Gut-Wrenching Stories Behind the Scenes of Paradise: The Truth About Why I Left Thailand

Thailand: A far away, tropical beach-laden, elephant-boasting, food-lover’s paradise, where one can get by with plenty on a minimal budget, sip out of fresh coconuts, get massages everyday, drink the best iced coffees, eat like a king, and generally pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist while passing the days in this sunny Paradise.

Sounds amazing. Sign me up, right?

And then there’s me in Thailand: constantly swatting at mosquitos and scratching at bites all over my legs, fighting tiny ants for the rights to the sugar (or my entire plate of food, or my backpack…), not sleeping well on the hardest, springy-est mattresses ever (seriously WHY is this such an epidemic in this country?), incessantly sweating in the humidity, not being able to speak the language for a damn (and I’m a language person), traumatized and broken-hearted over all the mangy stray dogs that wail through fights in the night, frustrated with the WiFi that is just never good enough for the work I need to get done, and the bugs… in my bed. IN. MY. BED. just wait…

I had already been in Thailand for a few weeks, moving from Bangkok to Koh Yao Noi, (to Cambodia) to Bangkok, to Chiang Mai, and finally to Pai in an attempt to find a place where I could settle in for a month until my visa ran out, desperately hoping to catch up on work in comfort and quiet, with good WiFi, within my budget.

Apparently, that’s too much to ask.

I went to Pai in the first place because I couldn’t find a comfortable place to sleep in Chiang Mai. I wasted too much precious time chasing accommodations, having slept in three different places within just six days. I didn’t have a plan for how long I would stay in Pai, so when I moved to my second guest house within three days, I simply paid by the night in case my plan changed again (in hindsight, the best move).

Insert sensitive to animals Trigger Alert here.

On the third day at this place, I was sitting outside my private bungalow (which, to be honest, sounds SO much more romantic than it actually was), trying to get some work done at my little table. That’s when a dog appeared, which would have been totally normal had he not been acting strangely. He seemed spooked as he ran right up to me, and that’s when I noticed the fur on his collar was very disturbed. It was actually a large open wound, the fur and skin had been ripped open, possibly in a dog fight.

On the spot, my heart completely broke. He stood at my (thankfully closed) bungalow door for a few moments wanting to go inside, then he came to me and actually crawled under my table, in such a way that I had to curl my legs up to let him pass.

This was not good. I couldn’t take care of him, and his odor was unbearable. The look in his eye still haunts me. He needed care and love and I couldn’t give it to him. He constantly looked behind him, seemingly lost and bewildered, not to mention he was obviously bothered by the wound on the back of his neck.

Tears come to my eyes even now as I write this. I love dogs much more than what I would consider a healthy level, especially as a traveler to the Third World, where dogs are not treated well at all. There was nothing I could do for this dog, and after a few moments under my table, he made his way out and ran away. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen to him. He needed care, that wound might get infected, and then what? I couldn’t get him out of my head.

That same night, I was sitting on the outside of the mosquito net draped ungracefully over my bed. I was up late because I had a Skype meeting with people in the US, so it was about midnight my time when I hit the video call button, and at the same moment, noticed something move on the bed out of the corner of my eye.

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

I couldn’t possibly believe what I was seeing (but then again, I could).

A cockroach. And not a small one, this guy was about the size of my thumb, with antennas. AND, he was on the INSIDE of the completely useless bug net. IN-SIDE-MY-BED. When I jumped up, he ran for the covers, as in, one more move and he would be under my blanket, in my bed.

Meanwhile, I’d just started a Skype call. Through multiple squeals, curses, and “I need a minute,” I put the laptop down (still on the call), grabbed my shoes (Toms) which I doubled up (for extra strength?), and approached the bed. I tore the bug net and pillow away, exposing the cockroach, who scurried behind the bed against the headboard (naturally).

I was faced with the disgusting task of having to move the bed away from the wall to see where he went, but I knew one thing was certain: I COULDN’T lose him. It was simply not an option. He had to die or I’d be out of a place to sleep at midnight when the guest house workers were long gone.

I moved the bed. What did I see? Not just one cockroach, but TWO. Same size, huddling close to each other in a fold in the sheets (thank GOD there was nothing else creeping back there, this was bad enough).

With one (amazing) SMACK, I got them both, after which I quickly transferred them to the floor to continue to make sure they were dead. Now I had another problem: when you kill a bug, other bugs seem to be attracted to the mess it creates. So, I did my best to clean up the area, oh, and then I got back to my Skype call, which was online throughout this entire incident (it’s just too bad the WiFi wasn’t good enough for video, or this would have been ten times more entertaining). Don’t ask me how I did it, but somehow I managed to fall asleep around 3am and still get a few desperate hours of rest.

That next morning, I slowly peered over the bed in fear of what I might see on the floor next to my head, but was relieved to see nothing, at first. It wasn’t until after I gathered up the bug net and slithered out of my cocoon to stand, that I realized the floor was covered in the tiniest black spec bugs I’ve ever seen. They were all over the spot of the massacre, and they were also in the bug net. The bug net, that I had just lifted over my head.

Goodbye, Pai.

And you know what? On Day 2 at this place, I posted this picture to Facebook:

It is a picture of the restaurant at this very guest house (which I borrowed from their website). It really did look amazing, it’s just another thing completely to actually be there, experiencing the details and reality behind the picture. This is the perfect example of travel (and life in general) looking so much more marvelous and romanticized than it actually is.

Now you know the truth behind this photo and can understand that I was only talking about the prices when I said “this is why I’m still in Thailand.” It certainly wasn’t for the luxurious lifestyle, which is what it was misconstrued to be. Perhaps if I had posted a picture of the cockroaches, or the stray dog, the caption would have been understood in a more realistic way.

I left Pai that day and went back to Chiang Mai, to a hostel I had found before. I don’t do dorms well at all because I’m a light sleeper, but this one was cheap, clean, and comfortable, and since it was still slow season, there were only two other people in the 10-bed dorm, so I took a chance and stayed a night rather than flying to Bangkok straight away.

As was typical for my luck in Thailand, it turned out that one of the two other people in the room had sleep apnea. STOP. If you have sleep apnea, do us all a favor and NEVER sleep in a hostel dorm. Sorry, not sorry, it’s completely rude. It’s no reflection on you personally, but seriously, spare everyone else who is awake in agony while you’re the only one sleeping. As she choked on herself and snored like a freaking chain saw, I counted the hours until I could get on a flight out of there and put myself out of my misery.

In an effort to put a nice ending on this hopeless story, I ended up staying two more nights in Chiang Mai with a blogger friend who lives there, and then went to Bangkok and found a really great, amazing, wonderful, hotel semi-within my budget (definitely within my desperation budget) and stayed three nights while I figured out where I would go.

I write this from the couch of my new apartment for the next month in Lecce, Italy, where I am sleeping well in my clean, comfortable, bug-free bed, eating amazing Italian food every day, speaking a language I understand, and peacefully getting caught up on work.

There is only so much I can take when I’m making every effort to be somewhere or do something, yet it seems everything is working against me. There is a point when I step back, see all the signs, and say, “Yep, time to make a change.”

I haven’t given up on Thailand as a country, but right now, it’s definitely not a place I need to be. I’ve learned time and again that it’s worth paying attention to signs like these, and this time was no different.

I left Thailand and woke up the next day in Rome, my favorite city in the world, with a smile on my face. It’s worth listening to your heart.