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| Blue sky thinking |
02.11.12
Like so many cash cows that came before us, we handed in our
Blue Lagoon room key and moo-ved on to greener pastures. After a short walk up
the road and down another we reached the Pai Pura, which had a series of small,
clay-like huts, stone pathways, various greenery and an authentic buzz of bugs
and life emanating from its simple but well-kept grounds. The room was formed
with stone interiors and a raised platform which the bed rested on. It was
quaint. The bathroom, however, nearly made us faint. There was a rather bad ant
infestation, and even a few blasts from the booty hose beside the toilet couldn’t
eradicate their existence in and around our crapper. This would have to be
deemed a necessary evil in exchange for the greater character on offer at this
relatively inexpensive guesthouse.
My own personal highway code is to always have the power on my side. I like to drive
cars so that I have greater safety and power over cyclists, and if I’m ever
cycling, I prefer to do it on the pavement, so I have power over the
pedestrians. I don’t ride bikes anymore for that exact reason, and I don’t want
to fulfil my own prophecy of dying in a road accident, as that is a lame way to
go after surviving my near death experience in Monument Valley (see my first
book) which would have been an infinitely cooler demise. Despite all this, I’d
agreed with Sarah that we could hire a moped, so that we could meet the guys
from Ting Tong, as planned the previous evening, and go out for the day to a
nearby pool at a fancy hotel. My one condition was that I’d drive. I’d had my
first ever practice in Laos and thought I’d be alright, which I was, whenever
going in a straight line, but as soon as I had to turn, my arms would lock and
I’d make some diagonal attempt at getting around a corner. By the grace of God
alone, I managed to get us to the petrol station, handed Sarah the keys and didn’t
bother after that. We drove to the Ting Tong bar to meet Tutu, Tek and Kwan,
who were having lunch with a couple of American girls and greeted us fondly,
offering up some home cooking. By the time everyone was ready to leave, we all
hopped onto our bikes, and as we struggled to start ours up, the others all
shot off. We tried to catch up and follow, but it was too late, they must not
have realised that we had no clue where we were going and were nowhere to be
seen. After a few kilometres of driving we saw a sign for the hot springs,
which was the one thing we had wanted to do in this town, so we decided to go
there instead. As we walked along there were a series of baths built out of
stone which filtered down into the next one in the row. There were four or five
which got progressively hotter, and after more than three weeks without my
usual daily hot bath, this was heaven, I dived in and became more and more
prune-like as I ascended. By the time I reached the hottest spot, which came
with a warning against children or the elderly entering, like a teenage boy
losing his virginity to a porn star, I approached it bravely but was in an out within
sixty seconds. The next one up had a sign which said not to enter as it was
eighty degrees, and you could boil eggs in it. It reeked with the eggy stench
of a constant mass boil-off. We bought a small basket with three in it and
submerged them, then stood waiting with the gathering locals, who were arriving
in droves to make their dinner. After chowing down on our runny snack we headed
back to our room just as it got dark.
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| My first hot bath in three weeks... |
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| We put all our eggs in one basket, we like to live dangerously. |
My mischievous madam had chucked a couple
microdots of acid into her first aid kit before leaving London, and had been
carrying them ever since. They are the size of a grain of sugar and scentless,
so the chance of discovery by customs was minimal, but this caused us a problem
in itself, as we could only find one of them. After some advice from my Dr
Feelgood and the internet, we discovered that the dosage was inside the red outer
layer, and the best bet of splitting one was to crack the grain between two
spoons, and somehow separating the tiny white inner core, which we did. We
divided it as fairly as possible and hoped for the best. After about twenty
minutes, I knew that something was going to come of this, as my body became heavy
and my mind started fearing the forthcoming strangeness in a strange place.
Sarah wanted to get out and get going, but I was functionless, allowing myself
to be pulled further and further into the waves that were washing over me. We
played ‘Heads or Temples’ with a 5 baht coin for an hour, every time Sarah said
let’s go, I would let the coin decide. Head, we feed our heads with the
weirdness beyond our four walls, and temples, we remain in our temple, safe
from the uncertainty of the outside world. Fate kept deciding that it wasn’t
time to leave, and by the time it did, I was just about ready to drag my body
along with the spirit that controls it.
