Party Foul!

In this business, it's a widely-held belief that one has a responsibility to share a certain amount of information within a certain amount of time- say, a month, lest the readers lose control of themselves, and...i dunno...hack every bit of private information i have. imagine a pit of velociraptors needing to be thrown chunks of meat every once in a while. that's you. however, at this point, it's probably nearer to reality to imagine those raptors who have survived the "alive-esque" feeding frenzy, in which their appetites were turned on eachother in a survival-of-the-fittest-free-for-all, collapsed sideways, panting out their last breaths, needing some kind of nourishment to survive.

wow.

Many, or only perhaps some, of you are aware that in the later days of march, i spent some time in thailand. important, funny, and painful things happened in those days, things that bear sharing. as such, in spite of our current chronological distance from those events, they will be our starting point. i apologize in advance to those of you who may recognize the following passages from emails that may or may not have been written to you.

The plan was for me to meet up with my girlfriend- hearafter referred to as "nelle"- her twin brothers Josiah and Isaac, and their cousin Jordan- hereafter referred to as "the boys"- in bangkok. the boys had been in thailand for a week or so at that point on their senior class trip, with nelle as a chaperone. they had paid to have their return date moved back a week, which would allow them to "party" in thailand over spring break, which i was to join them for. it bears mentioning that this whole thing was nelle's idea.

So i flew standby to bangkok, which was not in any way risky. the plane was roughly half full, which i knew, so i wasn't nervous or anything. i slept most of the way (of course) and landed in bangkok at like 11-something pm. i was almost to customs when i realized that i had made a newbie mistake- i'd left my envelope full of baht- almost $100 worth- in the seat pocket in front of me. CRAP! so i tried to go back, but they wouldn't let me. i talked to some people, who were sort of helpful-ish, but i basically had no hopes, especially when they asked what was in the white envelope and i told them that it was 2800 baht...so, beating myself up the whole time, i went through everything and got all the right stamps and forms filled out. on my way out, juuuuuust before i took the last step out from the customs area, a lady ran up to me and told me that they'd found my envelope! yay! if i would just take a seat, someone was bringing it up shortly. like 20 minutes shortly...but when it came, they asked me to count and make sure it was all there, and it was! so my faith in thai folk was restored.

Nelle and the boys had been kicking around bangkok for a full day before i came around, so they had everything figured out for the night, as well as for the next day. we crammed in a taxi to get to the area of the hostel, and pretty much just crashed for the night- it was well after 1 when we got there, and they were all exhausted. i stared at the ceiling for a long time...

In order to get where we were going, we had to take a bus to the ferry terminal, which was to have taken 7 hours, not including, apparently, stop-and-still-stopped-and-we're-almost-moving traffic in downtown bangkok. when we finally got to the ferry terminal, it was hard to remember a time in my life that i wasn't on that bus...it seemed to take an eternity. the spaciousness and fresh-ish air of the ferry was welcome relief. the island we were headed to has been misleadingly labeled "koh chang", meaning something to the extent of "elephant island". it was an island, and there were elephants, but only a few here and there, chained in stalls. i was assuming they made up the majority of the life on the island. nevertheless, it was pretty awesome.

We didn't have a place to stay lined up for the night or anything, so we went to the cheapest area of beach (all the price brackets sort of stick together), and started asking on one end of this long stretch of beach until we found a place. we ended up with 2 rooms. well, except by "rooms" i mean "huts". the huts were not that big, and the "mattresses" were made of styrofoam, so they weren't the most comfortable things in the world, and the roof of mine leaked in the pounding thunderstorms that were not uncommon. i slept with josiah in one bed, and nelle, isaac, and jordan slept in the other one.

The beach right in front of where we were was crap- all rocks and slime, but 2 resorts up, the beach was really nice, all white sand and palm trees. the water was the warmest ever- the popular consensus was that it was swimming in spit, although i championed the "swimming in urine" parallel . it was almost too warm; it was so hot outside that cold water would have been a relief! that particular resort also had our shower- we'd sneak over to their beach shower at night with soap and stuff and clean up a bit- between the humidity, sweat, saltwater, and sunscreen, we were quite greasy.

Our main source of entertainment was our scooters. between the 5 of us we rented 4, so me and nelle were together for all but like 20 minutes when one of the boys let her drive theirs. the roads there were incredible- i'd be braking as hard as i could going down, and i was barely managing to be slow enough to be safe. going up we'd end up in 1st gear going slower than we would if we were walking. it was great! it was so fun to be riding around in our swimsuits at like 60kph, no helmets, just cruising, enjoying the wind and the scenery. except that i crashed....


