Saturday 14th April 2012 - Krabi

Today I wanted to go to Railay beach so i got dressed, jumped on a scooter and headed to the nearest tourist office. They said that if I wanted to go I just needed to go to the longboat office and book myself. Whilst I was in the tourist office I booked a trip for tomorrow - visiting Hong islands for site-seeing, snorkelling and swimming. I had breakfast Asian style (chicken fried rice, fruit juice and fresh fruit and then jumped on my scooter ready to go in the direction of the long boat office. As soon as I sat on my scooter I was drenched with water by a passing truck. Although the Water Festival (Songkran festival) can last up to two weeks I hadnt heard the same noise in the morning while getting ready as I had heard yesterday so i figured that they wouldn't be throwing water today. How wrong was I. There wasn't as many vans or people lining the streets but those that were in the few vans weren't having mercy on people. Riding my bike just led me straight into the craziness so I decided to give up on the idea of going anywhere and just headed to the beach to sunbathe. After sunbathing for maybe half an hour I got up to go and try go buy water. Out of nowhere I heard "Natalie!!" I looked over the road and I saw Maria, the spirtual goddess from Perhentian!! The most random thing ever!! She was with her boyfriend Mihai, she had told me so much about him when we were in perhentian. He was Romanian and she had met him in Thailand. I was sad to hear that she wasn't happy with him and felt that he trapped/suppressed her spirit and that she wanted to leave him. I ended up staying with them both for the whole day hitch-hiking around on all the vans filled with the people taking part in the water fight. It was a crazy experience and so unexpected!!!  At around maybe 5 Maria and Mihai caught their boat to where they were staying (tonsai beach) and we arranged to meet there in two days time. I went to eat in the evening at a place called Chuan Chim and have never felt more humiliated in all my life. Apparently my white skin and being a single person makes me invisible and means that I can be treated less than dirt. I came across the place after jumping on my scooter and trying to find somewhere to have some authentic food. The place was packed with Thai people so I parked up my bike and walked in. There were no seats that I could see so I walked to a table near the back where a lady was working out people's bills. She didn't acknowledge me so I interrupted her and asked for a table for one, she said something in Thai and walked off so I had no idea whether she was helping me or not. I stood there feeling like a moron and felt that everyone was looking at me. There was a table for 4 that was empty but it had no chairs - I figured they could have just grabbed a chair and put me there but no...I waited and waited and nothing. While I was standing there I picked up a menu so that I didnt have to look around at everyone staring at me. I had second thoughts about eating there when I noticed they had two menus - one in Thai and one in English. The prices of the english menu were more than doubled. Eventually I got my phone out and looked up how to ask "how long?" in Thai and coyly asked one of the waiters. He replied in Thai but of course I had no idea what he said so I said a table for one in english. He pointed at the empty table and I said yeh enthusiastically. He brought a chair over and I sat down feeling like a massive outcast. I ordered my food and a Chang beer - he brought the drink over straight away. Whilst sitting at the table i thought I would check if the place had wifi. They did. I walked over to the another lady and asked her for the password but was dismissed and told they didn't have wifi even though they did. I then asked another guy who was walking passed me. He said something in Thai and then walked off never to return. The final straw was when a large group of people came in the restaurant and needed an extra table. The horrible lady from the start walked over to me and said "we move you, we need table". Guess where I was moved to. The table where she does the bills. I had all the menus sitting in front of me and had her walking back and forth to my table. That was it for me. I might as well have been put in the back of the Kitchen and given the scraps to eat. I tried to get her attention in Thai  - "kor toht tee" (excuse me please). She wafted me away like a fly and said "one minute" without even looking at me. My heart was racing and my body was shaking - i felt absolutely humiliated and like a piece of doo-doo!  I stood up, walked over to her and said that I no longer wanted to eat there. I handed her 100baht for my drink, which I regret doing because I hadn't even bloody drank half, and walked out. Since I have been travelling I have never been treated so badly. In Malaysia I went to eat at a really busy place that was filled with loads of locals but they didn't just dismiss me because I was only one. Athough I can imagine they probably would have loved to give my two person table to two people, they were really warm and friendly to me too. I got on my scooter and took my frustration out on the acceleration of my bike. I drove in the direction of where I was staying as I had eaten around there for the past two days with no problems. In fact, the waiter at the hippie place I had eaten at the night before had ever complimented my hair. I decided I would eat there. I walked in and sat at the table I had sat at the night before and felt a lot happier when the waiter acknowledged me like he recognised me from last night. The food was amazing. I ordered prawn with cashew nuts in an oyster sauce, mixed vegetables and plain rice, to drink I had a Mai Tai. I had a Skype call with Angie (my dad's girlfriend), which cheered me up, and then was delighted when the people sitting at the table next to me invited me to join them. There were three guys, one older guy, two boys of about my age, and a young girl of about maybe 15 whose parents were sitting over at a different table watching her as she spoke to these guys. I noticed the guys of my age from yesterday's waterfight as they had bravely walked up to my station and i had gone head to head with one of them - he looked like an Essex boy. As soon as I joined the table me and the Essex boy started bantering with me teasing him saying he looked like Joey Essex. They were great fun. My night went from miserable to amazing within seconds. We all drank and caught so many jokes. The older guy had left as he was flying home tomorrow and the younger girl had been summoned by her parents. The guys were called Jordan (from Canada) and Jamie (from Surrey). They had met whilst travelling and decided to travel together - they were really close and we joked that they were like a married couple. Jordan was only travelling for three weeks as he was on annual leave from his post as a fire-fighter. Jamie was 22-years old and was a farmer. He was travelling for a couple of weeks before heading to New Zealand to work for a year and then go traveling again. We stayed drinking at the restaurant for a couple of hours and then the boys suggested going to a club. I hadn't been out since I was here and so we did it. Somehow it ended up with all three of us bundled onto my scooter laughing our heads off until we reached an area where there were loads of bars and clubs. A man walked over to us and handed us a flyer offering buy one get one free on drinks so we stopped at his place. The bar man was amazing and pulled out jenga for all four of us to play. This was like no jenga you have ever seen before - it consisted of four different boxes piled up in a different kind of way that gets absolutely massive as you play. The tension whilst we were playing was immense - we all focused so hard and couldn't touch the table because any movement could make this bad boy fall. Eventually Joey Essex made the tower collapse - so glad it wasn't me!! After Jenga we played connect four - I learnt from Thailand last year that the bar staff are hustlers when it comes to connect four we only made a small bet. The bet was each of us (Nat, J, and J) would play against the bar man and it was the best of three - if we won we get a round of drinks. If we lose we buy the bar man a tequila which was only 100baht. We lost surprise surprise but it was great fun. At one we ended up in the tattoo shop behind the bar with Joey Essex contemplating inking himself!! I convinced him otherwise and then we headed to all the clubs in the area dancing and going crazy in each. Somehow during the night both boys declared their love for me but were super cool and still lovely when I told them I wasn't interested. We ended up sloppily munching on burger king at the end of the night and I rolled home at 5 in the morning slightly drunk!! (a lot) and somehow ended up sitting with my hotel owner and his friends for a bit before setting my alarm for 3hours time and crawling into bed.