Off the Grid Travelog

November 28, 2002

Kho Phangan: Beware to The Sweet-Blooded

We arrived on Kho Phangan after fifteen hours of travel: a taxi to the train station, the overnight train to a bus, a bus to the pier at Surat Thani, a ferry boat to Had Rin on Kho Phangan, and then a longtail boat to the pristine Had Tien cove.

When we arrived, we were immediately awed by the beauty of the resort-it blended completely into the jungle landscape. Trees and boulders jutted through the restaurant's teak floors, wood and stone steps snaked up the mountainside, where bungalows perched among palm trees and large flat-leaved plants that clapped in the rain. The deck of our thatched-roof bungalow looked out over the heavenly white sand beach. We spend some of our most serene moments rocking gently in our bungalow hammock, lulled by funky reggae riffs and mellow tunes, thanks to the MP3 player donated by our dear friend Phil Cohen and the all-nighter Tomas pulled to populate it with over 400 of our favorite songs. Tomas watched a sunset this way, its glow dancing on the water, setting the tips of trees and golden roofs ablaze in soft pinks and yellows.

In front of the resort's restaurant, several hammocks hung ready for our weary bodies. I rested in one, listening to the waves crashing on the shore fifty feet in front of me. Three large boulders rose from the churning waters, islands in a green-gray sea. The cove was small, perhaps a crescent of a few hundred yards. A hill of limestone boulders wrapped around the far end of the beach, looking as if they were thrown down from heaven thousands of years ago. Since then, they have grown thick, tangled beards of vegetation. Palm trees with spikes of leafy hair lined up on the ridge like sentinels. Below, a giant flat-faced boulder stooped toward the sea, like an old man kneeling for a drink.

The air buzzed with crickets and frogs and the papery wings of beetles and all manner of little creatures that owned the island. Fat ants darted all over the ground, the larger ones solitary and jerking, the smaller ones walking their highways in neat little rows, one after the other. It smelled like sand and bug repellant and salty sea.

Tomas indulged his ever-searching quest for the perfect banana blend, imbibing banana shakes at all hours of the day, and I discovered pineapple juice, freshly squeezed and delicately sweet as it trickled down my throat. We delighted in the tastes of a new favorite: Massaman curry, infused with coconut milk, puréed peanuts, and exotic herbs that left us salivating for more.

When the spirit, or heat, moved us, we waded into the bath-warm waters to soak our bodies, mine pink as a baby's bottom, Tomas' bronzing under the sun's eager rays. Recent monsoons swelled the sea just enough that we were able to body surf a few rogue waves.

We stayed in this paradise for two nights. The first day and night, mosquitoes tortured us non-stop and I sported welts that itched endlessly, provoking me to maddening frenzies of scratching that only made them itch more. After a sleepless night under our holey mosquito net, I began our second day on the island grumpy and itchy. But, the food was delicious and I indulged in my second massage in two days. By dusk, the mosquito king had sent out his best and urged his pal the spider-king to do the same. I have nothing against little creatures, it's when they get too big for their britches that I object. Wearied from scratching and expending too much energy trying to outsmart the critters, I finally hit the sack the second night a bit disillusioned with the jungle. Tomas waxed on the beauty of the place and I snorted and grumbled. After tying up the holes in the mosquito net with hair bands, I felt a bit more secure, but continued to suspect that a creature with a determined mind could find its way under the net and, most likely, into my open, snoring mouth. Just then, rolling my eyes at Tomas' perfectly rational explanation about the physics of bug travel, I looked up to the top of our net and there sat the hugest spider either of us had ever seen. This was no daddy longlegs. This was a thick-legged behemoth with a bulging tummy, a snarling, sharp-fanged mouth, and crazy eyes that looked deep into your soul and crushed you, in a nanosecond, into a whimpering fool.

Gasping for breath, I squeaked at Tomas, who was still lingering outside the net readying for bed. Seeing his eyes pop out at the sight of our devilish visitor, I knew my savior was just as rattled as I. Even so, he quickly donned plastic bags over each hand (like that would protect him from those FANGS!) and set about trying to reach the thing, only to send it scurrying all over the top of the net, under which, I must remind you, I was stiff with terror. In a moment that I can only attribute to divine intervention, the spider dropped into a fold in the middle of the net. So there it hung, seemingly unable to move, right above my head. I slipped my paws into the protective gear, took a deep breath, and clapped the fold, splattering the poor thing all over the place. We left in the morning in search of less verdant pastures and discovered a new paradise…

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