Day 29. Get this. Pete the Finn is an income tax evader. He owes the Finnish government over $20,000 US and no chance to pay. So he is traveling abroad for the five-year limitation.
I’ve got a Honda 125. If I’m here I might as well see the place. I got down to Hai Narn and just in time. The foundations are going up for hundred of bunglalows, hotels and condos. There is little flat land so the bulldozers are ripping down the jungle hills. Truck after truck taking away that rust-colored dirt. In a matter of months it will be too late. Somebody came in here years ago and planted thousands of coconut palms along the best beaches. In nice, even rows, so it’s been long slated for development.
Since Tony Wheeler called Hai Narn the most secluded and undeveloped, it was crawling with plastic people. You’d have to see it, I did, and I left. The scenery is great, there is what looks like a windmill electric generator up on the hill and some beautiful offshore islands. I saw Ao Chalong (beach) but it’s smaller than Patong.
I’m turning a little pink in the sun again so I took a few hours in town. Got my cutoff fixed. At 14 years old, they getting a little hard to patch up. I booked my flight to Delhi on November 16. It seems somehow predictable that both legs of the trip involve being at the Delhi airport around 1:00 a.m. I also got a haircut. What a massage they give your scalp. And a shave. I’ve never had anyone else shave me before. Very relaxing and thorough once you get used to it. Excellent service, 70 Baht, about $2.80.
I explored the back-roads and found the island water reservoir. It is interesting and looks as if you can drive around in on a winding road going clockwise. Well, you cant. The last few hundred yards are incomplete and it’s a long drive back. I hope it rains a lot up there because the few tiny streams I saw could hardly compensate for the evaporation. At two places in the circumference there was a far-off squeal in the bush, loud enough I stopped the motorcycle to listen. It is still unexplained but at first I thought it some warning or siren.
reminder not to go into the jungle without someone who knows it well. I wanted to splash some cold water from a spring on myself so I stepped through some tiny vines. So far so good, coming back look out. These vines have thorns all but invisible and they slant toward the water. Moving away, they lock into a mesh of stinging nettles. They rasp into exposed flesh and the strands are tough like wire. I was forced to pick my way down the watercourse.
I had a shower at Man’s and we drove back to Kata together. Sailing along the pavement on Phuket Island with Man is a hell of a lot different than dodgint gravel at Green Island with Graham Smith. If I ever enjoy seeing a place like Green Island again it will only be because I haven’t seen it for forty years. [Joke.] Man and I took it easy. She worried a bit much—like the driving mistakes I make getting used to the left-hand system.
One of the staff asked me to buy him some pills. Penicillin. Okay, you don’t need a prescription here. Looks like he partied a bit much. Oh yeah, reminds me of when I got to the end of what turned out to be a dead end. I surprised a group of teenagers. Four boys and three girls all having group sex. Like I mean I really surprised them. The girls ran into the trees and the guys started dressing and shouting at each other. I had to manhandle the motorcycle [past them], no room to turn around. I left and yelled “My pen lye” (meaning “never mind”). It may be a peek into Thai customs that the phrase for “I’m finished.” literally means “You take over.”
[Author’s note: it is sad that most of the best beaches on the Thai southwest coast have indeed been plowed under for tourist traps. I wanted to see the place before this happened, and I really got there at the last minute. There is no Thailand any more. There are many dead-end roads in Thailand and it is not uncommon to get lost. Tony Wheeler is the man who wrote the original series "Lonely Planet".]
