ferry fun

As the porthole exploded inward and I was drenched with a couple gallons of sea water, shipwreck movies were running through my head. When the ocean starts to crack the windows and flood the ship, it's time for the characters to panic. A few of my fellow passengers were eager enough to pick up the cue.
About all I could do was sit there, muscles tensed, clutching the armrests of my seat and watching as a skinny Thai crew member was nearly bucked off the bow of the ship as he lashed a sheet of metal over the hole where a window used to be.
On our way in to Koh Pha-Ngan the ferry ride was no sweat; it was a relief after an overnight bus ride from Bangkok. After a couple of nights partying and days doing exactly nothing on the island, it was time to head back to Bangkok and finish our time in Southeast Asia.
The morning weather on the island was fine. I didn't notice the rough seas until we got on the boat - a modern catamaran accommodating more than a hundred people. The route was in two hour-long steps: Koh Pha-Ngan to Koh Tao, another island off the Southeastern Thailand coast, then on to the mainland.
As soon as we left Koh Pha-Ngan, the boat was rocking in five-to-10-foot swells. Just big enough to throw me into my first bout with seasickness. I managed to avoid any personal food expulsion, but when we pulled into Koh Tao I was fighting nausea. During a layover on Koh Tao I popped a seasickness pill (a great decision) and my stomach decided it didn't need to scream at me anymore and settled into a sulking grumble.
By this time the sky had turned gray and a few short downpours had all the passengers huddled with their luggage in the snack bar or under the waiting area's roof. The scheduled layover dragged on, and word spread the boat from the mainland - which would take us to shore - was running late.

Eventually we loaded up. The rain forced the crew to move all luggage inside the passenger compartment, rather than the normal practice of piling it on the front deck. As the ferry pulled away from the dock, it became apparent the wait had only intensified the waves. The swells now were 10-15 feet, and every time the boat rose up on a wave, it violently slammed down into the water on the other side. It felt like we were constantly being picked up and dropped a few feet onto a parking lot. The boat shuddered on every landing, then made another rapid ascent up the next wave. In the brief instant of weightlessness at each peak, my stomach kept going up even as the rest of my body started to drop with the boat. Each parabola of rise and fall also propelled me up off my seat, and then back down, unless I physically held myself tight to the chair.
Eventually, the impacts took their toll - the plastic casing around some florescent lights at the front of the cabin came loose, crashing into a group of already-nervous passengers. One girl in particular ended up with more of her blood outside her leg than she would have preferred. Just as the crew had gotten her panic attack under control and moved her to the rear rows of the cabin, a far more alarming wave hit.
Instead of hitting this wave head-on, the boat was at a bit of an angle. The front right corner led as the boat tilted down into a trough, and the boat was stilled dipped when the wave crashed over the corner of the deck and up into the front of the boat with enough force to blow out a window. That's when I became soaked with saltwater and starting thinking about shipwreck movies, as well as the two-paragraph stories on ferry sinkings in developing countries; the deaths always well outnumber the survivors, by about 100 to 1.
The people across the aisle from me had pieces of glass coating them, along with sea water. Those passengers who weren't simply stunned by the event voiced some concern.

"We're going to die!"
Comforting to all, of course.
"We must go back!"
This one gained some traction among the group; we were only about 15 minutes into the trip and could still see the dock behind us. The Thai crew did their best to talk everyone down, although most people shouting were more interesting in voicing their opinion than listening to anyone else. A few individuals defused the crowd by pointing out the captain was likely better qualified than the screaming passengers to make such a decision. The captain, above in his cabin and unseen by the passengers, did make one concession to the situation by slowing down considerably. With a bit less momentum, the boat avoided any more waves breaking into the boat. The crew passed out doses of menthol oil which served two purposes: for one, it was calming and seemed to combat both seasickness and the low-level anxiousness which the roiling sea induced.
It also masked the scent of the passengers whose seasickness got the better of them; once one or two passengers' stomachs sent their contents outward, the urge was contagious. It also wasn't helped by the seasickness bags the crew passed out, which happened to be clear plastic.
The hour-long trip instead took more like two and a half. The surreal sense of the whole trip was only heightened by the TV monitors playing "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" in the corners of the cabin. Although I suppose it was better than "Titanic," or "Poseidon."




