18 NOV 08- Railay Beach East, Thailand

What do you do when the driver of the euro van that you and your young wife are stuffed into while en route from one popular thailand destination to another comes to a side-ways, angry and screeching hault in the middle of the highway at 11 o'clock at night?

When this happend, it wasn't so much that I was scared. What actually was going through my mind, unlike Heather's, was an incredible feeling of annoyance... You see, my stomach has been fine the entire trip, except for this particular day. Up until almost 24 hours before Heather saw our future's flash before her eyes, I was in perfect condition. I hadn't been feeling the NASA-type-countdown-of-explosion-urge-defication, I hadn't cared about where the nearest toilet was (western style or not) and I certainly had not been having intense periods of prespiration. But for some reason the day we traveled from the island of Pha-Ngan to Phuket, I was having all of the above.

And I was certainly in no mood for dealing with carrying our bags in the pitch black of night through, what is to us, the middle of no where all because a half dozen whiny, huge-baby Euro boys that were in the van with us started heckling the driver because he wouldn't stop so they could go pee.

It was not like we were very far into the most unconfortable 4 hour trip from Surat Thani to Phuket; we had only traveled about 35 minutes before the heckling began. It started with douchebag number 1 saying in an english-as-a-second-language accent, "Driver, some of us think it is too cold back here. Can you turn down the AC?"

I was thinking the opposite.

When the driver gave no recognition of this request, douchebag number 1 asked it again. And then again 4 more times. The response from the driver was the same every time; nothing.

Before long, the antagonizing begain...

Douchebag number 1,2,3,4,5 and 6's repeated screaming of, "AC DOWN!!! AC DOWN!!! AC DOWN!!!DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?", finally came to a relative success when the driver reluctantly fussed with the dash controls and turned the AC... UP.

I thought this felt very good. Although I am not sure the driver meant to do it, the tempurature did get cooler and it came as a nice relief to my sweat-saturated clothing.

It was very dark in the cab, but both Heather and I had front row seats to the hole debacle as we were both stuffed into the sole front passenger seat of this trainwreck. After 5 or so minutes another kind of shouting began. This time, the baby team of douchebags needed to all pee at once. (We left Surat Thani at 10 pm; it was 10:39 when all of this started going down.) The requests began slightly polite this time around with another duechebag, douchebag number 2, asking in the same kind of english accent "Driver, some of us need to use the toilet. Can you pull over?" This time around, the driver made no concession but a similar round of heckling began.

After douchebag number 3 offered to piss in the van as a result to absolutely no response from the driver, I had the feeling the situation was getting out of control. It was only 10:58.

I had actually began to ignore all of the shouting going on by the half dozen guys shouting in the back about needing to relieve themselves. I was doing such a good job that I was almost snoozing on Heather's shoulder when both of us were bolted forward, finding our faces inches from the windshield. I think at that moment, Heather's exact words were, "Oh my God, oh my God!"

Her next words were, "We are not getting out of this van!" This was, of course, in a very clear whisper...

All we could see from our seat (singular) through the headlight-lit-scene was half of the highway we were just driving on at 140KM/hr and half of the absolutely dark countryside that did not look good for two Americans to be wandering lost into. (This was my fear.) Actually, we could aslo see the driver standing in front of the van, irate and pointing to the guys in the back to "GET OUT OF MY FUCKING VAN!."

And He was also yelling, "This is Thailand, not fuck you of where ever you are from!"

Appearanlty he speaks perfect english.

From the back, I could hear douchebag number 1 instructing everybody to get out of the van, everybody. But there was no way Heather and I were going to move from the van. I would fight tooth and nail before any of those girgly pretty boys with weak blatters tried to pull us both from the van. WE WERE NOT GETTING OUT OF THE VAN!

All we wanted to do was go to Phuket. Simple. It was not our fault you nancy boys couldn't hold your bladders. It was not our fault one of you douchebags decided in the midst of your crying to reach forward and slap the back of the drivers head. And it was certainly not our faults the driver was calling the police through the view of the vans headlights. The Thailand Police...

This is when Heather's fears escalated. You see, the one common thing you read about in travel books regarding the Thai police is they don't care about tourists. There is no such thing as innocent until proven guilty. Guilt and innocence are ideas proved in the courts only after the suspect has spent an arbitrary amount of time fighting for rice pieces in Thai prison without the knowledge or help of the forienger's friends, loved ones and/or parents.

I cannot imagine what the toilets there are like there.

And, guilt by association does not matter either. (This is what Heather was thinking.) Heather was imagining the police showing up and taking all of the males in the van away forever. I wasn't as concerned, but I could tell by the fact that she was trembling uncontrollably, she was scared...

Even after the driver got back into the van after 20 minutes of talking on the cell phone, nobody was sure where he was taking us at that point. I tried to squint at each road sign we passed(luckily the town names are printed in english too) to get an idea of the towns we were by just in case we could get out. Because at that point I totally believed we were on our way to the nearest police station.

But thankfully after another silent hour on the road, we pulled into the designated rest stop; the one we were always supposed to stop at to make sure all passengers could comfortably relieve themselves. Everybody got out to get snacks and use the toilet and the 6 guys responsible for the ridiculousness, bargained their way passed the 10 thai guys who surrounded our van when we pulled up. From what I could tell, they each paid 1,000 Bhat each (roughly $28USD) for their childlike behavior and ignorance of the Thai Police...

This was the day when home never felt so good in my memories. When Heather and I finally got to our guesthouse, safe and sound, in Phuket Town at 1:30 a.m., I decided we needed a new approach to our trip.

Today is Tuesday, 4 days after this whole scene, and we are getting ready to leave Thailand. Our visas are about up and the rest of southest asia is looking really good.

We both have been looking at the this travel blog and realise we should be updating more. The things we have been posting do no justice to our experiences.

Ultimately, you should know we are safe, sound and loving every minute of it.