change of address

ok
i now have a new special blog site, set up by my brother
it's basically the same as this one, except with a cooler html
http://stevenpillemer.com

Like, totally no way.

Okay, so like, Je-sus. London on Saturday.

Prologue

A novel will frequently begin with a prologue. The prologue establishes something that becomes an integral part of the novel as it weaves onwards from it's first chapter. In the Da Vanci code, it's when the weird old secret service grandad of the French Translator chick gets whacked. It sets something up, for the reader, that reveals certain information to him that is beyond the grasp of the main protagonist.

I am currently in the opening chapter of the next phase of my life. Unbeknownst to me the prologue is occuring elsewhere in the world and I am blithely unaware of it. Some situation, some person, some reality is occuring somewhere that I am about to inadvertantly step into. I, the protagonist of my life, have no clue as to what this shall be.

You the reader do not either, because in the novel of a life the only objective viewer are aliens or God or Big Brother depending on what set of conspiracies you choose to believe to explain the unexplainable nature of the universe. Perhaps it is a book unread. Certainly Dawkins would say it is so.

Chapter one progresses with tying up the odd ends of my life, leaving Cape Town, packing boxes, not really saying goodbye to everyone I should have said goodbye to and receiving slightly petulant e-mails, smses and face-book messages to vaugely inquire into the rude nature of my behaviour.

In Chapter One the status quo of the protangonist gets set up as well as what he expects. Or she. In this case he.

London. What do I expect?

Mm.

Those tube station signs.

That's about it. The rest is a mystery.

Ooh, and British accents.

Competitive vibes

Ergh. My brother convinced me to add my blog to Amatomu which is like a blog ranking rating system, and now I feel obliged to write more on it, because I'm competitive. Not in like a sports kind of way though. I don't like to run fast, or shoot well, or y'know, hit things.

Except walls, but only when I'm feeling really frustrated.

Or want to have some cool knuckle bruises to impress chicks with.

See, now I'm just showing off.

Women, man... my new show did it's first preview last night and opens on Friday. The preview went well, people laughed, even at the bit where someone threatens to cut out someone else's tongue. I always get worried when using excessive violence as a source of comedy, but hey, they say the essence of comedy is someone else's misery, and people laughed it up.

And then at the end, in one of the sad monologues, this group of girls sitting around a table all started crying. It was awesome.

I like to make girls cry.

Now I'm just showing off again.

Stupid competitive blogging vibe, it makes me act out.

I don't recommend this

My car is totally decrepit. A sad sorry car with dents and scratches and mischievous breaks. I never treated it with the love it should have been given, and now it's coming back to me as a form of karmic punishment. By that I mean my bad energy towards my car has turned getting rid of the crap heap into a totally soul-draining mission. No one wants to buy it. Not the VW people. Not the dodgy second hand car dealers in Woodstock. No one. People snigger when I show it to them, and reply: "Wow, you weren't kidding when you said it was a bit of a fixer-upper."

I read a funny quote on the internet last night. It says: "Good judgement comes from bad experiences which come from bad judgement." The great learning curve of life. Stupid thing that it is.

Also I wouldn't recommend trying to stage a play over the exact same time you're trying to tie up all the loose ends of your life as you depart from the city you live. What a mission.

Although London soon. Scary. Exciting. Wee.

Back on the wagon

Ah, blogging, a past time that passes time. Throwing words into the web and letting them get stuck there for all eternity. Giving the voiceless a voice and the faceless a face. Except for the voiceless and faceless people that can't afford the internet. Money, money, money.

Tonight I play poker. A R50 buy in. Perhaps I can earn enough money to get me drunk this weekend.

For my angry fan base

So it's been a long time since I last posted a blog.

My backpack was lost and then found by the aiport a few days later.

I was in airports for over 26 hours and every flight I was on was delayed.

I'm now back in Cape Town and it's stupid hot.

There's a line from a poet called Rumi which reads: "In the Winter we want Summer, but then it comes and we don't like it."

I should be working on the script that Terri and I have done that is going to be staged in Durban, but it's hard to concentrate when you're blinded by the sweat dripping from your brow.

I went to work in Gardens Centre at a coffee shop on the script earlier today, because it's air conditioned there and then I left the Centre and proceeded to sweat on everything.

I went to my friend Rob who has a pool to try and work there, because we have a new maid (and Jonx and Tracy forced me to fire the old one, even though they hired her, so I had to be the evil one, those bastards) and I didn't want to be in her way while she worked.

