Today was my first full day on Koh Samui. I decided to spend it exploring with Tom, a british friend I'd made, and Manuel, a German friend I'd met. We had breakfast at 9 and then the boys rented two motorbikes for our excursion-- I would not rent my own motorbike, so I made Manuel promise to drive really, really safely with me on the back of his bike.
We rode to the base of our trekking spot, which was out of the town and up into the hills. We got pretty turned around because if you've seen one twisty, turny dirt road, you've seen them all, especially when there aren't street signs designating this curve from that one.
The sun was beating down and it was H-O-T, HOT. We were also walking straight up (it sure felt like it anyway). The climb was hard because the dirt road was uneven and rocky so it was really easy to loose your footing and start to slide. I started to panic a bit-- I was trekking with two guys that I didn't really know-- how good of shape were they in? did they do this all the time? what if I couldn't keep up? So, to curb my panic, I started asking my questions aloud, which in hindsight maybe wasn't such a good idea. Turns out, Manuel is an AVID hiker who loves trekking alone for DAYS at a time. How did I not see that one coming? And wait, it gets better. Not only does he hike alone, but when he encounters stray dogs on his hikes, he invites them to trek along too. Thank God I hadn't met Manuel in Cambodia or we'd have had an army of stray dogs trekking with us. I wonder if he knows how laden that country is with wild animals. Anyway, he continued to tell us about his adventures in the mountains of Germany, on one of which he encountered a stray dog who stayed by his side and eventually ended up saving his life. CRAP. So now he's relying on stray animals to save him from dangers out in the wilderness? So much for curbing my panic by asking questions. I decided I didn't want to hear anymore from Manuel and moved on to questioning the british pretty boy walking beside me. Luckily for me, Tom's mouth was just as agape as mine while Manuel was talking, so I figured maybe I had a chance with him. Turns out, Tom doesn't do the whole lost in the wilderness, hiking alone for days thing either. Cha-ching.
One of the positives here was that Tom and I were able to convince Manuel relatively easily that we needed to stop fairly often to "enjoy" our hike (because we were novice hikers and didn't get to experience things like this every day) while we climbed. This led to gorgeous views of the island beneath us, multiple failed attempts at knocking coconuts out of the treetops and a shady photo shoot on a fallen tree trunk.
Five hours later, we arrived at the beautiful waterfall we had been searching for. The water was cool and refreshing and we were the only people around. The tiers of the waterfall really were breathtaking and we spent a decent amount of time just revelling in the beauty of nature.
However, my revel was interrupted by yet another question. How were we going to get back? It had taken us the better part of a day to complete this trek; not only would it be getting dark soon, but we also hadn't had anything to eat. This was starting to seem like a situation that needed a stray dog and to me, that was not a good thing.
So what did I do? I started asking my questions aloud. You think I would've learned.
For Manuel, the answer was easy. We walk back.
Excuse me? We what?
Five more hours of walking. He couldn't be serious. I needed Tom on my side for this one.
I'm not one for dangerous situations, but desparate times call for desparate measures. I decided our best bet was to hitchhike down the mountain, so I stuck my thumb out and we did just that. Not literally (I think the thumb thing is an Americanized version of hitchhiking, but I did manage to flag down a pickup). This was going to be a breeze. I let Tom and Manuel know that I could speak thai so that I would take care of the communication with the guys in the truck. There was only one problem. They didn't understand me. Not at all. Not one word. I may as well have been speaking German. At least then Manuel and I could be on the same page. Why didn't they understand me? This was the first of many times I encountered this while traveling in the south. Later, I found out that different dialects of thai are spoken in different areas- most thais on the southern islands aren't educated with the same standard thai that is taught in Bangkok, nor are they used to hearing farang speak thai on a regular basis. Shit. Where was the stray dog when we needed it?
We managed to get pretty far along in the truck, but when it stopped we still had a mile to go before the next town. And once we got to the town, we were still going to have to find a way back to our bikes. Manuel suggested we bypass the town altogether and instead cut a quarter of a mile through the jungle to get to our bikes on the other side. Well... he did have a mapsme app on his phone. And it was starting to get late. And the sun was starting to go down. And we were really hungry. So... Tom and I agreed.
Manuel pulled up the app on his phone and started leading us through the jungle. There was no path, so we were tackling tree limbs, branches, tall grasses and bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. To pass the time, Tom and I started singing. In unison. Any song we could think of. We did this for the better part of Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears' careers, but we were still not to our bikes.
The questions in my head jumped out again.
"Manuel, where are we?"
He didn't know. His mapsme app wasn't working.
"So you're just leading us through the jungle, in the dark, with no food, no path and no sense of direction?"
Screw the dog. I was taking matters into my own hands.
"Manuel, you take us back the way we came right this very minute. We will walk a mile into town and then we will take a songthaew back to our bikes." Manuel didn't like this idea one bit, but he could tell I meant business so he conceded. A half hour later I was in a convenience store with a yogurt, power bar and juice box. Thank fucking god.
I flagged down a songthaew for us, bargained with the driver and paid the fee for the three of us. There was no way Manuel was getting out of this one. We had to make a few other stops before we started the climb into the rocky hills, but the higher we went the more reluctant the driver became. Finally, he stopped the songthaew and told us to get out. He would not be going any farther.
But... but.. you told us you'd take us to our bikes!
Too bad. The terrain was too rocky and he was not going to be able to get his songthaew up, much less back down the hillside. We would have to walk. By this time it was dark and we were exhausted.
While walking we encountered a tourist family in an SUV who clearly felt for us, so they opened up their back hitch and allowed us to hop in. The A/C was amazing. Our stench was disgusting.
The time was 8pm and we had finally reached our bikes.
We whizzed back to the hostel to drop the bikes off and walked straight to the night market-- I wouldn't even allow the boys to stop for showers beforehand-- because I was so hungry. We had thai streetfood for dinner and got fried ice cream for dessert.
What. A. Day.
"We don't have to return the bikes until 10am tomorrow. Who's up for some early morning exploring?"
Was this guy serious?
Sorry Manuel, but tomorrow is the half moon party on Koh Phangan. I will be going and I am fairly confident I will not be doing any exploring on my way there :)
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