massage brutality
they say less is more. having indulged in a four hand massage yesterday i think we can safely conclude that, in some instances, more is more. insofar as more hands is more pain. much, much more pain.
our four hand/two masseuse each extravagance was built on discovering an off the beaten track massage place with prices which were tangibly cheaper than on the main tourist drag, meaning that the extra masseuse translated to an extra 50 pence or so each. unfortunately heading off the track meant exposing ourselves to the level of squeezing, pummelling and generally getting pulverised that your usual thai, benefitting from a lifetime of paying someone to beat you up in the name of massage, is used to, a standard much higher than us coddled westerners had come to expect. when the first, deceptively diminuitive looking, lady started on my legs i thought i could be in trouble as she started to not so much coax as batter my calves into submission. when a second later her colleague started trying to undo a knot in my shoulder with some sledgehammer kneading it dawned on me that we could be onto something quite exquisitely painful. and so it went on for an hour, vicki and i side by side, our four masseuses giggling and chattering in thai like naughty schoolgirls each time we winced, squealed and, towards the end, begged for forgiveness.
definitely an experience though, albeit a random one which showed once more that following your nose and deviating down the odd unmarked lane or alley can lead to all sorts of interesting encounters. as well, of course, as intense pain.
flying to kl this afternoon for a quick evening there before heading back west tomorrow morning: three weeks has never gone so fast.
bangkok bananas
our plane descended into bangkok on wednesday night with impressive, if not mildly alarming, flashes of sheet lightning intermittently bathing the cityscape below in bright white light. skirting around the "what happens if our plane gets hit by lightning" conversations which we jokingly, if a little nervously, were having we landed without incident, grabbed our bags and headed off to our hotel. as we pulled up in front of the silom heritage hotel we realised we had grabbed an absolute bargain, thanks to the heady combination of low season and the amazing deals to be found on internet hotel sites (thank you agoda). brilliant location in the heart of silom, boutique finishes and, courtesy of a free upgrade, an absolutely massive room.
silom is of course home to the notorious patpong area and, after a few moments of feeling smug about our room, we headed out into the night to have a mooch around the market whilst deliberating whether to check out one of the attractions that most contribute to the infamous allure of patpong. the market itself is an experience of sorts, with a parade of go go bars down each side, bored looking thai girls swaying rather than dancing amongst poles to deafening euro techno, sandwiching stalls fronted by pushy touts looking to shift poor quality fakes and slightly more unsavoury delights. to add to our patpong experience the lightning from our flight transpired to be an adumbration of an absolute downpour, a genuine 90 or so minutes of soaked to the bone drenching. after a brief detour for a half hour or so of seediness, flying bananas and an argument with an angry thai madam, we set out into the rain and arrived back at our hotel dripping but with some bona fide bangkok experiences already under our belts.
i seem to recall being quite underwhelmed by the actual sites bangkok had to offer last time around so had relatively low expectations of the grand palace which sprawls across old bangkok, a haven from the horns and tuk tuks that close in around its white walls. this time around i had the additions of vicki (in must take a photo of every speck of dust mode) and, bizarrely, a literal boatload of sailors from the indian navy, happily gambolling around the place, pressing down their brillantined hair, thrusting out their crotches and cheerily (and not in any way in a gay manner) throwing their hands around their mates for dozens of photo opportunities. i'm not convinced that they filled me with confidence for india's security, not least because of the absurd lack of moustaches on display: real manliness lies in a hairy top lip not fake aviators and i think moustaches should be made compulsory for the indian military.
in any event the grand palace was actually a lot better than i remember, the broad sweep of the place not as impressive as the intricate detail which abounded in every corner. this was in no small part due to the diligent, and ongoing, restoration efforts being undertaken. we witnessed in a number of corners thai artisans touching up fading details, but in a tasteful manner which retained the authenticity of the buildings and their numerous artistic flourishes. the same was evident in wat pho next door, with dull bronze buddhas being artfully polished back to former glories.