I ended up spending about 2 hours in Rob's pool and doing very little productive work, and met a nice girl called Candice who was doing the same thing. She was a model, but had a very fat tummy. I didn't realise that was allowed.

Studying law through Unisa semi-sucks. A few of the books are interesting, but some of them are very not interesting, and failure would be too embarrassing, especially because my ex-girlfriend has just started doing law at UCT, and so I have to get better marks then her, otherwise she'll be able to gloat, and I want the gloating points. Man, but I actually have to be in charge of myself and not have some lecturer teaching me.

I still don't know what I'm doing with my life and where I'm going to live this year, but I've given myself until the 15th of Februrary to make a decision, which means I'll probably have made it around the 25th Februrary. At the moment I'm tending towards London, just because I keep on hearing about how if you can make your own work and it's reviewed well... well then things can be different. Also a friend of mine described the London Art Scene versus the South African Art Scene as thus. In London you're considered an Artist, in South Africa you're considered a Drama Student (even if you haven't been one for 20 years.) It's just a totally different attitude to the Arts.

I might go to JHB though. I don't know yet. Maybe the Sitcom will still happen. (Ha, ha, ha.)

I think instead of doing any work I'll go to the beach and take a law book with me. That way I'll have a big book to hold over my face so as to not get sunburnt. Perhaps I'll even open it.

It had to happen sometime

I'm bored.

I got up at 7 am Thai Time, which is like 2 am in South Africa, because I was worried I wouldn't be able to do everything I wanted to do, but many of the things I did this morning cost much more money then I suspected, and so now I can't do any of my afternoon activities because I can't afford to get anywhere. I can only move about by foot, and my feet have reached the end of nearby (ie under an hour) walkways.

Getting up that early was stupid, because now I have nothing to do until I catch my bus and no money to do it with. Well, not entirely true, I have 30 Baht for this internetting and then 100 Baht for supper.

Anyone know any good jokes? Maybe a game of cards? No?

Crap

I leave tomorrow.

The only good thing about it is that I have basically overspent my budget and can't eat if I want to keep my 500 Baht airport tax and so get out of the country.

I hope all the must-sees are free or 30 Baht or less - I think they are. They're all in walking distance.

The pingpong show was extremely disturbing. Ping pong balls weren't the half of it. There was opening bottles. Disturbing. Shooting darts at balloons metres away. Very disturbing. That woman could be some kind of hardcore assassin if she so desired.

It's amazing how many people you meet when you travel on your own. Found myself at dinner with five strangers, and only 2 of them could speak English. One could speak Hebrew and Amharic, which is the main language in Ethiopia. He was from Ethiopia. Everyone was surprised that I went there, and thought me a little insane, and I explained I went for a woman, and then they thought I was more insane.

I showed them the picture of me eating the cockroach and that trumped any possible belief in my sanity.

The only problem with travelling on your own is that everything is more expensive. I like my own company, primarily because I'm quite amusing, if only to myself, so that's fine, but it means not being able to share taxis or rooms, which quickly add up to expensive. Which is why I'm now broke.

I lost two bracelets on this trip, both of which I purchased on this trip, and both of which I lost the day after purchasing for various reasons. The first I blame on the latch, and the second I blame on the Bucket of Joy.

I found the exact same two in the same shop and went for the second one I bought, and bargained it down to 100 Baht, instead of the 150 I paid last time, so all in all I paid the asking price of 250 Baht. Stupid. I hope I don't lose it. I should put it in my bag. But I won't. Instead I'll lose it.

Waiting for a bus

So elected to go back to Bangkok today and only spend one day in Kanchanaburi. Waiting for my bus. Dum dee dum. This way can go and see a big night market and the ping pong show tonight (apparently a must see) and then the palace and a bunch of temples and the MBK tomorrow (apparently must sees) and then get back in time to have one last delicious Thai dinner and then off to the airport by 9:30 pm.

Yesterday I had the three best temples I have seen in my trip to Thailand all to myself. There were literally no other people, except for two Thai people. It's the most isolated 'tourist' spot I've been to since I've been here. Massive temples. Beautiful. Giant Buddhas. Caves. A naga you can walk into and be swallowed by. All of them high, high, high.

Oops, here comes my bus.

Onwards and onwards

Firstly I apologise for the dangerously long sentences used in many instances in the previous blog, which could cause harm to irregular readers.

