Hungry, hungry hippo

I'm at the Bangkok airport waiting for my flight to Colombo. I've got about 2 hours to go & give or take 100 baht to burn on my 'happy' phonecard. Today started off pretty chill but got all shitastic pretty fast. The plan was to take care of some last minute shopping, deal with the post office, have a late lunch & then bugger off. This was too simple to be executed properly.

I found some super, super cute postcards at the post office & couldn't resist picking some up. So for those of you who gave me your addresses I blame you for delaying me horribly. I had no intentions of spending my morning writing, but 13 postcards later...

And guys you've got to admit my postcard writing skills are pretty badass, I don't skimp & make use of all available space. Honestly I hope you will just lie to me & tell me that you keep all of them lovingly in a box because I'd be crushed if you tossed them. For reals. Plus, you never know, they could be worth something someday!

I normally don't eat breakfast, the picture above is what I subsisted on when we were in ko samed. (Yes, that is the view from the balcony, crazy eh?) Today I had some Thai pastries while I wrote away. Which is a good thing because I kept the leftovers in my bag & just finished inhaling them now. Man I'm starved.

After the postcard writing I grabbed a few last minute things for the ladies in my life, had a lovely lunch & then headed back to the guesthouse with ample time for a shower etc. Of course the minute I step outside it starts to pour and I can't find an empty taxi, the traffic is horrendous & I begin to panic.

My uncle's going to be mortified when he gets me at the airport. I had just enough time to get back to the guesthouse, pay my bill, throw my suitcases in & then head to the airport. I'm still wearing the crap I was in this morning. Linen shorts, a tshirt & flip flops. I am certain to freeze to death on the plane yo, also because of the rain my hair has a certain je ne sais quois about it. Not the good kind.

You know how I always 'misplace' shit at the worst times? I thought I lost the keys to my luggage, then I thought my passport was gone along with my watch and iphone. Then I feel like throwing up. This is what sucks about traveling alone & being so absent minded. There's no one around to tell me to calm the shit down.

Manheaven

If you want to pick up dudes under the cover of being a nerd, this is the best place to do it. Just trust me on this one.

Also, this was on Ko Samed island, wonder why they're referencing the mainland...

And these are a few of my favourite things.

In order for me to have fun times at the beach, these needed to be within grasping distance ALWAYS. My camera, the parents' wee nikon point and shoot, ipod, (obvi the iPhone too) and a book. Specifically War and Peace, which is being re-read for the first time since that first year-undergraduate intro to lit class. Oh! And my fave! My 100 baht sunglasses.

'No! Bangkok's Eastern Bus Terminal!'

We've sort of been relying on Lonely Planet's Thai guide for our directions around town. Alby and I had no idea what we'd be in for yesterday trying to get from Bangkok to Ko Samed but figured who gave a shit really, it'd be an adventure. So on Sunday morning we ambled over to the guesthouse office to find "Glory," the sweet front desk
lady and get directions. Or at the very least some names written down in Thai. No luck with that though because she was nowhere to be found and we figured we'd be able to manage on our own.

Um. Yeah.

Armed with a map we headed up to the top of the road with our backpacks. The two teenagers at the 7/11 (guys, that shit is on every corner here! It amazes me) seemed to know a bit of English so after a bit of pantomiming we managed to get them to write "Bangkok's Eastern Bus Terminal" in Thai.

The cabbie we found was pretty eager not to take us where we wanted, but straight to Rayong, which was the town we needed to get to. Alby and I both screamed "NO!" in the same tone of voice i use on Oliver and looked at him with what I assume is the steely faced determination Alby uses on her behaviourally challenged students. Eager to make peace with us he pulled out a photograph of himself riding a tiger. I'm wondering if I need to Photoshop myself into a picture like that too, if it's the universal sign of goodwill out here or something? I will take one for the team.

With the help of an American hippie we scored two tickets for what was promised to be a "luxury bus ride" to the sleepy seaside town of Rayong. Bus bay 106 at 10:00AM. (I know, that's a photo of bay 105, but my view was obstructed!) The people in Thailand have been so sweet to us so far. Neither of us have been harassed at all (unlike in Colombo) and when we got on the bus an elderly man asked to see our tickets to make sure we were on the correct bus. Even the ticketing agent double checked to make sure we hadn't effed up.

So off we went to Rayong feeling pretty confident that we'd be okay.

Oops.

I didn't realise until yesterday, when I actually took a look at my blog page, that everything looked so effed up. First off, genius that I am was sending "my email to blogger" thing to the wrong address. Kids, even though the domain maybe .blogspot the email address is .blogger. Who knew? Secondly, is anyone actually even surprised?
Anyways just to put things in some kind of coherent order:
1. I left Toronto on the 31st night
2. Landed in Frankfurt in the ealry hours of the 1st.
3. Landed in Colombo early on the 2nd.
4. Got into Bangkok early afternoon on the 2nd.
5. Left Bangkok for Ko Samed the morning of the 3rd and got here in
the afternoon.
6. Today is the 4th and I've got my ass firmly placed in a beach chair with a pool behind me, a clear blue sea in front of me, alby reading trashy tabloid magazines to the left (while my novel languishes), two leathery looking italians tanning on my right and a buffet of banana hammocks coming at me from all angles.

I think today is going to be a good day.