Not Afraid of the Fall

by Kyle James

  After casually floating through the hallways of the coral reef for an hour, we hit the snorkeling jackpot. The prize was hundreds of foot-long multicolored fish that were swarming a piece of coral like a group of four-year-olds attacking a recently exploded piñata. We took turns diving toward them to pose for GoPro pictures for the obvious reason that if we didn’t document it, it didn’t happen. After half an hour we took a break. We had been treading water for an hour now, and were losing steam.

  When we reached the beach, we frantically recapped what had just happened as if the other wasn’t there. Ash went down for an afternoon nap. I headed back out to the shallows to float and do my daily meditation. The only difference was, this time I did it underwater. I breathed through the snorkel and let my mind swim instead of my body.

  When the sun was beginning to set, we headed home. I was not looking forward to this drive, as I was exhausted from swimming all day. It was much harder on the way home because I had to maneuver through valleys and rocks and use the acceleration to get us up the hill. If I got going too fast, we were chalked, but if I took my hand off the accelerator, we went backward. We had a few close calls where I had to put my feet down and propel us to keep us from tipping, but we made it to the concrete. All that was left was a very steep hill leading to the main road. I started revving the engine and gave it all I had when suddenly the worst-case scenario played out right in front of us.

  A large truck taking up the entire lane came careening over the road, and while we could have slid past it on the side, it would have been tight. The shock of the truck made me take my hand off the accelerator, and before I could start again, we began rolling backward. I tried to hit both the brake and the accelerator, but it was too late. I could not catch the ground with my foot because we were moving too fast. The front tire turned a bit and the moped tumbled right into the bushes. We went flying over the side and launched into the brush.

  It was a casual fall and neither of us was hurt, but I was embarrassed as I tried to get the moped out of the bushes. I had gotten frantic and was slipping and stumbling when Ash stood up and said, “Baby, it’s okay. Just relax!” She was more mad than rattled. I finally got the moped up and she kept saying, “Why didn’t you just keep going?” I tried to explain that the truck had spooked me, and once I took my hand off the accelerator, we’d started going backward on the hill. But she didn’t understand, because she hadn’t driven one of these with someone on the back. They are heavy.

  I was in no mood to be lectured. I was furious with myself, and there was no way I was simply going to apologize—that would be too mature. I yelled back at her to just let me drive; I was far too rattled to have a backseat driver at this point and had to focus on oncoming trucks and driving on the other side of the road. I spent the remainder of the ride home in utter fear of crashing once again, and when we got to the bottom of our driveway, I pulled over. There was no way I was driving up that treacherous gravel hill.

  We began the walk in silence, and I watched above, hoping a coconut would fall toward Ash’s head. Obviously I didn’t want it to hit her; I just wanted to have an opportunity to catch it before it did and save her life so she would know I still loved her and wanted to protect her. I wanted to apologize for crashing our moped by saving her life.

  By the time we reached our villa, we were both extremely out of breath and aching from the steep incline. Neither of us spoke due to the constant inhaling and exhaling and the situation we’d just escaped. That was two strikes on the moped in two different countries, and it had me shook. We had escaped serious injury twice, but how many times were we going to get lucky?

  We ate delivery pizza, watched Boardwalk Empire, and recapped the crash into the woods now that we were in a better mood.

  “What are the chances we’d fall twice on this trip?” I asked.

  “Well, honestly, pretty damn high,” Ash responded.

  9/23/15

  Ko Tao, Thailand

  Rarely does one know the extent of one’s injuries from a vehicle crash until the morning after. I walked into the bathroom gingerly and evaluated all the areas screaming at me.

  We ordered a taxi to Tanote Bay from our burner phone to check out the snorkeling. Tanote Bay did not have nearly the sand or the water that Aow Leuk Bay had, but the snorkeling was unrivaled. We only had to swim twenty-five yards into the bay and the seafloor went from casual sand to Little Mermaid real quick.

