The art of being bored in an exotic island
"I think I can sum up the show for you in one word. Nothing." - George Costanza
Hello fellow Sapiens,
Do I dare to think that 2020’s aura is dimming as we are heading to its end? For one, the loon with his fingers on the nuclear switch of one the most powerful armies in the world has been voted out. Covid cases seem to have crossed the peak in India although it’s still some way away from being insignificant. Arnab was arrested. I know its a temporary spark of happiness but still. For a while it looked like RCB, swept up in the the wave of 2020 would even win the IPL. Their defeat in the playoffs filled me with hope once again. Things are going back to normalcy. I have hope.
And now onto this almost 2000 word monster story about well, nothing:)
Speedboat
A few weeks back, possessed by the boredom of living on my own in Bangkok and at the insistence of a long weekend, I went on a solo trip to an island. Kho Yao Yai sits in the Andaman sea, somewhere between Phuket and Krabi, like it cannot make up its mind on what type of gorgeous it wants to be.
I boarded a flight on a Saturday morning, landed in Phuket, got driven in a car with about 7 other people for an hour to a small room near a pier where we ‘checked in’ to our room along with more arrivals. Then about 18 of us were bundled into a speedboat. After 40 minutes of bone rattling, spinal-tapping ride through a wild sea, we reached a little private pier.
At the end of the pier was Santhiya resort. With cabins set on a hillside overlooking the Andaman sea, it was gorgeous.
The people who stumbled out of the speedboat were all in groups: friends, couples and families. Except me, of course.
There was the quiet asian family of 4 of which I couldn’t quite place the roles.
Two black women, friends or partners, I couldn’t ascertain.
A gang of three white men going in their early 40s with an asian couple (of uncertain age as it is with most asians).
2 Kids, who presumably belonged to one of these families
Two more couples, a older one of uncertain ethnicity and a younger one that distinctly looked Japanese (but I am wrong about this very often)
Me - the token brown guy, the only solo traveler trying desperately not to give off creepy loner vibes.
Turquoise
As all of us scrambled from the boat onto the pier, in this gorgeous polynesian-type setting cut off from the rest of the world, my first thought was, “Damn, I’ve walked into an Agatha Christie novel.” The guests have arrived at the millionaire’s island and the game is afoot (sorry about mixing my mysteries there).
The private pier led to a large wooden arch and on either side was a tranquil beach with coconut trees swaying in the wind. The sea looked turquoise. I could totally imagine myself chilling here with a cocktail and a book.
But I had mixed feelings about the weekend. On the one hand I had an upcoming presentation which I had not started working on (The one month lead time I had seemed to have evaporated). I had to spend time working on it that weekend.
On the other hand, there was all that nothing to be done. Blue sea, white sand, tropical sun, a minty cocktail and person with a deep desire for infinite lounging - this was a match made in heaven. If I got too lazy and bored, I could pick up a scooter and go adventuring around the island. Or maybe do some kayaking? Nope - that’s definitely crossing the island energy line I had.
Hospitality
As I stood contemplating this, waiting for a vehicle to take us to our individual cabins up the hill, I felt my stomach grumble. Food entered my thoughts like the dark grey clouds on the horizon. It was 3 PM and the only food I’d had for the day was a butter croissant and a tepid coffee at the airport at 8 am.
Besides, those dark grey clouds on the far horizon. It had been raining when we got onto the speedboat and this had led me to an inquiry to Google as to the status of the weather over the weekend. Surely, this was a passing cloud, I had assumed. Instead, I had seen sad rain cloud icons for the next 3 days.
Turns out, you got to check the weather before booking a last minute solo trip to a romantic getaway.
Anyway, long story short: This would be just one of two times when I would see the sea being turquoise over the weekend.
Soon enough, a jeep came, bundled about 8 of us and took off up a steep slope to the various hotels dotting the resort.
I am all for hospitality. But sometimes hospitality can be aggressive. This pleasant, but very insistent hospitality guy walked me through every bit of the room. Did I look like a complete idiot?
“Here’s umbrellas for your use sir.”
“Here are slippers for your use, you can take them if you want - they’re complimentary.”
“This is the mini-bar sir…..but it’s empty.”
I couldn’t figure out if he was being sincere or sarcastic.
Finally, “If you need any help, call 1 and if you need the jeep to pick you up call 0 and if you want to order room service, - “
I closed the door. Silence.
QR
The view of the Andaman sea from the mega French windows in the room was stunning. But my glucose starved brain had only one thought - food. At that point, two realizations hit me in quick succession. The first was that I should have probably listened to the friendly hospitality guy who could have told me how to order room service and if there was even room service available? The second was the fact that my bags that were separated from me in the mainland were not with me in the room (and now that I thought about it, not in my boat too).
So, food.
Things I hate: Fascists, corporate politics and dialing the reception at a hotel. But hunger makes men do unbelievable things. Eventually, someone answered and after a few moments spent discovering that we were talking in different languages, I was told that the answer to my food problems was a - **drumroll** QR Code!
