Seat 18D. Bangkok Airways Flight 262 with service to BKK.
So it’s my birthday, and I’m sitting here wondering if my eardrum is going to explode once we get up to 40,000 feet. I’m a little nervous to fly after receiving barotrauma to the middle ear and being advised by a doctor not to put pressure on the ear. But here we are. We met two girls from San Francisco. Nicolette, and Samantha. Samantha is SF hippie style, with short hair and a septum piercing. Aimlessly traveling. Her dad lives in Bangkok. Nicolette is pretty cute, she looks very much like a girl who lived in my freshman dorm–Carly. She sung so beautifully at the memorial of three fellow students who were killed tragically that year.
We met the girls while checking in at KBV–Krabi Airport. Samantha complimented my parrot all-over print shirt I bought in Koh Phangan. I actually wore it out last night–I have no clean clothes left. As I write this, my right foot is over my left knee, toes resting nicely in the back of the left armrest of the seat infront of me–17D. Cody is seated behind me in 19D. There’s an old German couple beside me.
I’m still a little hungover from last night, but feeling much better after the ice cold beer I drank at the gate. I wouldn’t have fathomed it at such an early hour, but after seeing our new girlfriends from SF getting a little hair of the dog–well it was hard to resist. I’m not easily outdone.
Last night Cody and I went out to eat, and then started drinking at Slumber Party Hostel down the block. Cody had his doubts initially based on bad experiences at the Slumber Party Hostel in Koh Phangan, but I convinced him to come out. We got there around 20.00 and things were already in full swing. The scene was wild. Girls standing on the bar pouring liquor in people’s mouths, body shots off of beautiful women, and of course beer pong and drunk people. All the things dreams are made of.
They also played a game throughout the night where you sneakily put a clothespin on an article of someone clothing, and then everyone starts counting down “3! 2! 1!”. If you can’t find the pin and get it off of your clothing in time, then you have to either take that piece of clothing off or take a drink! I think some people secretly enjoyed getting naked. One girl was holding her breasts–or having a volunteer do it for her–the whole night!
We end up going on their pubcrawl, the best and last stop of course being Chang Bar. That’s pretty much the only good bar in Ao Nang. I met some trill as fuck guy from California–wearing a bucket hat no less. You could tell he was from The West Coast from a mile away. He currently posts statuses on facebook with an excessive amount of hashtags.
The hostel we were staying at–K-Bunk–was really nice. Very cozy. The owners were really nice people–a husband and wife combo.
So before we went out, I was left waiting alone for the ever slow Cody to get ready. There was this delicious aroma of barbeque emanating from somewhere, and I was left wanting. It didn’t see any barbeque on the menu, however. Too bad.
I found a cozy living room area with a comfy leather couch, and a proper home theatre setup. As if this was someone’s personal man-cave. Respect. And oh, there was also a PS4! So I start gaming on the TV playing COD Modern Warfare III. I play one of the extra side-games included with it–Modern Warfare III itself is rubbish.
So I’m gaming away, shooting up mutants or whatever with futuristic assault rifles and the like. The husband comes in and asks if I want some spareribs. My eyes go wide, time slows down a little bit. “Yeah!!” I say eagerly. I couldn’t believe my luck. The elusive aroma I smelt before would soon be realized on my tastebuds. So as I sit there gaming away, they bring me two ribs, perfectly glazed with sauce. Just fantastic. Nim–the wife–brought me a Coke as well. It was sweating those sweet drops of condensation. Now that’s fucking service! I felt like I was at home in my living room. All complimentary of course. Cody was still getting ready upstairs. Early bird gets the worm.
So, let’s fast forward to the flight. My eardrums didn’t explode once we hit 40,000 feet, it included a surprisingly delicious inflight meal, and the rubber hit the pavement right on time at 12:30. We split a cab into town with the two San Francisco girls. So, if you know me–you know I’m a hand talker. So I’m there riding shotgun and gesticulating wildly as per usual, and the driver slaps my hand down! We all just look at each other and start laughing. What else can you do?
The girls were keen to go to celebrate my birthday at Skybar for the sunset and then go to this titty bar called Spanks where you can spank strippers with foam paddles, but they can spank you back. It sounded fun, but I just decided to chill at the hostel with my homies. Liz found out it was my birthday, so being a sweet Thai girl, she made me some mango sticky rice. We all love Liz, and Liz loves us.
Liz also bought me a rainbow race for my birthday. For the uninitiated, it’s 7 shots, all different colors of the rainbow. You try to shoot them all as fast as possible. I did it in 7.37 seconds so they wrote my name on the wall in chalk with a heart. There’s even leaderboard for the rainbow race–hostels are all about gamifying binge drinking to make a few bucks.
I drank a lot until about 5 AM to ring in my 26th birthday. At some point this Lithuanian guy just straight up passed out on the floor of the hostel, right in the middle of everyone. Did you know Lithuania is the suicide capital of the Western world?
Kimbo (slice) just happened to be staying at Bodega as well! See, Kimbo always gets his slice. For him, it’s a slow wood fired oven slice. Quality takes time. He stayed up later than everyone else–per usual–and got with the cutest girl at the hostel.
She came from Ottawa, and naturally she worked for the Federal Government. We talked about ice-skating to work atop the Rideau Canal in winter months. Sometime you miss the crisp air, and the sound of snow crunching underneath your boots. But at the end of the day, nothing beats traveling.
