Thailand – Day 2 (Day 44 away)

Yesterday I arrived in Thailand at about 4pm local time. I met a nice couple at the airport and we split a cab. I thought they might be Mormons but there were a couple of clues which tipped me off that they clearly weren’t. It turns out they were members of the Jehova’s Witnesses religion.

After taking what was quite possibly the most dangerous Taxi rid imaginable I met up with my new friend Dave at our “Guest House”. As I mentioned before Dave is another student from the U of L. Let me just elaborate on the most dangerous taxi ride imaginable. If you know anything about the video game “Crazy Taxi” you might be on the verge of understanding what I went through yesterday. This guy didn’t really speak english that well, and frankly he didn’t drive that well either. Stop lights were no match for our driver, he just got into the left turning lane, turned, u-turned, turned left again, and we were on our way. When converting traffic lights into round abouts (traffic circles) was not an option, our guy just drove onto the shoulder, passed all the cars that were stopped, waited for the other cars to go through their green light and then just ran the red while everyone behind us just stared in amazement. We were only “offroad” once and that was so we could pass some cars waiting at a red light. I guess the only thing I can say is, all’s well that ends well.

In the evening Dave spent the night beating me at 8 ball. I told him a good pool player is the sign of a wasted childhood. He had to agree that he had played “a few times” growing up. I understand his older brother was in a world class pool tournament with over 250 teams and came in 4th. Dave says he doesn’t even bother to play him anymore because once you miss a shot it’s pretty much game over.

This morning we rented scooters and the plan for today is to take in some of the beaches, and maybe explore around the island. I’ll try and get some good photos.