I bid farewell to my new best friend this morning, a girl named Amber, who was also annoyed by the 18 year old British kids on the bus. It's funny how self-centred humans can be. Two of these kids managed to lose their tickets for the bus (possibly while vomiting off the side of the boat) and when the bus people wanted their tickets they didn't have them.

The bus people were worried because if they didn't have their tickets, it meant they couldn't show the tickets to their bosses and that meant they would have to pay for them, but the British kids got really upset about it, because it meant that they would have to buy new tickets (and c'mon, it takes a special kind of stupid to lose a ticket given to you as you get on the boat and lost before you get off the boat) and so they had a screaming match with the gentle Thai folk, who became very embarrassed but firm and kept on saying: "Pease, do noh shou' a'me." Amber and I shook our heads sadly. The first bus ferried us to the stop where we would wait for our second and longer bus to Bangkok, which is where our overnight 'luxury' bus would deliver us to Bangkok from and is where I blogged last night.

Rather then sitting in the little tourist trap they drop you at to wait at, the two of us buggered off and found the night market, which was a really real one, and actually sold ingredients more then anything else, such as live creatures, frogs with their legs tied together and eels in buckets, or hunks of meat or freshly caught prawns amidst and array of bizarre fruits and vegetables and other strange smelling things.

Eventually we found a place on the side of the street which sold extremely delicious food for less then 30 Baht in total, and was one of the tastiest meals of my trip as well as one of the cheapest.

Amber nearly missed the bus because she was interneting and so I ended up sitting on my own behind one of the British kids, who instantly dropped his reclining seat back all the way so it bashed me in the knees. Now I know there's some conjecture over the issue of reclining seats, and how moral it is to use them to their full extent. I find that generally short people, or selfish people, have absolutely no problem using them, because people having no choice but to view the world with them as it's centre, because all is perceptive; short people don't neccessarily realise that if you're over a certain height and that seat is dropped back it will make your entire journey miserable, and selfish people think that their own personal comfort is more important than anyone else's personal comfort. Perhaps an argument could be made that the person who is dropping his seat back paid for that seat and so is entitled to it's full comfort, but the counter-argument would be that the person who is having their knees crushed paid for their seat too, and is on the rand and not the pound, so they actually paid more from a certain perspective, and are therefore entitled to their full comfort, which includes not having one's knees crushed.

I couldn't even stick my legs off to the side, because some entripsing soul had decided to sleep in the aisle, which meant I had to kick him in the face if I wanted to stick my legs out, but at about 3 in the morning I gave up on caring and kicked him in the face a few times, possibly a few more times then absolutely neccessary.

The bus arrived in Bangkok at 5 am and Amber and I decided to share a tuk-tuk to the train station, because I wanted to catch a train to Kanchanaburi to do some cultural sight-seeing, and she wanted to catch a train to Chang Mai. An American wanted to join us, but became very wary when he realised we were going to catch a tuk-tuk and tried to convince us to share a taxi. After bartering with the tuk-tuk guy the price came to 60 Baht for all three of us, as opposed to 200 Baht for 3 of us, and we told the American to either get in or get out and so he got in. On the way I found out he had never been in a tuk-tuk before, never used the trains before, and had only been in buses commandeered by tour companies to move Farangs around. He was scared when we arrived at the train station, which is silly, because it's a totally acceptable train station and even has a Dunking Donuts, which he was well pleased with.

I unfortunately was not well pleased, because I had not looked hard enough in my guide book, and had gone to the wrong train station and so left Amber sitting on the floor, bidding her farewell and good luck with her upcoming marriage as I ambled outside and bartered another tuk-tuk driver down from 200 Baht to 50 to get me to the bus station instead of the other train station, because my guide said this was better, and I hadn't listened to it earlier, so I thought I'd listen to it now, clever book that it is.

I like how you become best friends with people in an hour and then never see them again for the rest of your life. I have about a million of those friends now.

I arrived at the bus station in the dark, and communicated with several Thais (badly) to figure out which one was mine. Got on the local bus, which is always nice, because it was just me and a bunch of Thai people and set off to Kanchanaburi, which is where I am now. It's cheap here, and the people are friendly and there's a lot to see and do. I'm trying to work out whether it's worth spending two days here, and then only one in Bangkok, or two in Bangkok.

I don't like Bangkok so much. It smells funny, but I suppose I should see all the things you must see, since if you must see a must see then you musn't not see it; otherwise people might say: "Did you see that must see?" and i must then state, "No i missed that must see" and surprised they might say, "so you saw all the seas but you missed the must sees," and sadly i'd say, "Yes." And I'd certainly prefer to say: "I saw some must sees, but saw the seas too, and if I were you, I'd balance the two, between what I see and what I saw in order to see the must sees and to saw the must saws."

