Naked and Afraid in Thailand

Cha-am, Thailand
12.7997°N, 99.9668°E

Our short flight south from Laos to Bangkok landed earlier than expected at Don Mueang International, the smaller of the two major airports serving Bangkok.

After a long wait for a cab and then getting mildly hustled by the driver (enough to irk us both but not enough to make us want to engage in a late night argument), we arrived at our hotel in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit district.

Sukhumvit is a popular area for business travelers and tourists, which is pretty evident by the number of office buildings, department stores, hotels, and chain restaurants lining the streets. The massive Sukhumvit Road is the main thoroughfare through the area, with Bangkok’s elevated skytrain running along much of the road. It’s a traffic-dense and hectic area full of cars, tuk tuks and motorbikes; countless high-end spas and low-end massage parlors; coffee shops and restaurants serving every type of international cuisine; and pedestrians from all over the world walking in every direction.

There are also enough 7-Elevens in the city that the red and green signs are never out of eyeshot. According to 7-Eleven’s website, there are almost 4,000 stores just in Bangkok, but Japan blows away the competition for most stores outside the U.S. at 18,000 (also learned on 7-Elevens’s corporate website – 7.2 billion Slurpees have been sold since 1966).

Going Slow in Bangkok

Our first few days in Bangkok were spent taking care of errands that were a lot easier to accomplish in a big city than the smaller cities we have inhabited over the last month. These errands included Sarah spending nearly a full day to get her hair fixed from a misfortunate experience in a Vietnam salon that left her with a sizable chunk of missing hair. For those that are wondering, the re-do in Bangkok worked and her hair looks good as new. Unfortunately, she won’t let me post any of her before pictures.

It was a quiet two days for us, the second of which was a public holiday in Thailand called Visakha Puja. The holiday, which celebrates the birth of Buddha, meant that a lot of places were closed and most restaurants that were open were not serving booze. We took this as a sign to rest up for our visit from our Boston friends.

Sarah and I had not met up with any friends from home since Bali when Katelyn visited us for a week (see Katelyn vs. monkey here). We were looking forward to having other people to talk to, and were even more excited about who those other people were – Jodie and Caitlin.

Friends from Home

Jodie and Sarah grew up together on Cape Cod, and have known each other since they were wee little Cape kids. Her and Caitlin were married on the Cape last fall and I believe are the first couple in history to continent hop from Asia to Europe for their two-week honeymoon. After their visit to Thailand (to see us!) they were heading off to Spain for the second half of their trip.

Jodie and Caitlin share our disdain for overly specific travel agendas and prefer to go with the flow when traveling. So we were all comfortable with deciding last minute what to see and where to visit in Thailand. Showing no signs of jet lag after they arrived we headed off to see the Jim Thompson House, an attraction that several people had told us was well worth a visit.

Thompson was an American who moved to Bangkok after serving in the U.S. Army and CIA during World War II. After some other business ventures, he founded the Thai Silk Company in the late 1940s, which became well-known after its products were used in the production of the musical The King and I. He was also a huge collector of Asian artifacts, and his residence-turned-museum in Bangkok has become one of the city’s top tourist attractions because of these collectibles.

Thompson disappeared in 1967 on a trip to Malaysia, and no one knows exactly what happened to him or how he died. Some have speculated that he was eaten by a tiger or murdered as a result of certain activities with the CIA. But he remains something of a legend in Thailand, given that his silk business and its innovations propelled Thailand into becoming a worldwide leader in unique and high-quality silk production.

Tuk-Tuk for Four

Caitlin and Jodie did have one item to check off a list in Bangkok – a ride in a tuk-tuk. We left Jim Thompson’s, about 30 minutes from our hotel, and headed to the street to find a tuk-tuk with space for four. Instead, we found one designed for two people that looked like one of those red and yellow Little Tikes Cozy Coupes. There was a lot of traffic and it was a really hot day, so we decided this option was better than nothing. We rode back to the hotel looking like circus clowns doing loops in the center ring.

Cha-am

Following a night bouncing around Bangkok, including joining a large group of drunk Japanese businessmen for a sake toast in a hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant, the four of us decided to head three hours south of Bangkok to the coastal town of Cha-am.

Cha-am is very small, with less than 20,000 year-round residents. It’s a popular vacation spot for Thai families, but not as popular with tourists. In fact, the entire time we were in Cha-am we only saw a half dozen or so non-Thai tourists – which is pretty uncommon in most Thailand beach towns.

