Over the extended Songkran (Thai New Year’s) holiday, I took a trip with my good friend Jeremy down to Phuket to visit our former classmate, Steven, from Bangkok University. He was cool enough to let us bunk down at his place in the suburbs. We were looking forward to a relaxing and smogless time near the sea.

Earthquakes, and Tsunami Scares

About 3 hours after we arrived after the 12 hour busride, I was napping and had the strangest dream that the bed was shaking. “Wait, THE BED IS SHAKING!?!” I awoke to Jeremy calling me from the living room to get outside. We were in the midst of a full blown earthquake! I emerged into the living room to see the ceiling fan swaying, and my legs felt akin to jello.

We ran out into the street, as did many of the neighbors who were home at midday. We noticed that everyone was on their cellphones, and the word tsunami (Originally a Japanese word, spoken the same in Thai, English, and it’s native language) was being brought to the forefront of many conversations.

We were located far from the western side of the island, where any tsunami would have hit, but we still felt quite panicked and decided to retreat to, as we would soon call it, “Command Base Alpha”. This was an empty room on the second floor of Steven’s house, to which we transported our computers and the all important fan. We soon learned that an 8.7 earthquake had struck on the same fault, at nearly the same place as the devastating quake that caused the 2004 tsunami. At this point we were somewhat scared, not really for ourselves, but the beaches a few miles away that were now under a “tsunami warning”. I went downstairs and had a chat with a neighbor who said he had heard on the radio that tsunamis were expected in 45 minutes. I returned to Command Base Alpha with the news and we monitored our computer screens for any updates.

Luckily 45 minutes came and passed, and the beaches had been (for the most part) evacuated, before the “10 cm tsunami” came. Everyone was quite relieved, Steven especially, as he is assistant editor to the biggest newspaper in town. What could have been a tragedy turned into the talk of the town for the holiday, and a celebration of the good luck and fortune that seems to follow us around every once in a while.

The Homicidal Taxi Driver

After the tectonic hullaballoo the day before, it was high time to celebrate the holiday we had come for. Namely Songkran, April 13th (Did I mention it was Friday?), which is, if my intuition serves me correctly, the world’s largest drunken waterfight. Upon both Steven’s advice and my own prior experience we were avoiding taxis at all costs as they charge ridiculous amounts of money for a 15 minute trip, and can as we later came to realize, be piloted by completely and utterly batshit insane people.

Taking this into account we opted for the “bus” from Phuket Town to Patong, which is the main tourist beach in Phuket. This drive usually takes about 15 minutes, but, being Songkran, the “bus” which had probably 20 seats, had at least 80 people on it all headed for the water-soaked madness just over the hill. Now this hill is quite steep, and this bus was pretty much a 1970′s throwaway that was struggling on flatland with it’s load of water-soaked revelers. Jeremy and I, being tall, handsome Anglo Saxons were standing in the aisle, bent over like hunchbacks due to the approximately 4 foot ceiling, getting doused by bucket after bucket of water from the side of the road. We readied our pump action Chinese-made water guns (preloaded of course), and prepared for combat.

Soon enough we arrived at the hill. The “bus” began uttering strange mechanical groans as it lurched, somewhat unassuredly, up the steep pass. The driver fought with the gearstick as we made what seemed to be the world’s slowest ascent to 300 meters. Little Toyotas and Hondas whizzed by us filled with partygoers, and their ubiquitous Chinese squirt guns, every once in a while making a direct hit through the window of our “bus”.

As we finally summited the hill into Patong we hit traffic that would make us soon choose to take the ambulatory option. Off we headed into a melee of H2O (Hence my lack of pictures, Songkran=hell for cameras). Now, being about 40 degrees (~105 for us Americans) you would think this is a pleasant experience, and most of the time it is. That is, until you reach the inevitable “I am so funny! I put Ice in my water!” people. Imagine getting doused every few feet with buckets, waterguns, hoses, and getting the “surprise” ice cold gallon straight down your back. The usual response is a happy, high pressure Chinese water gun shot to the face of the offender, and much laughs are had.

We caroused and shot our guns for a few blocks and finally ended up at the main tourist drag of Phuket, Bangla Road. THIS WAS WAR! Thousands of people of all nationalities, shooting each other in merriment, not a frown to be seen, not a smile to be missed. We emptied our guns every few steps and were welcomed for free reloads at every 50 gallon barrel.

I was approached by a Thai man in the maelstrom,he was wearing Hawaiian shirt (the official uniform of Songkran). “Excuse me can I have a moment of your time?” he said in perfect English, “I am the Deputy Mayor of Patong.” Call me skeptical, but having been in Asia for a while I though it to be a scam. “Umm, OK” I replied. Just then the maelstrom cleared and a yellow trash bag covered TV camera was staring me in the face. “Did you feel the recent earthquake?”. ” I did” I replied. I was apparently being interviewed by local television. I told of how I had felt the earthquake while napping, and was fearful of another tsunami. He asked me if I was aware that Patong had been awarded by ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) for Tsunami Safety and preparedness. “Well done!” I congratulated him and his city, and really did not know what else to say. “I hope that we can all enjoy ourselves now that we are safe” or somesuch nonsense. Obligatory handshake, and we were on our way.

