TBA Day 18: Waiting for Stanley

Today I awoke relatively early in the morning (5:30am) after 10 hours of sleep to find a voicemail from Stanley explaining that his connecting flight out of Bahrain had been delayed 4 hours and thus he would be arriving much later than his original ETA of noon. I called his cell phone, thus managing to wake up Alicia at 4am since his phone is apparently with her and not with him (which makes sense, I suppose… it just didn’t occur to me until after people had been woken up).

While waiting to hear from him when he landed in Bangkok at 11:45am local time, I went about my day in paradise, starting with a fabulous breakfast. I didn’t bring my camera with me, and I’m not sure my ham & cheese omelette’s appearance would have blown your mind, but that was one seriously awesome omelette, let me tell you… It tasted totally different than omelettes I’ve had in the US or Australia… and I don’t know if it was a protein high or what (and the caffeine in the coffee may have contributed to my buzz), but I was feeling GOOD after breakfast… Really good… So good that I decided to mix things up by reading in the hammock down on the beach instead of the one on my porch. (Pretty wild, I know…)
I spent about 3 hours down there until things started getting a bit too warm, then retreated to my air conditioning and waited to hear from my big brother. After he arrived in Bangkok and gave me a call I let him know that, despite the last regular ferry leaving for Phangan at 4pm (before his flight lands at 5:20pm), there is one last ferry (the Haad Rin Queen) that leaves Big Buddha pier at 6:30pm. He didn’t seem to believe me that the pier was actually called Big Buddha (it is), but we hung up confident that he would make it Phangan tonight for cocktails on the beach. (Did I mention the beach bar at this resort? So awesome…)

With that settled, I went out to get some supplies (cash, water, beer) and ended up picking up a totally awesome hammock in the hammock district. (OK, actually just at a random store… but if anywhere (outside of Cypress Creek) had a hammock district, I think it would be Ko Phangan.) I suck at buying souvenirs (I bought a camera and a purse in Singapore, but I don’t think that counts), but I figured a hammock is the perfect way to commemorate my amazing time here, since I’ve spent almost all of my outdoor time lounging in one… I don’t know where I’ll be living in Boston, but I know it will have an outdoor space for a gas grill, so I can make sure there’s a place for a hammock, too… because life without hammocks seems pretty depressing at this point. I also got our elephant trek booked for tomorrow, fully confident that my brother will arrive tonight…

I had been thinking to myself “If all goes well, Stanley will be here at 7:40pm,” since the ferry should have landed at 7:20pm and a cab was supposed to take approximately 20 minutes. At 7:41pm (about 8 minutes after a torrential downpour started up), who do I see walking around the corner but my big brother! We headed over to have dinner (Spring Rolls, Penang Chicken Curry for me, Ginger Beef Something-or-Other for him), followed by a couple drinks (Johnny Walker Black) at the bar with the crazy drunk British guy who runs the place. Turns out he stalked me on google before I came and was surprised to find out I wasn’t an Aussie when I showed up… He tells me he doesn’t usually stalk his guests, so I suppose it’s a bit of an honor.
Stanley is now enjoying the hammock on the porch, and I’m off to bed… because he is fun and I am lame, that’s why. Elephants and a ferry to Ko Samui await tomorrow… I’ll let you know how that goes.