  I was so busy looking down that I almost swam directly into a barracuda that was taking in the sun on the surface. I backed away slowly and made the X sign with my two index fingers to Ash and pointed to the silver fish with the razor teeth.

  We continued our tour, circling the large boulder in the middle of the bay. On the surface it was a large rock with people bathing and a rope ladder to get to the top and jump. But underwater it was a metropolis of fish, coral, sea slugs, crabs, and jellyfish.

  It took us much longer to get back to shore, as the barracuda was lingering in the route we wanted to take. The swim back around the boulder exhausted us, and we hit the sand and crashed onto our towels like we had been lost at sea for days. As I lay there throwing little pebbles up and trying to land them on my stomach, I realized my stress levels were nonexistent. I was almost stressed that I had nothing to stress about.

  We arrived home and sat on the porch. Soon we heard Alan and Heidi going through the orientation with another couple who must have just arrived. They came out to the shared porch afterward, and we chatted with them. They seemed like fun people, and we each cracked a beer to ring in the evening and their first night in Ko Tao.

  Ned and Heather were from England and currently on a two-week holiday. They had been together for a couple of years now, but they’d still never lived in the same city. I couldn’t believe they had endured a long-distance relationship until I watched them interact. They were clearly deeply in love, and distance didn’t seem to affect that. One Chang quickly became two, and when Alan came up to take us to dinner, he asked if we were ready for our Chang-over.

  We headed home after dinner and planted ourselves on the rocking chairs for a nightcap with our new friends. They were bright people, and it was awesome to engage in conversations comparing and contrasting the education systems in England and the US. Ash, being a teacher, was leading the discussion, and I sat back and listened as she described the inner-city school systems she had worked for. Her public speaking and debating confidence had skyrocketed since we’d left Denver. Everything about her seemed to be changing in the best way possible.

  Ash and I went to bed and both excitedly agreed that Ned and Heather were the perfect people to share this villa with. The best part about them was that they loved to laugh. Being around humans whose goal in the conversation was to laugh as much as possible was infectious. It was certainly a great recipe for the last stop of our trip.

  9/24/15

  Ko Tao, Thailand

  The sky had completely cleared for the first time since we had been in Ko Tao, and with the haze gone, we could see the mainland across the sea. We ate our breakfast of two toasties, a view unlike any other in front of us, and struggled to leave the porch. Our natural tendency as humans is to seek more, but I couldn’t imagine finding something better than this. When the sun rose higher, my theory was debunked by water. We needed to cool off, so we chose to go to Sairee Beach, the biggest beach on the island.

  To both avoid the moped and to try to get some much needed exercise, we decided to walk to the beach. It was only about a mile away, but going down the hill was knee-buckling. I kept an eye on the bomb-releasing palm trees above to avoid being one of the 150 people who supposedly die from falling coconuts a year.

  We rushed to the north side of the beach across the main road and got in the water ASAP to cool off. This once again was not possible, as the water was hotter than the air. I had daily meditation to do and floated in the shallows as the sound of distant boats and near waves served as my backdrop noise until evening r
eached the island.

  Tonight we were getting food with Heather and Ned. We met them on the porch and drank a pre-dinner beer while they told us about their diving excursion. Ko Tao was famous for diving, and the diver-coveted whale shark was prevalent out here.

  Pong, our taxi driver, drove us down to Sairee Beach and dropped us off in a crowded area. We strolled aimlessly, looking for a place to eat and turning down taxis and massage owners every five feet. I respected the hustle and didn’t get annoyed by this anymore. They were just trying to make a living and weren’t pestering anyone. I simply said, “No, thank you, kaap,” and kept walking. They always smiled and let us go without further pestering. Except the suit guys. Do not—and I repeated do not—engage in a conversation with the tailors. Those dudes are ruthless and won’t let you leave without a damn fight or a suit.