As fun as getting sprayed by water constantly can be, we decided to take a break and escape to a bar on the beach. It was soon to be dark and we were debating about transportation back to Steven’s place. All of the “bus”s had stopped at 4:00 and we were left with “party here and stay for the night” or “find a taxi and make a hasty retreat”. We opted for the latter, and began walking about town in search of a taxi.

We walked for quite a while before happening upon a generic honda with a propped up sign on the roof that said “TAXI”. Unfortunately there was no one attending the taxi so I asked the security guard at the adjacent building if he knew where the taxi driver was. He yelled “BPO!!” (the guy’s name apparently) and out emerged a clearly intoxicated man with beer in hand. “Where You Go?!” he asked. I replied in my politest Thai that we wished to go back to Phuket Town, where our friend would pick us up at the mall. “Fi Hundre Baht!” he half yelled at us. I bargained and got us down to four hundred for a trip that would be less than a hundred in Bangkok. But at this point we were wet and tired and didn’t much care about the odd buck or two.

I explained that we were soaking wet and did not want to get his seats wet as well. He smiled “No Prolem!” and fumblingly produced a towel from the trunk for us to sit on. We sat down, both us and our Chinese water guns tired from the days activities. We soon reached a main road and the traffic was still at full force. “Phuket traffic no good!” said Bpo. I replied in polite Thai (The difference between casual, formal, and polite Thai is massive. Him being drunk and driving us I was on my best behavior) “You should see Bangkok! It is like this everyday!”

“I no go! Traffic too bad!” he said more forcefully “Really?” I replied in Thai “Can you drop us somewhere to get a new taxi please?”. He kept replying “No! No go! Traffic!” Aside from the fact I found this minorly insulting to my linguistic ego (why not speak Thai with me when I clearly speak it fluently?) it was just a hassle as we were on a weird side of town with no hope for alternate transportation. We told him it was a holiday, we were just trying to have fun, and he should as well (bad move in retrospect). Me and Jeremy joked that he was a taxi driver, and therefore should get us to our destination on a pre determined fee. “Would a chef stop cooking your steak at medium well?” was one of the many analogies.

Meanwhile Bpo was on the phone and getting more and more aggravated. I shushed Jeremy and began to listen to what he was saying. Translated as best I can Bpo was saying “I am about to go on a gun shooting (could also mean hunting here) trip. I have two guests. Are you coming? I have the gun.” This made me stop. I instantly recalled the case of the French men who were stabbed to death by tuk tuk drivers a few years back. I resorted to the first sentence that came to mind in Thai “So will you go, or shall we stop here?”

“Why are you talking to me! can’t you see I am on the phone!!!!” he said to us. He then began to refer to us as we were not there calling us the most ugly names under the Thai sun to his phone friend. Referring to us basically as “falang (westerner) scum of the earth, these fu%@ing buffalos come here and think they can take our women! White men are a disgrace to the Thais, they are mother*$ckers (one of the few insults in Thai that translates directly to English).  At this point I gave Jeremy a look saying “We are going NOW!”

We were stopped behind about 5 cars at the main intersection out of town, and a man comes up to our window screaming at us in Thai. Bpo looks back and smiles “My friend” he says gloatingly waving his phone. “You can die in Thailand” he said in English. At this point I was honestly more scared than I had ever been in my life. We got out of that car faster than a cat out of water. He got out behind us and started screaming in the middle of the intersection “Pay Me NOW!” We were frozen, not knowing what to do. He began going back to his car and reaching under the driver’s seat for some unknown object. “OK OK OK, I ran back and gave him 100 baht (~3 dollars)

At this point we ran to the nearest open shophouse, and he peeled off, friend in tow.

What happened?

Honestly, I have no clue, it could be a scam, but I’m sure people would talk about this kind of thing more if it happened frequently. Something about the guy was off from the beginning and the look in his eye when he said “You can die in Thailand.” was most definitely not that of a sane human being.

In the end we walked about 3 kilometers to the nearest hotel we could find and asked them to call a taxi for us. They drove us back in the manager’s car, padding all the seats with clean hotel towels, so as not to get the car wet.

To experience that kind of hospitality after that kind of hostility was heartwarming, and reassuring. We made it home safe, and apart from the otherworldly incidents above it was a great trip, as you can see from the pictures below. Phewff

What it felt like after the taxi ride.

"I swear, it just landed right there!"

Dim Sum breakfast, mmmm.