pausing only for an excellent massage in wat pho, the spiritual home of thai massage, we headed out of old bangkok happy with what it had offered us. a quick word on bangkok touts: as prevalent as in india and, if anything, more devious. we were pretty clued up on the main scams but usually i find that such tricks are rarely actually encountered with guidebooks, quite rightly, puffing up the horror stories of an unlucky few to serve as a warning to remain vigilant. in our few hours wandering around the main sites in bangkok however we got them all; the palace is closed but what about this nearby temple (near my friend's shop), the ticket to wat pho entitles you to go to another temple for free (near my friend's shop), i'll take you to where you want to go for a cheap price (but via my friend's shop). what's more i would say from looking around that we were actually one of the least approached couples, due in no small part to my brownness. bangkok is such a gateway it must be flooded with unsuspecting 18 years olds getting their first taste of south east asia and, flushed with excitement at being away from their parents, off their guard because they haven't yet encountered a squatty toilet and they managed to order a beer on thanon khao san the night before. it is however, much more than i remember, somewhere where due caution must be exercised; there is an obvious direct correlation between how tourist friendly a place appears and the strength of its contingent of scam artists, which is why bumbling along the wilds of sumatra is in some ways safer than being under the ostensibly reassuring flashing golden arches in bangkok.
anyway we batted off the scammers with relative ease and, after a quick detour into the commercial heart of the city in siam square, headed back after a long, tiring but satisfying day out, finishing off with an al fresco drink on the 61st floor. a day to do very little lined up today with nothing, other than more massages, planned. bangkok is still not, i think, a wholly charming city but remains a mandatory initiation into the south east asian scene.
to infinity and beyond
i've always been quite zen about monsoons. in my experience they tend to punctuate periods of intense heat and, as such, the hour or so of rain, intense though it may be, often comes as a bit of a relief. consequently, even though the monsoon which rolls over the andaman coast of thailand started lumbering into action in late may we weren't particularly concerned that it would affect us too badly. waking up in krabi on saturday morning however it appeared that we may have been wildly optimistic, as we looked up to see nothing but grey skies dominated by unfriendly, positively aggressive looking grey clouds. binning the idea of going to ao phang nga, we very seriously contemplated another day on the road dashing across the country to ko samui on the other coast but, as the sun started to break through in the mid-morning, we decided to take a punt and head over to ko lanta regardless.
when i visited ko lanta a decade ago it was just becoming part of the scene; as our minivan dropped us off it became apparent that in the last ten years it has become more than just a curio between krabi and phi phi, gone straight through backpacker must visit island and finally emerged as a fully formed resort location, with billboards for high end resorts outnumbering the flapping signs for bungalows on the beach. this was one resort however which did revere the rainy season; a virtual ghost town, with the vast majority of shops and restaurants closed, the roads devoid of tuks tuks or touts pushing services. it also transpired that, due to the lack of tourists, the boats out to phi phi which we had hoped to catch for a quick day trip were no longer running.
this all consuming off season does, however, present certain opportunities, and we had managed to wangle a really good deal on a villa perched atop a cliff with its very own private infinity pool spilling out onto the andaman sea (http://www.crownlanta.com/accom_oceanprivate.html that's our actual villa! Although that's not vicki.) my days ofshoestringing may have given way to midrange comfort but i had still never stayed anywhere like this before (nor indeed had vicki who has a less fleapit ridden history then me). the sea itself was a different beast to the crystal clear, smooth waters that surrounded the perhentians but i actually prefer this more tempestuous version, the waves crashing onto the cliffs and producing that incredible, perpetual sound i associate so inextricably with living by the sea.
the intense luxury made the fact that sunday was a wash out, with the grey clouds sticking around for the entire day and occasionally spitting out pointless UK style drizzle, not potent enough to get the job done and clear the clouds out but still wet enough to make doing anything seem an over exertion, a non-issue. we had known this was coming and were ready, a day of doing very little made considerably easier by the luxury in which we were living, and we easily whiled the day away watching pirated dvds and getting massages. by monday the sun reappeared and we went to an outdoor thai cooking school which, though something which i would never have even considered in the past, was actually a lot of fun (and we, well primarily vicki, can now knock out a couple of mean thai stir fries and a red curry). as for today, it was just plain hot, perfect for splashing around in our pool, lazing on our sun loungers and reading books in the sunshine.
all in all a really good, restful stay made as much by the accommodation as by ko lanta itself (although the clifftop setting is such a large part of the charm): a little extravagant maybe but given that it appears that the place in the perhentians had some pretty nasty bugs in the sheets which have munched their way through my back and vicki's arms, well deserved.
oh, and ko lanta will forever retain a special place in our hearts because it is where i, inexpertly and with some fumbling (and no help from vicki who was relentlessly distracted trying to work out which switches connected to which lights in the villa) asked vicki to marry me and she said yes... the next longhaul trip could be out to india next year.
