Today, after nearly two weeks working on the island, I literally scraped myself together and hobbled on to the ferry to do an inevitable visa run. I spent the first hour on the boat staring out the window,slack jawed with that totally dazed expression you see on so many people that work on Phi Phi – especially during the day. I can’t tell you what was going through my head, because I genuinely don’t think anything was. I was just existing, seeped in the aftermath of Valium and vodka, two of the life forces of the islands. After about an hour (some would say its because I was waking up/sobering up/coming down, this is not so, I firmly believe that coherency is directly proportionate to how far away geographically you are from the island) some semblance of senses returned, and I remembered that I could infact, move my head. This turned out to be a fairly shocking revelation as it allowed me the opportunity to take in my appearance. Shoes have not been in my life for some time now (if you ever want to spot someone who works on an island, look at their feet), and being aware of a dull pain under my toe and a considerable amount of swelling I decided to inspect further and found two large infected cuts, that have evidently sneaked up out of nowhere. Lovely. There is an unknown yellow substance on my shorts. I REALLY need the toilet, and for reasons that obviously seemed logical at the time, im wearing a rain mac. Chipped green nail varnish from long yore hangs on grimly, a sad shadow of my former glory, and flakes of neon paint from the multiple flowers, ‘P.P’s’ and ‘ WOODY 2013’s’ scribed territorially all over me by the fire boys last night, still proclaim their message feebly. Remnants of yesterdays makeup blink back at me in the reflection, my hair would make my friends back at home cry and there is a faint smell of bonfire emanating from me constantly. Couple all this with the raging chest infection I have from doing fire limbos and skipping fire ropes all night (if you listen closely when I breathe in there is a wheezy whistling sound, not unlike a death rattle, that Mutley would be proud of) and I look to be quite frank, completely deranged. Deciding to yawn, it is interrupted by the necessity to hawk up God knows what, but it’s black and was probably once part of the fire show. A tourist looks at me in a vaguely alarmed kind of way. I maintain dignity. It was probably a sign when the wonderful Rob who shares my room started leaving electrolyte sachets and rehydration salts on my pillow, and also changing my bed sheets, I wish id grabbed one of the packets before i left and wonder absently what on earth im going to do if he moves out.. it was bad enough when Bruno left and my food intake went down by half. By two hours time I’m musing the fact that I’m voluntarily going back to the island for more. Voluntarily. Going. Back. I’m still musing this three hours away, as I’m currently wedged in the front of a mini van headed for Malaysia, with the driver, two rucksacks and a really unimpressed French girl (can’t really blame her, I look downright dangerous and sound like i have the plague) At the moment I’m still in Thailand and therefore far too close to be able to think about this in any kind of rational way…. But my rucksack resides in the refugee camp, guarded by my lovely if insane Russian friend, just waiting for my return and all said and done, I do have a cracking tan……..
Author: Niki In Wanderland
Phi phi nights….
So, at the moment I am working on the beautiful island of phi phi being paid £1.60 an hour to drink vodka out of buckets, dance on tables, watch fire shows and hand out flyers. It’s pretty fucking awesome – clarified last night when, perched on a table sharing my bucket with a delightful rabble of French revellers, my spectacularly hammered friend Erica came sailing threw the air and literally face planted on my head (even the Thais were shocked – she, probably luckily, has no memory of it, I’m finding it harder to forget as my neck is still twinging). It’s a great place and loads of people stay for months but it would be completely easy to go fully wild here, there literally are no boundaries. If you can remain sober for long enough to actually look through the haze of booze, smoke and gyrating Thai fire boys dripping in sweat and gasoline, the undercurrents that make up the secret fabric of this place are sometimes alarmingly evident.
For example, last night I finished at 1am and, totally exhausted from 4 hours of my fabulous dancing, flopped into one of the beanbags lying around. I was immediately joined by one of the French wearing a t-shirt wrapped round his head. He was pleasant and earnest enough and we spoke about elephants and tigers and such like, before strolling down the beach with his friends and sitting on the sand. I was well into full swing on my opinions about the Vietnam war, when I suddenly noticed there had been no replies for a while, most of the others were lying down, and one was looking at me somewhat vacantly, nodding in all the wrong places. With one eye open. Deciding to test this out, without breaking my tone at all, I slipped in “…and then the unicorn flew past, do you know what I mean?” Yes he did. Of course. If he hadn’t of had a slightly Labrador-ish quality about him, I would of been offended that my conversation skills are clearly not as interesting to others as they are to me lol. Taking my leave of the French group, I headed off back down the beach passing a completely comatosed Thai lady lying flat on her back, mouth open. A group of about 8 were huddled around her. One, looking thoroughly baffled and seemingly for a lack of anything better to do, was shining a torch in her face. One was taking pictures on his iPhone. Two were eyeing up the girl holding on to the unconscious ones hand. I kept walking.
