Journey's End: Tue 8/19, Day 91 (Time Travel!)

Back on May 22nd when good ole Singapore Flight 5312 first began its descent into the Kathmandu Valley, I wrote that the zero-g moment and landing gears popping out shot my heart into my throat and nearly gave me a panic attack. "OMG what have I done, I'm gonna die, etc etc!" ran through my head over and over. Now the landing gears were popping out again and I could feel the cabin start to descend... but this time there was no epic Himalayan vista or gemstone tropical island rushing up toward the plane. There were houses, lots and lots, all identical, stretching into the horizon as if the entire planet was covered in subdivisions. There were churches instead of minarets. There was a strangely beautiful cluster of giant skyscrapers floating on an island of brown smog. And inside me, instead of heart pounding and head throbbing nervousness, there was only a calm, unexplainable warmth as if I was back in Mama's womb. After three grueling months of ruins, chickenbuses, and curry... of jungle treks, of great new friends, of tuktuk drivers and poverty and decadence, and of some amazing Nepali youngsters who would crack the brightest smiles over the slightest things... I was finally back where I at times would've given anything to be. As I bit down on the juicy grease of that first hardly kosher In-N-Out burger, listened to Ashley rant about how bad the traffic was and fought back tears of joy, I could do nothing but smile. The world is a huge and amazing place, but at the end of the day, while it's cliched to say... There truly is no place like home.

And on that note:

The. END.

To whomever is still reading this, thank ya'll for reading.

---Quote of the Trip---
"Charlie-brother, you buy Cadbury? Me? Me Cadbury? Cadbury me? You buy? Camera? I play? Me?" - Sushaan

---Quote Runner-Up---
"ATTENTION: DONT SHIT HERE. ONLY FOR PISSING." - Painted across the wall of a leaky Indonesian bathroom.

---Top 5 Favorite Places---
1. Pepsikola & Duwakot, Nepal
2. Bukit Lawang, Sumatra (Indonesia)
3. Saigon/HCMC, Vietnam
4. Ko Phi Phi, Thailand
5. Bali, Indonesia
Honorable mention: Siem Reap, Cambodia

---Places That Can Go Frak Themselves---
1. Thamel District, Kathmandu
2. Sunrise Beach, Ko Pha-Ngan

---WTF?---
1. Silom District, Bangkok

---Where I'm Gonna Pack-up and Move to Someday---
Indonesia. (and of course Nepal)

Special, Very Belated Shoutouts to:
- Mai VSN peeps! For being such awesome co-peeps! It was an honor serving with all of you.
- To Jeff for letting me throw coconut candies at him & for being a noble travel buddy.
- To Dan for the suitcase. (told you I'd bring it back!)

Random fond memories in no order:
- Fight w/evil gibbon
- Any "Dave Moment" at OCRC
- Moped drives in Bali
- Abdul crooning "Hotel California" in Bukit Lawang
- Martinis in Thamel
- Norman's beard
- Lindsey: "No, I can't accept this kitten!"
- Watchin the scooters swarm by in Saigon
- Seeing a wild orangutan for the first time
- The first hour in Singapore after Nepal, developed world culture shock
- Sushaan hijacking and possibly crippling my camera
- Laxmi Didi, and anything she did
- Everest beers in The Hut
and others.

Very Special, Even Though They Won't Read It, Shoutout to:
My Nepali family. For letting me become part of the family, letting me into their home, providing and sacrificing for me, and for existing. You are all amazing people, and an inspiration. Keep up the good work.

Click to go back to May 22nd.

Singapore: Tue 8/19, Day 90 of 91

At 4am, a wake up call came knocking on the door of our Khao San guesthouse room. It had been two hours since I first climbed into bed, so this call was obviously not welcome, but I had an Air Asia flight to catch and little margin of error in which to do so. I stumbled around in the dark packing the final nick-knacks into my rucksack, put said rucksack on my back and the school bag on my belly. Jeff, light sleeper though he may be, somehow slept through all this. I tapped him on the shoulder to wish him faretheewell (his flight was leaving later that day from Bangkok, whereas mine was from Singapore) and a safe flight, and his head cocked up for a moment to grunt. I took this grunt as sleep-speak for "Thanks Charles, you too! It's been fun." And fun it was. Thus was ended the Jeff-segment of this adventure.

Shoulders loaded well over capacity, I scrambled out to catch the first airport express bus, actually a van at the early hour and crammed to the teeth with fellow backpackers and their backpacks. There was some funny audible frustration at this one girl who didn't know if she was on the right van:

(Israeli accent) "What the f%ck is she doing? F%ck."
(Brit accent) "I have a plan to catch!"
(another Israeli accent) "(unhappy Hebrew mumbles to fellow Israeli)"
(3rd Israeli accent) "(more Hebrew grumbles)"

As soon as she was aboard, the driver TOOK OFF at what must have been three times the "speed limit" or rather the speed everyone else on the highway seemed to be sticking to. I don't think I've been more terrified by a car ride since stepping into one with David Nepsky at the helm early Freshman year. The terror was worth it though, I had only an hour until my flight left and probably wouldn't have made it had the driver been less insane. This means of course that I made the flight and landed in Singapore safely, with a comfortable five hours to accomplish my mission of rescuing Dan's suitcase from storage in the hostel I'd stayed at here 6 weeks ago after first leaving Nepal. This city almost feels like a second home, having now done a third tour of duty providing relaxation, transitioning and rebooting to a battered Charlie.

I didn't bother with any sightseeing... after three months on the road, what difference would one more pagoda make anyhow. Instead I settled down at a Muslim food court near the hostel and "splurged" SGD$5 on a huge feast of deliciousness including Singapore's specialty fish-head curry, gross in appearance but heavenly in yer mouth. Yousif, the obese mustached cook of either Malay or Arab origin noticed my luggage and gave me a free dessert on the side: "You have a long journey ahead, please, it is my pleasure!" I'm gonna miss hospitality like that, it's hard to come by back home where all the fast food is owned by this and that evil corporation. No disrespect to the UV Subway's trusty sandwich artists but them all got nothing on the charms of Fat Mustached Arabian, Mr. "Would You Like To Twy Sum Pwrwawn?" from Vietnam or half the other charismatic if untrustworthy vendors of these Eastern lands.

With my tray now stacked full with the biggest feast in weeks, including one final boba drink, I took a seat and chowed down on the glory. The meal took almost an hour and a half of solo, steady measured nibbling to conquer and came close to detonating my stomach, but my was it worth it. I was in no rush. This was my last supper, the final meal of the trip (airplane food doesn't count)... it deserved to be savored. Only after it was deep into my stomach could coherent thinking start again. After sinking into my chair in a digestive coma for a few minutes, I thanked Yousif and began the same five block walk to the hostel I trotted six weeks prior.

It was a nice feeling to be back here, bringing the journey full circle and all. I remembered the thoughts that went through my head the first time around, fresh off the plane from two months in Nepal; the giddiness of being back in the "developed world," the mystery of what might lie ahead... and now it was all over. There would be no more haggling, no more chickenbus rides, no more worry if I'll find a room in the next city or even navigate my way out of the train station. The pressure was gone completely. The only thing left to do now was crack open a can of Tiger Lager with hostel owner Mr Lum and wash the bittersweet taste of the moment down. An important chapter of my life was about to end. Important in what way, I'm still not sure.

