Hitching to India: The Hunt, Day 1

I figured, what better place to leave than Phuket? I had a terrible impression of this place for years before I even go here, and I arrived to find out that it's bad, but not as bad as I thought it would be. It's full of Russians and resort hotels and scooters and hookers and cheap food and beer. You win some, you lose some, right?

Anyway, this is the place to hitch my way onto a boat, if I'm going to do it at all. It's a super developed island in terms of tourism and big money options. It has at least four marinas for all sorts of boats: sailing yachts captained by retired couples from San Francisco, super yachts owned by anonymous millionaires with crew that look like models, and yachts run by dirtbag travelers who've matured enough to have a boat.

Plenty of opportunities.

Or so I thought. When I made it to Yacht Haven, my last stop of the day, I finally got to talking to a bunch of people who told me that I was about 2 weeks too late. Everyone they knew left towards Sri Lanka early in January. Favorable winds and weather and whatnot.

Well I hadn't spent all day writing notes to post on bulletin boards and zipping around the island's hell-born traffic and road system to give up. Some other people told me that I just need to ask and I'll find something eventually, and I choose to believe them.

After all, if I fail to get a boat, what am I gonna do? Stay in Thailand? Go south through Malaysia? Or get on a plane, god forbid? Fuck that, all three of them. I want to go to India, and I want to go there on a boat.

I posted 8 notes at four marinas. The notes went something like this:

to INDIA and/or SRI LANKA

crew available

Hi, I'm a 27 year old male, American, hoping to travel to Sri Lanka or India.
I'm trying to circle the globe by land and sea only. I've made it this far from
South Korea.

I'm willing to cook, clean, share costs, play mediocre guitar, do general
maintenance, etc. I can leave anytime and have my visa to India already.

Please contact Ethan at:

cyphecks[at]yahoo.com

or

08-8869-5434 (text only though - the microphone on my phone is broken)

Thanks!

I hope it works. I'm going to go back to Chalong Bay, The Boat Lagoon, and the Royal Phuket Marina tomorrow to talk to more people. I'm not going to Yacht Haven again since I spent the most time there today, and more importantly, it's like 45 kilometers on crowded roads through a low atmosphere of smog.