I don't know what that last paragraph was about. Bit Dr Seuessy.

Back on the bus

I'm in Champon waiting for my bus, which will take another hour or so to arrive. It could be worse; I could have been one of the British tourists vomiting over the side of the boat as it cruised through the rocky sea (rocky sea - isn't that contradictory from an elemental point of view?) departing from Ko Tao to the mainland.

As I waited to get on the boat, pale green traveller after pale green traveller departed from it, and I knew the sea must be slick with the stale remains of human vomit. But even though the sea was extremely rough I managed to fall asleep, once I got over the stomach churning drops, because I'm like that on public transport. Maybe that would cure my insomnia back home - I should sleep in my car, which is probably only slightly smaller then my room.

It stopped raining today, of course. About 3 hours before I was meant to get on my boat the rain stopped, and about an hour before I was meant to get on my boat the sun came out and suddenly Ko Tao was baking. That sort of event is the kind of thing that makes me believe in God, because that's exactly the sort of sense of humour I would have if I was God, and certainly I would enjoy messing with mortals, for "we are but flies to the wanton God(s)."

I caught the biggest mosquito ever between my fingers and then crushed the bastard. That mosquito was but a fly to the wanton me.

Yesterday almost felt like a waste except it was quite fun, as it rained all day and I sat in a restaurant/bar on the beach and watched pirated DVDs, occasionally staring into the rain drenched sea. The two Canadian Girls that have (coincidentally) been everywhere that I've been and usually at the same time were there two, and we all got to bitch about the weather. After watching four movies: Pocahontas with Colin Farrel (crap), Weatherman (Crappish and really depressing) Borat (funny, but low) and Supersize Me (gross) we buggered off and had drinks with some English guys that the Canadians knew and I ended up cross-comparing my break up to the break up of one of the Canadians and that went on for a long time. Good bonding.

After that I caught a taxi, because the monsoon had not yet abated. At first they tried to charge me 200 Baht so I gave the guy a dirty look and stormed off into the, well, storm, and then he felt guilty and dropped his price.

When he dropped me off I heard the sounds of music coming from somewhere in the infinite darkness surrounding my isolated homestead. Curious, I could not go to bed, and so I stumbled through the rain trying to find some kind of road that might lead me to the music. Eventually I stumble on a small mud path that goes up a hill into the darkness. This must be where the music is coming from. I close my eyes for ten seconds and count to ten, which is a useful trick my brother Robbie once taught me, that allows one's eyes to adjust to the dark. Then I clambered up the path, which became dangerously slippery stairs, which became a garden where a strange trance party was happening with the most beautiful view of the area.

My favourite bit of the view I shall describe. To my right, the palm trees were black in the dark, and so were the mountains, and so they merged into one beautiful black skyline, no distinction between objects, and silhouetted against the eerie glow of the night sky just above them, as the moon sunk into their blackness.

There were about 15 people there and some of them were French. I arbed about on my own for a bit, but I think people have a fascination with the lone traveller, and it did not take long before I was best friends with all 15 people at that bar, and trying to leave became really difficult, because first off I had to say goodbye to everyone, each individually complaining I was leaving, and usually at least one would convince me to stay for another ten minutes, but finally I made my exit, and returned to the dark path that leads down the hill towards my isolated homestead, but about halfway down the path I encountered two Italians and a Swede who were trying to figure out whether the path they were walking on was a death trap, or in fact a genuine path that lead to the music. I bantered with them about the dangerous nature of the path, and then sent them on their way, but they would have none of that - "No!" exclaimed the Italian leader of the group, "You must have drink with us! And if you are ever in Milan, I will show you good trance party!"

Of course as we returned they started playing House music and the Italians were disappointed, although I don't think the Swede gave a shit either way.

Once home I once again sat on my small wooden porch overlooking the sea and spent a long time absorbing the fact, that even though it was only for that night, this is where I live. It was a really nice thing to absorb.

This morning it was still raining, but as previously explained it cleared up just before my departure.

You win again, God, you fat bastard, but at least you blessed me with a strong stomach so I didn't vomit on those choppy seas.

Monsoon Day 2

I woke up this morning to what I thought was the sound of the crashing sea. Then I thought perhaps it was the sound of a crashing shower. Then I realised the same stupid rain storm is still going on.

