Operation Koh Samui

Oh Jack talk Thai. Jack talk Thai very well.

You may remember “Operation Koh Samui” from that scene at the end of Meet the Parents when Ben Stiller gets kicked out of the house, right before we learn that his real first name is Gaylord. Koh Samui is the tropical island where Robert DeNiro arranged for the suprise honeymoon in Meet the Parents. Having loved that movie, Koh Samui was the natural choice for our second honeymoon of the trip.

Our first day on Koh Samui was spent at the beach, kayaking, exploring and recovering from our previous night in Bangkok. While we were floating around in the crystal clear, coral filled water of the Gulf of Thailand, a vendor selling an assortment of balls and Frisbees appeared on the distant beach with the largest grin known to mankind. Looking to make a few Baht off some tourists, Ballman solicited us to shore by tossing a red football over his head and dancing around back and forth on the beach.

I was born and raised in Stony Brook, NY, a quaint university town on Long Island. That University is Stony Brook University, a fairly unknown state university with a football team that even the most avid college football fan has probably never heard of. I couldn’t be much further from home right now; Koh Samui is over 9000 miles away and would require a ferry, a bus, three flight changes and at least a 30 hour journey to get to back to eastern Long Island. That’s why when I saw that one of the two footballs that grinning Ballman was selling was a red Stony Brook Seawolves branded mini-football I couldn’t help but to laugh. A lot of things we have seen here simply don’t make sense but this one takes the cake for me. He looked at me and starting laughing as well, even though it was clear he had no idea what was going on.

We spent the remainder of the day walking around the main strip and ended with a great dinner. I ordered the shark, Jeff a 15oz steak, and Lang the Land, Sea, and Air Combo for Two featuring eight different animals and a plate that had to weigh at least three pounds.

The night ended abruptly as an island disease hit me hard and suddenly after dinner. After running a 103 fever all night with all too many symptoms of dengue fever, I checked into the Samui International Hospital, conveniently located next to our luxury resort.

When I was teaching in a remote Andes Mountain village atop a 14,000 foot peak in Peru two summers ago, I foolishly left my window open one night. The temperature during the day at the time was a pleasant 60 degrees. At night the temperature would drop down to the low teens, and the lack of heat, electricity, and hot water made the bitter cold inside my mud made house painfully uncomfortable, even under several layers of locally made alpaca sweaters. Waking up to an open window, a freezing room, and a mild case of hypothermia, I headed down to the local hospital, a one room tiled hut adjacent to the church at one end of town. The doctor laid me down and proceeded to use the ancient Incan language Quechua to chant healing prayers while rolling an egg back and forth on my forehead. Although I did feel better later that day, modern medicine tells me that the doctor’s method in curing my ailment was probably misguided.

My world tour of remote location hospitals continued yesterday. (Un)Fortunately, no ancient prayer or medieval medicine was practiced this time. Simply a quick flip on my stomach and the Thai-nurse-version of Brian McNamee greeted my backside with a steroid injection. The young Thai nurse administering the shot giggled the entire time as I gave a little yelp at the pain of the unexpected pinch. Maybe she had never seen someone ask three times to ensure that the shot didn’t include penicillin, which is the only thing I am devastatingly allergic to. Perhaps it was just the fact that no rear end as white as the full moon which they celebrate monthly has ever been exposed in that hospital. Either way, it was amusingly unprofessional.

I slept in for the next 18 hours while Jeff and Steve spent the day at the beach. After awakening from hibernation and feeling a hundred times better, I found Jeff and Steve and we headed to the local stadium to watch a Muay Thai boxing match. Muay Thai is the national sport of Thailand and is basically their version of mixed martial arts. Blood is often spilled before each fight is over, usually by knockout. We sat ringside among the rowdy island people who bet on every match. In one, Jeff bet on the clear blue corner favorite against a mustached local and, as the local betting population got rowdier, we were all, Jeff included, relieved when Jeff's fighter didn't win.

Every night there are also "Special Fights" which may include such matches as young children, Little People and a blindfolded free-for-all with many contestants. On our night they had a match between two girls and a match between a local champion and a British guy named Tim. Tim didn’t do so well.

While the bathroom attendants in Cambodia gave a very awkward yet relaxing shoulder massage while we stood at the urinals, the bathroom attendants at Chaweng Beach Stadium on Koh Samui, Thailand took it to the extreme. Lang had strained his neck badly while kayaking the previous day and had spent the past 36 hours complaining that he “couldn’t turn left”. Despite many stretches and painkillers, it was a struggle for him tilt his head upward to watch the boxing matches. He returned from the bathroom midway through the third match of the night with a huge grin on his face, saying “that easily had a 30% chance of paralyzing me for life, but I feel great now!”

While relieving yourself in the co-ed bathroom in Chaweng Beach Stadium, a warm towel is applied to the back of your neck. Afterward, while at the sink, a cold towel is rubbed over your face, arms, chest, and back. Then a full on chiropractic treatment is given as the bathroom attendants (who I am sure have completed extensive years of chiropractic schooling), realign your neck, back and shoulders with some of the loudest cracks you’ll ever hear. They topped it off by cracking your earlobes—who knew?

Well rested from our island retreat, we are off to a two day adventure tour in the Northern Thailand jungle in the mountains of Chiang Mai. The tour includes white water rafting, rainforest canopy zip lining, elephant riding, waterfall scaling, hiking, and exploring a wild tiger kingdom. Stick with us as we head toward the final stretch of our trip.