We ate out for every meal, and on this particular morning we were looking for the place that we had lunched at the day before. i was in front with nelle, and the boys were behind us somewhere. there's pretty much only one road that goes around this island, so it's not like you can really get lost... we came around a sweeping turn, and i saw that the restaurant we were looking for was on our left. i slowed down really quick, and tried to turn into their driveway...and totally wiped out. there was some dirt on the road, and if i'd been going straight when i slowed down we'd have been fine, but the tire lost traction when i swerved... it's a little hard to explain in type. i landed straight on my elbow, which is no picnic standing still, let alone moving forwards at 30kph. my left leg was also between the scooter and the road as we slid down the road.

But, sadly for me, nelle was much worse off. her elbow was bleeding some and the side of her leg was bleeding some, but her knee was the worst. in one spot there was a laceration about the size of a nickle, and then next to it was a divot the size of a quarter. it was as if someone had just popped a chunk out of her leg with a tool of some sort. i'd guess it was a rock or something- it wasn't really big, but it was deep enough to be a big deal. i, of course, felt like the world's biggest idiot- not only did i crash due to my own stupidity, which is pretty bad considering i've taken motorcycle safety classes and routinely drive a real motorcycle around, but my girlfriend got hurt worse than i did. unforgivable! the people in the restaurant rushed out to help us and gave us cotton and some anti-bacterial stuff, and some bottled water. she ended up going to a clinic at my insistence, where the doctor put a needlessly large wrap on it and forbade swimming.

Before i left, i realized that to survive in the tropics i would need sunscreen. i borrowed some, but it ended up being completely ineffectual. it was quite old, and i believe fairly strongly that it in fact magnified the ultra violet rays. i was probably the most burnt i've ever been in my life. i peeled all the way down to my wrists. my forehead and chest were mysteriously super-burnt (you know, when skin takes this purple-ish shade), but i realized that it was from riding around on the scooters. sunscreen before swimming has become second nature, but there were hours of riding when i didn't think to put anything on (sunscreen, that is). i was burnt all the way to my hairline- the wind blew my hair back off my face. pretty funny stuff.

Our days there were filled with aimless wandering and pages from "make-your-own-adventure" books. we drove to beaches, swam, drove to other beaches, swam there... the one of the boys ran his scooter out of gas twice, we climbed trees, we went on a "hike" to a "waterfall" (neither of those things deserve those titles). the last night we were there me and nelle treated the boys to supper- told them to eat as much of whatever as they wanted. we ate for the duration of a full-length movie, and the bill came to about $30. we sat around and did nothing, we trespassed, we got in trouble for trespassing, we enjoyed eachother's company. we relaxed.

The plane home was rough. the flight left at 6:30am, and the clock we had was mysteriously an hour fast, so i got to the airport at like 4am. the flight was really really really really full, and my "travel agent" told me that there was very little chance i'd make it out on my first try. so i ended up at the gate, just waiting. finally they printed me a boarding pass and let me on. wahoo! ...then someone came and kicked me off. CRAP! they made me sit back in the boarding area while they undid all the immigrations stuff and whatever, then i noticed that the people they were paging on the PA was for my flight. 2 people had checked in, but had somehow gotten lost between the check-in counter and the gate-being strip-searched, no doubt. in the end, they gave me my passport back and told me that i was a very lucky person. i was thanking them profusely when they cut me off and said "sir, you must go NOW. RUN!" i didn't even get a boarding pass- they just radioed the flight attendants and told them my seat number. i fell asleep before takeoff, and was awake for like 30 minutes out of the 5 hour flight.

I have an online photo album that i've uploaded about half of my thailand pics to, as well as the ones from cam's wedding, actually. this is the site free for your perusal. i'll also put a more permanent link to it on that sidebar over there, and i'll post a little note when i upload newer and cooler pictures.

There. survive on that for a while. i've decided that, since i seem to be incapable of posting with greater frequency, my goal will be to post whenever i feel like the guilt is almost to the point of being overwhelming. unfortunately for you, this time it was over a month....


ps- let me know if you prefer the pics the way they are here, that is, as links, or if you prefer to see the actual photos in the actual content of the actual blog