5pm rolled around, I cashed in my remaining MRT cards, got me passport stamped... the airplane engines kicked in, and I made my peace with Southeast Asia.

---Vital Signs---
Feet = In Heaven! Finally got my sneakers back.
DBA's Suitcase = Rescued
Wallet = Written off till Spring '09
ETA to Home = 20ish Hours
Flight Transfer in = Taipei

FOOD POISONING = NONE... Thank you Portland Street House!! Thank you thank you.

Bangkok, Thailand: Mon 8/18, Day 89

^ The "infamous" Khao San Rd

There are few things more relaxing than a soft birth on an overnight train rocking you gently to sleep... Well actually there are many things more relaxing than that, but it is never the less a cozy way to spend the night. The beds could also do this neat transforming thing where they could be folded up and turned into seats once the sun rose. I woke up and shoved my privacy curtain aside, and the submarine was now a normal train, with chairs and rows and everything. We rolled into Bangkok a half hour earlier than expected, I scrambled off with my bags and looked up and down the strangely small platform for Jeff. Not only was there no Jeff, but hardly any one was deboarding here. I'd stepped out a station (or two or three) too early! Shit.

I huffed and puffed and jumped back on just as the train was starting to pull away. Disaster averted, there would have been little or no way to get back in touch with Jeff (email aside) if we were separated like that. It reminded me of a similar scare early during the Eurotrip with Mika when the Berlin SBahn's doors shut behind me and cut off Mika & Xany, I spent the next ten minutes in a frantic panic riding the subway up and down its line getting off at this and tat stop looking for them. This was an idiotic mistake on my part considering I'd already been inside Bangkok's giant central station three weeks prior and should've known I was in the wrong spot, sigh. All is well that ends well, as they say. When we finally did arrive and reunite, Jeff told me a group of monks stopped him from sleeping by waking up at 5am and yammering to themselves for the rest of the morning. I slept well and taunted him accordingly.

Honestly there's not a whole lot to write about the rest of the day. We didn't even settle down into our Khao San Road hotel until 2ish, then split up for some souvenir shopping and eating. Jeff took the SkyTrain to the hostel we stayed at three weeks ago, to rescue the suitcase he left in storage there, while I kind of wandered around town aimlessly soaking in the atmosphere. We would rendezvous at the Banyan Tree Hotel rooftop bar (one of the highest points in the city) at 6, I got there an hour early and talked to this British construction worker for an hour and a half until Jeff arrived while simultaneously emptying the bar's free cashew snack bin. This place was classy by the way, even nicer than the Sheraton Saigon. One of the best things about backpacking through SE Asia as opposed to Europe is that where in the latter you're living off bread and water, constantly counting pennies, here I could get a martini in a 5-star skyline restaurant for six bucks. It would be my final, last developing world indulgence until the next trip, whenever and where ever that will be. And so we sat, Jeff and I, watching the skyscrapers twinkle and the traffic buzz about, pondered the meaning of life some more and thanked each other on an adventure well done. It's been fun and all, but goddamn I want an In-N-Out burger & a salad already.

^ Cowboy Alley

One mistake we made three weeks prior was not checking out any of Bangkok's legendary nightlife, so we resolved to fix this problem and stay up really really late walking around Thanon Silom and it's surrounding adult Disneylands. There was a redux of the Ko Samui night here where I let Jeff walk in front and draw the sleazy go-go girls' fire. Cowboy Alley was the nuttiest of these areas, lit up and down with crazy neon lights not unlike that one street in Downtown Vegas the name of which I forgot. There was also the 3 story outdoor mall of brothels. No comment regarding that. Though a night out clubbing was the obvious thing to do now, Jeff didn't have it in him and my foot was in deep, searing blister pain from the cheap flip-flops I'd been walking around in all trip. We decided to head back to Khao San Rd and spend the rest of the night brewing it up with fellow backpackers and hip young locals. It was a fitting, low key end to things. We stayed out on the cozy crazy street until 3-4ish in the morning, only a handful of bars were still open and countless were lounging on the curbs chugging beers. A few food vendors were still awake to feed them, Jeff got some yummy beef and chicken satay, I got my last pad-Thai. There was also a pair of 7/11s positioned directly across the street from one another, making us lol.

Two hours of sleep followed, until the next and truly final day.

---Vital Signs---
Time Till Home: 36h
Food Poisonings: None
Feet = PAIN
10baht Banana Cakes Eaten = Many

Thai Full Moon Party, Part 2: Sun 8/17, Day 88

^ The beligerant man who couldn't even throw chair...

Ko Pha-Ngan, 05:00, the morning after:

I woke up drenched, shirtless in the sand, having deployed said shirt as a makeshift pillow and splattered with Unknown Liquid at some point while I slept. Not slept actually, half-hearted nap is more like it. I looked around, Jeff was nowhere to be found but he knew where I laid down so I figured it best to stay put. By this point, the hordes of partiers had divided into two distinct groups: those who were not on some sort of mind altering substance, thus were either passed out on the sand or sitting down watching the fire jugglers, and those who did in fact pop pills of E/fake-E/adherol/God knows what else. This goofy faction was still very much awake and about, dancing like crazy in the water usually by their lonesome. In only ten hours this once pristine beach of baby powder had become a wasteland of slobbering drunkards, empty beer buckets, rainbow colored straws and fed up locals. One vendor woman touted her soda bottles to tourist passersby with a deep, desperate tone as if to say "Please, just buy my drinks, just do this one thing for me, you've destroyed my home, please... :-\" At least once a month the island willingly puts itself through this debauchery. We felt bad for the Thais, but it's what earns them their living.

Within five or so minutes Jeff appeared, rather violently shoving someone away who'd apparantly been chasing him around trying to give him an unwanted bear hug for the past while. Jeff had been off watching the fire dancers and insisted, rather begrudgingly, that we remain on the beach until sunrise. We'd come this far, we had to make it all the way. The second the sun rose however we would hop on a ferry and hightail it the frak out of here. So we sat down and waited, sleepless and battered as ever. This was supposed to have been the trip's grand mindless crazy fun finale. As we exchanged mutual fed up glances however, and looked around at the mayhem surrounding us that we were not in the state of mind to join, it was clear that the Full Moon Party turned out to be something different. It was a test of our warrior's metal, a reminder of what we were missing back home. An experience, not a vacation. Not quite what was expected but a fitting hurrah nonetheless.

The sun rose and we began the trek back to the docks. Along the way we passed a beligerant 20-something man tossing plastic chairs around left and right. In the midst of his third toss, he lost balance and fell hilarious backwards into the sand. There he sat for a while with an expression on his face of pure and utter defeat. Did his girlfriend break up with him earlier? Did he lose a battle for a girl he was hitting on? Was his worldview as shaken apart by this apocalypse of impending liver problems as ours' was? One wonders... He became the symbol of the past night for us, the individual who bridged the gap between the sober and the drunk, who like us couldn't help but think "wtf" about the past twelve hours. Then he proceeded to get up and start crawling over foot-high concrete walls. And that was our last memory of Sunrise Beach on Ko Pha-Ngan. We boarded the dangerously crammed 7am ferry too tired to sleep and sailed back to our quiet Lamai Beach bungalow on Ko Samui.

