Sitting at a hotel in Bangkok called Khao San Palace Inn watching MTV because there is nothing else on in English. I came back to the room earlier than Felix because I needed a little break from him already. I met the guy early yesterday morning and he is already getting on my nerves. How is that possible? Well I’ll tell you how. He’s a nice enough guy, but right from the get go he gave me the heebie-jeebies. He walks in the hotel room around 4am and his bags are very dirty, he is dirty, he looks like he could pass as a homeless person. He’s got an old school wool scrappy looking sweater, long disheveled hair, and way overgrown facial hair.
I mean, I don’t expect that he be groomed perfectly after traveling for as long as he had, but I think it was about the point he threw a tube of lice cream at me when I was officially grossed out. He said, “Here rub this all over yourself.” Are you shitting me???? I don’t have lice. Oh… but he might. Yuck, yuck, yuck. He was lying in bed and I could hear his fingernails scratching his skin underneath the blankets all night long. He told me he has many mysterious bites and doesn’t want to give me bugs, so he got an extra tube of lice cream in order to protect me. Right then and there I almost crawled directly out of my skin. How disgusting is that?! I reluctantly rubbed this white cream all over myself and from that point on I had my doubts about whether or not I’d be able to handle this guy for the next three weeks. |
We have spent the past couple days searching for "special deals" in hidden bike shops around Bangkok. Apparently Felix and I had different ideas about what kind of bikes we were going to get, so we had to do a lot of searching through sketchy side streets to find what Felix had in mind. He was planning on getting a second hand, one-speed bike for thirty bucks. Riiiggghhhhttt. Might be 30 bucks, but when cycling 1500 miles I highly doubt that a) the bike is going to last and b) his ass won't fall off after the first hundred miles. Oh, forgot to mention that Felix is 6'6" and the maximum height of anyone here is 5'8" TOPS, so finding a large framed, second hand, single-speed bike was impossible.
After much searching and making deals, we found our bikes at a shop I had previously researched online and these suckers are brand spankin’ new and loaded with racks, bags, mud flaps, odometers, water bottles, locks - you name it, we got it. I learned what bar ends and panniers were. (Just so you know, a pannier is a set of bags that go over your back wheel and bar ends go on the end of your handle bars to give you an extra option to place your hands while you’re cycling.) Felix was planning to spend 30 bucks and spent 450 instead. I guess my spending habits have worn off on him already.
Him... let me tell you about Felix before we go any further. Has anyone seen Happy Gilmore? Of course you have. Well, he reminds me of the homeless guy who was washing car windows at the golf tournament who then turned out to be Happy's caddy who bathed in the water traps between holes.
He is a mathematician that went to Oxford (need I say more?). He is very comfortable sleeping naked; he gets out of the shower barely holding a towel in front of his “junk” and then jumps under the covers so quickly that I end up getting flashed if I’m not careful. Who sleeps naked with someone you just met a couple days ago through an online travel forum?? Oh and he scratches himself. Often. In private. And in public.
I swear I am not kidding. I didn't think that I was going to be able to handle it, repulsed every five minutes. He rarely smiles and constantly makes jokes that I don't understand. (Maybe that's why he went to Oxford and I didn't?) He is always fully engrossed in writing text messages on his mobile phone or looking in his guidebook, but since he’s so tall he whacks his head on things constantly. I laugh every single time he walks into something (at least five times a day) or trips off a sidewalk (three times today) or falls off his bike in Bangkok traffic (we’re up to two so far). I lose him constantly because as we’re walking through huge markets, he stops randomly and decides not to yell out to me to say, "Hey I am stopping here". He’s so quiet and walks incredibly slow for such a tall person because he’s on his phone or reading his guidebook and I don’t realize it until we’ve been separated for a few minutes and then it takes twenty to track each other down.
I was almost about to call it quits with this guy even before setting off, but I have decided its pretty funny and maybe the poor guy needs some guidance. (We'll see how much longer I can handle this, though). Also, I don't think cycling alone is a bright idea. (You can stop worrying now Mom, Dad, + Grandma - I won't cycle alone).
Ok, I know I am going on and on about this, but I just want you to have an idea what I am up against here.
Next item of business: driving in Bangkok traffic during rush hour - on a bike. Ok, imagine the absolute WORST city traffic you've ever been in, add a heat index of 100 degrees with 95% humidity, then multiply all of that by ten, throw in road signs that look like children's scribble, about thirty Thai guys with their entire families on motor scooters flying at you IN YOUR LANE about 40 mph, tuk-tuks that drive around you and honk on their way by, and bug, food, and fruit vendors on the same road that you are trying to cycle on. Plus they drive on the wrong side of the road, its dark, you have no light on your bike, and the guy you are cycling with is using clip pedals for the first time.
