BACK TO THE LAND

By CHRIS BUNTING

September 21, 2004 -- "So if they blew this island up in the movie, when did they rebuild it?" asked Dorothy, a 70-something year-old from Georgia.

She was referring to James Bond Island which, besides being a stop along our 7-night Star Flyer jaunt off the coast of Thailand, was one of the locations used in the 1974 Fleming classic "The Man With the Golden Gun."

"Um, zey used special effects in za movie -- it never actually blew up," Peter, our cruise director, politely explained in his thick German accent while obviously choking back a flood of contempt for the senile septuagenarian.

It's instances of stupid Americans being stupid Americans like this that makes traveling on cruise ships so much fun. Especially for the Europeans (they comprised the majority of the 100 or so passengers on board) who delight more in mocking the uglier among us than they do scuba diving, shopping in skyscraping Malaysian malls, or playing beach volleyball (other activities offered on board).

It was, in fact, our small group of six or seven Yankees that provided the majority of the fodder for the ship’s gossip mill: Skirt-chasing in Bangkok, drinking too much lizard-wine before passing out on deck, onboard romance, and other unmentionable acts.

All of which, by the way, were true.

Yet somehow I managed to escape implication in any of these base, albeit completely stereotypical, acts of Americans-gone-wild despite being more than just a little guilty of at least one (I'll take the fifth on which).

So I, too, sat back and treasonously mocked my fellow countrymen along with the Continentals without bother from my conscience under the gorgeous South East Asian sun.

"God, I just love the smell of ugly Americanism in the morning," I remember whispering to a buddy of mine on the cruise.

But that stench was about to quickly and karmically close in around me when our tall ship anchored, after nearly 5 says at sea in Phang-Nga Bay. Myself and about 25 other shipmates boarded a smaller speed boat that whisked us away through the mangrove swamps to the island village of Koh Panyi for the day, inhabited mostly by Muslim fishermen.

The dark sludgy sand that comprises the landscape of the island, best described as “primordial ooze” by my shipmate, serves nicely for the hundreds of what I can only call “legged fish” (no one could tell us what these peculiar creatures actually were) to nest and frolic in.

The whole of the island’s 500-household village sits 10-feet off the bubbling grey mud on stilted wooden planks that creak with every step.

Exploring the tiny village we discovered bustling apartments, an Islamic church and graveyard, and plenty of souvenir peddlers. One such vendor particularly horrified the Americans in our group as we discovered his pet eagle had its foot  rope-tied to a perch.

More interesting was the village school which, in addition to teaching the usual 3 R’s, endowed its pupils with a fourth: Retail.

“Picture, sir? Take photo with friend,” demanded one such 10-year-old over-achiever who came running out of his classroom across the basketball court to greet us.

The friend he was referring to was some sort of ling, or white spider monkey, which he had climb up on my shoulder to pose for a photo.

“How much?” I asked.

“300 baht,” he said. Even at $6, it was too rich for my blood, so I gently handed the monkey back to the disappointed youth. The indentured animal trade never did much appeal to me.

As we finished exploring nearly the entire island in about 20 minute’s time, my cranky group grew restless. They were hungry and the island’s sole restaurant, “Sunset," was to be our destination come noon.

Still well groggy from last night’s Sing-ha swigging marathon at the ship's bar, a hearty lunch of salty green salad and chicken-kabobs was fairly low on my to-do list. So, I slyly sneaked away unnoticed from the famished mob and wandered around the residential side of the village instead.

This was where I would find trouble, and trouble would oblige.

The recurring absurdities I kept stumbling upon on these beautiful and odd Thai isles, no matter how small or

uninhabited, were internet cafes. Even on beachy Ko Lipe, which doesn’t have any permanent residents on the whole damn island save for a few gypsies, has one (all thanks to a very thorough national infrastructure program).

So when I walked by a building, its sliding doors wide open, and saw 5 kids playing Playstation 2 on a big screen TV and a couple more typing away on two of the eight computers, I was not surprised at all.

It had been nearly 48 hours since I had last checked my email so I was in desperate need to jump on a machine in this cafe.

I looked around the room for some sort of a pricing guide but just sat down and blindly logged into one of the computers figuring it couldn’t cost more than a couple of bucks an hour. Funny thing was, the boys on the computer and those watching TV were eying me in a semi-threatening, semi-confused way.

I ignored it and just surfed around, even ordered a glass of water. Then one of the kids turned up the sound on his computer and started blasting his music.

“Can you use headphones, please?” I implored while sighing impatiently. He ignored the  suggestion while I just scowled and pouted and stared into my email. At this point the boys were just laughing and pointing at me -- and I had had enough. I closed my web browser window, stood up in a snit, and took out my wallet.

“So how much for the internet?” I asked. I took out 300 baht. One of the younger kids shook his head and waved away the money with his hand.

“No, how much for the computer?” I pointed at the monitor. He shook his head again.

“OK, this should cover up,” I said as I laid down the 300 baht on the counter. “Thanks." I walked out.

I finally caught up with the rest of my shipmates at the restaurant, sat down at the tabe and relayed the last few minutes of my life in the odd internet cafe.

Greg, one of the more straight-shooting of the group, paused for a few seconds after I had completed the story, stared down pensively, rubbed his chin, then started to smirk.

“Chris, are you sure that wasn’t somebody’s private residence?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe you barged into someone’s house, used their computer without asking, had the gall to bitch about the volume of their music, helped yourself to a drink, then basically threw 50 cents at them for their trouble,” Greg laughed. “Imagine if someone had trespassed into your apartment in New York and did the same thing!”

I put my hand over my mouth, mutedly gasped, and let out a guilty chuckle.

“The world is your oyster,” Greg said. “Your internet café.”

A wave of both shame and humor came over me upon realizing what exactly had transpired. I weighed whether I should return to the scene of the crime to apologize, but my good captain was already reading the ship’s roll call for the voyage home -- and really, what words could undo such insolence?

So I crossed the plank that connected the restaurant to the docks, watched the baby tiger sharks circling in an open-air tank

below, and boarded our speed vessel bound for the Star Flyer and swallowed this simple horror:

I had seen the unmasking of the ugly American -- and he is I.