---Vital Signs---
Travel Weariness = 90%
Mood = In the Red
Time Till Home = 2 Days
Pad Thai = Sick Of
Acknowledgements = Despite mood, songs will be sung of this day

Leaving the Islands, Thailand: Sun 8/17, Day 88 Pt2

After some brief napping recovery time in Hat Lamai, we were forced by scheduling to once again hit the road (err, water) and make way to the Samui ferry pier. Jeff cut short an Internet round and I, quite heartbreakingly, bid adieu to the warm patch of sun drenched sand that had become my home for the past hour. I clocked about 45min of unconscious time, not nearly enough but better than poor completely sleepless Jeff. We threw our rucksacks and bodies aboard a sawngethew and whizzed over to the docks. We were let off next to a bus a few hundred feet from said pier and instructed to buy a ticket for this bus, which would then drive aboard the ferry (separate ticket) and onward to the mainland train station. Ha! Scam. Not wanting to pay ten bucks to be driven a couple feet, we marched on foot to the pier ticket office itself. The ladies here turned us away and told us to go back to the bus. Across the way in the other direction was a second, much larger pier... the real pier. Here we found the real ferry, not the 50% chance it's made-up ferry, and bought our thru fares to the Phun Phin/Surat Thani rail depot. Unfortunately they'd stopped selling tickets for the 3pm boat, departing any minute and we'd have to wait an hour for the next one. We took turns watching the bags and running off on food errands to pass the time. I bought some tasty street curry, Jeff bought some 7/11 nibbles. Neither did much to improve our energy levels.

Jeff (understandably) crashed once we sat ourselves down for the 2h ride. We're talking complete and utter mental and physical shut down, in de facto coma until we docked. I, after finding myself not sufficiently tired to put up with the seat's discomfort, decided to stroll up and down the deck and watch as the island faded into the distance. It had nearly the same serenity as the long boat ride to Ko Phi Phi that began our island hoping a week prior; the breeze blowing at your face, the silence except for the pattering of the waves, the hot tropical sun... I should go on boat rides more often. They're good places to reflect on deep things, as I did about this soon-to-be-ending trip. I sadly don't remember what exactly my epiphanies were, but I'm sure they were profound.

We docked at Frak Knows Where, Definitely Not Surat Thani on the mainland about two or three hours after leaving Ko Samui. Remember how I said the ferry seats were uncomfortable? Uncomfortable fiberglass seats to not produce the most reinvigorating comas and Jeff's followed suit. The next twenty minutes would go down as the hands down groggiest, grumpiest, most zombie-like I've ever seen him (sober.) It wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't even awake but was in fact sleepwalking and talking his way off the boat and onto the bus. This bus was to drive us a further hour inland to the rail station, where we would catch a hopefully not fully booked overnight train to Bangkok. The five other backpackers we bumped into on this drive all had reservations, and all said their local travel agents told them said reservations were among the last available. We chose not to trust the travel agents on Samui, who honestly didn't seem to know what they were talking about in regards to anything, and wing it. Was this a terrible mistake?

Nope. When we finally arrived at the train station, a Belgian friend we'd made who cockily taunted us about the comfy bed he'd reserved wandered into the waiting area and lounged around. We approached the ticket window. There were in fact bunks still available on the 9:30pm train, three hours later than the departure we hoped for but acceptable considering the short notice. The Belgian's train was to arrive within a half hour. An hour later he approached the ticket window to discover that lo and behold, he'd reserved a bunk on a nonexistent train! Our strict policy of "don't buy transport tickets from anywhere but a ticket window" was victorious again. With upwards of five hours to kill in tinsy Phun Phin, we wished Mr. Belgian the best of luck and explored town. The night market here was understandably smaller and less interesting than that in much busier Surat Thani, but Jeff found his beloved oyster omelets, which was all that mattered anyway. I had the misfortune of buying the worst, weirdest tasting banana shake in memory. About halfway through it hit me that the bizarre taste was probably a sign that local tap water had been used in its make. I tossed the rest out and thankfully didn't get sick. Night market dinner was light but tasty overall.

Back at the train station, now much later, we used our rucksacks as backrests and lounged about on the concrete chatting amiably. The hour struck 9:30 and a train rumbled in, but it was not ours. This was the 8pm one running an hour and a half late, which assuming Thailand doesn't have much money to double or triple track their rail network, probably meant ours would be equally delayed. A dry erase board with updated arrival times confirmed this; we'd now be leaving at 11. Not good, but not bad... that officially makes Thai Rail 50% more punctual than Amtrak on a bad day or Trenitalia. Fuck Trenitalia - excuse my Italian. (angry smiley) The trains themselves were a bit foreboding, leaky sinister-looking tin cans from the Cold War these things were; I would not want to be an overnight passenger in the 3rd class section. Thailand is still a developing country and it was nice that they even had a semi-reliable train system at all, so I can't complain much. It wasn't as modern as Java's rail but would do just fine. I'm a bit if a train geek, forgive my train geeking.

The 8pm sleeper squeaked, burped and rumbled forth, and again we went back to lounging and chatting. Suddenly, commotion! A Thai man in his 20's or 30's frolicked over our legs and out of the station, dripping generous portions of some dark red juice? all over the place in his wake, not on our feet but nearly so. The station police soon clustered around the largest splotch of this stuff. We looked closer, it was definitely blood. He must've tried robbing someone who was armed with a knife or something, oops. The station's old lady janitor approached and mopped up the blood with a simple mop. No soap. No water. Only in Thailand... This event sent Jeff a bit over the "what am I doing here" edge but we got through it. Soon there was another rumbling, another buzzing, and our delayed train arrived. The inside of the 2nd class sleepers, while not as private as those on European trains, was surprisingly clean and modern. It was a bit submarine-like but a train in any form is better than a chickenbus. I fell asleep quickly and with a smile on my face, rocked gently by the car and rolling into Bangkok in style:

...or, well, "style." ... it's all relative, ya know!

---Quote of the Night---
"All they had left was a 3rd class bench on the 12am train, I'm gonna be crammed on plywood all night, F#CK." - The Scammed Belgian

---Vital Signs---
Food Poisonings = ZERO despite 1 near-miss.
Travel Weariness = With the Full Moon Party firmly in the past, weariness was back down to happy levels.
Mood = Ponderous, Measured Happy
Time Till Home = 2 Days (?)

Ko Pha-Ngan & Thai Full Moon Party: Sat 8/16, Day 87

Oh dear, where do I even begin... It's hopeless to try and convey this day (or night mainly) through writing but I'll do my best, hopefully the nightshift induced state of delirium I'm in right now will help. So we woke up and spent the bulk of the morning lazying about the beach while Jeff went on an internet errand. By midday we boarded a Pha-Ngan bound ferry with no reservation at an inn there; the plan was to stay up all night (the fiesta lasts well into the next day) and catch a sunrise ferry back to Samui and promptly crash. This would turn out to be something of an error in planning, pulling an all-nighter at an outdoor rave sober wasn't a great recipe for fun. It was all part of the experience though and tis important to look at every situation on a trip like this in a positive light no matter how grueling it seems at the time, because ya know, it's not every day one gets to visit Thailand (or Vietnam, or Cambodia, or Indonesia, or Nepal...)

