Harry Potter and the Full Moon Party

Before I address the above let me just set a stage. I've been in Bangkok for 4 days now, and tomorrow I head home. Everyone has said something to the affect of 'don't stay in Bangkok for more than 2 days'. I understand where this is coming from. It's noisy, and hot, and busy, but I've be so desensitized by all my travels that I must say that Bangkok has been kind of enjoyable. Granted, I've avoided Khao San Road every day except one. Am I ready to come home? Yes. Am I ready to give you a totally unorganized free-flowing blog about what's on my mind? Most certainly.

KOH PHA NGAN
When we set out on this trip three things were planned: Arrival, departure, and the Full Moon Party in Koh Pha Ngan. The rest we'd just wing. For those who don't know I'm just going to link to wikipedia here. Wikipedia doesn't even come CLOSE to doing it justice though. We got to the island a few days before the party and managed to snag one of the last bungalows on the beach. Perfect setup. Literally beachfront, next to the pool, patio overlooking Haad Rin beach. Perfect. As the week progressed the evenings on the beach got crazier and crazier, until the day we woke up on the 9th, the night of the party, to find that the biggest, baddest, loudest, craziest setup was not only literally directly in front of our bungalow, but actually tethered to our bungalow. I don't know how many speakers were set up, maybe 30, maybe 40, oh and then there was the stage, and that 50 foot tall multi-tiered fire setup too. When they tested the music at 6pm our walls shook and our brains rattled. We were counting on taking a cat nap prior to the festivities because we'd been up since about 5am the night before. Little did we know the "test" was actually the commencement of our hotel's contribution to the party. And aside from each hotel having a setup, there are the people, painted in fluorescent paint, on you-name-the-drug, drinking buckets, carrying on and dancing like heathens to hip hop, to house, to trance, to MJ. And because we'd basically done it all the night before, sans drugs of course, the real thing was kind of like, eh, okay. We passed out at about 4am thankfully because that music wouldn't stop until 8am. I need to upload some pics at some point. But let me get to Harry Potter. So the new Harry Potter move came out and these folks are in high school at this point I believe. Well, I feel like they are due for their gap year. Now I don't know about what wikipedia says about these kids working while traveling because of the kids we met, the vast vast majority were British, and it was clear their parents had cashflow. In fact, one British girl we met was lamenting the toll the RBS/ABN Amro deal had on her family because her dad sat on the board at RBS. I mean, what? Anyway, Harry, Ron and Hermione are due for gap year, and I'm looking forward to the Potter movie where Ron comes down from Mushroom Mountain on the south end of the beach and passes out in the "rest area" which is basically a demarcated area where you drag your lifeless drunk friends so they can sober up without being stepped on and/or peed on. And Hermione will be like this one girl who we saw every night, who with every passing night seemed to have aged several years. Buckets of Smirnoff and Marlboro Reds can be cruel mistresses. And what of our hero Mr. Harry Potter. Well somehow I just see him waking up the day after with a huge pain on his right shoulder only to see that having blacked out he got a huge Hogwarts school crest tattoo. Strangely enough, shenanigans aside, Koh Phangan might've had the nicest beaches we'd seen, and bizarrely so many stores and restaurants catered to Israelis. Not quite sure what the story is there. Okay, there's a big ass Thai dude telling me he is shutting down shop. He is scary so I am going to find another spot. Part II coming soon...

Ok, I'm back and just a block down the road at an infinitely cleaner, cooler, and more pleasant locale. So as I was saying about Koh Pha Ngan. Crazy party scene, gorgeous beaches, and lots of Israelis. Sounds great, but just make sure your bungalow isn't tethered to the 7th layer of hell.


