Frogress Is Made/KO PHA NGAN

Enough sitting around. I book a boat tour of the island, especially interested in a series of waterfalls that are supposed to be spectacular, and a special beach that some tourist brochures had me really psyched about. Anything to get out of Haad Rin for a bit.

An awful heat hangs over the morning, a real crack-sluicer, as I wait for the tour van to pick me up. The van stops at a place called Friendly Resort near Haad Rin Nok, the sunset beach, where I meet the rest of the tour group. They register my presence with some surprise, as it turns out everyone else going is from a travel package group, making me the outsider butting into their planned boat ride. Play it cool, Jamie. Don't let 'em see your crack sweat. The head of their travel group makes some introductions, but I confess I was too distracted by the very angry cold sore on her lip to memorize a dozen British names on the spot.

Once the boat leaves the dock, the waters start to chop and wave. Our captain has a chat with the cold sore girl, which she relays back to us: Due to possibility of getting trapped by a storm, we won't be stopping at the waterfalls or the special beach. Alright, I probably had that coming. Anyways, I have bigger concerns: This is the first time I've worn my swim trunks since the night I tried my hand at fire rope-jumping, and I never noticed that a 3-inch hole was burned into the crotch, so now I get to spend the rest of the boat ride playing How Many British Strangers Are Going To See My White American Dick.

Quit lookin' perv

The boat pulls into our first stop at Bottle Beach, where the group is led to lunch at a beachside open-air restaurant. After eating a plate of fried rice, I find myself back on the boat sunbathing with a couple other guys from the group, chatting about the Dragon Tattoo movies, The Inbetweeners, the general state of British film and television, and...goddammit. They were nerds. Stupid, smart, interesting nerds. Still, baby steps. I was making progress. Friend progress. Frogress, if you will. No, definitely friend progress.

The tour stops next at a snorkeling spot about a half mile from shore. Masks and flippers are handed out for everyone who wants to get wet. While half the boat is jumping in, the captain starts throwing bride slices out onto the water, setting off a feeding frenzy among the sputtering neon-banded fish nearby. Really, the opposite of everything I had just learned about not disturbing marine life in scuba diving classes. I watch the sight for a bit before diving in myself.

Sorry, Environment.

The area has a great deal of coral, but in lifeless gray-green hues, like the pea-soup screen of an old Game Boy. Still, the water feels great after the day's oppressive heat. Back on the boat, the woman who we'll just call Cold Sore Sally is warning her travel group about fire rope swinging. Apparently one of the Thai rope swingers she knows dropped the rope for whatever reason, only to have it coil around his leg, while his jeans were soaked in kerosene. His legs were horribly burnt, and being too poor for medical care, became infected.  In the end, both legs had to be amputated.

Meanwhile some other assholes complain about their boo-boos.

Snorkeling turns out to be the last activity for the day, and the boat heads back to port. Almost as soon as we start moving, I realize I have to pee, and this is one of those apocalyptic all-consuming needs to pee. Without any handy sinks around, I consider my options. I could try and sit as nonchalantly as possible, legs crossed tighter than the Gordian Knot, feet spasming uncontrollably, and wait for my kidneys to explode, or I could simply announce to the others my basic bodily needs, and have a beautiful, soul-soaring piss over the side of the boat, announcing myself before all creation. I go with not peeing, which somehow feels more shameful, and wait to die.

After three or four years, we come in sight of the dock. "Does anyone else feel like jumping off the boat right now, they have to pee so bad?" someone pipes up. All round the boat, every single person shouts and/or painfully moans their agreement. To think, what would have happened had I been the pioneer to let it fly over the side? What could I have started? Imagine the sight; the boat floating magically, wonderfully into the air, carried aloft by the sheer force of so many desperate golden arcs, our ship soaring out of this world and into the story-swapping sessions of grizzled sailors at their drunkest, telling the impossible tale with hushed voice into an empty whiskey bottle. 

Our group disembarks and the dozen of us all crabwalk over and around each other to the nearest bathrooms. As much as I'd like to make plans to meet up with my new nerd-friends again, my bladder trumps all. I ditch everyone else running into their bungalows to have a good, old-fashioned public urine-bonanza right there on the pier.

Now the narrative is going to try and stumble on.  In the meantime, here's a crab spitting bubbles out of its mouth.

"Blurble"

Feeling like a sufficiently active and outgoing human being once again, I eat dinner for one at an Italian place called Mona Lisa. I order their homemade limoncello cream and chocolate mousse, but they're out of both, and I can only get regular limoncello, and tiramisu. That's the story of this whole trip, really. If you were just reading this blog until I nailed the perfect travel analogy, because you're the most weirdly specific reader in the world, well here's your stopping point, because home run!

Life is pain.

The ritual continues; paying 5 dollar ATM fees to get drunk in the afternoon, and by night dodging the Thais playing badminton in the street and the dogs sleeping on the beach. I'm starting to recognize the locals, and for better or worse they're recognizing me.

