It is my last day on Samui and, thanks to last
night’s drinking, I sleep fairly late, which isn’t a bad thing at all. My
flight isn’t until early afternoon, so I don’t have to rush. The day is already
stinking hot, but I drink my coffee outside anyway, knowing that I will be
returning to work in rainy, cold, blah Cincinnati. I realize that I have yet to
pay Aiman for the scooter rental. I message him about it, and he comes over to
my place to collect the money…in his tiny underwear. It's killing me. Once I stop staring, I also give him a few extra
baht to arrange airport transport for me. After watching Aiman’s perfect, underwear-model ass
leave, I do the last bits of packing that my drunk self couldn’t cope with last
night, and head out for one last visit to the spa.
It is not
quite opening time for the spa yet, and I don’t have a key. This seems
hilarious, even to me, but the sliding glass doors were installed after I left
the last time, and frankly, I don’t need to carry a key around with me on tour.
Mr. Long is inside when I arrive, so he lets me in. He is making his
preparations to go home for Songkran. He is from a small, inland town, far from
the sea, so he is busy packing a huge, polystyrene chest with ice and fresh
fish for his family. I can’t imagine lugging a bucket of fish onto the ferry
and then the bus, but this is life in Thailand and family at Songkran is a big
deal.
Though Songkran is a lunar date on the calendar, it is actually a water festival, symbolic of cleansing and starting fresh. Buddha statues everywhere have a bowl of water placed next to them so that you can pour water over them. This blessed water is sometimes collected and sprinkled on the shoulders of the elderly for luck, prosperity and health. People will also bless monks with water during this holiday.
In modern day, the water blessing custom has evolved into what is the world's biggest water fight. You can't go anywhere in Thailand during Songkran without getting completly, utterly, drenched. It is a joyful celebration of renewal and cleansing and everyone goes mental.
The end of our street during Songkran
Songkran madness
I have time to grab a little something to eat,
knowing that the food options at Samui airport are virtually non-existent. I go
to a splashy, modern place around the corner and have a delicious Spanish
Potato Hash and some REAL coffee.
As I enjoy breakfast, I read the various
international newspaper stories about the car bomb that went off two nights ago
at the big mall, Central Festival, just down the street from us.
Since the
government in Thailand can, and does, censor media, the only true fact
one can glean is that the bomb went off in a car in the parkade, and that no
one was killed. Everything else is conjecture, media hype and political
innuendo. When we heard about the bomb on that night, I was still at Pride Bar,
so we all began to check our Twitter feed, the only reliable source of immediate
information left in the world, to see what had happened. Who knows if we’ll
ever really know the truth. Various factions will continue to point the
finger, the government will pick and choose what information is shared,
the police will continue to be corrupt and disorganized and it will drag on and on
until it is long forgotten. Thailand, where it’s just easier to embrace the whole glorious mess.
It is time for me head to the airport. I bid the
boys at the spa farewell, and head back to my studio to drop off the scooter
and pick up my luggage. I am woefully over dressed as I wait for my airport
pick up, but I know that if I wear shorts and a T-shirt on the plane, I’ll be so cold that
I’ll end up cryogenically preserved for future generations.
Samui airport is beautiful. The whole thing is open
to the elements, and there are beautiful gardens, blossoming trees and water
features everywhere. This means, though, that the only way for me to escape the
heat in my long pants is to pretend to shop for the over-priced tourist crap in
the gift stores.
Eventually, it is time for me to board my flight and begin the endless (30-ish hours) flight away from paradise and back to reality. I am not happy about it.
In spite of how short, stressful, busy, complicated and completely un-holiday-like this trip was, I'm never happy to leave this place. But at least now, I feel more confident in the spa surviving in my absence, and even a sense of hope that I may now have a real idea about it's daily operations.
But of course, the drama is on-going...
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