I swear to Buddha this is what it was like coming home from the bike shop tonight. Felix swore to me that he knew how to use the clip pedals. For those who don't know what they are, they are pedals that you have to wear special shoes that lock your foot to the pedal and the only way to get out of them is to turn your ankle in just the perfect way in order to get out. Well, he swore that he knew how to use them. I just laughed because I thought back to the time that an ex-boyfriend tried them for the very first time and I watched as he fell gracefully like a tree to the ground while still attached to the bike in front of twenty chuckling people in their cars at a major intersection.
Well, same thing happened to Felix. T-I-M-B-E-R and Tracy just laughed, almost peeing her pants in the process. (I just read this last part to Felix and he is trying to justify why he fell - Pah, excuses, excuses.)
Enough about that; we are sitting in a computer lab (it’s like 90 degrees in here and getting late) trying to figure out the best cycling routes towards the south of the country. After reading a few stories about cycling in Thailand, it seems like a better idea to take a two-hour train out of the city to avoid traffic and then cycle about five to six hours to some beach and collapse for the night.
I highly doubt there will be Internet cafes where we are going, but will send pictures and stories as soon as I can. Say a quick little prayer that I will be safe and Felix quits scratching himself. |
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I’ve officially ditched Felix |
I can’t take it anymore. If I didn’t ditch him I would have to be admitted to a nut house to keep me from killing him. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but he annoyed the ever living shit out of me and have decided to let him go on his own so I can save my sanity. We were supposed to take off on our bikes at some point today, but never agreed on a time.
I wasn’t ready to leave first thing in the morning because the weight on my bike was unevenly distributed, which makes riding both difficult and dangerous. I told him that I needed to go back to the bicycle shop to get another bag and he whined like a freaking baby for twenty minutes until I finally told him to start without me. I told him that I would take the next train out of town and meet him later in the day. I truthfully planned to meet up with him that day, but after spending a few hours on my own I realized how much happier I became without him. I text messaged him and told him my change in plans and then began the adventures of cycling through Thailand solo. |
Danielle and I set off for Sucre yesterday around 615pm and it was "supposed" to be a twelve-hour bus ride. (My ass twelve hours!) We decided to sit all the way in the back so we could sprawl out across all five seats and get some sleep. That’s where we went wrong right from the start!
There were only ten people on the bus and ten available seats as well, but one woman for some odd reason wants to sit right between us. We just left La Paz where there was a transportation strike and apparently one of the most dangerous cities to be in because of all the muggings that happen so often. We heard there are pro-muggers who have all sorts of tactics to divert someone's attention while they rob them. Among the many tactics we heard about, one of them was that mothers throw their babies at an unsuspecting stranger who will obviously catch the flying baby and someone else involved in the scam will rob the person catching the baby. We also heard there was a lot of thievery on bus rides because there are passengers who pretend they're sleeping, but rob you when you least suspect.
So anyway, this lady wants to sit in the seats directly between Dani and I, but we pretend we don't speak English and don't move our bags out of the way so she can't sit. I know this sounds rude, but there were plenty of open seats it just seemed incredibly odd this one person wanted to sit next to the only tourists on the bus. We figured she was going to ransack our bags and steal our stuff once we fell asleep.
About ten minutes into the trip, the bus pulls over to the side of the road and five Bolivian guys start yelling at us (in Spanish) to get out of the back row because they want to use the seats to store some items they are shoving through the back windows next to us. They've got a bunch of these big white plastic packages that I later realize say "diapers 240 count" and again we refuse to move, show our tickets showing they are indeed our seats, and that we're not moving. Oh boy did that piss them off even more and they placed a bunch of diapers in the overhead storage areas, on the floor, and piled in seats where some children were sitting. They then prepared beds on top of the stacks of diapers for the kids to sleep and never once did I think perhaps they weren't diapers at all. What else could they be? Oh, I don't know, cocaine capital of the world. Cocaine smuggling, perhaps? (More about that later).
Another twenty minutes goes by and the bus driver starts picking up random people on the side of the road - people who look and smelled like they haven’t showered in weeks. About forty-five minutes later (it’s dark by this point) there is a roadblock of people who surround our bus and start banging on the outside of it. This terrified me because I know there is a big transportation strike going on in Bolivia and I have no idea if it’s a peaceful strike or not. When you're on a run down bus with people who look even worse, in the middle of nowhere, and you're not fluent in Spanish, having rocks thrown at your bus is not the most peaceful way to spend an evening.
