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wThursday, April 22, 2004 |
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Yesterday typed a buttload and the connection deleted it Twice, so writing in Word today.
We landed on crabi island Monday morning. Stayed there on railay beach mon & tue nights. Came to phi phi island on Wednesday, and I think I’m gonna stay one more night here tomorrow night, then wrap up the last two days in Phuket. Then gotta fly back to Bangkok and then back to Austin on the 27th. I was unable to extend the flight, so major disappointment on my part, but just had to say what the heck and get the most out my last five days here.
Railay beach ~ I had a blast both nights there. On the longtail boatride over (we had to go into crabi town to take care of some things, and I unfortunately was unable to switch my flight), met this great couple Sarah & Simon from Melbourne Australia and currently living in London. Jitka & I rockclimbed on this wall in the bar (drunk) and luckily I didn’t fall and bust my head. Of course, I’m taking no pictures, so if ever this sarah girl emails me, I’ll let you see some photos. Jitka’s friend Gabi (another Czech tourguide here) met us in Railay beach and has hooked up with ever since. Well…she turned in early Tuesday night, then jitka. Then even young Simon had to go back to his room. So me & stranger sarah are bonding over buckets of redbull & some thai whiskey all night. Needless to say, I was sort of hurting Wednesday morning on the hour & a half boat ride from railay over here to phi phi island. And boy is it beautiful here.
Today, unfortunately, I spent shopping for a majority of the day. My mom gave me some money with a specific list of what to buy (which I can’t find most of it) for my sister & nephews & herself. It’s too hot to shop. It’s too hot to do anything except lie in the water sleeping. Even the shopkeepers are sleeping in their stores until I rudely go in and wake them up with my desire to spend money. Last night, oh forgive me, I had spaghetti. Oddly enough, Italian/European food is everywhere here, and I have found very little thai vegetarian options. Most is loaded with pork or chicken or else good ol’ fish.
I’m coming back, next summer. Anyone wanna join? I need a job. And jitka & I have been talking a lot about that, as she has to go back to Czech now, and we are all faced with the question, “so…what now?” I don’t know actually. I was tempted to buy an around-the-world ticket when I found out I couldn’t change my departure date. Maybe, maybe. I have to go check on Miss Kitty, then figure it out. There’s so much I want to do now. Now that you get that silly taste of travel, you can’t just forget it. Alas, when I do return and everything is back to the norm, I will forget these feelings and the uneasiness I have with the thought of staying in Austin for the rest of my life. Well enough of that talk.
I think I’m supposed to meet jitka at the jungle bar at 4pm. At least I think that’s what our plan was. Actually, I thought it was 3, then thought I might be wrong, so came to this air conditioned room again. Oh, flying into samui (this is what I wrote two days ago that got erased…or was it just yesterday??) I had a 6-hour layover in Bangkok. But once I made it there and made it through customs & immigration, I was set! I sat down at this internet café in their airport (int’l airport open 24hrs, so I figured I’d just sit there from midnight until 5am when the domestic airport opened) and some crazy Californian started buying me Singhas. Smoking Marlboro lights with crazy thai writing all over, and listening to his strange stories of living in Thailand & china off and on for the past 10 years or so. Another older gentleman (jack from Holland) was also sitting in the airport wondering what to do from this timespan of last plane in before airport starting buzzing again in five hours. Well…got drunk in the Bangkok international airport, and that was the best experience of my journey here. I hadn’t had a drink on the entire day of plane rides because I was afraid I’d screw something up and get stuck in Tokyo or something stupid & jill-like.
Oh all the thai I have learned so far, is kop kun ka which means thank you. (I think) I have found out that I’m one of those rude/snobby Americans who thinks they don’t have to learn foreign languages and think everyone else can just speak English if they want to communicate with you. It’s not that I’m snobby, it’s that I’m afraid I’m gonna botch it up and say something like “you’re mother’s a whore” which I think would be worse than just smiling and nodding at everyone. Oh last night we caught the tail end of a thai boxing match, I swear they couldn’t have been over fifteen years old. Jitka said she saw part of one once where they looked 12. and that was disturbing. It’s crazy, the dogs & cats roam free here. Sit on beaches drinking, eating, sleeping. Everyone sleeps most anywhere when the heat tires you out enough that you basically just pass out for awhile. Fire shows are at most bars every night. Jitka’s gotten quite good, I must say, and actually picked up lit ones for the first time last night and did very well (she uses the practice strings a lot, but never lit before). Gabi speaks four languages rather fluently, I think Czech, English, Spanish & Italian. And now she’s slowly adding thai to that list. I gotta get off my ass and learn something. And keep growing and not be stagnant even if I don’t go anywhere. I wanna take a scuba diving class. Would take one here but I don’t have time. So maybe back in Austin. Maybe….maybe…
Okay, gotta bolt, time for singha & soup. And sleep & shower. More shopping. Then we go to the Hippie Bar tonight. The couple from Melbourne might meet us there, unless they decided to stay another night in railay beach.
Forgive misspellings, poor grammar, etc. I’ll touch up later, I doubt.
posted by
zenbetty at 4:11 AM
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