As mentioned, after the luxurious times at Krabi Beach, we had a rocking time in Phuket … too much fun and not enough lodging. After my buddy Steve and I closed down the Hard Rock Cafe, we combed the backstreets, looking for a place to stay. It was the dawning of The Year of The Dragon and the dragon was kicking our arse. Too many tourists … not enough rooms.
After a couple of hours or rejection and a 30-mile drive to Phuket Town, we found a hole-in-the-wall hotel, the Summer Hotel. Perhaps the name paints a rosier picture than I … But we only pulled over out of desperation. We had already been turned down by numerous “hotels” that probably would have rented a room by the hour, had they not been filled to capacity … if you know what I mean. So it didn’t take much for this hotel to meet or surpass our expectations.
“You gotta bed? Perfect!” … that sort of thing …
Actually, when I parked the car around 3 a.m. and walked to the front desk, I expected to be turned away … again. But to my surprise the night clerk had good news and bad news (my cliche, not hers).
The good news — yes there were two rooms available for dirt cheap.
The bad news — only one of them had an air conditioner.
Steve is bigger than me so I volunteered to take the sweltering suite. (What was I thinking?) I know it was because i had gotten us into this mess and felt bad … so I decided to make the best of it. Plus, I was so tired … nothing was going to stand between me and some zzzzzzzzs.
Checking into the room at The Summer Hotel seemed like the low point of the trip. Ha … my mind flashed back to my previous adventures … the time I roughed it at a hostel in Utah during the Sundance Film Festival … I digress …
Prior to Phuket, the day before we had been on location at one of the most exclusive properties in Thailand … today … not so much … definitely the opposite end of the spectrum. The Summer Hotel rooms were tiny and hot and not very well maintained. (Understatement.)
The rooms looked like a scene from a 1950s cheap detective story … a place where you might stay if you were spying on a crook across the street … there was a bed, a bathroom door … not much more. Of course by this time I was thinking this should make good fodder for the blog. Most of all, I was thinking I could probably sleep on a concrete slab at this point.
Insects didn’t carry me off in the night, although the windows were cracked. The ceiling fan made almost enough noise to drown out the traffic. (Don’t you people in Phuket Town ever sleep?”) Just outside my window was a roof top ledge where many a bird had perched, some neon signs and power lines. Only a few feet below, the street was busy.
Nevertheless … I hit the bed and slept like a rock for several hours. Next up — the bathroom. Ha … For hygienic reasons, I did not want to use the shower. Yet for the story … for the adventure, I was laughing about it. A nozzle stuck out of the wall, just a few feet from the commode. There was no shower-tile floor … no stall … no tub … just a nozzle and a drain. The one and only towel was about as bountiful as a worn out linen. I made the best of it, and it felt great. Just before I pounded on Steve’s door down the hall — the one with an air conditioner humming along — I turned on my iPhone to check for Wi-Fi.
You guessed correct. There was no network for The Summer. However, a curious little network popped up called Classic Bike. “What is this?,” I said aloud in my nerdy way. I stretched my head out the window and saw a few cafe tables down below, next door to the hotel.
What a great little Wi-Fi find!
Karnes, Korn & Ping At Classic Bike
Although I thought our adventure was better for the experience, we wasted no time leaving the hotel. We of course made a beeline to the Classic Bike Coffee. Awesome … one of my favorite little getaways on the entire trip. There was a non-English speaking owner. His name? Korn — not to be confused with Porn –which is a pretty common syllable in many Thai names, BTW. Classic Bike also had great strong coffee and a few locals who could translate.
The translator in the group was waiting for a few family members for a get-together. They brought in their own snacks. Better yet, they shared, perhaps because they said they liked Texas. I unwrapped some sort of palm leaf, filled with two sweet cakes of some sort, compliments of my new friends. I didn’t ask questions of the origin.
Outside of the quaint little coffee shop sat the namesake – a 1976 Mark II 125cc Suzuki motorcycle, in pretty darned good condition. Despite the language barrier, I could ascertain it was the proprietor’s pride and joy. (I mean, this is a country with 2 gazillion mopeds, and this guy has a real motorcycle and and a classic at that … pretty cool.) My new friend Korn offered to give me a ride, but I thought that might just be too silly …
Oh. The Classic Bike hotspot? Excellent Wi-Fi … free, good speed, password protected, but user friendly. Me and my laptop were saddled up in no time, sending out tweets, uploading a few photos and doing the Facebook boogie. And the password? Ha … get this … 076076076 … just like the year of the bike … See, I told you it was his pride and joy … and as long as he has a hotspot, people will know it through this subtle password promotion.
Classic Bike Coffee — strong coffee … vrooooom … a hotspot to brighten up the gloomiest hotel experience … great people and a slice of street life in Phuket Town, beyond the tourist traps — Of the 7 pings, you get 6.
Oh … Also, as is my custom, I tried to buy a Classic Bike t-shirt. Korn said he was sold out. Ha … I even tried to buy a t-shirt from Summer. They didn’t have any, but tried to give me a green, save the planet generic t-shirt of some sort … about a size 2 … I passed.
(Out of curiosity … how many of you know the obscure Montrose song “Bad Motor Scooter” referenced in the headline?)
Know what I sayin?