  We found a restaurant that served a little bit of everything, and ordered an assortment of food between the four of us. Ash got spaghetti, Ned ordered pizza, Heather ate a traditional Thai dish (smart woman), and I got ballsy and ordered the combo of ribs and chicken. I was in a good mood, drinking with new friends.

  When we reached the villa, we all played pool in the game room below our apartments and drank Chang-overs while listening to Stevie Wonder’s Greatest Hits. We had turned our relaxing island getaway into another beach week with friends, and we were okay with that. We had planned on resting up until we went home, but we could rest all year. Spending this time partying with Ned and Heather felt priceless.

  9/25/15

  Ko Tao, Thailand

  So, in hindsight, the combo platter of ribs and chicken might have been a bit too ballsy. I suppose you live and you … Well, this is the third or fourth time I have gotten sick over consuming something stupid, so I suppose I’ll just focus on the living part. I spent the entire night violently throwing up. Just another night in Thailand. Every time I went to sleep, there was about a fifty-fifty chance I would wake up and have to empty my stomach.

  Our breakfast on the porch was a somber one as we said good-bye to Ned and Heather. We had loved having them as neighbors and friends, and this place wasn’t going to feel the same without them. Ash and Heather had a particularly strong connection, and I feel like Heather was Ash’s spirit animal and vice versa. To put some context to this, Heather was a sweet Southern woman who just happened to have a thick British accent. Ned and I bonded over our business minds and political interests. We were sure to be in touch as soon as we got back to the States.

  As we sat and tried to determine what to do today, we settled on Aow Leuk again. It was going to be hard to beat, and with only two days left, we wanted to spend them somewhere we knew was amazing. We hit up our taxi brother Pong and rode over to Aow Leuk. He told us he would be back at five when the beach closed and to just pay him for both rides then.

  We threw on our gear and floated into the land of scales. For some reason, Ash and I were not on the same page, and we kept bumping into each other as we treaded water. The last thing you wanted to do when looking at huge fish and fearing sharks was bump into someone unexpectedly. We both became irritated quickly, and Ash finally headed in after cursing me out in bubbles.

  We had been struggling a lot lately as we prepared to go home. I think we were both just so scared to take on life after this journey that we were taking it out on each other. I had not planned to even make it this far. Not that I thought I was going to die; I just didn’t have time to think this far ahead with so much planning to do for cities only days away. Like I said, when we’d discovered that our final Airbnb was booked and our planning was over, it had Ash pretty rattled. She always coped with leaving a city by looking forward to the next one. It was easy to leave Berlin when Prague was next. Saying good-bye to Croatia was hard, but we had Italy and Greece right around the corner. Now we had come to the realization that we weren’t just leaving Thailand—we were leaving our journey.

  Around 5:00 p.m. it looked like it was going to start to rain, and Pong was waiting patiently for us outside the beach. He beat the rain on the way home and stopped so we could grab pizza.

  When we got home, I took a shower. And it was when I was in the shower that I noticed the apartment felt hot.

  “Hey, Ash, what is the temp set to?” I yelled through the water, quickly spitting it out so I didn’t get sick again.

  She responded with the five worst words since the woman at the ferry kiosk in Croatia said, “The tickets are sold out.”

  “Our air conditioning is broken.”

  We called Alan and Heidi, and they told us they would have a guy come first thing in the morning. Back to the days of fans and open windows with screens. We didn’t have AC in Denver, either, but it wasn’t ninety-five degrees and humid in Denver. Tonight we would be sleeping like the locals.

  9/26/15

  Ko Tao, Thailand

  Believe it or not, last night with no AC was our best sleep in Thailand. The mixture of the open windows, semi-cool jungle breeze, and humming fan made for great background sounds. Maybe this whole closed-window, AC thing was overrated after all? We took our time getting up, and prepared ourselves for our final destination of the week, the porch. It was our last day in paradise, and we didn’t want to let it go by fast.