We made good time in arriving on Ko Pha-Ngan, with a decent chunk of daylight hours remaining and plenty of time for exploring its allegedly nicer, more "authentic" beaches (ha!). As a precaution I brought only my passport and Jeff brought only his passport and cash. The risk of being robbed at the Full Moon Party was excessively high so we didn't want to carry anything important that we didn't need. Unfortunately there was a little miscommunication between us two resulting in Jeff thinking I was bringing some cash of my own a long, thus bringing less of his own. Even if I'd wanted to, I had no cash remaining to bring. When we arrived on Ko Pha-Ngan we discovered to our horror that there was only enough cash for the two ferry tickets back and *exactly* $5 of food money for each of us. It would not be impossible to survive on this, but meant we'd be living off of rationed pad thai and banana cakes from 7/11 for the next twelve hours and that our drink budget would be virtually nonexistent. So be it.

The island itself was much more like Ko Phi Phi than Samui, with its only settlement being a tightly backed traffic free web of cobblestone alleyways, pancake stands and surprisingly little stench. The "sunrise beach" was, as promised, sparkling clean with crystal clear water though the water had a strange stinging effect. My first impression was one of charm; what an adorable little innocent beach town this was. Little did we know what heathen abomination it would transform into once the sun went down and the full moon rose. We lazied about Sunrise Beach for a while, where the locals were busy setting up shop for the craziness to come. Makeshift alcohol stalls with names like "So F#cking Bucket", "One More F#cking Bucket", "Lucy F#ck You Long Time", etc painted on their fronts. Apparently the locals thought that by inserting the f-word randomly into their signs, they'd make the whiteys laugh and buy from their stalls. Unfortunately they are correct. As for what a "bucket" is, they are nifty drink combo packages consisting of a can of soda, a medicine bottle of "Red Bull" (definitely something different in there), and depending on the price a bottle or full handle of Jack Daniels or Sketchy Thai Whiskey. And of course, the lil plastic bucket you're meant to mix all these into and drink from. They're sort of a fixture at these Thai beach shindigs.

We left Sunrise Beach briefly to go watch the sunset on Sunset Beach. The ensuing psychadelic majesty was hands down the most jaw-dropping, perfect sunset I can remember seeing. A resident kitten befriended us as we watched it and began purring up against our arms. We showed it love and in return it betrayed us and lightly bit my wrist (though not deep enough to bleed), prompting what must've been a funny-for-Jeff panic attack on my part as I demanded we rush to 7/11 and use the rest of our money on a bottle of rubbing alcohol, to sterilize the theoretical Rabies I'd just "contracted." Two minutes later I calmed down and realized there was nothing to worry about. Stupid cat. With the sun now thoroughly set and dinner overwith, it was time to return to the other beach and see what chaos had began unfolding. By now the settlement was booming with crowds of late-teen and college aged Westerners, and the Thais deploying every stall on the island to rake in the iminent dough.

We stepped out onto the beach and... all holy hell was about 30% unleashed. Scattered crowds of shirtless dancing 20-somethings, fire dancers juggling flaming nunchuks, gogo-girls making stealthy rounds, even the beginnings of a laser-light show. In the background boomed the recent Coldplay song "Viva la Vida", its beats matching up to the bobbings of moonlit longtail boats along the shore. If there was a song that accurately conveyed the epicness I felt thinking back about the trip as a whole, it was this one. Soon, a commotion... a local Thai firedancing teen had lit the fuse to a rocket in his hand, stuffed it into an empty water bottle, stood up on a chair like a warrior leading his men on a charge, and launched a makeshift firework into the sky. Spotlights swinging around, silverly moonlight on the water, increasingly deafening techno beats, ravers high out of their minds... Holy Hell was at 90% and it added up to a shocking catharsis of debauchery and mayhem that would remove any faith the viewer had in humanity's future. This wasn't a dance of dozens, or a hundred, or even hundreds but rather thousands. Thousands of Australians, Europeans, Americans, and Thais, all of whom plastered out of their minds were crammed onto this formerly modest beach dancing away in ways that only illicit substances of the most severe order could inspire. My humble little beer could do nothing to numb my senses and help this all make sense. After it all became too much, I retreated to a quiet corner of sand to (successfully) pass out. Jeff stayed awake and spent the rest of the night watching fire dancers nearly kill their audiences with errant fire.

To be continued...

---Vital Signs---
Food Poisonings = Zero

Ang Thong & Samui, Thailand: Fri 8/15, Day 86

^ One of Ang Thong's many epic viewpoints

One of the things you "have to do" on these islands is book a daytrip snorkeling in one of the surrounding marine national parks. The day before we'd booked one, and at 7am this morning we were picked up by the van and driven to the tour ferry. It was to carry us (and 100 other backpackers) out to Ang Thong Marine Park, an array of hundreds of rocky uninhabited islands and some allegedly decent snorkel fodder. We should've booked a Ko Tao trip instead as snorkeling isn't what Ang Thong is famous for (it's famous for the epic views of the Gulf its peaks afford) but the trip would still be worthwhile. It also featured a pig-out worthy breakfast buffet of croissants, croissants, bananas, and more croissants, bringing welcome carbs to my drained and now underweight body.

The tour itself wasn't too note worthy apart from a (very worth it) viewpoint climb that caused me to reach The Sweatiest I Have Ever Been, but some of our fellow backpackers were. There was a clique of about seven extremely obnoxious Belgian Jews, lead by an obscenely obese couple who gave a bad name to my people for the duration of this voyage. There were also the Italians, a pair of late middle aged couples who seemed to be performing some clothed version of kama sutra on themselves at various points, one wife of whom was tanned far beyond the point of the tan being attractive and the boyfriend of whom, a lion of a man, who seemed to be constantly posing for a nonexistent fashion photo in his speedo. Goof balls, all of them. We befriended a friendly German man who complimented our countrymen, asserting that the American backpackers were the most impressive in respect and intrepidity on his SE Asia travels thusfar. At least I think that's what he said, I might be misremembering.

Nighttime was spent wandering around Hat Lamai, where we stumbled into some sort of free concert in a park featuring a local Thai rock band. Their music sounded vaguely Latino and helped add to an overall impression of South Thailand being the sort of "Mexico of Asia." Also present was a chubby balding old white man lost in a hopeless stupor who successfully creeped out nearly every local woman present. When he stumbled into and then sat down on a random plastic chair in defeat, a little poodle (of all things!) trotted up and began licking his face in wuv. It was adorable! We ended the night early to save ourselves for the next night's antics, the grand finale of Thai tourist insanity... the monthly Full Moon Party on Ko Pha-Ngan, the world's largest rave. I've never been one for raves, and this one would not change that to a hilariously FAIL extent.

---Vital Signs---
Food Poisonings = 0

Ko Samui, Thailand: Thurs 8/14, Day 85

At around 7am, we were dropped off at our bungalow by a "sawngethew," a pick-up truck with benches in back doing triple duty as a taxi, a share taxi, or a public bus depending on who is riding it and where they are going. We were both pretty tired but resolved to press on with sightseeing and not waste any time napping. Ko Samui possessed only a fraction of Ko Phi Phi's beauty but was much larger and better developed, meaning there were roads, meaning we could rent mopeds and drive ourselves whereever we needed to go! I did this in Bali with pretty good results, and the roads here were better than there. As for our mutual lack of international motorbike driving licenses, such things aren't paid much attention here just as traffic lights, speed limits, and general road safety is left up to the honors system. Due to the lack of traffic and general straightness of the roads, motorbiking around wasn't that hazardous.

