I don’t know what it is about being on holiday that results in travellers becoming oblivious to potential dangers and risks. It seems that most touri’s minds go blank in regard to safety issues. I guess their brain decides it too will take a week or two off. That so many fall victim to scams, suffer injuries, or worse, is no surprise. Darwinism seems to prefer working its magic amongst those on vacation.

I can’t exclude myself from that group completely. I too throw caution to the wind and engage in activities I’d never consider back home. It’s not that I’m not aware of the risks, just that on holiday I don’t have an overriding concern about potential danger. I turn a blind eye to risky activities much like a kid huddling under his bed covers: if the monsters can’t see you then you are safe.

So I’ve played with tigers and lions, on more than one occasion, trusting that the baht I paid to do so guaranteed that enough sedatives had been administered to make it a safe experience. I’ve ridden through Bangkok’s notorious traffic, perched helmet-less on the back of a motorscooter, trusting that the gods would finger some other idiot for that day’s traffic fatality quota. But I don’t completely ignore the potential for danger and harm. I do make some concession to safety. Especially when it involves friends. Travelling with a friend, or a group of friends, should be even more safe than travelling alone; you have one or more other people to watch your back. At least you’d think so.

Some safety precautions are so ingrained that I don’t even consciously think about them. They just are. Preparing for a trip with a group of friends who’d never been to Thailand forced me to carefully consider safety issues, on their behalf. For some issues, rather than explain, I negated the concern by sending everyone a pre-trip goodie box.

We were all taking separate flights into the Kingdom. I’d included a pen – not a safety related item but rather because I’ve seen half of the passengers on a plane looking around for a pen to complete their immigration card as though that such would be needed was an unexpected turn of events. More of a safety matter, I sent Chris a condom his box. Extra small. To me, a good bitch slap takes precedence over safety, but is a bonus when you can combine the two.

I also sent along a small pen light to all three travellers. Just in case. If a problem occurs on a flight, a flashlight comes in handy. Once at your destination, in the middle of an emergency at your hotel or even during a simple power outage, again, a flashlight can be a life saver. Three people, three flashlights. None made it on board a plane, none made it to Thailand. Only one of the pens did. That should have clued me in on what to expect for the rest of the trip.

When we checked into our first hotel I explained the basic layout of the property to everyone, pointed out where the main road was in relation to the lobby, and noted should evacuation be necessary our meeting spot would be the 7/11 across the street with the fall-back being every corner beyond until you hit a safe one. Running around looking for friends who may or may not have survived a hotel fire just adds to the panic. It’s not like I handed out emergency preparedness maps. But Helena summed up the group’s feeling, “You are kidding, right?”

Noted. Dummies abroad. So I revamped my emergency plan to a helpful tip: 7/11 was the closest place to buy beer. Oh, and it was a good meeting spot too.

Fine. Die if you want to. My major concern anyway would be the safety of my bar boy friend and current love of my life, Noom. And since he was always with me, there was no need for announcing designated meeting spots. I considered mentioning the need to locate the closest emergency exit from their hotel rooms, but figured either stupidity or karma would take care of that matter regardless.

I’ve always assumed everyone checking into a hotel notes the emergency exit locations. Guess the number of fatalities when a hotel does catch fire should have clued me into what a non-concern it is to the average traveller. Those people really shouldn’t breed anyway.

Ditto for large bars and discos that catch flame. Lots of dead, every time. It takes but a few seconds when entering a large disco to note alternative exits. That’d be secondary ones ‘cuz the herd is gonna all head to the primary exit, bottled up and soon to be roasted. No other exits? A window will do. And it never hurts to scope out the crowd for the elderly or frail; they are easy to climb over on your way to safety. (Also an excellent technique for airline safety.)

I’d previously handled this one with Noom after watching him on our first visit to the humongous New Year Countdown in front of Central World in Bangkok. Noom can get lost walking through a door. In a crowd, especially a huge one primarily made up of his fellow nationals, his mind melts into the Thai collective consciousness and he follows blindly like a lemming headed over a cliff. He’s aware of this. And agrees that while he usually is responsible for looking after me, in a crowd I take the lead.

