danish bar? The first place with music was playing something that sounded like Danish music for oldies. Same thing over and over again, it made me a little sick, I thought I was caught in hell.
Then finally I heard some disco tunes with a big bass in the distance. A little more searching, wrong turns and over a few walls, we had found the local bar street. Local girls would stand outside their bar trying to lure us into their place. Martin was not too keen on going to any bar, as he said, I don't want to party my entire vacation. That's good, but sometimes you need to hydrate, it is Thailand and very hot, haha
We got us a few drinks and then later we ordered some buckets, Thai whiskey mixed with Coke. They for sure started the party and a few more of those and we were all in a good mood. Even the guy who did not want to party was having a good time, haha
We ended up going to the local disco with some of the people working at the bar, we probably would not have found that place otherwise. Somehow, someone ordered another few buckets and the party kept going until we got thrown out of the place as they closed. It was close to sunrise now and I guess the people we met on the way back were people on their way to work.
Next "morning" we crawled down to the beach and took the taxi boat back to the nice beach, where we deserved some relaxing time. This was actually a pretty good place to recover from our dive trip, but more importantly from our late night partying. Laying on the beach with a cold drink and an occasional trip to the water, life is almost bearable here, haha

Martin and Christian are avid beach volley players and they found a few people to play with on the beach. Turned out that one of the guys playing there was one of the two playing on the Danish National Beach Volley team, pretty good as they came in 3rd at the last world championship.
They played a little and after a few hours, the Thai people started assembling around the net. Every evening a Thai team plays a team of tourists on the beach, playing until sunset. Even though the Thai players were pretty short, they had no problems jumping almost as high as the taller guys, which suddenly made the match pretty fair. The funny thing though was that it was a mix of men and women playing, but none of us could really tell who was who, they all sounded like girls when something funny happened
Back in Ao Nang again later that night, Christian and I had agreed to try some back waxing, I guess I had a weak moment. I didn't really know what to expect, so the girls just laughed when I wiggling like a worm as they put on the hot wax on the side of my back. It didn't hurt because the wax was hot, but because it cooled down and they were still spreading it around, now grabbing onto hairs... Ouch!!! 20 minutes they said it would take, we got out after 1 hour, I left the place sweaty and felt totally beaten up.
Martin was in a massage place next to ours getting Thai massage. We got in and waited for him, and they somehow sold the idea to us that we should have massage too.
So it happened that I got my first Thai massage. Ouch. I am not really flexible and I don't like people messing around with my muscles around the spine. I was beaten up by the back waxing already and thought it could not get any worse... Oh well, I am still learning it seems. I was pulled, broken, hammered, squeezed, twisted - in some countries this would be considered torture I am sure.
I don't want to be negative or anything like that, I just don't see the entire purpose of the massage. I didn't have any pain before it started, now the entire body is hurting. Never again I say... At least not for a few days