COMFORT IS JUST A BLOCK AWAY, EITHER ON THE X or Y AXIS
How do you escape the craziness of SE Asia? Just walk a block or two away from the main drag. Just get off the street for a minute. Our one constant "ahhhh" in Bangkok has been a visit to our tailor. And I'm going to write Tanika AND Tailor AND Bangkok just like this because the internet is suprisingly inefficient at providing guidance for finding tailors in Bangkok. Anyway, there's something about a shirt that was born just for you to wear that is kind of special. Big thank yous to the folks at Tanika who despite us looking like homeless people treated us like patrons of Savile Row. If you are paying for a package tailoring deal anywhere in Bangkok you are getting ripped off. If an Indian gentlemen stands in front of his store and says "hey Boss, come inside" and tries to shake your hand then you are going to get ripped off. And if a Thai gentleman offers you tailoring and opium in the same breath, well I think you get the idea. So that was our X-axis break. Our Y-axis break came in the form of a trip to the top of the Banyan Tree Hotel for drinks on the rooftop. There was a breeze, the views were beautiful and you could just barely barely barely hear the faint sounds of honking horns and groups of Thai women yelling, "hello massaaaaaage" in unison. Yeah, sure you pay a bit of a premium, and you may have to put on a pair of pants and loafers the hotel lends you because you look like a scrappy ruffian, but it is surely worth it to escape the grind and grime of street level anywhere.


MARKETS AND CHINATOWN
I've been to every type of market imaginable. I've been to markets where they sell pets, pillows, peanuts, pearls, and pepper. I've seen it all. If it can be sold I've seen it sold at a market. I'm never going to a market again. In fact, it's going to be Fresh Direct-ing it for the rest of my life. And Chinatown, well, I've been to China, so that's a pretty big Chinatown as far as I'm concerned. And I've seen the Chinatown in San Fran NY, and Ho Chi Minh, which were all interesting, and then I traipsed through Chinatown here in Bangkok yesterday. One thing remains universal of the Chinatowns I've been to. You can be dropped off in a random city anywhere in the world. You can look around and be like, "whoa, this place is kind of weird". And then you can go to the Chinatown in that city, and be like, "Ok, sweet Jesus, please Lord, someone tell me what is happening right now because I have no clue where I am and I don't know what that is hanging from that pole. Is that a duck or a sack of fireworks or pork rinds". Chinatown can turn your world inside out, but that's what makes the Chinatowns in every city such interesting places to walk through. Sure, when you get home you want to chop off your feet at the ankles because you have no idea what you've stepped through, (was that okra or intestines?), but you're a better person for delving deep into the dark corners of Chinatown. I knew that typhoid shot would come in handy.

WITH ME YOU GET THE FOOD REPORT
I will never get sick of Thai food. Ever. On my way over here I needed to eat dinner, so as I walked to find internet I saw a dish that some guy on the street was eating that caught my eye. This was a street meat vendor mind you and I really don't know whether it was chicken or pork or beef. I do know that it was as if Buddha himself came down and dropped yummy goodness onto the plate in front of me. Where was this place I ate this meal you ask. I have no idea. It was down a dark alley, and while I don't speak or read thai, the sign above the couple of tables and the bubbling cauldron looked like this: two backward six-looking things, a hebrew chai, an upside-down ear, and a tickle-me-Elmo. So if you can find this sign when you come to Bangkok you'll be in for a treat. I've eaten at mall food courts the past two days and both times the food, while simple, has been exquisitely simple and tasty. And food courts here are legit by the way. I will also deeply miss any and all foods overflowing with coconut. And lastly on the food front, I've finally made peace with star anise. In 2004 I went to China and there was one meal I ate with my grandmother, aunt, and cousin, and a Chinese woman who somehow knew my cousin. The meal was horrible and still gives me nightmares, and every piece of food seemed to be bathed and lathered in star anise. I never got over it, until today. Whatever they did to my chicken today with star anise, well, thank you for exorcising those star anise demons, because that was finger licking good.

FINAL THOUGHTS BEFORE I SIGN OFF FOR THE NIGHT
I aimed to do this trip part Anthony Bourdain, part Bear Grylls, and part I'm-about-to-work-for-the-rest-of-my-life-so-I-better-make-this-one-count. I think for the most part I did it the way I wanted to. In my mind I think I envisioned roughing it more, but once you splurge just a little it's tough to go back the other way. A lot of this trip has been learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, and yeah, right now I stank, but I am heading back to a big bed and a hot shower. You make compromises and they are for comfort and convenience and they are always worth it. This has been a hell of a trip. Big thanks to Kris and Jamil for being excellent travel buddies. I think at different points along the line we all were a few minutes from asking ourselves "okay so what exactly does my insurance policy actually cover again", but by and large we escaped injury and defeat. Actually we won, and my reward is a twin bed across world with my name all over it. Singapore Airlines, please take me home, I'm tired, and I want eggplant parm.