Weather With You

So saturday ended up a quiet day. The jaunt between time zones over the previous week had caught up on me so i was pretty tired to begin with. I passed the day doing some shopping for books, shorts and sandals, getting train/bus/boat tickets for Ko Samui (sweet island in the south), eathing cheap food, drinking cheap beers, generally being a lazy bastard. Around four i headed back to the hostel to deposit my swag and have a look at my books. Woke up around ten, realising i'd fallen asleep checking out John Grisham's "The Partner" and slept for about six hours. Remembered i was supposed to ring the folks (hadn't talked to them since NYC where i'd promised i'd ring as soon as i got to thailand) so headed off down the road trying to figure out the phone buzz. Half asleep, i found a 7-11 and bought a phone card with most of my money, before realising it wasn't the type that worked on any of the phones. Tried to collect call off a few payphones but the reception was terrible. Shite!! Found this internet/travel agent/international call place where you write down the number on a piece of paper and they diall for you. Tried the house phone, got the answering machine, tried both parents mobiles but both were switched off. Double shite! With about 50 baht (around e1) left i tried barry's mobile and got through to be told the folks were actually on holiday. Balls. Barry asked how bangkok was and how my adventures with the ladyboys had been, but the call center lady was sitting there looking at me so i couldn't say "bangkok's a shithole and they ladyboys are everywhere, in particular on the arms of 35-50 year old germans, oh and one dude i saw in a bar earlier who looked all of 17 but had five "ladies" of (i guessed) mixed gender sitting with him, he looking very excited with himself" so i opted for a steeped in sarcasm but in retrospect sleepily dozy "great" before hurrying off the phone with about half a second to spare before my cash ran out. Thank god i got that out of the way, eh!

So i slept for another three or four hours, then woke up at about three or four and read a few hundred pages of that book. Went out around eight for some breakfast, was walking around a bit when this random american girl came up to me and said "where you going". Half asleep and rather confused as to what was going on i said "no idea". She said "wanna go together?" and dragged me around a shitload of temples and wats and crap for a couple of hours. Was an odd pairing seeing as I am (much to my da's chagrin) a liberal of "douchebag" proportions, whereas her da, brothers and fiance are all military dudes, she voted for Bush, and made a number of dodgy statements about "towel heads" and white power. Still, we'd good craic and i got to split the transport costs of seeing most of the city's attractions by taxi. Oh and a guy in a tuc-tuc said "fuck you" to me a number of times because i didn't want to pay him an inordinate amount of money to go in a direction i wasn't headed. Funny that. So anyways, around five i headed back to my hostel (a sweet double room with A/C for about eight euro) and pass out, sleeping right through my alarm at eight and waking at 2am. Balls. I finish off my book and fix up all my crap into my bag, check out just before 12 and leave my bag at reception. Having four hours to kill, i do the only sensible thing and head to a pub and get a wee bit drunk on my own. At half four i go back and get my bag, spend half an hour trying to flag a taxi on road that doesn't allow taxis to stop, before eventually finding a tuc tuck that'll take me to the train station for 80 baht (about e1.60). To say i'd been avoiding getting a tuc tuc at this point is putting it mildy. For those who, like me until about a week ago, have no idea what a tuc tuc is, it's basically rodney from only fools and horses' three wheeler with a motorbike engine and a small canopy type section at the back for carrying about two people. Oh and the drivers are all, in my opinion, absolutely out of their minds on speed. So we're racing through traffic, running through red lights and bumping gently off lorries when i realise - tuc tuc's are fuckin cool. It's like some sort of extreme sport to these guys, and when you're a little bit drunk, it's a big bit fun. I get to the train station, buy a few more beers from a vendor and hop on my train, making friends with the guy across from me by giving him a beer cosy (i got tonnes of them free at fest) and trying to keep up with the speed at which he's demolishing his beers. We make some conversations via mime before the train departs, whereafter i stare out the window for about half an hour as we pull out of bangkok. Eventually someone comes along and sets up all the beds (it's a sleeper train where the seats become one bed and then another is lowered from the ceiling), so i hop into mine and promptly pass out.

I've woken up not sure how i got there in some strange places but 4am on a sleeper train in thailand packed full of men women and children who speak no english has to be at least top ten. After i get my barings i figure out i've another three hours to go so i pull out my mp3 and rock some Small Brown Bike, who i've been listening to almost repeatedly since they slayed at fest. Eventually our train pulls into, eh, some town, everyone gets off, i get on a bus, and end up at this ferry, and then on this rather small boat. We pull out for our two and a half hour trip to Ko Samui, which at first is awesome. Green seas, loads of small boats, islands in the distance, palm trees everywhere, the full picture postcard deal. Oh except that it's pissing rain. Yes, in my hurry to get tickets booked i neglect to check the weather, and it turns out i've arrived at the height of the one month when it pisses from the heavens 24/7. After a while the seas get very choppy but the drivers giving it socks and i just about hold my stomach together as we arrive into ko samui. I get a taxi to one of the resorts reccomended in the book and get a room (well, chalet sort of) for e10 a night. I crash for a while before heading to the restaraunt for some food (spagetti bolognaise and a tiger beer for e3, awesome) and then take a long walk along the beach. This stretch is about 6km long, dotted with restaraunts, bars and guesthouses. It stops raining long enough for me to walk about 3km down it, before the thunder and lightning kicks in and i make for home, arriving just in time for it to start pissing down again. My room/chalet/whatever is basically a two room affair with two single beds, and ensuite (no hot water though), and a little porch with a table and two chiars. I sit for an hour listening to Smashing Pumpkins and, bizarelly, Sonic Youth, reading the new Kevin Smith book and polishing off some beers i had left from the train. Eventually i head inside and crash.

So now it's.... Wednesday? Anyways, it rained like hell all night (i woke around four) but stopped around 10 so i got some breakfast and wrote this. Gonna probably head back up north tomorrow and come back here in late december. It seems a lovely place but the weather renders it a bit pointless.

Think my internet credit's about to run out so....