We’ve established that if I ever give him a direction followed with a sternly stated, “Now,” he is to move. Not question, Just do. Crowd survival is a lot like a heavy SM session. You need a safe word. One that is quickly understood to mean, “Stop. Now. I’m serious.” Ignoring that need in either situation can really ruin your night.

Even though the hotel evacuation plan was a nonstarter, our first night at a disco I tried again with the girls – which if you have not figured out by now always includes Chris – explaining the need to listen for that ‘Now’. Helena rolled her eyes. Understandable. Helena’s natural inclination is not to be told what to do. There would be a 5050 chance of her following my advice in an emergency. Just like there’d be a 50/50 chance of me muttering, “I told you,” so while gazing down at her battered, dead body.

By the time we hit Phuket, I’d given up. Call it karma call it fate, whichever you prefer I decided to abandon the girls to theirs. And it wasn’t a big surprise on passing a misspelled tsunami warning sign that I found out the rest of the gang hadn’t a clue what it meant when the ocean suddenly decided to play outgoing tide in one fell swoop.

“Wait, you don’t know that if you are at the beach and the water suddenly recedes you need to run like hell?”

“No! Who would know that?” Helena shot back obviously being one of those who instead would decide it was a fortuitous event and head out to play in the tide pools. (And let’s ignore that she lives a half a block from the beach back home while we are at it.)

“Well, now you know. Um, you do realize that a tsunami hit this beach just two years ago though, don’t you?”

“Really!? How cool is that!”

Okay, so Helena was earmarked to become flotsam and jetsam. My boy, who’d been following our conversation was busy eyeballing escape routes to higher ground.

Despite a general contempt toward fate, we all survived our first day and night in Patong Beach, and managed to score deeply discounted tickets for a trip to the Phi Phi islands. The night before we’d been out late, partying our asses off at My Way, and everyone would prove to be a bit hung over for the next day’s trip. Feeling slightly queasy did not bode well for a two hour boat ride. But I have a cast-iron constitution. And Noom had only downed a single shot of tequila the previous night. So any concern about spending the morning hugging the rail belonged to the rest of the group. That means it wasn’t a potential for concern, but rather the potential for a great photo op.

Having lived for many years in Hawaii I was well aware of the odd phenomenon wherein touri head out to play in the surf while leaving all of their expensive valuables back on the beach. Usually all gathered and contained in a nice bag to make it a hassle-free experience to whoever decides to steal their stuff. Once we made it out to Maya Bay where The Beach was filmed and where our boat stopped to allow passengers a half hour of swimming dodging tour boats in the crystalline turquoise waters off shore, the boat version of this stupid touri trick appeared. Everyone on board had expensive cameras and wallets full of cash. Which they quickly abandoned on deck so they could jump in the cooling waters.

Seemed to me the smart money would be to take turns, someone stays on board while the others go play; the safe bet would be the buddy system both in and out of the water. I volunteered to take the first shift. Mostly because I had my eye on a new telephoto lens for my camera. The girls decided to put up with my nonsense, the expected eye rolling avoided because Noom, used to stripping down to nada on stage nightly, decided that was the perfect time to change from his board shorts into his skimpy bathing suit.

While standing exposed on the top deck in the middle of a few hundred touri. But then, hell, if I had a body like that I’d show it off, too. The girls stared. Chris turned red and got hard. The rest of the boat took a moment out to enjoy the scenery too. Numerous cameras clicked. And then everyone got busy piling down the gangway and jumping into the water.

The added benefit of an on-board guard was having someone available to take pictures.. Helena and Dee were easy to spot. My eye was immediately drawn to a medium size tour boat chugging by, its hull painted a vivid yellow. Directly in its path the girls floated oblivious to the behemoth headed their way, busy trying to catch my eye by waving their hands wanting a photo of their – what looked to be possibly last – time together.

Spotting Chris and Noom was not as easy. I didn’t see them on my first scan of the waters below. Second time around I looked for a blinding flash of white: Chris had not exposed his body to sunlight in at least a decade. When he’d pulled his shirt off on-board everyone squinted at the glare and quickly slipped on their sunglasses. So I zeroed in on Chris fairly quickly. He was a mile off starboard, cocooned in his own little world, as oblivious as the girls had been. But facing a much smaller foe.

