On my first night in Koh Lipe, in an attempt to escape the crowds, I ducked into the first empty bar I found. I know this goes against all the travel advice you’ve ever heard. “Eat where the locals eat,” they always say. “If it’s empty, there’s a reason,” they also say. Well on Koh Lipe, empty was a rare luxury, and I didn’t care at what cost it came. I needed some physical space.
Out front, a simple blackboard had a few meals scrawled in handwritten chalk. I figured these were just the specials of the day, and asked to see a menu.
The older Thai guy with dreads piled up an impressive hight on his head, and a few escaping down to his knees, said that the blackboard was the only menu. That was music to my ears. Places with only a few options on the menu are always the best. I inquired about the price and he easily listed off the prices for some of the items. 160 baht for curry. If you’ve been to Thailand, then that may sound expensive, but on Koh Lipe, it was a bargain. All the meals were around 250-300 baht during high season. I did not realize before going that all the prices would double to triple for the high season.
There weren’t many tables to sit at. Two little coffee tables adorned the entry way. One dinner-sized table was farther back, and a bamboo platform offered some cushions to chill on. I felt bad taking the only dinner table, but there was no one else here.
“Drink?” The Thai rasta asked. When I hesitated, he suggested that he made the best mojito in Thailand. I couldn’t help but smile at that. In my memory, mixology was a lost art in Thailand. The fancier cocktails were always a tad lacking. You’re best off buying a bottle of liquor and a mixer, because that is about all they know how to make at the bar. I had to know what constituted the “best” mojito in Thailand.
The Thai rasta set about hustling back and forth between the kitchen and the bar. Apparently he was the only one here. Fresh mint made its way from the kitchen to the bar. A pineapple was brought from the bar to the kitchen. The whir of the blender interrupted the chill music he had playing.
The space was a simple, square, warehouse, with one side open to the street – not the Walking Street, but a quieter side road. Well, at one point it was probably quieter. Now motorbikes with metal sidecars welded on rushed up and down, transporting tourists who were too lazy to walk the short distance to and from Sunset Beach themselves. (Did I mention how tiny the island was?)
The space was decorated with random odds and ends. Plants and musical instruments hung from the walls. An obligatory tapestry of Bob Marley held the place of honor behind the bar. A painting someone had created of the dude making my curry and mojito held a less prominent position on another wall. A vintage, tin sign behind the bar requested “No Photos.” I wasn’t sure if it was serious, or only part of the decor, so I played it safe and put the phone away. It was nicer to just enjoy the atmosphere anyway. You’ll just have to paint an image in your minds.
After much whirring of the ancient blender, a foot-tall glass with a metal straw, full of a green smoothie was set in front of me. I thanked the dude, and told him I appreciated the metal straw.
I must say, his bragging on his own mojito-making ability was well justified. He hadn’t just muddled a little bit of mint in the bottom of a glass, but blended me an entire smoothie of it, and a strong one at that. Best mojito in Thailand it was. This Thai rasta dude had perfected something wonderful, even by Cuban standards. He proudly told me that some Cubans had visited him, and proclaimed his mojito to be better even than the ones in Cuba.
Two girls who had obviously been partying for a while already, stumbled their way in and asked about tattoos. Perplexed, I glanced at the door, and sure enough, under food, the sign read, “tattoo.” So he was a man of all trades. I had chosen the right place. Never eat somewhere in Thailand with a menu that offers everything under the moon. Always eat at a place that offers a few dishes and some other random thing, like tattoos or laundry. You think I’m being funny, but it’s true.
The Thai rasta chef who made the best mojito in all of Thailand, was not the tattoo artist, it turned out. He had to call his friend, and the girls eventually sobered up enough to realize that they shouldn’t wait around for that appointment.
My massaman curry with tofu arrived. It wasn’t a traditional soupy curry, but more of a generous heaping of vegetables and pineapple and tofu in a savory curry sauce. Maybe I had just forgotten how good Thai food was, but that could very well have been the best curry I’d ever had. (I sit here writing this now almost a month after the fact, most days of which I’ve eaten curry, and I still stand by that statement.) That dish wasn’t something that was just whipped up in a kitchen quickly to make a few dollars off of a tourist. That dish was something made with love by a true culinary artist.
The Thai rasta chef who made the best mojito and the best curry in all of Thailand, left me alone to eat, but then sat down to talk when I had finished. He also topped up my mojito with what was leftover in the blender, which nearly filled the tall glass all the way to the top again.
He told me that he had been in business for 17 years, but at a bigger location down the road with bungalows. Now the national park was reclaiming that land, and he had been fighting with them for the past six years. He was tired of fighting now, and paying for lawyers, so he decided to open this smaller location in the warehouse before the other one was forced to close. That way there wouldn’t be any gap in his flow of income. This one had been open for four days. That’s why it was empty.
He also had a bar on walking street, but he liked it better here, because people were friendlier. Here people still responded when he said hello. On Walking Street, no one ever responded. On walking street, he would show up to work to find his employees with long faces. He would ask why, and they would complain that business was down from last year. He would remind them to be happy for what they had today. I liked his philosophy.
Throughout his story, he would get up periodically to play the next song on his playlist. For some reason the songs wouldn’t play continuously on their own. He finally told me that he had just updated his software, and this problem had been going on since the update. He asked if I would take a look at it since I could read English.
I went behind the bar to realize that he had a whole DJ turntable back there, with the corresponding computer software. I knew absolutely nothing about DJ equipment, but as he had said, I could read English. So I fiddled around with it, and finally just gave up and Googled the problem. Google knows everything. When I learned the solution, I showed the Thai rasta, whose name was Pimook (and I’m sure I’m spelling that wrong). He practiced toggling the correct setting back and forth a few times, and then made me another oversized mojito as thanks.
The time I spent at Time to Chill was the best time I spent on Koh Lipe, and so I returned at the end of my stay. Plus that massaman curry was to die for. I told Pimook that the island was too crowded for me, and that I was going to look for quieter beaches on Koh Mook. He asked me to send him pictures of Koh Mook. He had often thought about the possibility of expanding there, when there was nothing left here for him. He also offered me a job, helping him out at the bar in the evenings after my days of diving if I did ever want to return to Koh Lipe. I liked that idea, of getting stuck on an island for a couple months, diving by day, helping out at the rasta bar in the evenings, but this wasn’t the island for me. I thanked Pimook for his kind offer. My journey was pulling me onwards though. The perfect island was out there somewhere, and I would be restless until I found it.
