In sports you read a lot about how the best defenses take away the one thing another team takes for granted and forces them adapt on the fly. Lock down a productive passing game, double cover a star player, make steroids illegal, etc. The result is an opponent rendered unusually confused, desperate, and likely to make a stupid decision. If defensive coordinators were looking to similarly dismantle someone’s journey to the Thai islands, I’m guessing taking water out of the picture would be a smart place to start. Well, consider the rock I smashed my foot into last night Bill Belichick, and the donut I’m floating on in the above picture my stupid decision. To be honest, I’m not sure who is winning in that metaphor. Let’s try this one: if travel is an algebra equation, one of our trusty constants just became an unreliable X.
Last night after a dinner as precarious as any on Railay beach (more to come on that later), Sara and I made our way down the dimly lit walking path to Railay East, where many of the beach’s bars are, anxious to wash our “sustenance” down with liquid disinfectants. Having walked this path once in the daylight, we knew there was a section where the beach’s standard issue cluster of suspended power lines dangles dangerously low over the trail. Not only do you need to duck to avoid waking straight into it, not only is it hard to see the black wires in the dark, not only are there are several frayed ends that I’d rather not get acquainted with, but the power line has also been coopted by the local fire ant population as their main thoroughfare. So coming into contact with this high voltage pest parade is something we made a note of avoiding even before starting down the path.
With my full attention on the obstacle above me, I managed to successfully steer clear of the festering wire hive and escape certain electrocution, just before casually swinging my left foot directly into a large rock, conveniently protruding from the middle of an otherwise level slab of concrete. I made a funny anguished noise, I contorted my face into a shape commensurate with the pain, and we kept walking. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when we reached the more brightly lit Railay East, that I looked down and saw my foot was an absolute bloody mess, like something had just burrowed its way out of my big toe. A quick visit to the only clinic within hobbling distance, a little antibiotic swab, and some hasty toe mummification, and we were on our way to the bars with one important medical directive: “Don’t let it get wet.” No problem, 2 Changs please. Wait. I’m at the beach tho…
So the past 24 hours have been a delicate dance between keeping my walking/standing/swimming appendage dry and infection free, and being several feet from the damn ocean. Also it’s 93 degrees here and dangling a forbidden, cartoonishly blue sea right in front my face is enough to coerce me into false confessing culpability in any number of outlandish crimes. The hotel pool, a refreshing shower, a fish foot massage, all of these pillars of southeast Asian beach travel are now suspicious, duplicitous, backstabbing bacteria bastions with siren song playlists on repeat. But this is Megatrip, and the show must go on. And now the show consists of me idly floating in an inflatable donut so as not to get my foot wet. Your move, Belichick.
I’m dramatizing all of this obviously. The wound isn’t too bad, and the blood to severity ratio was thankfully out of wack. The takeaway for me is how quickly all of your travel plans, and plans in general, can collapse the moment one discretely load-bearing element is removed. Because now everything from our day trip to Koh Poda to beating heat stroke with a jump in the ocean now has to be carefully reconsidered and likely abandoned because I took the wrong step under the wrong live wire limbo. Moving forward, the best we can do is to keep in mind what variables in our travel equation carry the most weight, try not to take them for granted, and hopefully prepare some rough contingency plans around them, preferably involving inflatable pastries.
In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king. And in the land of the ocean, the man with one foot allergic to water is a peasant’s dog walker. Now does anyone have some waterproof bandages?
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