Outside, we lit the lantern which Tutu had bestowed upon us
the previous evening, and made a wish as it rose into the atmosphere and became
a golden star. After a short walk we reached the main streets, where a plethora
of stalls had been set up, and everywhere was brightly lit and bustling.
Instantly Everything became more vivid, and the intensity of our consumption
was amplified tenfold, we weren’t ready for the world we’d entered, but it was
too late now, we were in it. All the faces around us were slightly twisted, like
we were surrounded by inbreeds with strange colourings and warped features, and
their eyes all seemed to peer at us as we laughed our way down the street,
checking out the odd stall until the fear crept in, or we were approached by
sellers, who automatically gave us the urge to turn and run instead of
communicating. “Are those lights moving?” asked Sarah, as we looked at a
display of plug in glass air fresheners with small bulbs inside. “No, but the
inside of your mind is” was my reply. We backed away after enjoying them for at
least a minute more than we should have.
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| Dion and Sarah on acid. |
I noticed a guy sitting behind a board
which read ‘Your portrait, five minutes, 150 baht’ which had some atrocious
looking examples of his work. It was so brilliantly terrible and reminded me of
this guy called Chris (Simpsons artist) who draws hilarious attempts at copying
the Simpsons and other characters from popular culture, usually backed up with
hilarious descriptions which are completely incoherent. Look him up if you get
the chance. I stopped Sarah and said “We need to get this guy to draw us”, but
she didn’t feel capable of sitting for ten minutes without cracking up. Despite
this, I convinced her that it was a must, and we approached him to request his
services. I noticed him sketching one of the stalls to his left, and on further
inspection I saw that he’d drawn a square box and a stick man in black marker
pen. This was going to be great, I just knew it. He was a goofy looking guy of
undetermined age, like most Thais he could’ve been fourteen or forty, and wore
round spectacles and a red shirt. He reminded me of Simon from The Chipmunks and
I found his odd demeanour to be very cute, albeit rather odd and jittery.
Drugged and delirious, almost, or was that just me? He sat us down on two stools
as we were already in fits of giggles. He gave Sarah an eye-line to look
towards, and was acting rather professionally as he scanned her face from a low
angle. I nearly lost my shit when he started drawing her, trying to hold down
the shakes and ended up forcing myself to not look at what he was doing as it
was too much. Sarah took a look and was uncontrollable, we hoped the guy just
thought we were crazy as we’d been laughing the whole time, and obviously
didn’t want to offend him or make him think we were laughing at his drawing, even
though we were. I mockingly tickled Sarah under the armpit to try and style out
her over-exuberant shaking. After a couple of minutes he’d finished her half,
and gave me an eye-line in the opposite corner. ‘Don’t look down, don’t look
down’ I kept saying to myself, like I was back on the mountain, ready to fall
to my death. I fell, my eyes dropped and I was lost. It was too much. I was out
of control. Once he’d done the outlines we sat and watched him further
desecrate his drawing, mixing a few watercolours to paint us in a washed out
yellow, and giving me a smoky grey mane of chest hair. Sarah’s usually wide,
beautiful smile was depicted as a scrunched up little buck-toothed hole, and I
was perfectly represented as a boss-eyed, square head with a glazed gaze. Good
work. The phrase ‘on acid’ is often used to describe a twisted version of
something, and this perfectly described the final product. Dion and Sarah on
acid, although it looked more like the artist had been high, not us. I suspect
that he and Chris (Simpsons artist) may be kindred spirits, or perhaps even one
and the same. We happily handed over our cash, taking our still wet piece of ‘art’
away, stopping after one hundred metres or so to crack up completely, looking
at what we’d just bought. It may have costed £3, but this shit was priceless.
We marched it right back to our guesthouse immediately, worried that we may
lose or damage this masterpiece, and discussing the clearly thriving art scene
that Pai has on offer.
