Sigh...
Trip Start
Mar 19, 2009
1
9
Trip End
Ongoing
Koh Libong, Thailand
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Long-tailed boats make the trip from the pier to the island. As I hopped off of the minibus, a taxi driver came up, as they always do, to ask "where you go?" I let him know, he looked at me, and said 50 baht. This was the price they told us at the bus station. As I practiced my itty bitty bits of Thai, he remembered that I used to be a teacher around here, and then told me the Thai price, 30 Baht. I just smiled and thanked him then filled Deb in. Now, let me stop here. Before anyone jumps on their high horse and lectures me about the wealth I have compared to the poverty here, I KNOW THAT!!! Believe me, I know that I am exceptionally well off compared to the village folk of nowhereville Thailand. But when you do this over and over and over again, the one price for farang (whiteys) and one price for Thais starts to wear on your nerves a bit. And I would NEVER argue angrily. No yelling, shouting, or being nasty. Just let me pay what everyone else is paying and keep on smiling.
So the pier and the long tail boats. All of you travellers know, be prepared to wait. Their magic number that day was 15. They wanted 15 people before they'd head out. So we waited. We laughed and chatted (well, TRIED to chat), wandered and waited until 15 people arrived from who knows where to head over to the island. The sweet faced young Thai girl who was interacting so kindly with us for the hour and a half that we were waiting started collecting fares while I ran to the toilet. Deb, the most fabulous police officer ever who only rarely misses clues (inside joke for you, Deb) watched the Thai fret and fuss over each other as they were trying to decide how much they were going to charge us and who was going to tell us. Then Deb went and stood right beside the Thai girl to watch every other Thai person hand over 30B. I returned and we grabbed our bags to hop in. She let me know that they were already stressing about the price.
Boat driver, cool guy Joe, told me 50B. I smiled nicely, shook my head no, and told him 30B in Thai. Then Deb and I hopped in the boat. She is brilliant in her reasoning - really, let them TRY to get us off of here. They either take our money or everyone waits. Plus, six other Thais were already on the boat. So the dance began. First boat driver... I kept explaining in very broken Thai about being Thai teacher, knowing Thai prices, yada, yada, yada. He kept insisting but had no english so quickly got frustrated. Then a random tough guy motorbike taxi driver came over looking very serious. All 5 foot 90 pound nothing of him but he had VERY dark sunglasses on. Oooooo! Scaaaarrrryyyy! Seriously, whatever buddy. As Deb and I were having our own conversation, he was going on and on and on about who knows what and because he just couldn't remove those superhero sunglasses, we couldn't really tell if he was talking to us or not. So we waited. The Thais already in the boat did not want to get involved and kept smiling very sympathetically at us while most likely thinking the exact same thing as us, for crying out loud buddy, let's just GO!!!
Finally, the driver convinced all of the Thais to cough up and extra 10B each so that we'd all pay 40B. Well, I wasn't going to argue with that. And again, the lesson of the day kids, isn't that I wanted to be cheap cheap, I wanted Thai Thai. And Thai Thai is what we eventually got. Once we arrived on the island, the dance continued. Moto-bike?!?!? 100 Baht! sigh. we kept walking. I knew the Thai price was 60B. The only hitch here was that if this didn't work, the walk was 6km in the blazing heat. A little bit of walking and the taxis followed. This however wasn't nearly as big of an ordeal. Explained "thai teacher, thai price" and they immediately dropped it to 60B, threw us on the bikes and we were off. Man! It's exhausting being a smiley bitch!!!
Libong, lovely Libong. I can't believe how much it has changed in three years! The single lane, pot-hole ridden, uneven, bumpy dirt road through the small villages and forest have now been transformed into beautiful, intricately laid, cobble-stoned roads. Shanty fishing shacks have been repaired or replaced, ditches have been dug, signs have gone up, and life seems to be quite good on Paradise Island. This was my first good ride back on a motorbike too and it was everything I remember it to be. There is nothing like the back of a bike. Love it, love it, LOVE it!!! But yeah, fabulous improvements to the island and the bungalows where we used to stay. I was stopped dead in my tracks with emotion when I stepped off of the bike and saw where I was. There are incredible memories tied to this place. SO much more to tell but have to give my eyes a break...