There is a postscript to this story. Our journey from the islands to Bangkok was supposed to take about 12 hours, putting us in Bangkok around 11 p.m. that night. Instead, the tropical depression off the coast delayed and slowed our ferry, which meant we missed our bus connection. We ended up arriving in Bangkok at about 4 a.m. We had no room reservation (a concept that doesn't exist in Asian backpacker budget accommodation). We walked along the backpacker area and found a room available for about 800 baht, or $20. Instead of taking it, we searched for another 45 minutes until we found a room for about 500 baht, or $12.50. A month in SE Asia will seriously screw with your cost-comparison calculations. We seriously felt the first room was simply too expensive to even consider, even though we were exhausted and it was 4 in the morning. Instead, we sacrificed an hour of sleep - when we knew we'd have to check out of either place in the morning - to save about eight bucks.
It didn't even strike us as unusual at the time. In a month traveling around Thailand, Laos and Cambodia we probably paid an average of $7-8 a night for accommodation, and that's double beds and private rooms, not the dorm beds we paid $20/night each in Australia. In SE Asia, most restaurants posted their menu (in English) outside. After a week or so, we'd look at the menus, and if any one item cost more than the equivalent of $2.50 or so, the place was too expensive and we'd find somewhere else.
Then, in Iceland, we stayed at the Salvation Army, in dorm beds, in separate rooms, and paid the equivalent of about $40/night each for the privilege. If we wanted blankets, it was an extra $7/night.

baby buggies

baby buggies
Originally uploaded by slack13.

We ran into these buggies outside the shops in Rykjavik. It's interesting enough to me that they still have buggies such as this, rather than the super-decked out strollers I see here. But wait, there's more.
There were babies in these. Left outside the shop. With no supervision. In November, in Iceland.
People would go nuts here. In fact, someone told me there was a case where a European tourist was chared with child neglect by New York police for doing the exact same thing. But apparently it's considered bad form to disturb others' shopping experience by bringing a baby in the store.

It's a refreshing attitude.

last day

Blue Lagoon
Originally uploaded by slack13.

I found myself neck-deep in the local power plant's waste just before leaving Iceland for good.
And I paid to do that.
The penultimate stop on our World Tour was Iceland's Blue Lagoon. The lagoon is the outflow from the local Geothermal Power Plant. Since the waste products that make it to the lagoon are mineral-rich water and heat, someone had the bright idea to turn the spot into a resort and spa.
Apparently it's one of the most-visited spots in Iceland. Since it's between Iceland's international airport and Reykjavic all the bus companies include an optional stop here on the way to or from the airport. We decided to go ahead and take the option on our way out of the country.
So on the morning of Nov. 30 we woke up, hopped in the waiting bus, and headed to the Blue Lagoon.
We arrived around 10:30 a.m. The sun hadn't yet started to color the sky.
It wasn't a perfect day to take the waters. The air temperature when we arrived was something like 34 degrees Farenheit. A hard, icy wind was blowing. Resort attendants walked along the edge of the water in full artic parkas, gloves, boots and earmuffs.
The water itself was warm. The digital readout said it ranged from 95 degrees to 109 degrees by one of the steam vents. However, the bulk of the water wasn't quite warm enough to take away the chill from the air. Especially since you are required to shower before entering the water, so the wind had a better chance of freezing your ears solid. The sauna and steamroom provided momentary welcome respites from the cold, until their heat proved too much for comfort.
The weather gave the place an other-worldly feel. Steam rising off the milky-blue water obscured the other bathers and hid the resort buildings. It combined with the indistinct lighting and volcanic rocks piled along the boundaries of the lagoon for the overall surreal quality.
We spent about three hours at the Blue Lagoon before catching the bus to the airport and waiting for our flight (which ended up being delayed more than an hour by the first snow we'd seen).
As a resort, it was a disappointment. As spot to show off the unique character of Iceland's landscape and weather, it succeeded even despite the handicap of being an artifical landscape.

last day (II)