The protestors eventually move out of the road and now I’m down right petrified. I have heard stories about bandits stopping buses in the middle of the night and robbing, raping, and killing everyone on the bus. I figure this will probably happen to us, so instead of being robbed of all my money, I decide to pull a McGyver move....
I had a box of orange juice that looked about the size of my money pouch, so I poured the juice out the window (while we were driving), put all my money, credit cards, passport, and camera in a Ziploc bag, stuffed it in the juice box and put it in the seat back storage pouch where I previously had it. No one would think to look in a box of juice, right?
Just as I’m putting the box in the seat back in front of me, I see something on the floor next to me. It’s almost completely dark so I feel around with my hands only to feel an elbow… then a wrist… then fingers! HOLY SHIT!! It’s a freaking person!!!
Now, how did the person get there and why is he or she lying on the floor beneath me? This person now knows about the juice box (cause he was lying on the floor waiting to rape and rob me once I fell asleep) so I moved it to another place and crawled way over to the window (sitting in fetal position) while peering at him for a very long time to make sure he wasn't going to try anything fishy.
Shortly thereafter, the bus stops AGAIN and picks up a few guys who climb underneath the bus where the rest of our luggage is! No lie - in the friggin luggage compartment! We were certain they were going through our stuff and probably going to take off with our bags the next time we stopped, so Dani and I literally stuck our heads completely out the windows every time we stopped (which was frequently) to make sure no one was taking off with our bags. Five minutes later, he picks up a family of nomadic smelly Bolivians who want to sit in the three seats between us where we are lying. There are plenty of other seats on the bus and we don’t want to move, so I start pretending that I have food poisoning. I start moaning and grunting, holding my stomach. I quickly reach to open the window, stick my head out and pretend to start puking. (I’m hysterically laughing while I write this, because I was seriously scared shitless last night!) Danielle doesn’t speak any Spanish, so she’s just yelling at them, "My friend is sick! Can’t you see that she’s sick? Leave her alone!" I pretend I have no idea what they’re saying either and grunt every now and then, “Mi stomago est muy mal. Mal comida. Mal pollo,” etc. I continue fake vomiting out the window for a while and make enough room for one woman to sit between us, which makes it really hard to sleep because we’re concerned about our carry-on bags. There are cocaine diapers taking up four other seats on the bus and about ten other empty ones, but for some odd reason they all wanted to sit next to us - the only two tourists on the bus. A little fishy, eh? I kept envisioning the diapers flying out from the above compartment knocking the woman sitting next to me out like a light, but it was more like wishful thinking!
Oh, I forgot to mention that there were no bathrooms on the bus. An overnight bus with no toilet?! The only stops we made did NOT look safe enough to get out and we also figured with all the commotion we had already caused, they would probably leave without us - so - we peed in plastic bags instead! Ok, so is anyone grossed out yet? Maybe you don’t quite understand how difficult it was to pee in a bag, so I’ll explain. We’re not men, so it’s not like we can just aim and shoot. You have to literally pull your pants down to your ankles or off completely, position the bag directly underneath you, and make sure you’ve got a good grip on the bag so you don’t let anything spill out. I know, I know, way more information than you’d like to know, but I want you to understand what he had to go through on this bus ride. Oh AND you're doing this in front of the guy on the floor and the lady sitting between us. I’m dying laughing because it was a horrible experience and I’m so happy the 18-hour bus ride from hell is over! Oh yea, 18 hours, not 12!
There were several other times that we came across protests in the road where people were banging on the bus and each time I just prayed that I wasn’t going to die. Really, I was sincerely praying for my life - I honestly did not think we would make it to the next town. It also never occurred to us at the time, but there's no way those diapers WEREN'T cocaine diapers! They had to be. Why else would we have made a special, very quick stop on the side of the road to smuggle diapers? And why would they make such a big deal about putting them in the absolute last row of the bus where it was most difficult to get to? Thankfully it never occurred to us until later because I think I may have had a heart attack every time protesters threw stones or shook our bus because I would have most certainly thought I was going to die more than I already did.
Needless to say, we made it safely with all of our belongings, but between diapers falling from above, pretending to puke all night, and peeing in plastic bags, I don’t think I’ll be taking another overnight bus for a while. |
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