The next afternoon I'm having lunch in a Friends bar called Lazy House. On the TV is a UK Jackass-alike called Balls of Steel, which is a lot like Jackass, minus the charisma, personalities, creativity, or humor. While I sit and consider how far-gone a mind has to be to get pretentious about Jackass, the Lazy House bartender starts up a conversation with me. He confirms for me that the island is indeed now filled with Israelis and Estonians (?) for reasons unknown to him, and shares anecdotes about how after the Full Moon Party he'll find the restaurant filled with people after closing who just seem to wander in, despite the walls and furniture being put up.  He also complains bitterly about the same people who stop in, look at the menu, and then leave to find places that are 10 or 15 baht cheaper. "Assholes," I agree, all of a sudden very worried that he can see into my soul, and the guilt therein.

Along with a pork kebab, I order a few cocktails, including a mai tai, which has become something of a game for me. I've found that every bar and restaurant has them on the menu, but will make them completely different, usually with no idea as to what is actually supposed to go in one, so I get a surprise every time. A cat and dog pair saunter into Lazy House, looking for handouts. After playing Jackass 3D, they close early.

With nothing else to do, and not feeling particularly energetic, I'm about go home when I notice Club 9, a bar I had thought closed following the Full Moon Party, was open for the night. Curious, I go for in a drink.

Inside, the club is completely deserted save for two bartenders and myself. After perusing the menu, I order a "rocknrolla", because James Bond and Charlie Sheen taught me if you're just going to have one drink, make it count.

Club 9 offered Hangover Cures at the bar, which I thought a brilliant innovation. And maybe just a little foreboding.

While one of the bartenders futzes with the sound system, and I sip my oversold and overpriced vodka-Red Bull, the other bartender asks me if I'd like to play a game. Intrigued, and not sure how I could say no in an empty bar, I agree. From behind the counter, he produces...Connect Four. Not just the favored game of prepubescent scam artists, it would seem. What the hell. We play a few games, and the bartender predictably dominates. To make up for my loss, he pours me a whiskey sour, although I'm pretty sure I ended up paying for it anyway.

Two guys walk through the door, and I happen to recognize them. They're both from the group I was with on the boat trip, and they also both happen to be the only non-Brits of said group: Sander, from the Netherlands, and Ted, from Australia. Happy to get away from more embarrassing Connect Four defeats, I join them at a table in the corner. After a round or two of skittles shots, they mention that the rest of the group is going to be partying on the beach, and invite me to come. It would cut into my valuable losing-Hasbro-games-to-a-bored-bartender-in-a-depressing-nightclub time, but I tag along anyway.

Sander, Ted, and I find the others at the beach, and I'm greeted with a few surprised cries of recognition. My nerd-friends aren't here, and I got the feeling they weren't entirely missed. For a while I share in the others' drink buckets and make small talk with a Spanish girl who is oddly insistent about me friending her on Facebook, and then the fire rope comes out.

Hello, old friend.

This time, I abstain. Sander leaves for bed, and the rest of them have too much healthy self-preservation instinct to jump in. Without any interest to keep it going, the fire rope guys pack it in, and are replaced by fire jugglers, whom we watch transfixed while draining more heinously intoxicating and intoxicatingly heinous buckets.

Fire jugglers: Stroking the ego of amateur photographers the world over

Then out comes the fire ring. Sorry, let me rephrase that: they brought out a literal Ring of Fire. This time, abstinence is for ugly teens and dudes named Morrissey. I'mma go live a misinterpreted Johnny Cash song.

Sometimes I really goddamn love you, Ko Pha Ngan.

I jump through the ring again, and again, and again. My draw to it is so powerful, it's practically encoded in my DNA. 

Even though you can't actually see my face, I feel like in this second it's become at least three times as handsome.

Once I've got all the ring-jumping out of my system, I settle down, dance a little, and have a couple beers to celebrate a successful injury-free experience. However, something feels amiss. I check my pockets. My keys are missing.

They're nowhere around the table, or the ground beneath. Clearly, they must have fallen out while I was jumping through a flaming hoop, not that there is anything about this sentence I could have seen coming. Desperate, I hunt the surrounding sand, but with all the foot traffic and the tide coming in, the search becomes hopeless.

I hope you're happy. And goddammit, I know you are.

I have no way of contacting the people at Venus to let me in, and it's far too late to get a room somewhere else for the night. I have two options left: Sleep on the beach, or find someone to go home with. Not wanting to be robbed and/or marked as territory by stray dogs, I put my game face on. My seduction face. Which sounds like I was making kissy lips or something, but it was really pretty much my normal face, except I tried to make my eyes more brooding-er.

With the stakes this high, I got to see just what kind of man I was. Turns out, I'm a man who's not very good at picking up girls. After Ted starts making out with the Spanish Facebook-enthusiast, and takes her off the market, I set my sights on a British girl named Cyndi. Cyndi is the kind of girl with a face that's made to be drunk, possessing the perfect elastic qualities and expression of coy bewilderment. She's already rebuffed Tyler, the playboy of their little group, but she's kept drinking steadily since then and seems very interested in Seattle (even if she does think it's somewhere in California). Let me be clear on this: all I really wanted was a place to stay for the night. If anything, sex would be working against my purpose, since everyone had roommates and any busted hanky-panky could result in me getting thrown out. I wouldn't say I was quite on the Light side of the Force here, but I certainly wasn't Darth Vader neither.