This monsoon is playing havoc with my plans. How are you meant to snorkel and laze about on the beach reading your book if the sky keeps on falling? It also makes the walk from my isolated bungalow more of a swim from my isolated bungalow. I think perhaps I should just get some snorkels and wear them while I walk around; it'll be pretty much the same thing.

After blogging yesterday I ran into two British girls that I had met earlier on the trip and spent a couple of hours hanging out with them shooting the breeze and avoiding the rain, which was quite fun, and they invited me to meet them and some of their friends for supper that night. I agreed even though that required a walk back to my place in the dark, a walk back to town in the dark, and a final walk back in the dark later on. I managed to get lost on my way out of town and realised when I started to wade through an ankle deep puddle of water in the middle of a totally dark road that I was walking in the incorrect direction.

I finally re-established my sense of direction and did the walk, survived the insane hill, showered, survived the insane hill, did the walk and returned to town in drizzle, got lost again, re-found my way and finally arrived at the dinner destination maybe 45 minutes late to find no one I knew there. Those bastards. That was a lot of walking for not much point and after this e-mail I'm going to go and see if any of the tourist information places know where to hire an assassin on the island. But it was okay, because I ended up sitting in 'The Cave Bar' which is fashioned after the Flintstones and sits right on the beach, where I played shithead (a card game) with some Israelis and then spoke to some British (or possibly Australian) people about their trip, which was meant to be a month but has been going on for 6 with no real signs of stopping. Then I decided to return home just as the rain came crashing down again.

I contemplated the value of walking versus paying the exorbitant taxi fee (100 Baht) for a very short drive, and decided seeing as I hadn't rented snorkels and flippers it made more sense to take the taxi and so I did.

I sat on my balcony on my tiny little bungalow on the rocks on the beach and watched the rain crash down into the water as tiny boats bobbed in the distance.

Then I went to sleep.

Alone at last

I am officially the last man standing. Kirsten and Shannon fled the room this morning at five minutes to seven after having overslept by half an hour and subsequently nearly missing their connecting boat to Surathani to catch their connecting plane to Bangkok.

I don't have an alarm clock, except for on my iPod, but I have no way to re-charge it, which means I can't listen to the iPod at all now and save it only for alarm times. That's like having a large tub of ice-cream but only being allowed to use it to keep your fingers cold. Assuming you had an important reason to keep your fingers cold. Or perhaps if you're in Ko Pangang and someone cuts their foot open on a rock and you have to pour your entire bucket of joy over his feet (or hers as it so happened) in order to disinfect it before someone else wrapped it up in a bandage. A bucket of joy is an alcoholic beverage shared between people drunken from a bucket with several straws and not whatever else it might sound like.

Ko Pangang grew on me, sort of like an infectious disease, or perhaps some kind of fungi or lichen. Every night there is a massive party, every morning people leave and more people arrive, and every night there is a massive party. The full moon party was especially massive and I managed to lose everyone I knew within 45 minutes and spent the rest of the evening talking to strangers and dancing and wondering about and looking at the sea until a not very attractive Hungarian girl came and sat next to me and complained for about half an hour about how this island is full of perverts trying to hook up with anyone, and then she put her hand on my leg. At that moment I saw Shannon running past and promptly ran after him, leaving the Hungarian Hypocrit behind. He had also lost everyone, but had found two people we had met in Pai.

Although I now like Ko Pangang I'm still going to bitch about one last thing. In the North when anyone has rubbish, the streets are so clean, that you are willing to spend 20 minutes looking for a bin, so as to maintain the natural beauty of the... well, the city, but in the South which are infested with lice-tourists, in the most beautiful areas imaginable, people don't give even the slightest shit and just dump and throw and leave their rubbish everywhere and anywhere. What's annoying is you start to find yourself doing that as well, because it's what everyone is doing, which just goes to show people are sheep, and act like animals around animals and angels around angels. The question of course, is how do they act like when there are no influences at all? No that's not the question. That's an impossibility, even hermits are influenced by their environments.

And Ko Pangang is obsessed with schnitzel for some reason. Every place sells it and it's actually damn good, and so far is the only thing that's made me venture away from Thai Food.

Anyway the partying was fun, but I am way partied out and last night I spent most of the night just chilling on a quiet beach with a bunch of friends and then this morning hopped on a boat and have gone to Ko Tao.