The entire day was devoted to biking around the island's main ring road, making three significant stops enroute. The first was a sparkling if unremarkable beach, the second was a very remarkable beach next to the ferry pier which probably came closer to "stereotypical island paradise" than any other beach on the trip. With the 10min exception of a landscaping monk, we had the entire place to ourselves. The sandbar stretched far into the horizon with odd humps along the way, and the water was as warm and clear as a jacuzzi. Jeff walked off to nap in the middle of the inch-deep water (and played with some crabs apparently as well), while I, skin charred to a crisp, took refuge under a curvy coconut palm. We lazied about seperately here for quite some time, napping or meditating or some combination of both. Nirvana had been found.


After about an hour it was time to move on, and a waterfall in the island's interior made for our third stop. Getting to this waterfall from the parking area required a solid 40min hike each way up and down a nature trail, but as a passing Brit noted:
"It's so bloody wuhth it. Amazing."
It wasn't that amazing, but was worth the effort.

Hat Lamai was the quieter beach were our bungalow sat, but booming Hat Chaweng was the tourist and nightlife center so it was there that we traveled by way of sawgethew when nightlife time arrived. A friendly Italian family befriended us enroute. Chaweng was a good deal identical to Kuta Beach in Bali, a decadent neon-lit strip of boutique shops, clubs, and fancy restaurants with windy smelly alleyways branching out from the sides. Kuta didn't smell thanks to the Balinese Hindus sprinkling flower pedals on every corner but Chaweng reeked of crappy-sewer-system syndrome. Oh well. The incredible cashew curry meal I had in a hole in the wall here made up for it. We never wound up clubbing, which was our intention, but did visit one bar where a gogo-girl took a special interest in me buying her a drink or two. Jeff looked on snickering silently as I died inside awkwardly trying to fend off her attempts at seduction. Whether or not I should have? History will tell. Jeff got what was coming to him afterwards when we wandered through one gogo-bar alleyway and I deliberately drifted a bit behind him, causing all the girls to assault him first and draw their fire while I darted by unscathed. When walking past a Thai gogo-bar, its girls will flock out en-masse and literally grab onto you and try to yank you into their bars. It's half charming, half frightening. After passing a completely frightening transexual cabaret, we'd had enough of this wasteland and withdrew to peaceful Hat Lamai for some much needed sleep. I think we might've walked through one beachfront club there as well, though we didn't spend much time in it.

---Vital Signs---
Food Poisonings = Zero
Blisters = Many
Bike Accidents = None
Amazing Abandoned Beaches Found = 1

Surat Thani, Thailand/The Cargo Ship: Wed 8/13, Day 84

Alright this day kinda sucked to be honest. We slept in just long enough to miss both the morning boat and the noon one, with the next departure not until 3pm. That would cause us trouble later but provided a good excuse for aimless wandering in the meantime. After buying our ferry tickets and securing our backpacks, I left Jeff glued to a TV watching the Olympics while I bandied about town pigging out on more fruity crepes. In some freak act of clumsiness, I flipped over the paper plate holding my first one and sent it hurling food-side-up onto the ground. It would've been so delicious. :-( The second crepe survived and made it all the way into my tummy. They're technically called "Thai roti" or "Thai pancakes" fyi, but were more akin to crepes in appearance and flavor so I shall refer to them as such. Google will however be confused by a search for "Thai crepe." Anyways... The clock struck 3, we hopped on the ferry and bidded farewell to the floating gemstone of Ko Phi Phi. Our stay might've been short, but it had a unique charm that was not easily forgotten or matched. Ko Samui and Pha-Ngan would fail to dethrone it as the best of the three islands we visited.

The ferry ride was pleasant enough, but arrived in Krabi too late to catch a cross-isthimus bus to the other coast. Geographical lesson: Thailand has two main island paradise coasts: the Andaman Sea, home to Phi Phi, Phuket, and "007 Island," and the Gulf of Thailand coast to the east, home of our next destination. It's about a two hour drive to cross the countryside and travel between the two. With no buses left (the guidebook didn't mention a 4pm cutoff time, but it was something we should've thought to check regardless) and the only available share taxis filled, we were forced to hire a private ride at excessive cost to our wallets, $30 per head. Still, the driver was a pleasant man and his brand new aircon pickup with leather seating was a welcome change from the butt-destroying chicken buses, especially considering our battered condition. The Krabi Province countryside we drove through was like something out of an ancient Chinese painting, covered in light jungle with towering limestone facades all around. A few of these rock formations had temples on top. About an hour in the landscape flatteded and gave way to endless rice patties, and an hour later we pulled in to Surat Thani. Surat Thani is the eastern coast equivalent of Krabi, a coastal fishing town of pleasant but unremarkable order from which most ferries to the islands leave.

We were dropped off at the night-ferry pier, where at 11pm three identical overnight boats would depart for Ko Samui, Ko Pha-Ngan, and Ko Tao respectively. These were "cargo ships, not luxury liners. Bring plenty of repellant an watch your bags," Lonely Planet warned. They were already docked and being stocked with freight so we just went ahead and purchased our tickets. As our rucksacks contained nothing but heavy loads of dirty laundry by this point, we went against the book's advice and left them on our bunks inside. "Our bunks" = sections 21 and 22 of one long, gigantic cushion stretched out across the side of the boat's upper deck. We wouldn't be sleeping on metal containers or sacks of vegetables as the book implied but the spartaness of it all was still funny. With four hours to kill we wandered out into town in search of the main night market. Every Southeast Asian town/city has at least one night market, and they're always great time killers and people watching spots. This particular one mostly just sold food, so Jeff and I parted ways briefly to seek out nourishment. He was looking for appearantly delicious oyster omlettes, a dish that was both exceedingly unkosher and due to containing shellfish were firmly in the "high risk of food poisoning" category. I applauded his kahones but settled for some simple pad thai myself. Now, speaking of unkosher though... upon meeting back up, we passed an old lady selling roast insects in bulk:

"I'll eat a cricket if you will," I half joked.
"Okay, sure!" came Jeff's too serious response.


He asked the lady how much three crickets would cost, but since she was selling them bulk she just gave them to us for free. Thus followed a painful half hour in which Jeff, calling my bluff, would not leave me alone until I ate one of his roast crickets. He tossed one into his mouth and sat me down on a curb so that I could eat mine comfortably. After a great deal of teasing, and some funny pictures, I tossed one of the remaining two into my mouth. "They're a good source of protein, just keep telling yourself that..." When else would I get the chance to eat cricket, I figured. It was pleasantly crunchy and cracker-like. The legs felt a bit creepy rubbing up against one's tongue, but other than that there was nothing gross about it. Rushing to get the experience overwith, I swallowed my bug before I'd adequately chewed it, so I could almost say "I ate a roast cricket WHOLE!" Don't eat them whole.

Back at the dock we were accausted by the creepiest drunken homeless man who thought that caressing my knee would be a good enticement for me to give him my beer. He was mistaken. We then snickered at the Australians whose table he sat down at after we fled the scene, but were surprised to see some locals give him change. Giving change to beggars is much more common here than it is in America, probably due to the lack of adequate government safety nets for the mentally ill/crippled/disabled/unemployed to fall back on. Or something political like that. The spartan cargo ferry made for a surprisingly cozy and mosquito free night of sleep, and we arrived in Ko Samui the next morning without incident. There was an evil fluorescent light above our bunk but I was so tired that it didn't bother me much.