However, Cyndi is being very hot/cold, and just when I think I'm getting somewhere, she's pulled aside by the other girls and given a talking-to. There are a lot of comforting gestures, and every once in awhile Cyndi nods in my direction and loudly exclaims "He?!" I don't know what kind of grammar she's using to do it, but I can feel her slipping away.

I turn my laser-guided attentions elsewhere. A cute Asian girl joins the party, who turns out to have actually lived in Seattle for a bit. And, she's even lost her flip-flops in the sand to boot! I help her look for them for awhile, but they've been sucked out into that same bitch ocean with my room key. She thanks me for my help, compliments me for being such a nice guy, but she's really got to get to bed and good luck with your room situation! Exeunt cute Asian girl.

It's past 3 a.m. now, and I've given up hope. The group is disbanding, and starting to make their way back to their rooms in Haad Rin Nok. I tag along for a bit, wondering which part of the beach is neutral dog territory,  when another one of the stragglers, Janice, an attractive brunette with a stern air, asks where I'm headed. 

"Oh, nowhere really. I'm kind of homeless at the moment," I reply, and fill her in on my plight. To my relief, she's sympathetic.

"I suppose...you might be able to stay in our room. My roommate is probably going to be gone for the night, so there's an extra bed."

Yes! Salvation! Elated, I walk with her to get a couple toasties, while she makes some surprisingly catty remarks about the other girls in her travel group. But hey, whatever you want to bitch about, I'm interested. I even humor her by trying some of her Marmite and cheese toastie, and further humor her by not instantly spitting the Marmite out and rinsing my mouth with Abraxo and holy water.

Once in her room, I ask which bed she wants me to take. She doesn't care. I climb in the one nearest the door, and to my surprise, she climbs in with me. I mean, it wasn't a complete surprise, as I've read in books that girls like to do intercourse stuff too. Still, it was something of a concern. Not only was it past 4 in the morning now, and I was way too tired to be doing anything, but after talking to her it was clear that her roommate was likely to come back at any moment.

Not wanting to offend her or her hospitality, I did the only thing I could: scootched as far as possible to the edge of the bed and pretended to sleep. Janice wasn't satisfied. Every time I would trail off in conversation and close my eyes, she would wait a couple minutes, and then broach a new topic, her hand slowly and steadily moving across the divide towards me the whole time. By the time she started asking if I had seen "this American show 'Glee'", I decided to bite the bullet. Maybe the roommate wouldn't come home after all, and Janice and I could get in a quickie before she would finally let me sleep. I slip my arm around her, and by the waist pull her close. We make out, my reluctance and reservations melting away...

Then her roommate comes home, because of course she does. "Fucking hell!" gasps Bethany, Miss Roommate Herself. Janice and I disentangle ourselves and I go back to the fetal position against the wall.

"Look at this! Haw! Haw!" Behind Bethany is Jake, a topless brodude with the lumpy, ungainly physique of someone who eats too much protein powder. While Bethany gets into her bed, Jake can't sit still, and bounds around the room.  Janice and Bethany argue with each other for a spell about nothing in particular, mostly Janice asking where she's been, and Bethany trying her hardest not to say dry-humping with this guy in the sand. She looks embarrassed to have been caught with him, whereas I don't think Jake has ever been embarrassed in his entire life. Ripping off his pants, he jumps boxer-clad into our bed.

"Let's get this party started!" Jake bellows, starting a tug-of-war with us for our covers.

"Ja-ake! Come on love, just get into bed, yeah?" Bethany pleads with him. He's not having any of it.  He can smell sex in the air, and he's going to be involved in some fashion.

"Whaddaya say we have a four-way? Haw haw! Eh? You know you wanna!" I've started to burrito myself into the sheets, trying not to stare Jake's swinging junk, flapping in and out of the front of his boxers, in the eye.

But neither Janice nor Bethany wanna.  After being stared down by Janice, and berated by Bethany, Jake finally surrenders himself to bed. Bethany turns on the aircon full blast, and switches off the lights, pointless now that it's past 6 and the sun is rising.

"Only spooning, you two!" Bethany chides us before going back to bed, and wrapping herself around Jake.  You got it. If I fall asleep now, I can still get maybe 3 and a half hours of sleep before the girls have to check out of the room.

But Janice isn't interested in sleep. Just as soon as rest was in sight, she starts to grind into me, slowly at first, then gradually picking up speed. Like a sexual Terminator, she wasn't going to quit. Grabbing my available hand under the covers, she presses it to her breast as she continues to grind her ass along my pelvis. In the other bed, I can hear Bethany complain as Jake tries something similar with her. Whether they can see what we're doing, I don't know.

Janice is done playing around. She takes my hand in her left and moves it downtown, pushing two of my fingers into her vagina, while with her other hand she reaches back and starts giving me a very awkward, backwards, over-the-pants handjob. That she does all this while still facing away from me I found extremely impressive. That she was facing her roommate 3-feet away, well, that was something too. She keeps right on fingering herself using my hand as a prop, though if it's making any effect I can't tell. Her backwards handie wasn't doing much for me, but to be fair she would need at least a couple double-joints, and just about every other bit of this situation to be completely different, if she wanted to be very successful.