After considering some of the many islands and coastal towns in Thailand, we thought that Cha-am would provide just what we were looking for, lots of good street food, easy access to the beach, and close proximity to some of Thailand’s many cultural attractions.

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we walked along the main street (which runs alongside the beach) before coming across a woman selling freshly grilled sea bass caught in the Gulf of Thailand only a few yards away. It looked and smelled delicious so we asked her to grill one up and sat down with our Leo beers at a small table ringed by four beach chairs, toes in the sand. None of us could think of anything better.

Beyond the sea bass, there was a huge selection of street food along Cha-am’s streets. Chicken, beef, pork, and an incredible selection of seafood that included squid, king prawns, snapper, and lobsters.

In addition to eating our way through Cha-am, we spent time seeing some of the local sites, including a monument to seven of Thailand’s kings, a floating market, and Maruekhathaiyawan Palace, a former Thai kings summer residence and the winner of the prize for most difficult to pronounce name of our trip to date.

We also rented bikes in Cha-am to visit a few temples and check out the town’s fishing harbor, located a few miles from our hotel. We had some delicious grilled seafood at one of the dozen or so restaurants lining the harbor overlooking the fishing boats coming and going.

But why the weird title to this post?

So the most memorable event from our time in Cha-am has nothing to do with street food, sunsets, or great conversation with old friends. It’s something I originally didn’t want to include in this post, but Sarah told me it would be disingenuous if I didn’t share. Not wanting to piss off the Mrs., I obliged.

One of the things Sarah and I have discovered about sleeping in so many different rooms on our trip (our count of beds slept in since January is over 40 at this point), is that sometimes when you wake up in the middle of the night it takes a while to remember where you are and the current layout of the room you are in. It’s happened to each of us a few times, where you have to pause to make sure you don’t run into the TV, a bookcase, or open the wrong door to the bathroom.

After a night of great food and exploring a number of Cha-am’s beer bars, the four of us came back to our hotel around midnight. Sarah and I went to sleep and Jodie and Caitlin did the same in the room next door.

At about 2:00 a.m. I woke up to relieve myself, pretty standard stuff after several Singha and Chang beers over the course of the night. The layout of the room was such that to get to the bathroom I needed to open the door immediately to the left of our bed. In my haze, I mistakenly opened the door to the right of the bed.

The biggest difference between these doors was that the door to the right led to the small ground-level patio outside our room. Realizing my mistake, I turned around to find that the door had shut and locked behind me. And of course, I was dressed for sleep, not for walking around the outdoor corridor of a hotel. Sweet.

I tapped lightly on the window to try and wake up Sarah but no luck. I considered pounding on the door but that would have woken up the neighboring guests and I wasn’t ready for that type of attention. I tried tapping on Jodie and Caitlin’s window but no response there either (side note: Caitlin told me the next day she heard the tapping but thought it might be squirrels or something and went back to sleep…thanks Caitlin! ?)

So after running through all of my options, I decided that I’d have to make the long walk down to the lobby to get someone to let me in. I covered up as best I could and made my way quickly down to the front desk, but the door was locked and no one was behind the counter. I ran back to our room’s patio and sat down to think of other options. I tapped at the window a bit harder this time, but still no response from Sarah.

After another 30 minutes on the patio and at least a hundred “FML” whispers under my breath, I decided to try the lobby again. I ran a little faster this time, but again no one at the front desk.

On my way back I noticed a security guard asleep in a golf cart….thank you Jesus! I tiptoed over to him and stood about five feet away (I didn’t want to get too close in case he woke up swinging) whispering “hey….hey….HEY” until he jumped up from the cart’s seat. He spoke no English, but fortunately, I was wearing the international sign for “locked out of room”, and he ran to get the keys so he could open my door.

Sarah said she “felt bad” the next day, but she was unable to say it without laughing so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a sincere apology. I did appreciate the effort made by the hotel staff to avoid eye contact and fight off their smiles when I was passing by over the next few days. Sarah mentioned (many times) how difficult that must have been for them.

After sending Caitlin and Jodie off for Spain with a story I’m sure I’ll never live down, Sarah and I left Cha-am to head back to Bangkok. For the next two weeks, we would be living on Koh Samui, an island off Thailand’s coast.