I am staying right on the sea (not the beach) but on a tiny stilted bungalow that is on the edge of rocks that tumble into the sea. It's insanely beautiful but extremely rustic, but much cheaper then anywhere else. It's also a ten minute walk from any form of civilization, which perhaps doesn't seem so bad, except that it's been monsooning all day. On top of that to get from there to town you have to walk up a hill that makes the driveway at my parents house in durban look tame. For those of you who have not perceived that driveway, it's one step short of needing mountain climbing equipment, or a hoist for a car. So you have to walk up a hill that steep, and then you have to walk down one equally steep, which means coming or going, you're going to run out of breath and possibly asphyxiate.

And tomorrow... I snorkel.

Vince 3000

Vince is a French guy that we met. Well, on the day that Gabi and Kirsten arrived at Pine Bungalows, our isolated spot in the middle of nowhere on a beautiful beach, they arrived with a strange French fellow called Vince.

He could not speak any English, and it sounded like a chance encounter that Gabi and Kirsten had and they invited him along, in broken English, and he agreed, much to their surprise.

We spent a few days with Vince, oh who laughed so much, even though he never knew what the hell we were talking about and we never knew what the hell he was talking about. He snorkled with us, and ate with us, and drank with us, and boated around islands with us, and never at any point did anyone ever really understand what he was ever on about, and visa versa.

We left Vince on the day we got to Railey Beach (Ton Sai) after a day of island hopping, and he went back on the longtail that we used to get there and I have a beautiful photo of Vince waving, isolated on the long boat as it dissapears into the distance.

We met the Vince 3000 a few days later. Well Shannon did but he became a team buddy and hung out with us until after New Years and he's still hanging with Gabi in Bangkok.

Vince 3000 is the upgrade version, and I suspect he's a robot. First off he can understand English, but looks really similar and laughs really similar to ol' Vince. For the ladies, he's built like something that was built in a place that's designed for building extremely well built bodies and if you were an extremely small person, say a sprite or somesuch, you could scale from his stomach to his head with no difficulty. The girls liked that very much, and I'm just thankful I never really had much desire to compete for Alpha Male spot.

He talked about sex all the time though, and it seems like he's had a lot of it and most of it in Thailand. I think his constructers set him to sex and forgot to shift the dial or something, but his stories are certainly amusing and sometimes I wondered if they were made up. "She was sooo hot," the Vince 3000 would output all the time.

Although he was driving a tuk-tuk thing with all of us in it and drove it into a bush. Gabi thinks his technology had difficultly adjusting to being around a Delta male. For example, quote Gabi: "He's not running. Should I run faster? Should I walk slower? Should I move at the same speed? Should I crash my scooter? Must I be like him? Beep, beep, beep."

But no, as sarcastic as I'm sounding, the Vince 3000 was a really good make of machine, and I'm happy he was part of the gang for a while. He's cool. His real name was Dvir something or other, which is difficult to pronounce, and for the longest time I just called him D. He was a goodie.

Anyway, that's the Vince 3000.

Ko Phangan is alright. It's a much nicer version of Ko Phi Phi, and the sunset today was almost indescribably pink. I still feel like I could be anywhere in the world, even Cape Town, and I think if you're the sort of person who likes Claremont or Camps Bay for the social scene you'll love these sort of islands.

La la la. Out of time.

Mission

Happy New Year; may 2007 be better then 2006, please.

Not sick anymore, yay; but just done over 12 hours of travelling to get to Ko Pan Gnag in time for the full moon party and arrived to find no accomodation and spent several hours wandering through the streets. We've finally found somewhere. Yay.

Tired.

Sleep now.

Ergh. Just realised that I have to pay 20 Baht even if I don't use the internet for that amount of time. Dum, dee, dum, dum.

How's it going?

Aha?

Cool.

There are so many Israelis in Ko Pang Gnag it's insane. Little Israel. More signs in Hebrew then in Thai. This place is like the backpacker version of Ko Phi Phi, which makes it cooler, but also has a sense of sadness in the dissapearance of original culture, although one might say that this is the culture now and it should be appreciated for that. But then some people say one should appreciate it when people scrawl their names over thousand year old cave paintings, because it is the modern day equivalent, and that in a million years time people will appreciate the name scrawlings as much as the paintings, but really, that's dumb.

Maybe I'm just tired and grumpy. Getting here was hard today, but still nothing to the trials and tribulations of everyday travel in Ethiopia. It's good that that was my first backpacking trip, because I think every other place will seem like a cake piece. My team nearly combusted, but they made it through. Good for them. Oh, and we've lost Gabi and the Vince 3000, which I don't think I described. I'll cover the Vince 3000 in the next update.

Peace out yo.