In the other bed, Bethany has finally had enough of Jake's molestations, and yells at him to either go to sleep, or get out. He chooses to leave, and collects his clothes, muttering the way out. I freeze, not wanting to disturb anybody. Janice has stopped working my hand, and seems to fall asleep, with my fingers still inside her. Without wanting to move, and risk waking her, or angering her roommate, I stay like that, holding hands with her pussy, for an impossibly long time. Minutes, hours, days, I couldn't say. I wonder if it'd be rude to wash my hands after this. My fingers have probably pruned.

After I'm sure Bethany is asleep, I finally withdraw my hand and release my sticky fingers to the light of day. Even if there was time, sleep is impossible thanks to the freezing aircon and morning light filling the room. Didn't I have the option to sleep on a nice, comfortable beach at some point? What happened to that?

Around 9 a.m., the girls awaken to the screech of a travel alarm clock. Bethany heads downstairs to see about extending their stay in the room, while Janice showers. I manage to at least wash my hands before I leave, making vague plans to meet Janice somewhere on the beach, sometime tonight.

I walk of shame back to Venus, but there's nobody there. In all my genius, I got myself locked out on the night before Easter Sunday, and now I get to wait for the family who runs the place to get back from Mass, whenever that would be.

The grandmother finally shows up, but the spare key to my room's padlock, wouldn't you know it, doesn't work. She unlocks the bungalow next door for me to shower in, while she attempts to saw the lock off.  The sawing is unsuccessful, so finally she calls her son in to bash at the door with a hammer, as the locksmith is unavailable because of the holiday.

This is what you get when you "fall into a burning ring of fire." That song is full of shit.

After an hour, he finally smashes the lock off, and I'm able to get inside and nap for a few precious hours. Once I finally feel fit enough to go outside again, I head down to the lobby for breakfast. It's there, on one of the tables, that I spy a familiar bottle.

Hello, beautiful!

The gigolo didn't steal it after all! So, there's a moral to all this bullshit in the end. Don't be quick to judge people. Or something.

Fire Water Burn/KO PHA NGAN

I take my first night in Ko Pha Ngan to set my bearings and acquaint myself with the neighbors.  There's a German couple in the bungalow next to me, whom I have a nice conversation with and then never see again.  In the lobby/restaurant/computer area I meet a British girl watching Napoleon Dynamite, with her leg wrapped in gauze and propped up on a stack of pillows.  She says a bottle fell on her foot and slashed it open the first day of her stay, leaving her effectively disabled for the rest of her vacation.  I know the feeling.  I know it so hard.

Back in my room I discover a hose attachment in the bathroom at about calf-level that does get water pressure.  Unfortunately, I find out it also doesn't shut off, leaving me with a shower head that doesn't get enough water, and a water spigot above the floor that is now spraying water all the time.  My home for the next week had no shortage of character, but it did cost 10 bucks a night.  Would it be petty to complain?  Probably.  Would writing in a professional manner take way more effort?  Fuck that one hundred thousand times.

So, the shower sucks, there's a spigot that won't shut off, the door won't lock, the wifi doesn't work, there's no AC, and my growing headache isn't psyched about the fact that the noise from the party beach reaches all the way up into these hills and inside my room.  Also, ants.  It was going to take every fiber of my being to enjoy this tropical paradise.

Before turning in for the night, I make a circuit of all the money exchange places in the area, looking for the best rate for my 500 dollars in Chinese yuan.  The general consensus I get is the exchange rates are pretty terrible on the island, and I'd be better off waiting till I get back to the mainland before changing the money, which is still drying out on my desk.  I take a couple Xanax to counteract the noise from the beach and go to bed early, so I can be nice and fresh for my 9 o'clock scuba lesson.

What a terrible fucking idea.  Thanks to the Xanax, I wake up late and feeling groggier than a pirate's hip flask.  On the way to meet the instructor I stop for a banana pancake, which makes me even later, but also makes my mouth and belly so very happy.

Ben10 is actually our country's biggest export, after child obesity.

My scuba instructor is an overweight, middle-aged Swiss man named Alex  He has a crazed energy when he talks, but that could just be his kooky accent.  At his shop I can see his Thai wife using the internet in the back, and his son playing computer games in the front.  I can sense an atmosphere coming on, where I'm late and he resents me for it, but I'm paying him and feel weird about being made to feel bad.  He takes me to a pool for the first lesson of my Open Water License.

There are worse places to learn.

This was my first time scuba diving, but I wasn't too bad.  Alex commented that my "hovering" (trying to float in place underwater) was excellent, and I discovered that the fingernails I had neglected to trim worked like tiny little flippers.  Alex and I chat for a bit, mostly about Steam sales and buying too many computer games, but he also mentions that Song Kran, or Happy Water Torture Festival, lasts up to four days in the North.  Christ.  We make arrangements to meet the next day for our first dive, and part ways.

As night fell I felt some regret about having signed up for the scuba course so quickly, as it meant I was going to have to hold off on the nightlife for the next few days.  In particular, I notice this:

SOLD.

But I'll return to that.

I finish my Open Water License over the next two days, doing a dive each morning at Sail Rock, a popular scuba spot about an hour's boat ride from Ko Pha Ngan.

Armed with our spearguns, the hunt for Ariel begins.

