"I'm sorry, I thought you were a rat" An hour to LAX, Ten hours to Narita, seven hours to Bangkok, a shower and four hour nap in a cheap Krung Thep transit hotel then another hour to Krabi. While I'm not so sleep deprived I'm really lacking any REM sleep outside the big aluminum tube in the sky so now I'm in a real bed in Ao Nang and I'm just going into that golden moment where you're just slipping into a deep satisfying sleep and it feels fantastic - when I hear a loud gnawing on wood sound from the bedstand by my left ear. Crap! I wake up and turn on the light. I'm in your typical concrete block Asian hotel and the only piece of wood is the side table and, damn, it sounds like a rat is gnawing on the back side of it trying to get in where it will proceed to bite my foot off in my sleep and it will end in a horrible death and I'll wet myself and all the usual horrers involving rodents and your soft fleshy parts. But hey... I'm used to this and its all pretty usual to the weird things that happen when you travel in the third-and-a-half world. Out of bed and across the room to grab my single LED keychain size Boy Scout approved ultra light weight don't-leave-home-without-it flashlight. I press it on and look behind the bedstand. What the hell? I pull out the bedstand to find a hole in the wall about the size of a paperback book with a mess of electric wires coming out of it. Ah-hah! Its the wires going to the light switches on my bedstand. Surely Kudjo is in here. I shine the light in and around trying to see if there are any signs that a rodent has been there. You know, like tiny little rat foot prints or droppings or your tube of toothpaste being stolen [really - it's happened to me before]. In my sleep deprived REM interupted stupor I can't make sense out of it. Okay, its a concrete wall and I see a wood backing and its only about the depth of a limp dick and I shine my light upwards where the wires come down and theres no where a rat could fit and as I'm about to relax a bit thinking I'm just imagining it all, the wood backing in the hole suddenly pulls away inward and my brain goes numb as a voice in the hole says "hello"? Deep breath... The hole in the wall goes through to the adjoining room. Apparently the wall is only the thickness of a single layer of cheap Thai brick and the master builders that constructed this Taj Mahal thought they would just use the same wire chase for both rooms and why bother wasting time sealing the hole when it would be hidden on both sides behind the bedstands. The noise that I had heard was my neighbor rummaging on his nightstand, probably turning out his light and when I made noises messing with my nightstand he probably thought the same rat was after him but, surprise sucker, your rat is coming for you with a flashlight! I can't imagine what went through this person's mind when they saw a nice bright LED light projecting around from behind their nightstand. I can't remember what he said. All I could do was say "sorry, I thought you were a rat" and shove the bedstand back against the wall. As I lay back down, about a thousand miles removed from the sweet sleep state I'd left, all I thought before drifting off was the hole is too small for anyone to reach through and kill me in my sleep. In the clarity of now, the next day in this cheap outdoor internet cafe, I kick myself for not having said "Hello, room sorbeese, may I help you"?
That's better than the 5lb asian dungbeetlescorpionwasp I thought it was going to be. That story was creeping me out man.
Too funny, I've been to Phuket a couple of times and had an absolute blast!! If you go to the clubs, or should I say when you go to the clubs watch out for what they call "benny boys" they look just like women! also watch your wallet, there are some pick pocket experts over there. Most importantly be aware of your surroundings. Now go have some fun :up:
Most of my Thailand stories cannot be told in public. However, there is nothing like going kart racing on 125 shifter karts and drinking beer while in line to race.....for a couple hours straight. I do remember one guy running off track and us yelling, "Look out for cobras!!".
Those shifter carts were a blast but they wear you out-nothing like the four stroke junk at the go cart tracks here. How about the ATV motorcross track next to it. (Did the elephant tour behind the track and the Gun shooting range up the hill as well -target practice with various machine guns) Thailand is a blast. Creepy how they would not wash away the tsunami watermarks from the buildings in Patong Beach.
Almost got run over by a small elephant (WTF?!?) outside our hotel...right in bangkok. Some kid was jogging down the sidewalk next to it, ostensibly "controlling" it via some sort of flimsy harness. By "small" I mean 7 ft tall! Can anybody say "Soy Cowboy?!?"
