Utterly motherless

Websites, friends, people you don’t know and their cats were telling my beau and I about the absolute gorgeousness of this little bellybutton fluff sticking out of Thailand's navel and that we should make sure that we hydrate a lot, as it might be a bit warm. Granted. But no one told us that it would be so ungodly, yawning crows and vulture circling hot!

That said, I was sitting there, quarter to nine in the evening, in the quiet of Phuket. In the background the wind was playing with some bamboo charms, someone was grinding and sawing to finish their shop, and a few crackers had illuminated the night.

I was sitting outside on a veranda, with only my skin and my shoes, determined that I was the first person on earth who set a record for the least-sleep-while-traveling-back-in-time-too, ever!

We left our South Africa at seven the previous morning, and I had not closed my eyes for 36 hours straight. Well, still sitting in front of the computer, I came to the conclusion that my body and brain were to tired to sleep. Or perhaps it was because of the impenetrable slut named heat!

On our way to our hotel, it seemed that the bigbird just made a twelve-hour detour to KwaZulu-Natal. Banana trees, shrubbery, and hellfire’s oven left open. Following a daunting trip in a (Thank God!) air-conned taxi, through some areas that makes Soweto look like a five star resort, we had arrived at our hotel. Pleasantly surprised by the serenity and the beauty of the area it was hulled in, but dog tired just the same, we had to wait another hour before we could be booked in, because, you see, we were too early. That heat!

At last, we were booked in and the beau and I tried to close our eyes, which only lasted half an hour. (I set the alarm for two hours, but my biological clock was effed). So I got up and painted the town red. (Partly because I was so red from heatstroke!)

Our hotel!

“Durban with a roof” says the beau. Dare to enter the market and every human calls you to buy something from them, even though you have just bought exactly the same thing from his neighbour. Fifty stalls, ‘n pair of Fillafong slops, one chocolate Cornetto smeared Megan (that’s me), two straw hats and two pairs of Raybans later, the beau and I realised that Phuket isn’t entirely walkable, even though it looked the size of a dime on the map.

Challenge accepted! Soon we were on our way to Phatong beach on mopeds. Never in my life have I seen such a whoresnest of electrical cables AND Phuket’s traffic – utterly motherless! (Which is actually my sort of heaven. There is nothing I enjoy more than the rush of traffic and having the odd brawl with a taxi.) However, this was an entirely different scene.

Whoresnest of cables

There was not one working traffic light and four million scooters were traveling in the direction that Sa Wat Dee Ka was sending them (latter means Hello! in Thai, but that’s almost all you hear). Then you had the thirty three thousand red tuk-tuk’s to pardon. Their owners would shout the price of the taxi and that we should take a ride with them, while on our scooters! Well, add a broken speedometer, and a fretful beau and you have one interesting ride.

On our way back to the hotel, I came across a roadblock and was pulled over because I am clearly a tourist. The pigs asked me for my license, which I left at the hotel for safety reasons. But a little white lie can’t hurt.

“It’s in my boyfriend’s backpack. I don’t have any pockets.” (Which I really did not have, being half naked in a sheer blue dress and a bikini). Meanwhile, I lost the beau in this can of worms called traffic and I hoped that he was still behind me. Which he was. With a fine of 300 baht, I was arrested while the beau drove off to withdraw money. But I won’t stop here. In Afrikaans I told him to pretend that the license was in his backpack all the time. He then had to pretend that when coming back from withdrawing money that it was in his wallet, he did just not realise it. The pigs weren't very easily convinced. But then! Puppy eyes, it works!