Sail Rock, supposedly the premiere dive site in the Gulf of Thailand, is a pinnacle that goes down 35 meters to the sea floor.  Before signing up for the scuba lessons, I had worried that diving would be overrated and an expensive, boring waste of time.  I was wrong, on every level (except the expensive part; holy freaking moly it is expensive).  Maybe it was just the crystal-clear blue waters talking, or the wondrously dense schools of fish rushing past like so many incandescent clouds, but scuba diving is kind of the shit.

Everything becomes the greatest thing in existence.  The slimy barnacled rocks around the pinnacle become an exotic alien landscape, full of mystery and life.  Some colorful nudibranches all of a sudden seem like evidence of a kind and loving God.  One enormous school of trevally swimming by was like that same God giving me a handjob, and it was the most kind and loving handjibber there ever was.  The most famous feature of Sail Rock is its natural vertical swimthrough, which is basically like a 12 meter chimney you can drop down through the pinnacle.  Swimming through that...if you could take the opposite of racism, that's what it felt like.  It was the anti-Hitler.  Every fish I saw was a perfect ball of magic in a universe ruled by love and Studio Ghibli movies.  Every tuna or mackerel or barracuda passing by was a little hug from underwater Totoro.

My instructor, however, was not as super psyched about these things as I was.  Instead of all the pretty fishies, when we got back to the boat he wanted to talk about the oil crisis.  And corrupt Western governments, in particular mine, but also those of everyone else on the boat.  That accent could only do so much to kooky-up diatribes about corporate greed delivered with a thousand-yard stare (although, to be fair, everyone gets a thousand-yard stare in the middle of the ocean; there are, like, literally thousands of yards out there to stare at).  This brought me down for a little while, but then someone caught a seahorse in a bucket and we were right back to Totoro hugs:

THIS BUCKET IS THE MOST IMPORTANT OBJECT IN ALL OF SPACE-TIME.

And just like that, three people on the boat turned into Star Childs.

Meanwhile, Alex rants about Wal-Mart, and gives an in-depth treatise on how to cross international borders illegally, which...okay actually I was pretty into that last one.  You never know when stuff will come in handy.

Now that my dives are over and my Open Water License complete, Alex gives me some sage advice for the  Haad Rin beach parties.  According to him, on some nights a massive jump rope will be taken out, doused in kerosene, and lit on fire for any inebriated soul to jump through.  He warns me to stay away from such activities, as too many drunk tourists get horribly injured.  "I'll be safe," I promise.

I take the rest of the day to eat, rest, pick up laundry, and gather strength.  Somehow, I had managed to get myself sunburned yet again.  Not a hospital-worthy burn this time, but it definitely gave my skin that shade of Naked Mole Rat Pink that I had begun to miss.

At least it's even.

One thing I've learned about Southeast Asia is no matter where you go, laundry always costs about a buck-fifty per kilogram.  Across every country and exchange rate, it's stayed the same.  It's nice to know no matter how sideways things can get, at least I have one constant to hold onto.

Haad Rin as a town is about halfway between Vang Vieng and more upscale tourist destinations, like Kuta or Ubud.  The buildings are sturdy brick and concrete instead of wood and aluminum siding (and even the occasional glass storefront!), but there would still be almost-daily power outages from the heat.  I became used to going into a restaurant with my netbook to eat and use the internet, only to have the power fail and wait for the restaurant's backup generator to kick in.

Who am I kidding.  I was going to the Friends bars.  Could I be any more lonely?

Having been to several spots around Thailand before, I was surprised by the absence of open prostitution.  Nowhere did I see 24-hour massage parlors with girls of varying age lying around calling to the tourists at night.  There are, however, plenty of reggae bars:

Pictured: The most Jah shit you will ever see.

While I eat dinner at one Friends bar, a car passes by a few times with a speaker system in the back, playing "The Final Countdown" announcing a Muay Thai event happening later in the night.  I love Muay Thai, the ticket includes a free taxi ride to the stadium, and I get a pleasant reminder of Arrested Development.  I'm in.

I share a tuk-tuk with a gaggle of Chads, and once at the arena order a bucket of Sang Som Whiskey and Coke.  The stadium is actually pretty huge for such a small island.  While the fighters are getting warmed up, I have a chance to look over the match-ups.  They have 8 or so fights lined up, with the usual main event of Westerners, but I'm a little disappointed they don't have any girlfights.  In my experience, girls fight each other harder and longer, and generally make for a much better show.

The first match out of the gate is, per usual, a pair of younger boys.  They fight well, with good spirit and other such Bukowskian observations, and it marks the first time I've seen a couple of young Muay Thai fighters go at it and not end with one of them hit so hard that they collapse and foam at the mouth.

So, good on them!

As much as I love going to Muay Thai matches, I have to admit I've never seen any fights on the mainland.  I've heard that the bouts on the islands are played up for the audiences and aren't as serious, and if that's true, then someone forgot to tell this guy:

Because Chris Tucker is about to materialize in front of his face any second now.

Of course, it's also probably true that the guy drives a tuk-tuk for a living and only does Muay Thai fights for tourists as a side income, hence the belly and the whole getting-his-ass-beat thing.  So not as serious, but also sadder and more worthy of a Russell Crowe vehicle.

