I Traveled to Thailand Only to Crap All Over its Crystal Clear Beaches

I was mortified, but the fish enjoyed themselves

Debra Groves Harman, MEd and Laurel B. Miller, you’ve inspired me.

I have a poop story welling up inside me, and I can’t hold it any longer.

My own crappy story begins with a life-changing trip to Southeast Asia.

My now-husband and I were in our mid-twenties and bursting with energy for travel. During a summer break from teaching, we planned a 3-week trip to visit Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos with our backpacks and Lonely Planets in tow.

Most of this trip was spent the way you’d expect twenty-somethings would backpack around Southeast Asia. We stayed in crappy hostels and ate $1 curry dinners. We read used paperback books we picked up and dropped off in hostels along the way.

Because we tried to pack so much into those three weeks, our trip was full of arduous travel days that I would only opt into now if you promised me a liberal dose of twilight anesthesia.

We slept on an overnight train from Bangkok to Vientiane that smelled like grilled shrimp.

We traveled 8 hours by river from Battambang to Siem Reap on the deck of a boat with no shade.

We traveled to Luang Namtha, Laos, on a crowded bus that sped dangerously close to the edge of steep mountain switchbacks.

As you can imagine, we loved every minute of the backpacker stuff.

But still, we reserved a few days at the end of our journey for a little luxury.

We would find this luxury on a beach in Thailand. We opted for the little island of Ko Samet, which was a bus and ferry ride away from Bangkok.

We stayed in a small room in a hotel that felt luxurious simply because it was called a “hotel” instead of a “hostel.” It smelled vaguely of mildew. But the beaches didn’t disappoint. The island was stunning, and the ocean really was as crystal clear as I had seen in photos.

One day, we rented a kayak to paddle around the perimeter of the island. We rejoiced in the beautiful scenery and the pale blue hue of the water. From our kayak, we could see all the way to the ocean floor.

As we made our way around the island, we discovered private beaches of fancy resorts that were far above our price range.

We paddled up close to the beach resorts like a pair of paparazzi, catching a glimpse of what life looked like for the rich people whose rooms didn’t smell like mildew.

It was on one of these close-up paddling moments in our kayak that I felt the tell-tale churn in my stomach. You know the churn I’m referring to.

It’s that moment when your insides clench together dramatically to give you the heads up that things are about to take a major turn for the worse.

It’s the churn you feel quite often when you spend every meal eating fresh fruit smoothies and $1 curry from street carts.

“Quick, paddle!” I yelled to my boyfriend. I thought if we could get close enough to shore, I could hop out and race to empty my bowels in a beach-side bathroom at the resort.

But it became clear in a few seconds that I would not be able to avert this disaster. The tastefully serene buildings of the luxury resort were too far away from the beach for me to get to them in time.

So we wound up paddling just close enough to approach the fancy tourists wading in the beautiful water but not close enough for me to make plan A a reality.

I opted for plan B, which was far messier.

I jumped right off the side of the kayak into that crystal clear water and let everything out of my system.

If you absolutely can’t find a toilet, pooping in the ocean isn’t all that bad. The ocean is gigantic, so it doesn’t even feel that wrong or dirty.

This is usually true about the ocean, unless you happen to be pooping in a very scenic stretch of ocean with shockingly clear waters next to a luxury resort.

When my stomach spasms had subsided, I found myself treading water in the middle of my own filth not that far from shore.

I was about 20 feet away from a bunch of people who paid good money to look at that crystal clear ocean all day and not see someone’s shit floating in it.

And I hadn’t paid a dime to use their beach as my personal toilet.

I was horrified.

I looked up at my boyfriend, who was barely controlling his laughter. I looked out at the people in lounge chairs on the beach, and I noticed some of them register what had just gone down and look at me with disgust. I saw some people move away from the water.

I looked around me at my floating bits of excrement and saw some tiny fish gather near me to get in on the action.

“Everyone knows what you just did, Michelle!” my boyfriend exclaimed, as I threw myself back into the kayak.

“PADDLE!” I yelled, directing him away from the beach. We paddled as fast as we could until we were out of sight of the beach resort.

And just like that, we became the pair of 20-something backpackers who paddled right up to a fancy Thai resort, shit on its beach, and then kayaked away.

It was a perfectly executed “shit and run” that closed out our Southeast Asian adventure.

As I’ve reflected on this messy moment of my bygone travel days, I can’t help but feel grateful that I was the one pooping off the side of a kayak and not one of the people lounging on their beach chairs at the resort.

Because traveling in your 20’s isn’t a time to be sitting on beach chairs.

Your 20’s are a time to be reading used novels you find in hostels, eating cheap street food, and then pooping out that street food all over the serene beaches of your wealthy elders.

There’s a time and a place for everything. And in 10 years, I hope to tip my beach hat to a 20-something shitting on my own beach vacation one day.

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