More Shenanigans in Thailand

Among the many Thai oddities that were explained to us during our night out with the locals, the strangest was probably their claim that there was an abundant pink dolphin population in the waters around Khanom. Slightly skeptical, we told them to prove it to us. Patrick promised us that if we were up around 7:30 or 8:00 he would take us out to the pier to see the dolphins when the fisherman go out to feed them. Brian and I were kind of ambivalent, but when Pieda the Swiss girl knocked on our door at 9am, we said "hey, why not" and walked over to Patrick's with her. (Her sister Mara had a migraine and missed out.)

We hopped in the back of the pickup truck with the Norwegian guy (already 2 beers in) and Patrick drove us into town to get some water and snacks (and beer for the Norwegian). The pier was much farther than we had thought - it took about an hour to get there, but it was the most incredibly drive through the Thai countryside. After town we turned off the paved road and cruised down bumpy, dirt, country side roads for the rest of the trip. We passed ornate temples, rubber tree farms, palm plantations, old Thai men on motorbikes carrying ten times their weight in oil palm fruit, scooters with three FAT hogs strapped to a cage behind the driver, women weaving and cleaning food in small raised huts along the road, stray dogs fighting next to school kids playing soccer in less-than-decent dirt fields, and beautiful scenery as we bumped along through the steep winding hills with views of the dramatic, coastal mountain ranges on our way to the fishing village where we would go on our hunt for the elusive "pink dolphins".

As we pulled into the tiny village, everyone watched us pass and greeted us with a hearty sa wat dii kaa (for women) or a sa wat dii kraap (for men). A group of women cleaning fruit playfully chucked a mangosteen fruit at our truck and fell over laughing when it missed.

The three of us got out of the flatbed of the truck and walked down to the water to photograph the scenery. This was Thailand. This was the most authentic thing we had seen and probably will see in our entire stay in this country. The people were completely un-jaded by tourism, and the fishing village lifestyle was untainted by commercialism and foreign influence.

To our surprise, Patrick walked over to us carrying life jackets and ushered us into a longtail fishing boat and said they were taking us on a cruise around the bay to hunt for dolphins. We hopped in and set off, dodging the Thai fishermen who were wading up to their necks scattered throughout the bay. A few women proudly displayed their morning's catch to us with wide grins. Although we never ended up seeing the dolphins, we enjoyed an amazing trip along the Gulf of Thailand's breathtaking coastline. As we drove back into town, we noticed pink dolphin sculptures along the sides of the road, and we finally got our pictures. (I just looked on google photos and the pink dolphins DO exist and they really ARE bright pink.)

Patrick offered to take us out to lunch at a restaurant in the middle of the jungle, but we decided that it would be good to go back to the beach and check on Mara. She was feeling better, so we headed out to the beach to spend the rest of the day in the sun - reading, swimming, listening to music/studying Chinese. As the sun began to set we headed over to the massage place next to Patrick's and got a two hour Thai massage for roughly 10 bucks US! Thai massage is VERY different from the calm, light Swedish skin-massage most Americans are used to - these ones HURT! They stretch and contort your limbs into positions you can't even imagine. It's more of a chiropractic beating than a massage, but we felt DAMN good afterwards.

We showered and headed out to a karaoke bar with the girls, where we enjoyed a bottle of Thai rice whisky and attempted to sing the transliterated subtitles of the Thai songs. (We butchered them, and I felt bad because we were probably insulting them horribly.. our singing sounded like a bad mockery of their language "ching chong hap woi tut lai ying yang walla walla bing bang") Oh well.. We had a great time. We danced a little with them and with our masseuses and headed over to the beach where we stayed up with the Swiss girls almost until the sun rose.