The next fight was between a local in red shorts and a challenger from the mainland in silver.  And, in another first for me, I bet on the fight.  Red Shorts was favored as the local, but I could see Silver Shorts had some amazing abs.  I decided to go with my gut (get it?).  Surely such hardcore training and conditioning would trump the local advantage.  And just like that, I lost 200 baht as Red trounced Silver.

I wondered if I should take my old guidance counselor's advice, and stop  making all my decisions so ab-centric.

The fight between Westerners was supposed to be a Czech fighter versus an Israeli, but it gets canceled after the Israeli is reported sick.  As a replacement, a fight is added between a giant Canadian and an old Thai man who probably invented the word "underdog".

That isn't a trick of perspective, the Canadian fighter really is 8 feet taller than his opponent.

I decide to bet once more, and this time I know I'm going to win.  Then they tell me they're not accepting bets on the Canadian, and I reconsider.  I look at the Thai's record: 70 wins and 30 losses, compared to the Canadian's 11 wins and 4 losses.  I put down 200 baht on the Thai.  Maybe...maybe experience will give him the edge?

Noooope.  

The next few fights lend credence to the idea that island fighting isn't as serious.  The judges aren't impartial in the slightest, as they openly side with some fighters and even cheer them on, and another fight gets decided by audience decision (and was suspiciously filled with Superman punches and crazy spinning kicks).

Also, there's the matter of the free drink ticket that came with the Muay Thai ticket, that is cross-promoting for a pool party at a hotel called Coral Bungalows.  I don't know how many times I've said it: More marketing synergy needs to involve free drinks.  Once the fights are over, I meet a couple guys in the audience who happen to be staying at the same resort as me, and together we pile in a taxi for the Coral Bungalows.

The pool party is packed (predictably).  We redeem our drink coupons at a punch stand where a promoter is ladling out extra-strong Vodka Red Bulls, and we talk.  One of the guys says he hates the band The Killers.  Looks like I have some new best friends!  

The pool party is very confident in its own identity.

However, I don't have anything to swim in, I'm carrying a backpack, and I'm still sober enough to be scared to talk to girls (I heard they don't like backpacks??).  Interestingly enough, all the other men at the party seem to be in the same situation, as they're all crowded into a room inside the bar watching something called a "Man You" and a "Man See" play "Phut-Bawl".  They seem excited by whatever it is.  The "Man See" wins.

I usually justify not talking to girls by watching HBO dramas, but whatever works for you guys.

My new best friends, who are British and very angry about what just happened on the TV, ask if I want to head to the beach, and I agree.  We hitch a ride on the bed of a truck back to Haad Rin Nok, the party beach (and therefore, the biggest pool party), with a stop at an open-air fast food joint called Same Same Burger.  Once at the beach, I stop by my room at Venus to drop off valuables, and on the way talk to a couple girls who ask me what I think about football (I'm assuming the one I just watched).  I say I hate it, which turns out to be the correct answer, and for a while we chat about how sports are dumb and awful.  Out of the infinite combinations of brilliant repartee and body language, there must be one that led to me having a threesome with these two girls.  I didn't find it.  And if I had known what was good for me, I would've stayed in my room and pondered that.

But I didn't know what was good for me.  Really, I wanted the opposite.  I had it up to here with going to bed early, waking up early, and being constantly on the move.  I wanted to get some blood in my teeth.  Some grit in my bones.  In a trip already marked by irresponsible hedonism, I was going to really cut loose.

I leave my flip flops and wallet behind, taking with me only cash and the bottle of Xanax.  Remember that I am 22 years old, and a relatively common sedative still seems like a cool, subversive thing to have on my person. Returning to the beach I can't find my new best friends, but on the plus side, there's a foam cannon going, and that's never not fun.  I won't see my ex-new best friends again.  Still, foam cannon.

The beach is maybe a quarter mile long, with bars at regular intervals each hosting their own separate parties on the sand.  Like the riverside bars in Vang Vieng, each provides a slightly different selection of music and drunken activities.  The foam cannon is blasting away around the most popular bars, where the usual soundtrack of Top 40 Dance is playing (before I leave Ko Pha Ngan, I'll have heard "Empire State of Mind" far more than human ears were meant to handle).  Also like Vang Vieng, everyone seems to be wearing Tubing Vang Vieng wife beaters, but something about foam makes it so hard to judge.  Trillions of bubbles had me loving my fellow man, be he douchebag or no.

After wading around for a bit and realizing how hard it is to dance in the vile quicksand that foam turns beach into, I rest on a foam-adjacent picnic bench with a 3 dollar bucket drink and pop a couple Xanax for fun.  The whiskey in the bucket is lethally strong and tastes similarly I imagine to xenomorph acid blood, but for 3 dollars you just can't beat that value.  As I sit and murder my liver, a little Thai girl marches over to me, and thrusts a travel-size Connect Four board in my face.

"You play me!  One hundred baht!" she demands, with a vicious sneer.  She couldn't have been older than twelve.

Not to brag, but I'm pretty great at Connect Four.  When I worked in Korea I used to play a Connect Four app on a friend's iPhone in between rounds of darts, and I got fairly good.  Good enough to beat some punk little girl, and win back some of that boxing money I foolishly gambled away.

