Sunset in Ranong
Trip Start
Jan 20, 2005
1
6
11
Trip End
Feb 05, 2005
Ranong, Thailand
Sunday, January 30, 2005
First off, you can't dingy into Ranong yourself. The only way to get to shore is to hail a longtail boat and pay for a sort of water taxi (which looked to me to be no more dangerous than riding in a European cab). We could only manage to get one longtail to hold all of us so it was a bit of a tight squeeze. Having heard longtails at something of a distance prior to this, I knew they were loud - but actually being IN one was to feel like ones eardrums would surely shatter. They carried us into the Ranong docks which was nothing more than a death trap. Longtail boats thumped against each other at the base of a stone staircase covered with filth in water that was teeming with all things dead and disgusting. The only way to shore was to climb CAREFULLY across each longtail boat and then up the Everest-like staircase and hope that you lived. As irony would have it, when you reached the top of the slippery, un-bannistered, stone staircase there was a nice big sign with the words "SAFETY FIRST" scrawled across it. Perhaps it should have been written in Thai...?
Upon arriving on solid ground, you were greeted with the smell of...well, I don't really know waht the smell was of. It was actually a stench that first reached our noses when we were being motored across the water in the longtail so I figured it must just be a water smell, but here it was on land and stronger than ever. Surely it just smells like this b/c we're at the water's edge still, I thought as we piled into a couple of trucks that agreed to take us to the the immigration office. But alas, the smell followed us there as well.
At the immigration office we seemed to have momentarily given the stench of Ranong the slip, but we had other issues to deal with. After filling out forms and handing over our passports, there was some sort of cafoffle which held us in Ranong for literally hours. It was midday when we arrived, and was sunset when we left. We hung around in the driveway of the immigration office talking, chatting, laughing, and even managed to snag the attention of an ice cream cart that sold Wall drumsticks and the like. Nancy got the most disgusting ice cream treat any of us had ever seen - it was called Spiderman, I think, and it was shaped sort of like an hour glass and had a hard red coating outside with bright blue ice cream inside. I can't even imagine what it must have tasted like. I think Nancy's final thoughts on the matter were that it was only something one would get in Ranong.
I'm sure none of us would say that we'd like to repeat those hours stuck in Ranong (as Steve pointed out, "Ranong is 'groan' spelled with two 'n's"), but one positive thing that resulted from our time there was the first song of Plumpish Thai was born, aptly named "Sunset in Ranong". It came up during our time at the immigration office when someone noticed that the sun was starting to set. Then, in the longtail boatride back to our boats, I was hit with inspiration and the chorus just "came" to me.
As soon as we got back to the boats, we motored the rest of the way into Burma where we were going to drop anchor in Kaw Thaung for the night and head onto shore to eat. While this was happening, I hurried below deck and started frantically writing. By the time we were ready to go to shore, I had the lyrics to the whole of Sunset in Ranong completed and I read them to the group at dinner:
A longtail boat becomes your ferry
You hope it will not capsize but carry
Everyone to shore with their hearing intact
'Cause all you want is to make it back.
From the boat the shore looks like every other
But as you draw near you start to wonder
If the dead fish in the sea
Is an omen of what is to be
After sunset,
Sunset in Ranong
CHORUS:
The sights, the sounds, the wretched smell
Never thought you'd be this close to hell
The Buddha waves you a fond farewell
After sunset,
Sunset in Ranong
Every structure looks like it may fall down
But you can't get used to the deafening sound
Of the longtail as it pulls to the shore
And the stench hits you like nothing ever before
As you wait for your passport in your sarong
All you can hope is that it won't be long
Eating ice cream to pass the time
And praying they won't accuse you of a crime
After sunset
Sunset in Ranong
CHORUS
The group loved it, and Warren (the Evil one) stated that he would begin working on the music to go with it as soon as he could get his hands on a guitar. Wolfgang spoke up and said he knew where we could get one in Kaw Thaung as well, so this morning a bunch of us went into Kaw Thaung again to visit the stores and have a look around. Sure enough, we came across what can best be described as the Burmese version of the dollar store - it was a shop that had just about everything in it, including dozens of guitars hanging from the ceiling. Warren bought one for 300 baht so we just may have a full song by the time we go home! I don't know that the tourism board for Ranong will want to use it in one of their campaigns, but it pretty accurately describes our time there. Despite all that, I think we all will remember it with great affection.