^ Our rucksacks marking our bed-territory on the ferry.

---Vital Signs---
Food Poisonings = Zero
Bizarre Food Eaten = 1 Roast Cricket
Pad Thai = Starting to get sick of it
Green Curry = Could never get sick of this
Wallet = 100% depleted, borrowing cash from Jeff for remainder of trip
Quote of the Night =
"Mmm, tastes like seaweed." - Jeff re: cricket

Ko Phi Phi, Thailand: Tue 8/12, Day 83

What wound up being our only full day on Ko Phi Phi started with a pleasant kayaking voyage around one of the cliffs to a "monkey beach," a tiny secluded sandbar accessible only by water where monkeys from the adjacent jungle liked to hangout. When a couple began making out on this beach we were driven to paddle away early, but any chance to see wild monkeys is automatically magical and worthwhile. I don't remember these monkeys doing anything particularly funny ala the one in Phnom Pehn who yanked his monkey-friend off a tree, but they were adorable all the same. Monsoony overcast and rough currents kept us from circumnavigating the entire island unfortunately, which was our original goal. We paddled across the lagoon to another largely abandoned beach, this one very pebbly and disappointing. Some dude was fishing off a nearby rock here and chose to relieve his bladder within view of us. This was not desired. We decided to return to the main beach, but just as we secured ourselves in the kayak and could start paddling out, a huge wave smacked into the boat and knocked us against the rocks. Our skulls thankfully survived. An unintentional reenactment of Cast Away followed as we struggled to propel the kayak past this beach's breakwater and out of the waves' wrath-range. Success! And never again will I go sea-kayaking without a life jacket or helmet!

After some wading and snorkeling we turned to our feet for the island circumnavigation. Due to speed and tide issues we were only able to make it a fifth the way around, but in the process discovered two magical less populated beaches with good waves where we lounged around for the rest of the afternoon watching the sunset and getting splashed in this and that direction. The tranquility of it all was on par with one of those "change your latitude" Corona commercials but having not adequately thought ahead, we had no beer bottles on hand to complete the latitude-changing.

Rolling around in mild waves eventually got old so we trekked on back to the main town and devoted the next hour to making rounds on the interwebs. On the 16th we planned to stay on Ko Pha-Ngan for one of its infamous "Full Moon Parties," but accommadation allegedly books up a full week in advance and we'd yet to figure out where we were staying there. While Mr. Jeff dispatched some emails to loved ones, I took it upon myself to resolve this reservation dillemma. The few bunaglows and inns listed in our guidebook either had non-working phone numbers or were already reserved. Luckily Ko Pha-Ngan is situated a simple half hour 24/7 ferry ride from the adjacent more touristy Ko Samui, and it was on this island that we found our bungalow for the next few nights. We'd disembark Ko Phi Phi tomorrow and be on Ko Samui the next morning. Victory; now it was nightlife time.

As today was the Queen's birthday, this night was considerably quieter than the last. Most of the bars were closed and the beaches were pyromaniac-free, and there was no drinks-for-boxing-match deal to be had. One hilarious belligerent man who was probably high on a substance other than weed began ranting at the top of his lungs about some other man who stole his girl and how he'd make this guy pay at the Full Moon Party on Saturday, providing welcome comic relief to us and irritated sighs from the locals who probably see "farang" outbursts like this daily. There was also an adorable stray cat who befriended us around midnight, but that aside there were few other stories. We spent most of the night wandering around pigging out at the various crepe stalls around town and stalking the cute stray cat. I miss those Thai crepes... they were like eggy Indian flatbread drenched in condensed milk, with (insert fruit here) for filling and were cheap. The banana/nutella type was the best.

A relaxing, low-key day overall.

^ The magical sunset beach

---Vital Signs---
Food Poisonings = Zero
Quote of the Night = Tipsy Annoyed Local: "F@cking farang!!" (farang = Westerner)

Ko Phi Phi, Thailand: Mon 8/11, Day 82

The journey to paradise:

14 hours had passed since we first boarded that Singaporean sleeper bus the night before. I woke up uncomfortable and sweating like a dog, having long since forgotten what it feels like to have a sore-free butt. There was enough air and cushioning that I was able to clock a decent six hours of less than decent sleep, Jeff clocked significantly less. Both of us were miserable. We pulled into the main Far-South Thai city of Hat Yai around 9ish or so and were deposited at a commission-paying travel agency instead of the bus station, irksome and forcing us to hire motos the rest of the way. The motorbike drivers upon finding out we had no onward bus tickets also tried to deposit us at their own commission paying establishment. After some victorious haggling that I was really not in the mood for we got to where we needed to be and caught the next bus to our semi-final destination of Krabi (ferry launching point to the islands), a further four hours North by way of chicken-bus.

We both slept through most of this ride, but again it was that kind of bumpy, shallow sleep that doesn't really help much beyond making you even more tired than you already were. Not surprisingly it dropped us off far from the town center and forced us into the waiting arms of eager crafty tuk-tuk drivers. The particulars of the remainder of this journey don't particularly matter. What mattered was our absolutely, utterly battered and drained state; the sleepless night bus only compounded exhaustion that had been building for weeks. All the hassles of travelling in the developing world, all the constant haggling, the fact that most of these cities were more quirky than pleasant... all of these factors were removing any sense of relaxation. Being on a genuine adventure, removed from the comforts of home, is exhilarating but takes its toll on the nerves. Both of us had technically been traveling for almost three months now and had seen some amazing sights, experienced moments and emotions generally better handled older individuals and had put our metal through the ringer. Though I can't speak for Jeff's Taiwan experience, I myself very rarely if ever felt like I was actually "on vacation." Most of these destinations weren't really the greatest spots for stress relief anyway, no one really travels to a place like Kathmandu or Phnom Pehn to "get away from it all." As our ferry pulled out of the Krabi Town pier and the warm pattering of the Indian Ocean took hold however, that feeling changed completely.

After tossing my straining rucksack down in the ferry's luggage corner I made my way up top to the sun deck, where dozens of fellow backpackers were sprawled out napping, tanning, letting the water spray at their faces. I leaned up against the railing, took a deep breath and just let my brain shut off. In an hour I'd be on a shimmering traffic-free island paradise nibbling away at $1 pad Thai and letting the waves have their way with me. I'd done the humanitarian thing, the intrepid thing, the cultural thing, the crazy city thing, and now at long last it was finally time to relax. At about 4:30ish the backpackers began waking up from their naps and poked their heads up to look around. Ko Phi Phi, setting of Danny Boyle's The Beach, lay before us. I don't think I'd ever seen a landscape that could so accurately be described as "looking at a gemstone." The cliffs were covered in this deep, emerald jungle growth, the water was spotless, crystal clear blue, rainbow colored longtail canoes bobbed up and down along the shore... Heaven! We rounded some limestone coves, drifted into the main lagoon, and for the first time in three months I felt like I was on vacation.

The rest of the afternoon's schedule:
5:00 - Check-in to $3 a night inn.
6:00 - Scramble up a hill & take in one of the more gorgeous views I've seen in me life.
7:00 - Shower
7:30 - $2 Green curry, mango shakes, and a banana crepe
8:00 - Beer!