We sat on the tarmac for about an hour, our time in Iceland slightly extended for de-icing. The flakes were heavy, wet chunks pelting the ground in sheets, propelled by the wind.
On arrival in Baltimore, we were leery of customs. The form asked for all items purchased overseas - we needed extra space just to write the countries visited. Even if I'd wanted to answer completely, I didn't remember exactly what we'd picked up during the year.
No need to worry. Customs didn't even look at the list. They didn't even want to look in the bags, even when we admitted to having food in the bags. We didn't even get an entry stamp in the passport - just a stamp on our customs form and a wave on through.
When we did arrive, my sister was waiting. She had a different idea - she was worried we'd been extensively questioned and searched. The airport had never changed the status of our flight to "delayed." Instead, the board read "on time" for our arrival. We were amazed we cleared passport control, got our bags and cleared customs in a total of maybe 20 minutes. To her, the process apparently took two hours.

a few notes on the first day back

* Baltimore at night was noticeably brighter from the plane, even more so than London. This isn't to say Baltimore has more lights than London, just that it seemed the average output of each light was brighter. There was more bright white light, as opposed to the usual orange glow. I don't think this is a Baltimore problem. I think this is just the way American cities are. I don't know if it's a case of more lights, or brighter lights, or lights that aren't shielded. But it seemed brighter.

* There's too much space between everything on the streets. The roads are amazingly wide; in some places the sidewalk is amazingly as wide as the road; houses are set further away from the street; there are more parking lots. Even in between buildings, the spaces are just bigger.

* It was odd to get my first handful of American change. It seemed old-fashioned, for some reason.

* The night we got in, we landed at 7 p.m. Baltimore time, or 1 a.m. Europe time. We stayed up until nearly midnight (6 a.m. on my body clock). I didn't feel bad last night, but I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning. I'm sure I'm going to have the same problem tomorrow. This always seems to happen when I flew across a bunch of time zones west. When we flew from Beijing to London we were in the air for 10 hours, always in the sunlight (took off about 10 a.m., landed in the afternoon). We were up for more than 24 hours. I couldn't get a long night's sleep for a week afterward. I didn't feel bad most of the time. It was just at about 5 p.m. I'd totally crash, then when I did go to sleep I just couldn't stay that way long enough. I haven't had the crash in the evening this time around. We'll see how long it takes before I can go back to sleeping in. (That was one nice thing about Iceland: when there's no sun, it's easy to sleep).

* I'm going to want to put USA at the end of addresses for a long time yet.

land of (melting) ice

Last stop. We landed in Reykjavik, Iceland, Monday on an extended stopover between London and Baltimore.

My first thought on landing was the similarity between this and my home in Montana. I realized it's not particularly similar in the details, but in a few bold strokes it is: the lack of trees, the yellowed grasses sticking up through patchy snow, and mountains in the distance.
Mostly it's the lack of trees. Like home, you can see as far as the weather conditions and terrain will let you. It's a perspective most places we've been haven't had, and I'd forgotten how much of a difference it made.
Tomorrow, we get out of Reykjavik on a day's bus tour. Geysers, waterfalls, volcanoes are on the agenda. This will complete a geothermal trilogy for me; I've now visited the earth's main hotspots of Yellowstone, Rotorua, New Zealand, and now Iceland.

The weather isn't as bad as expected. It was right around freezing when we landed (and a cold wind made walking around unpleasant). Today it was up around 40, and even tonight it's warm enough most of the snow and ice is melting. Got my jeans drenched waiting to cross the street when a car hit a puddle, a few minutes after I'd fallen on the lumpy, wet ice covering the sidewalk.

What is just as expected is the daylight situation. When we landed at 4:30 in the afternoon, the sun had already set. That wasn't too unusual for winter locations. This morning, however, I managed to wake up before dawn. And I wasn't awake until 10 a.m. Really, it's perfect for me. Especially since I'm not at work through the four hours or so of daylight.

I didn't realize (until Kirsten read the in-flight magazine on the way here) Iceland has 300,000 people in the whole place, and about three-quarters of them live in Reykjavik. From what I've seen of the place, it looks like a larger version of any mountain town; lot's of cozy-looking buildings and lights on trees and in the street. Feels like I should be skiing while staying here.
The prices aren't as cozy. We're staying at the Salvation Army (not quite as dodgy as it sounds; it runs a basic guesthouse). For single beds with no blankets in shared rooms, we're paying right around $40, each, per night. At least there's a kitchen so we don't have to buy all our food out. I read today Big Macs cost the equivalent of US$7.50. I did, however, have a $4 hotdog which was excellent, as well as being the cheapest option in town.