Part I: The Gauntlet
Saturday started beautifully with our outstanding new massage therapist, who methodically and cautiously isolated my angriest tissue zones without forcing me to grit my teeth. I immediately booked her for every remaining day of the stay. From there, the timeline escalated quickly: I signed up for one last round of stretching, table tennis, a Muay Thai lesson, a traditional dessert class, an offsite cycling excursion, and waterfall trek in the course of three days.
My last Muay Thai session was compromised when Andina showed up for the class despite never signing up. I had been collecting video footage to build a marketing package for the staff as a favor and thank-you offering. When I asked if she was comfortable if I filmed bits of the workout, she delivered the first "no" of my career: "usually I have a contract if i will be included." Alrighty then. Given I explained it was purely a gesture on my part, I'm not sure why it couldn’t be a simple, “no thanks.” Her infatuation with money remains mind-boggling.
I safely escaped her perimeter that evening by signing up for a twelve-kilometer village cycling excursion with Lanta, a receptionist who had studied marine biology. We cycled to a remote fishing pier where local workers were harvesting tiny, translucent shrimps used for fermenting shrimp paste. They looked like buckets of glass noodles at first glance, and the workers were incredibly receptive to my camera, even letting me pull up a few nets.
Part II: The Joke
Confusion transpired on Sunday when I signed up for a last-minute jungle waterfall excursion. The driver looked remarkably similar to the familiar face of Yod, but with significantly shorter hair. I quietly asked Lanta if they were related, and she nodded “yes.” Hmm.. brother, perhaps?
Despite my apprehension to participate with a growing to-do list, the trek through the jungle provided a wonderful sense of closure. The water was perfectly clear, with a gentle breeze balancing the hot sun and carrying a subtle aroma of wet moss. As local fish began nibbling at my feet, I parked myself on a smooth rock at the base of the pool, closed my eyes, and let the melody of the waterfall’s roar fill my ears while the cascading water pounded against my back.
Andina had unfortunately crashed this trip, too. Her incessant complaining about… everything (the distance, the mud, the heat, etc)… was so loud I had to maintain a 50-meter drop-back distance just to keep my nervous system out of earshot. The irony? At the waterfall, she asked me to join her photo. It took all restraint to avoid requesting a contract.
Upon our return, the earlier linguistic confusion re: Yod was highlighted. I casually asked a different receptionist when he would be returning from Trat. They were confused. I continued, “I understood that he takes Poon (the owner) to Trat on weekends so he can go to Bangkok and stays at the house of Gina’s parents?” Trust me, it sounded strange when it was first explained to me, but this is Thailand and stranger things have happened. The receptionist collapsed into her chair, screaming with laughter. "No!" she gasped. "That's Yon!" It turned out my poor pronunciation led to a mix-up between the German Boxer and the human driver. In my defense, Yod did just get a haircut.
Once the laughter settled, the staff asked if I would be joining the afternoon cooking class. I asked if it was just me, and they explained that one other had signed up: you-know-who. My body language seemed to trigger a question from them: “is everything okay? between you two?” I just smirked and shrugged. They picked up what I put down, and seemed in desperate need to vent their own exhaustion regarding Andina's constant complaints, financial demands, and habit of interrupting guests during private moments. It seemed they had already asked Gina to draw harder boundaries around any future stays.
Part III: The Nail in the Coffin
The validation carried into the dessert class, where she spent the majority of the demonstration buried in her phone scrolling Instagram or Google. After the cooks prepared a traditional Pandan dessert, she looked up to ask if the thick concoction became that way “just from stirring?” I couldn’t hold back a snarky reply, as the 6 minutes of stirring must have been hidden behind her phone.
They asked if she wanted to craft the next batch; she declined, so I completed the process. I took a few bites, only for her to look over and ask if it was good. I was unable to hold back. There sat the first batch immediately in front of her, waiting to be assembled - the matcha-like dough on one plate, with the plain coconut milk in one bowl and melted brown sugar in another. I suggested she try it for herself, to which she quickly proclaimed, “no, it’s too sweet.” I stared for a few seconds before suggesting, “Then… don’t add the sugar…” I was both confused and appalled as to why she joined, given the waste of ingredients.
Part IV: The $20 Send-Off
On Monday, the staff didn’t hesitate when I asked for a final-night culinary recommendation. They pointed me toward an exclusive, four-table seafood shack ten minutes down the coast that required a reservation even during the monsoon dead-zone. I booked a 6:00 PM slot, leaving just enough time to squeeze in one last high-stakes table tennis set against Mod.
For weeks, the rainy season has delivered nothing but slate-grey skies and humidity. But tonight, nature flexed. Just as Yod dropped me off, the horizon erupted into an insane, high-saturation display of magentas and neon oranges bleeding into the water. It looked artificial, like a Windows screensaver or overly filtered 2015 Instagram post.
With seafood being their specialty, my main target - the steamed fish with chili and lime - was flagged as unavailable. Naturally, two minutes later, I watched the kitchen staff carry that exact dish to the adjacent table. It was the size of a small canoe. It was then that I recognized that, "unavailable" was local code for "you are a party of one, and this fish requires friends.”
I pivoted to the sashimi - a plateful of white mullet, accompanied by a dipping sauce and wasabi, and Tom Yum Shrimp. The fish was mild and delicious - not overly fishy, and well balanced with the sauce. The soup was the most flavorful version of the classic dish I’d had to date. The textbook holy trinity of salty, sour, and spicy. The food was so delicious and I had fasted for the day in anticipation, so I opted for one last plate of stir fried shrimp with a weaponized amount of garlic, chili, lemongrass and kaffir lime.
I devoured the whole spread as if I hadn't seen solid food in a quarter. My Oura ring will probably go berserk with the macros I consumed before bed, but… worth it. The sunset was well-scripted, but the real enlightenment here was the simplicity in a four-table shack in an otherwise underexposed corner of a tropical island, outperforming a Michelin-star menu for a fraction of the cost.
