Thai Tattoos for Traveling Tourists

After Bangkok (and a less-than-wonderful overnight stay on the island of Ko Phangan, which is very boring if it isn't a full moon) we headed to Khao Lak, a small area north of Phuket, where our friend Daniel, who used to teach in Toyama, is living and teaching English. The area was beautiful, right on the coast, and very relaxed and friendly. It was a very welcome change after the bustle of Bangkok. We basically spent 4 days relaxing, going to the beach, eating seafood, listening to live music, and getting Thai massages (rough life, I know).

Daniel, Nat & I

Woman at the restaurant next to Daniel's apartment who cooked us a delicious seafood dinner. Preparation cost? about $1.

Really cool Thai instrument I wish I could remember the name of.

On the second day we decided to rent motos. Daniel has one, but cramming three people onto it each time we wanted to go somewhere was getting a little old, so Nat and I decided to each get our own. I had driven my own before in Hungary, when Ethan and I went from Berlin. It had been an experience I might describe as...harrowing. I spent most of the time trying to keep up with him as he zigged and zagged through crazy Budapest traffic, and ended up falling off it twice, leading to a bruised and bloodied left side of my body and some very dirty clothes. (Note, Ethan is not a crazy driver, we just fall on opposite sides of the Conservative Moto Driver Line.)

I thought this time would be different. Wrong. We managed to drive about 20 minutes north on a super busy road, and the whole time I was well behind Nat and Daniel thinking "one weird bump and I'm dead, one hand slips and I'm dead, oh God there are so many cars around me." I tried to push those thoughts aside, and once we got onto smaller roads I started to feel more comfortable. We arrived at our destination, a beautiful beach, and hung out swimming and eating papaya salad (spicy! spicy! spicy!). On our way out, Nat and Daniel were once again way ahead of me within the first 3 minutes, and thus didn't notice when I turned a corner and totally wiped out in the middle of the road. A man stopped to help me, though he mostly seemed angry, maybe he felt obliged to stop but didn't actually want to. So when I finally caught up with the other two I looked much worse for wear - I was bleeding from my leg and forearm and my whole right side was covered in dust.
Oh well, what do we do when we fall off the horse?

We get back on.

("I'm not a gymnast, Maury.")

So I pulled myself together, hopped back on and headed back out towards the busy busy road, trying to silence the voices in my head which had now moved past reasonable worry to panicky terror. Slowly but surely, I made it back into town. We went past Daniel's house and further on to a tattoo parlor, as Natalie was thinking of getting a tattoo and wanted to do some research. I stopped, prepared to make the right turn across traffic into the parking lot (they drive on the left in Thailand, too, who knew), and then went....but managed to wipe out once more as soon as I entered the parking lot. Awesome.
This time it was actually worse, I think, because so many people were watching. All the store owners ran out of their shops to help me up, each one acting concerned for me while at the same time laughing at what a bad driver I am ("stupid foreigner can't ride a moto" - I swear I could read their minds and that's what they were saying). The owner of the tattoo parlor and his girlfriend rushed me into their bathroom, washed me up and covered my wounds in antiseptic.

So there I had it, my "Thai tattoo" (arm wound from moto). At that moment, as I was being attended to in the back of a tattoo shop in the middle of Thailand, I made a pact with myself which I plan to adhere to:

Never again will I attempt to drive a moto.
Ride on the back, okay. But drive, never.

Moto = No Go

We ended up going back to the tattoo parlor the next day so Nat could get her tattoo. She had been planning it for months, and essentially designed it herself - frangipani (or plumeria, as we call the flower) on her foot. It is a pretty big tattoo and thus took a few hours, and so I spent the day hanging out in the shop, buying things at the convenience store for Nat (like gummi bears for her to chew on when the pain was too bad), reading, and speaking with a German tourist who came in to hang out and talk about graffiti art with Top, the tattoo guy. After Nat was finished, Top's girlfriend Nim brought out a delicious salad and Top brought out some whiskey (and taught us how to tell if the bottles are faked - yes, they even fake alcohol in Thailand), Daniel showed up, and we all sat around talking, eating, drinking, and listening to Top and his friend play the guitar. They gave us homemade honey for Natalie's cough, and two kinds of leaves they had picked, one to make you sleepy, and one they called "amphetamine leaf" to wake you up (we left that one alone). It was probably the best tattoo experience Nat (and I, the bystander) could have asked for.

Art is Pain

Top Demonstrates Fun with Crickets

Post Tattoo Sing-a-Long
(my second favorite Thai song, after Wood's - miss you Wood!)