We play, and it's over with the speed of a car crash.  The little girl slaughters me.  But that's to be expected. I'm getting drunk, I haven't played in awhile.  She challenges me again, and it's my turn to smile.  I clear my mind, focus my chi, and gather my wits.  I'm ready for her.

She ruins me like an insane warlord cruelly ignoring the Hague Conventions.  I give the little girl her blood money, not quite understanding what just happened.  She gloats, the sadistic mini-harpy, and challenges me yet again, but I wave her off.  As the pre-teen Connect Four shark leaves to find a new victim, an older Thai woman approaches me.

This mysterious new stranger is pretty in a gentle, relaxed way, and her age could be anywhere from late 20s to early 40s on account of her trim body and fair skin.  She stands next to me on the bench to keep foam away from her dress.  I think we have a conversation, but at this point the Xanax is kicking in, making a peaty stew of my thoughts.  The gist I got was she thought I was very cute, and wanted to know if I lived nearby.  I gesture towards the Venus, and she grabs my hand, leading me along the beach.

I was fucked up, but come on.  Of course I knew she was a prostitute.  But, I kind of wanted to see how things would play out.  Plus, the Xanax had me thinking about making snow angels in soft sheets, and everything felt pretty good.  After we had walked about half the beach, I tipped my hand.

"Yeah, I wish I had some money, but I'm broke," I slip seamlessly (probably) into our conversation.  Then, with somewhat less subtlety, I bark: "Broke!  No money!"

She stops walking and drops my hand.  "You have no money?" she asks, incredulously.

"Nope!"  I give her my best golly-gee-shucks face.  Your move.

She laughs and shakes her head, suddenly looking much older.  Her blue dress whirls a 180 and she walks back to the party.  I wonder what I expected.  That, really.  The Xanax keeps my spirits bobbing along, and I move on to another party.

I'll never forget you, headless Thai beach-ho

The night speeds up as I guzzle more doomsday whiskey and dance in the sand.  I find myself handing out Xanax to a small group, wondering if I can convince them it's something cooler.  Unfortunately, one girl (impressively) recognizes it for what it is, and with that my bottle of friend-makers is rendered useless.  In hindsight there's some moral grayness about handing out unidentified pills, but then they were only being taken by people who had no interest in knowing what it was.  No harm (probably), no foul (right?).

The foam cannon stops, but only to make room for something greater.  Something jaw-dropping.  Something I had specifically been warned against.

YES.

Fire rope-jumping.

A couple local boys unraveled a 20-foot length of tightly-wound cloth, poured out a couple gallons of kerosene from a couple battered aluminum buckets, and, taking posts on some raised wooden platforms opposite each other, lit the sucker.

They started swinging the rope, slowly, in half-time with the music, and invited participants.  Anyone could join.  I watched as the first few jumpers ran in.  Most ran out almost immediately, but some tried to keep with it.  The boys swinging the rope would sadistically increase the pace, until the jumper gave up and dived out, or fucked up and got nailed by the rope.  Which, if you've forgotten, is on goddamn fire.

But other than that, pretty safe.

You can only drink and watch that sort of thing before the bug gets into you, under your skin, pulling you like just such a freaking moth.  I was a drummer once, you might think.  My sense of rhythm is impeccable.  I'm practically a human metronome.  You just might think those things, and jump in.  I did.

And it was fine.  At first I do the weenie thing of jumping and jumping right back out, but then I stay for a few swings, getting used to it, or as used as you can get to being inside a flaming tornado in front of an audience.  Then they start to increase the pace, and it isn't so fine.  The weight of all that whiskey and Xanax is dragging down my limbs, and they can't keep up.  I feel a horrible sting across my ankle as the rope slaps into it at full speed.  My legs tripping over themselves, I sprawl onto the sand, as the swingers quickly pull the rope taught and off of me.

I scramble to my feet and dash out of the danger zone, where the rope is swinging again and people are already jumping back in for more.  Normally, when the rope hits you, it bounces off too quickly to do any actual damage, thus preventing most serious injuries.  I check my feet, and to my relief they're fine, with just a few singed hairs that smell fantastic.

The sun rises.  As I watch, I'm approached by a partying Thai girl, young, between 18 and 20.  I'm a little wary this time, but she seems innocent enough.  She just wants to keep partying.  My veins are still pumping heavy waves of adrenaline, so I'm inclined to agree.  Sure, she's a local, but to assume that she has ulterior motives would be pretty darn prejudiced.  I'm just not that kind of guy.

The girl calls a friend over, a boy about the same age, and the two of them suggest we go somewhere.  As I look around for any place that might still be open, I look down at my stomach: I have a 3-inch burn splashed across the left side of my abdomen, right above my belly button.  As it turns out, while you might not get burned if the rope bounces off, the same is not true if it bounces off and then lands on your stomach while you're still dazed on the ground.

I can't do anything but laugh and point at the blisters forming across the surface of the ruby-red streak.  Before I say anything, the boy reaches a hand out to my stomach and pops the largest blister with his extra-long fingernails.

For the first time, I feel the searing pain of the burn explode under my skin.  The boy laughs as I think hateful thoughts about him and his nasty fingernails that only a gross jerk would grow out and the multitudes of hellish bacteria that no doubt live therein.  He and the girl give me some of their bucket drink.  I exist to forgive.