At around 11ish, our stumbling around Phi Phi Town lead us to a peculiar bar with a Muay Thai kickboxing ring as its center piece. Alongside this ring was a sign: "Fight your friend for a free bucket drink!" Two professional locals with only their dense, hardcore toned muscle for armor stood up to fight themselves and set the standard all the Westerners would be held to. There are no rules in Thai kickboxing and their brawl was likewise brutal. When they were finished, an overweight wannabe Frat-dude stumbled up in his boxers and waved (I assume) his friend up to fight. Technically one of them won but it was pretty embarrassing for both parties. I kept half-jokingly pestering Jeff to fight me just for the sake of the silly story that would make, but I was unable to talk him into it. The boxing got old after a while leading us to visit the beach for some after dark fire-limbo. We tried but failed to participate and spent the rest of the night staring at some fire jugglers do their juggling thing. Pyromaniacs, them Thais are...

Viewpoint atop Phi Phi Island ^

---Vital Signs---
Food Poisonings = 0
Mosquito Bites = Not Many
Terrible Sunburns = Several

Singapore Redux Pt2: Sun 8/10, Day 81

Allight, not a whole lot to talk about on this day. We slept in till noon and went fancy restaurant meal hunting. The book recommended a restaurant, Din Feng Sung or something to that effect that I remembered Jeff raving about in his Taiwan blog. I thought it would be cute if I left Jeff oblivious to the existence of this place in Singapore and lead him there promising a pleasant surprise. Instead we found ourselves reservationless at a restaurant with an intimidating line stretching around its door, and a "Okay how good is this restaurant, really?" "Not good enough." review from Jeff. Oh well. Instead we ate at what wound up being sort of a tourist trap place along the river, Jeff got some kind of oyster noodle dish and I got amazing mango flavored fried chicken. It didn't live up to the fancy setting and an overcast, gloomy sky killed the mood, but the diversion was a pleasant one. There wasn't a whole lot else we could think of to kill time and do.

With our night bus departure approaching, it was time to start packing. I stopped in a tea stop to buy this promising and cheap Taiwanese Jasmine stuff, we both stopped at a dessert stall for a coconut shaved ice concoction then returned to the hostel to bid Donald Duck a faretheewell. I shared some tea with him as he told about his father's B&W photography work, chronicling Singapore's development from an underdeveloped Colonial backwater to booming modern financial center and Andy's own hopes to continue the legacy. Hostel business paid the bills for the family's historical photography institute which as far as I could tell was run out of his own bedroom. Must be an online thing? In minutes, Jeff finished whatever it was he was doing and we set out for the sleazy Golden Mile Center bus station.

Once aboard the night bus, about two hours later, we met an array of fascinating goofball characters. The first was the stubby ticket stub collector. If you could imagine the personality of an OCD Alvin the Chipmunk transferred to a chicken egg, you would have a stunningly accurate mental image of this man. I had no idea what instructions he was babbling at us a mile a minute during the border crossings and resorted to following the passenger mob. Also aboard where a trio of AWESOME INDIANS. We never spoke to them, only watched from afar as they socialized and waved hands around to each other for the whole ride. I speculated, based on their awesomeness and attire, that they were a 50-something year old soft rock band, the kind one's parents go see in concert during a holiday or anniversary. Awesome Indian 1 had a greasy black Jesus mullet and wore a white robe. Awesome Indian 2 wore a large Hawaiian shirt, shorts, was very overweight and sported a ponytail + bandanna. Awesome Indian 3, the most awesome, didn't need these bells and whistles. He wore a simple slick Jazz suit and had such perfectly white hair and beard that it seemed to glow against his dark skin. Jeff snuck a picture of them, hopefully it will be posted soon.

After not enough sleep and fourteen hours, we crossed the Malaysian/Thai border and arrived in Hat Yai. Thus is the domain of the next post, whenever it may be written.

^The trio of awesome Indians.

---Vital Signs---
Still no food poisoning, very tired, battered, desperate for an island paradise...

Singapore's Independence Day: Sat 8/09, Day 80

Guy Sitting Next to Me on Plane: "AhHA, you pick right day to fly to Singapore! Today (is) National Day, many fireworks!"

Characterless as this squeaky clean city might be in parts, it felt refreshing to be back in "civilization" for a day or two. A quick hop & a giggle from ultramodern Changi Airport lead us to the Chinatown MRT station, local stop for our hostel. The hostel's location adjacent to the main pagoda and a hawker center (food court) was incredible, the hostel itself not so much. Two simple rooms packed to the teeth with bunk beds made up its entirety and promised a claustrophobic if cozy night. Sub par hostels are usually redeemed if they have nice owners and such was this one. Andy was his name, a short 60 year old Chinese guy who remembered your name and wouldn't stop trying to get to know you. He'd waddle around in an over sized Hawaiian shirt with only a pair of boxers for pants and could be mistaken for Donald Duck if only his silhouette was visible. His becoming the only person I can remember meeting to use the word "auspicious" in casual conversation sealed Andy's place in my heart. What a magical human being...

We walked across town in hopes of finding the unofficial intercity bus station, where we'd theoretically buy tickets for the overnight Singapore>South Thailand direct bus tomorrow night. Mayhem (by low Singapore standards) from the National Day festival starting 6h later lead us astray for a bit but the endeavor was successful. The bus depot was funnily the only spot in the city with any discernible genuine character, being packed full of working class Indians, Malays & Thais shopping in respective dedicated-ethnicity supermarkets. It was a gritty 70's style place reeking of cigarette smoke, with (GoGo?) bars taking up every foot of floorspace not occupied by food stalls or supermarkets. If not for the aforementioned fireworks, we would've stayed here all evening people watching. Fireworks time it nearly was though so we took the train back over to the Parliament area and followed the crowds.

A massive concert-type event was taking place in the main park here where hundreds of families had gathered to celebrate Singapore's birthday. In America this would've been a nutty carnival with donkey rides, BBQs, hotdog stands and football fan types chugging Budweisers. Here it was a cordoned-off section of locals who had paid to get into said section, all given color coordinated paddles to wave in the air at specific points and masses of less priviledged people lounging around the grass field outside. On the loudspeaker was an MC who would incessantly beg people not to leave the field and announce the odd playing of a historical documentary now and then on the screen. His sole function was the nonstop enforcement precise formation schedule for the people holding color-coded paddles. At 6:17pm, it was "make the Singapore flag!" time. Ten minutes later, the Singapore flag waving! Later, the most stunning Singapore flag formation with your assigned glowsticks! He would go silent for a bit, people would start having a good time, and then it was like "Okay play time is over, we must make a new shape for the video!" Or rather one of the singularly great quotes of the trip:

"Okee, okee... We make one formation now. Everybody get to your formations... okee okee... Ready? Now! INFLAME. YOUR. PADDLE-PODS!" (thick Chinese accent)

Several historical documentaries about the island's history were projected on the park's screen throughout this overly organized pseudo-mayhem. After paddle-pod inflamation #M087BNX42, the Prime Minister visited some other more central celebration elsewhere in the city and was treated with a National Anthem rendition from us. The MC launched the singalong and... very few people seemed to be singing. A CD track was played to compensate, followed by an airshow of awesomeness. The fighter jets made hair raising weaves in and out of the Downtown skyline before flying an array of fake near-collisions. Some well timed if tinsy fireworks added to the theatricality. Jeff & I joked that the fireworks were tiny because Singapore sold its supply to Beijing for the Olympics. In hopes of getting a better view, we mistakingly followed people onto a largely cordoned-off bridge and found ourselves in an impossible clusterfrak of a mob that took twenty minutes to find our way back out of. It wasn't worth the effort but made for a good story.