  We read the news over coffee and gobbled up our toasties and omelets. This morning routine was great for us because we got to wake up slowly. We didn’t have to scarf down food and coffee while rushing to get ready for a day we didn’t want to live. Despite being in different cities, countries, and cultures for the last four months, we’d had the same routine every morning.

  Our bodies ached from repeated sunburns, bugbites, and moped crashes. Our clothes smelled moldy, and our hair and my beard were a step past unkempt. We were just tired, and decided today we would enjoy the view. The breeze was the tipping point; a cold gust collided with our leathery, sun-beaten skin every few seconds and cooled us.

  We left the comfort of our porch only to get one last massage in town. When we finished, Alan came down to pick us up. We held on to the back of the handlebar and casually ducked all the trees and branches and watched for coconuts on the way up, only holding on with one hand. In one week, we’d become expert truck-standing riders.

  As we headed up through the coconut grove for the last time, I turned to see Ash crying. It broke my heart. I felt the same way, but this was her journey. This was her trip. My journey and dream were to write this book and document this experience; hers was to grow from it in a way I didn’t need to. I put my arm around her and held on to the rail on the other side and she fell into my weight. This was our last trip up the hill to our villa.

  We watched the sunset over the gulf, hoping it would slow down and just stay put for once. I broke the silence between us as we looked out over the sea: “Hey, we still have a night in Bangkok.” But we both knew this was it. This was the last water we would see after spending months at sea. We had soaked up enough salt and sun this summer for a lifetime, but we still didn’t want to say good-bye. I fell asleep to the sound of Ash whimpering in my arms next to me. The AC was fixed, but we left it off.

  9/27/15

  Ko Tao, Thailand → Bangkok, Thailand

  This morning was hard on both of us. It was a depressing day, and knowing we had to leave Turtle Island, not even our toasties tasted good. Ash finished packing while I filled out the paperwork for our final bill with Alan. Shortly after, Alan and Heidi took us down the hill. Ash softly teared up once again. I decided to take matters into my own hands and take the humor approach. I looked Ash in the face and made eye contact with her puppy eyes seconds before I took a branch to the face. It worked temporarily. She laughed for a few seconds, and my face hurt much longer than anticipated.

  Our truck reached the pier, and we bid farewell to Alan and Heidi. We let them know that this place had been like a home away from home for us. We double-cheek kissed and then Ash gave a wai out of instinct. Then we all laughed and gave wais to one another.

&
nbsp; Today was our final travel day, and it certainly epitomized the phrase going out with a bang. We would be traveling for ten hours up the entire coast of Thailand by catamaran, bus, and taxi. As our large boat backed out of the port, we waved to the people of Turtle Island like we were leaving for America on the Titanic. This was a much nicer ferry than the previous ones, and we took seats in the air-conditioned main cabin.

  As long as the weather stayed nice, I was happy. We had endured some tough traveling days. From the Murder Mobile in Poland to the Light Show Escapade in Florence, and who could forget the multiple moped debacles and nightmares on the water? A clear, uneventful ride to the mainland was fine with me.

  Before long we had reached the Chumphon pier and finished leg one of our journey. Unfortunately, leg one did not carry significant weight on the total trip time. It was only two of the ten hours of travel. This next leg was going to be a pain in the traveling ass. We had not been on a single vehicle for more than eight hours the entire trip. Even the long flights had been between six and eight. We had saved the longest for last.

  The pier had a bus station with a market attached, and we both ordered stir-fry. Ash sat on the picnic table, her hand on her face, and moved the rice and veggies around with a sole chopstick, only putting it down to wipe the beads of sweat from her brow and forehead. Our bus arrived, and Ash turned to me and asked, “What if we just don’t get on?” I love this girl.

  This bus was far from as nice as the first one and wasn’t clean. We sat in old seats on the bottom deck of the double-decker and settled in. A trail of ants was walking along the walls in front of me. I fell asleep within the first half an hour and didn’t wake up for four hours. I dreamed of elephants and kayaks.