I am still evaluating where I stand on QR codes, to be honest. For one, it’s scary to not know where the hieroglyphics would lead you to. It’s like a teleportation device that doesn’t tell you where it’s going to take you.
And try finding a QR code among the documentation that hotels provide. I had to wade through two spiral bound folders and many laminated cards talking about the spa treatments, the tv channels guide, the island intro and some green initiatives involving coconut and wickers, before I found one with a QR code.
When I scanned it, I travelled back in time to the magical land of late-90s. The website that loaded up on my phone was beige, made up of visible grids and had those 3D buttons to be clicked next to each menu item. In any case, I eventually unlocked the ordering process (took me a whole 15 mins) and a notification told me that it would be a cool 45 minutes before my food arrived.
Squall
It was 3.30 PM. The day was turning. When I looked out the French windows, the turquoise sea no longer looked turquoise but was instead a melancholic grey. The dark horizon was closer now and an ugly squall that was rolling towards the island. With the ordering done, and my bags yet to arrive, I sat aimlessly to watch the squall roll over.
And then it began to pour. From the corner of my French windows water trickled relentlessly into the room, forming a neat little puddle right near the entrance to the balcony. I groaned.
Eventually, the food did arrive and so did my bags. I worked on my PPT through the rain and then it was time for dinner and another room service for there was no point wading through the rain to the hotel. Maybe it is a blessing that the evening was rained off, I thought. If I could finish my work today, I would have the next two days free to enjoy the island.
But fate was ROTFL.
Greyish
I have proclaimed my love for dark clouds, grey skies and rain many times. And yet rain was my nemesis that weekend. Rain was both a visual and auditory sheath, with a roar that wouldn’t stop and visibility cut off to just about 3 cms into the balcony. This roaring, greyish bubble was my entire world. I was locked in with nowhere to go. Work stretched to fill the time.
As it would turn out, of the 72 hours I spent on the island, it would rain for about 65 of those.
So, this is what cabin fever feels like.
There were two dry moments. One was a very brief one on Sunday morning when channeling my inner Andy Dufresne, I escaped from my room and walked down hill to the beach. The views were stunning and I was the only person on the beach. It was beautiful. And strange.
The strangeness was exacerbated by how quiet it all was. If I hadn’t seen those 18 odd people make the trip across the sea with me, I would have assumed that I was the only guest in that massive resort that weekend. Or maybe, they’d all been murdered and I was the only one left?
Scooter
The rest of Saturday dissipated. The pounding rain refused to stop. Locked in my cabin, I worked, read and occasionally hallucinated that I saw a mysterious island away from the coast. Time was an abstract concept. Room service. Beer. Powerpoint slides. Book. Then the daylight disappeared. Room service again as darkness settled in much earlier than dusk. I stood by the french window and watched the grey with more despondence than I should have.
Monday turned out to be better in the relative scale. Rain broke enough for me to walk around the beach and then there was even sun for an hour that allowed me to sit and read. In the afternoon, I snuck away even with a mild drizzle to rent out a scooter for half a day just to drive around the island. I can’t have spent the entire stay here cooped up in this resort by the edge of the sea.
With the pink poncho that I had procured at a 7-11 flapping behind me like a cape, I scootered my way across the island. The fisherman at a desolate fishing beach were much amused at the sight of a man in a pink condom, photographing the low-tide beach in the rain.
Then I stopped by a little juice shack where the father managed the shop while his son idled watching an English premier league match on his smartphone. I got myself a Thai Ice tea and watched a small stream gurgle behind his shack. Then I drove aimlessly through the small, beautiful roads of the island stopping at a couple of empty beaches. But the rain had begun to get heavier and the discomfort was now trumping my romantic desperation.
Bangkok
I returned the scooter and trudged back through the beach back to the resort. Empty, as usual. I wasn’t yet ready to go back to my room and so even as it drizzled, I got myself a large jack on the rocks and opened a book and read for the next two hours, asking for the occasional refill. By the end of the evening, I was feeling pretty good about the day and I wouldn’t attribute it all to the Jack.
I left the resort the next day. The return was much the same way - speed boat ride, followed by a taxi to the airport and a plane ride to Suvarnabhumi airport. Overall, the trip was average and I realized that as much as idling by the sea is a fantasy of mine, I get a real high from driving, walking or just exploring a new place. Also, solo trips become bearable only when you’re exploring. In any case, I cannot wait for N to come back and for us to start traveling again.
Suvarnabhumi was chaotic and crowded. As I took the taxi back home, I watched the starkly contrasting scenes - crowded streets filled with traffic, the roadside food stalls and the large malls, I almost felt giddy with happiness. Strange how the picture postcard things we dream of turn out to be a damp squib sometimes. Where you live will always have that welcoming feeling of home, even if you’ve lived for less than a year.
Could be worse,
Tyag
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