It was then that I noticed the twinkle of eyes hidden in the dark, the flash of a smile from a closed bar, the murmur of voices with no bodies, and one very passionate and definitely illicit rendezvous in some shrubs. Nothing here goes unseen, you can be sure of that.
Ploughing on, I reached the main strip and decided that as a treat I would splash out on a slice of pizza. Munching and musing, I was on the way home when I came across one of the charming topless Brazilian contingent that works opposite us. He had found a tourist and she was, clearly, up for it. I’d been spotted but was keen to not interrupt so settled for a quick high five in passing. Cue, a marvellous flounce off by the apparently outraged tourist! She was heading off at a fairly impressive pace, leaving me staring after her, eyebrows raised and grinning (really, it was one of the best over reactions and subsequent storm off to a high five I’ve ever seen, I’d quite like to be friends with her) and him staring at… Me. I was still grinning when I looked at him, and then that moment of realisation hit. As quick as I could I cleared up the situation and was like “oh no no, I’m not having sex with you, quick run, run you’ll catch her!” Looking from me to her retreating figure the decision was instantaneous. The last I saw was his back disappearing down the street. Lol.
I made it the rest of the way unscathed, thoughtful but content. I climbed into my mozzie infested nest of a bunk bed, and was just settling into a comfortable doze (my 12 or so resident mozzies waiting patiently for my eyes to finally close and then get the party started) when, right next to my head, a shriek pierced the air! Me, the mozzies and roughly half the dorm room jumped about 6 feet in the air, and as I wildly scrabbled around in the dark for my glasses, another one came! Peering out into the gloom I inspected the bundle of mozzie net, clothes and towels lying prone in the bed next to me. “Erica!?” I whispered, and sure enough the bundle went “aaaaarrrrggghhhhh”. And then proceeded to keep doing it. Loudly. Now, those that know me will know that when something strikes me as funny, I find it really funny. This struck me as funny, so in between bouts of hysterical laughter I tried my best to be soothing, stack my stuff up out of potential barfing zones, and at the same time in the nicest possible way, get her to shut up lol. It seemed to work as a few minutes later a little voice croaked weakly into the night “Niki??” “Yes babe” “I’m going to die” (me, trying not to laugh) “no you’re not angel, you’re just drunk, you’re gonna be fine”. This seemed to do the trick and apart from the occasional squeak, everyone went back to sleep, all was as it should be here, and the mozzies had a fabulous night at the expense of my legs, right arm and eyebrows (they’re getting adventurous the little bastards I tell you).
And as for Erica today, well, she’s still drunk but being much less ‘exorcist’ about the whole thing. Haha.
A Moment With a Monkey
I had a really strange incident with a monkey today. So on the corners of the streets here thai people stand with monkeys in nappies and stupid outfits and sometimes lizards and stuff and you pay to have a photo with them. I’m always sad when I see them coz I hate what they’ve done to them and want to rescue them, so I never pay them any attention. Today we walked past and there was abit of a hold up next to them and as I was standing this little hand came out of nowhere and just gripped my wrist. Now this is unusual in itself coz normally they’re so drugged or scared they just sit there and don’t move, but what’s more unusual is that I sensed him reaching to touch me before he did and I wasn’t looking in that direction until something made me look round just in time to see this little paw round my wrist. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt a monkeys hand, but they’re beautiful, really really soft and velvety, like the pads on a cats paw but softer, but they’re quite strong coz they’ve got little fingers you know, and he held on to my wrist really tight, I could feel each one of his fingers and joints, and we kind of locked eyes… My friend said after that my face went from total indifference to full on bambi eyes in like one second and she was also like that was so weird, you could like see the connection between us…. And I felt like I loved that monkey so much and at the same time I felt my heart break a little bit, and the guy holding him shouted at him and pulled his hand off but he kept looking at me as I walked away. I will find that monkey again, and I will steal it. Haha.
Niki In Wanderland 