Back at the hostel, we met the rest of our roomies all of whom were American or British (sole German not withstanding.) I suddenly caught a glimpse of someone familiar in the conrner of my eye:
"Owh moiy Gyod! How ah yah??? I con't believe you'uh heya!"
It was Anna, the Congolese-Australian from my very first day in Singapore way back when! She had just come back from her trip to Japan and by some freakish coincidence wound up at the same hostel on the same night as us. After a mass group dinner out in the Chinatown market, she joined up with the two of us on a theoritical clubbing outing.

All three club targets were along Clarke Quay, a tacky-as-hell riverside shopping strip and nightlife hub of Singaporean youth. The entire population under 26 are hipsters. Every single last one of them. We surveyed the entrance to the primary target club and found it to be booming, but figured some pregaming was needed due to budgetary concerns as Singapore is a nearly Western priced city. Beer was bought at the nearest 7-11, though not after waiting for the rest of the youth population to carry out our idea as well and form a line far longer than a convenience store should be worth. We sat down beside the waterfront, opened the cans, and thus started such an epic philosophical discussion between Anna & I that any chance to club was entirely squandered. Jeff grew increasingly silent during this convo because as I found out later, he really really wanted to go clubbing already. Sorry Jeff :-\ A rare instance of the shoulder-nudging system failing.

3am struck, the night ended, and Donald Duck who was for some reason still awake bidded us a goodnight.

---Vital Signs---
Food Poisonings: None
Bug Repellant Supply: In the Yellow
Travel Weariness: Cured by Singapore's Comfort
Countdown to Full Moon Party: T-1 Week

Final Hours in Saigon: F-Sat 8/09, Days 79&80

Vietnam was fun and all, but by late Thursday night the last minute for planning next week had arrived. We had to figure out just how in the darn-gone-blazes we were gonna to get back to Thailand cheaply and quickly from here leaving enough time to truly appreciate its island paradise. I had no trouble booking dirt-cheap budget flights at eleventh hours in Indonesia and figured pricing would be the same here.
Wrong.

The Thurs night fare for a Saturday morning Air Asia flight to Bangkok registered a whopping $200+, well beyond budget and out of the question. A flight from Phnom Penh was only $30, but this would involve getting another Cambodian visa ($), a long butt-destroying half day bus ride ($) and countless breaths of Phnom Penh's sewagey air (minus 7-10 yrs of life.) Being the cheap Jew among us I was obviously in favor of this option, but Jeff did not want to go back to "that city" and having had my fill of the LDCs, I quite frankly didn't either. So we googled around some more, checking and triple checking airlines, combos of airlines, alternative Vietnamese airports, et al until an unlikely but workable option surfaced. A flight to trusty ole Singapore was half Bangkok's fare despite being twice the distance and offered the option of taking a night bus north through Malaysia, approaching the islands in an ass-backwards but efficient fashion. The inevitable boredom instilled by spending more than an hour in Singapore was the sole minor caveat; this plan would involve spending one night and 2 days there. So be it. Maybe the world's cleanest city would be more fun with a friend in tow, I figured.

And great fun was. More on that next time.

Friday came and went with few still-untold stories, we sat by our traffic circle one last time watching the scooters roll by, slurped at some pho and digested a final dose of Ho Chi Minh's madness. I wanted to give Apocalypse Now Club another visit but was rightly dissuaded by a schedule-conscious Jeff who feared not making our early morning flight without an early night bedtime, a quite FUBAR inducing risk indeed. So we sighed, lowered our blood pressures and just lounged around the guesthouse room for the foreseeable hours. Jeff's quadridecadal Olympics addiction lassoed him to the TV all night for the opening ceremony and I followed suit upon realizing what I was missing. After closely following the tragedies and triumphs surrounding Beijing & Tibet for the past few months, I could not miss this historical moment.

One by one the countries filed out onto the field, we gave our obligatory cheers to the USofA, I gave mine to Israel, then felt boredom hitting until I did something I did not expect: erupting into an equally passionate cheer for... Indonesia? Granted I loved the place and its people, but they were our (weak) competition and shouldn't have prompted a cheer. Nepal followed a shortly thereafter and as with the Indos, I was as proud to see them walk across as I would've been my home country's team. Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, even Laos, a nation we never made it to but researched heavily... I could feel a surprisingly deep emotional connection to each and every one of them. I'm too deliriously tired at the moment to turn this into a profound epiphany about the world and humanity, but I'm sure there's one in there somewhere.

A schwarma nightcap from the magical curbside doner cart and walk around Pham Ngu Lao ended the night, with morning arriving too quickly as usual. We thankfully woke up in time for the flight if not in time for breakfast and made swiftly for the shiny modern HCMC airport. I had trouble getting in to the country, now it was time to see if they'd let me out. Jeff and I split into separate lines, mine was faster (a first) and with some trepidation, I approached the immigration official. He was a young but rigid looking man decked out in the full stereotypical Communist green military uniform + obnoxious peaked hat. He grabbed my passport from me opened it to the photo page, grimacing...

Looking at the photo.
Looking at me.
Looking back and forth five more times.
His eyes were steel, his expression frightening. He flipped the picture toward me, pointed to it, and yammered in Vietnamese what was obviously some disbelieving "That's you? Psshaw." I assured him that the dorky looking man pictured was in fact me, he again did not believe. This was starting to get scary.

Passport Soldier removed my departure card and examined it carefully. He noted that I'd absentmindedly written my birth date in the arrival date field... how dare I! Then came the signature. You see, because I hastily filled out the card on a rickety Cambodian chicken bus, the signature was not up to my usual elegant (not!) standards. He suspiciously asked why it was so vastly different from the signature on my passport. Because he spoke no English and thought himself too badass for charades, there was no hope in explaining "bumpy bus!" to him. Furthermore, I signed the passport almost four years ago and my signature had since evolved.

This posed a new problem... He ordered me to take his scrap paper and reproduce the passport signature.

I could not.

Angry/disgusted/some scary negative emotion... he tossed out the departure card, returned my passport and turned me away. His instructions were to find and fill out a new card and go through a different immigration official the next time around. Aye aye, Comrade! Whatever you say, just let me out of here. I followed the orders, got through the border and made the flight. & Of course Jeff got the hot female guard. Sigh.

Next up: Singapore's Independence Day

---Vital Signs---
Pho Bowls = 8-10
60 Cent Chicken Schwarmas = Mmm lots
Douchey Australian Partiers = Argh lots
Grass Jelly Desserts = 1
Bug Bites = 5, prolly fleas.
Food Poisonings = The salad wasn't a smart call but has yet to wreck any havoc.
American Lives Avenged = 0
Vietcong Guerillas Captured = 0
Well-Timed Sunset Rainbows = 1

---Quote of the Day---
Douchey Australian Dude: "Excyuse may, do ya have sum cyold wau-tuh?"