Feeling hungry and seeking further hilarity, we hit the
streets once more. I’d seen a sushi stall and I wanted in on the action, but
after half an hour rambling around the same streets it had seemingly
disappeared. We said it’d be funny if we went back and got the guy to draw us
again, but as we passed his spot, he was nowhere to be found. Had he existed at
all? We’d have to check when we got home. As we strolled Sarah stalled at a
stall and said “You should try that on”, pointing at a maroon linen tunic which
had various embroidered panels, gold bells for buttons and two sun symbols
which she originally mistook for 3D plastic patches and was hanging from a rail
behind the seller. I tried it on but was unsure, and there was no mirror, so
she took a photo. I wasn’t convinced but she was adamant, I thought it could be
a drug impulse, but asked for the price anyway. ‘250 baht’ was the response, we
didn’t even barter, £5 for a lairy jacket was hardly going to break the bank,
which I’d already been smashing to smithereens. I left it on and became happier
with it as we proceeded. Sarah also found a tie-dye dress at the next place along
which we liked, haggling the seller down to 300 baht, using my tunic as a
reference against his attempt to rip off us ‘rich’ foreigners. We agreed that
we’d each treat each other to our new finds.
We passed a stall selling chicken nuggets, and opted to
share some of them to line our stomachs before we started drinking. We were
served by an odd, little lady who was very animated. She resembled a shrivelled
prawn and scurried around, counting out nuggets with her claw like hand and
chucking them into her oil-filled wok. She looked up, almost mesmerised by my
presence and said “Oooh, nice jacket, where you buy?” I told her that it was
just a few metres down the road and she asked how much. When I told her the
price she was flabbergasted, spinning in circles and raising her hands to the
sky. Her reaction was that of both shock and disbelief, she even summoned a
couple of friends who quickly checked it out and agreed that I’d got myself a
steal. Part of me wanted to give it to her, but the other part fell in love
with it due to her reaction. An Italian guy beside me said “Give him one
thousand nuggets for it”, and she fell about laughing her head off and nodding
in agreement that she would. Bless her, I wanted to cuddle her, her presence
was so uplifting. We’d doubted we’d laugh as much at anything else after the
earlier drawing, but she gave us our second round with her sheer love for my
new purchase. It was the sort of thing you couldn’t make up, too magnificent
for words to fully do justice, another priceless moment in an amazing
adventure. I found another sushi stall a few steps down from our new friend,
but put it down to luck that we’d got to meet the nugget lady instead.
We heard some live music being played and entered a
courtyard which was decked out with seats and tables and had a band playing
indoors beside a small bar. We joined the twenty odd customers that were
drinking there and ordered a couple Sangsom rum and cokes. This was the first
time we’d stopped in hours, and I felt like I was in a crooked house as I
admired the angles of Everything around me. We sat and drank for an hour,
settling ourselves down and pointing out the strange things we’d spot in our surroundings
as the musicians played covers of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Dire Straits and
various other classics. We agreed on the need for some weed, so finished up our
cups and set off towards the Ting Tong. As we approached we found Tek and Tutu
who greeted us with love and we explained how we’d lost them that afternoon. We
bought a bucket of Sangsom and coke with our last remaining 200 baht and
retreated to the back room to sit on some orange sofas and smoke. We spoke to a
fifty-something year old Thai guy called Tom about our night, our trip, his
life in Pai etc, and then showed him a photo of our portrait from earlier. “I
don’t think this guy knows how to draw” was his reply. Fuckin’ ay, Tom, fuckin’
ay. We got chatting to the English barmaid whose name was Sofi, and she said
she’d let us know about where to stay in Ko Phangan. Sarah added her on Facebook
and it turned out that she went to school with Victoria, Sarah’s best friend at
work. It’s a small world after all, but you already knew that. I laid out
front, by the fire, in a stoned haze as tiredness crept over me and I witnessed
the waning moon being passed by clouds, she looked beautiful. She always does.
We wished the guys goodnight, then made our way back to our ant farm to lay
beside each other, laughing at the events of the evening, and taking frequent
looks back at our superb drawing, which we planned to frame upon our return. As
Ice Cube would say, ‘Today was a good day’.
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| Misty Moon |
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