Noom? I saw Chris, but no one nearby who could come close to being my boy. His skin color was not easy to pick out of the crowd, the muscles were. Huh. Maybe he decided to group with the girls, realizing Chris was a bit boring. I went to the other side of the boat to look for the girls again, a bit of panic setting in.

I found the dykes still floating and turning a nice shade of red. But no Noom. Shit. Sure. I’d not taken the time to explain my boy swims like a dead buffalo. Hell, for all I knew they all lacked basic swimming skills. But common sense dictates when you enter the ocean you use the buddy system. I’d forgot that my gang had shown an affinity for not using sense, the common version or any other kind.

“Where’s Noom?” I yelled down to them.

They replied with big double handed waves hoping for another shot of them frolicking in the water. “Bitches,” I thought. “I hope that damn boat backs up and takes another stab at running your asses over.”

I tried again. “Where’s Noom?”

Helena, being true to herself, flipped me off. Okay, so I had that coming on general principle. And didn’t care because they’d failed to pack sun screen and I knew the tropic rays would take care of payback for me.

This was not good. Noom was nowhere to be found. Normally, I’m not one to panic. But it was getting to that point. I was doubling back from one side of the boat to the other, trying to spot him, ready to dive in and pull his body from the depths if needed. Noom was standing on the ladder leading up to the deck, his head peaking above foot level watching me dance across the boat. When I finally spotted him on board, I was relieved. And pissed.

“Where in the hell where you?”

“I jump in get water in mouth,” he explained, concerned over my outrage but not understanding why. He looked like a drowned puppy. Getting a mouthful of salt water as a welcome to the ocean had not been in his plans. Our trip to the Phi Phi Islands had been his idea, his desire, the sole purpose of our trip to Phuket. His longing had been satisfied in a 30 second dousing.

Chris, now a pretty shade of scarlet, climbed back on board, his face marred from a too tight swim mask. He took over guard duty while Noom and I went back in for a swim. This time around Noom decided to climb down the boarding ladder rather than opt for another mouthful of salt. And enjoyed his second swim a lot more than the first.

My anger at Noom quickly dissipated. But I was still pissed at the girls for abandoning my boy in the ocean. We headed back to Phi Phi Don for a buffet lunch featuring spaghetti . . . how the tour operator came up with pasta as a tropical Asian treat for lunch is beyond me. With another hour to kill, we played on the beach of the beautiful bay, the sky and sea a holiday-brochure cerulean blue set off by small, colorfully painted boats flying streamers of rainbow hues on their prow, an offering to the gods of the sea and protection from the dangers of the ocean. Especially for those who ignore the buddy system. Noom and I abandoned the girls to wallow in the surf, and moved off to the far end of the beach, finding a tranquil spot to rest and enjoy our holiday.

Separated, we lost sight of the girls and it was soon time to re-board for the long haul back to Phuket. There were many boats leaving around same time, you had to climb through one get to the next. A single Thai, clipboard in hand, stood dock-side trying to count colored badges as the mass of touri pushed its way on board their respective boats. Noom and I boarded, grabbing chairs mid-deck, not willing to pussy out and be seated indoors, but smart enough not to be exposed to more sun on the ride home. When the boat sounded its horn signalling it was about to push off from the dock, it was Noom’s turn to panic. The girls were nowhere to be seen.

“Where Delinda?” he cried, resorting to one of his confabulations that tied the two girls’ names together.

“Fuck ‘em,” I thought. “They abandoned my boy, they can find there own way home.”

I’d love to tell you that just rewards were well served, that the girls were stranded on a tourist island in the middle of the Adaman Sea. But no, like touri on holiday the world over, they’d ignored everything except themselves and their enjoyment of the day. They were already on board, seated on the top deck watching Chris’ skin invent a new shade of red. They hadn’t seen us board either, but were unconcerned, assuming that by ignoring the possibility of being separated, everything would work out. It did.

We all lived to tell the tale. And the only one of us to have any negative thoughts about the trip was the one who bothered to concern himself with the question of safety. Maybe ignorance is bliss. Maybe the gods do favor the young and the foolish. And maybe next time, I’ll leave the damn dykes at home.

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