They buy a water, and offer it to me.  I can't remember the last time I drank something that didn't taste like Red Bull and battery acid, and take a couple grateful glugs.  Then the two of them ask if we can all go back to my place.  God dammit.  Maybe there's something to be said for profiling.  Even if I had wanted to try the no-money gambit again, and I wasn't starting to crash hard from the adrenaline and the Xanax and the booze O! the booze, there was still the matter of this extra guy.  I give a vague answer about "some place on the beach," and hand back the water bottle, preparing to walk off.  The girl picks up on my disinterest, and exits.

However, the boy keeps up with me, pressing me for details about where I'm staying.  My body is weak, exhausted, at the brink, and the boy dances around me like a demon, goading me about some awful "party".  My brain fumbles and spills through thoughts like a hobo rummaging a dumpster for cans.  Where did the girl go?  Why is the boy still here?  When you have a boy and a girl trying to pick you up for sex, removing the girl is the worst possible solution.  Then the boy strikes like a sexual viper and grabs my crotch, cutting suddenly through my mind-fog.  It occurs to me that everything about this is terrible.

I can't let him know where I'm staying, and if I tried to fight him off, or do anything more strenuous than keep walking slowly in a more-or-less straight line, all my joints would cease to be and I would collapse onto the ground in a dead pile of useless limbs.  I try to tell him off, but either he ignores me, or more likely the language center of my brain has finally dissolved, drooling out a monotone of word soup.  Desperate, I look for an escape.

We pass a hotel complex with an open pool, and I make my move.  "This is...it," I slur.  "You wait...here.  Yes..."

If there's a pool, there must be a nearby bathroom.  I find it, and lock the door behind me.  I drop to the floor, and start waiting the gigolo out.  A janitor bangs on the door, telling me to leave.  I keep waiting.  It's all I can do.

Time passes, maybe five minutes, maybe twenty.  I emerge from hiding to an angry janitor and no one else.  I'm free.

It's past 7 a.m. and it's with great relief and the very last of my energy that I make the rest of the walk to Venus, and pass out immediately on hitting my bed, maybe even before.

Morning comes, like a bitch.  By the time I finally muster and get out of bed, it's 5 p.m.  Stumbling to the bathroom, I survey the damage.

In my pockets, I can't find the bottle of Xanax, or any cash left.  Probably the boy-whore stole it, I figure.  Maybe those weren't totally innocent crotch grabs.  In my defense, it's hard to notice anything else when a relentless catamite has his talons around your shaft.  I remember starting the night with about 50 bucks in cash, but I feel worse about the Xanax, it being a gift and all.

I do find one of my bet receipts from the fight.  A handy reminder of the general consistency of decisions I made last night.

You are NOT my boy, Blue.

Outside on the steps, I see a huge dead cicada being eaten by a swarm of ants.  I can identify.

That's the feeling.

Tomorrow's the Full Moon Party.  Christ.

Australia Horror Show/PERTH

When we last left our hero:

My skin was in the process of turning into crispy, delicious bacon. Oh, and I was in Australia, visiting one of the hottest and sunniest places in the country, because my friend here was inconsiderate enough to choose such a place to live before I got horrifically sunburned. I arrived in Perth in the middle of the night, having spent most of the flight with a napkin or some toilet paper in hand so I can dab away wherever my face had decided to spontaneously start leaking. Again, something I did not know was a thing that happened. I was picked up at the airport by my friend Jessie and taken to my sleeping digs for the night, her boyfriend's couch. Now, my plan had been to stay at Jessie's apartment, but I find out that thanks to her new job as an au pair, her apartment no longer exists. Or, it does exist, but its new residents probably wouldn't take kindly to me passing out on their couch. Either way, it looked like my imposing would have to be transferred to her kindly Australian beau Dan for the time being.

You might be wondering why I couldn't be bothered to find out beforehand the details of my sleeping arrangement, and that's understandable. Basically, plans are like sunscreen. I didn't have any, and by this point I was more pus than man so cut me some slack.

The next morning I shower, Jessie makes me french toast, and I'm told to get the fuck out. But, polite. There's a nearby hostel called Underground Backpackers that I check into, and discover that the price for a dorm bed starts at 30 dollars a night.

Now, that's 30 dollars Australian, so I would've been relieved, except I had also discovered this colorful Monopoly crap they call money was standing almost 1:1 with the the once-reliable-now-shameful US buck. 30 freaking dollars. I'm not entirely sure what "rue the day" actually means, but I'm pretty sure I was doing it, or Underground Backpackers should be doing it.

But O what opulence did 30 dollars buy...

I meet Dan and Jessie later for dinner, but not before stopping at a "Chemist's" (pharmacy) for some "plasters" (bandages) for my "blister" (still-oozing leg hole). Not being one for half-measures, I applied all of them and called it a day.

All fixed.

After eating we wander the city, and Dan gives me a brief rundown on life in Perth.

For one, there are no 24-hour stores. It's a silly government law, and it means that even grocery stores are only allowed to be open till 10pm. And I'm told that even 10pm is considered generous, and it used to be even earlier. Of even more concern is the lack of happy hours in the city. I was never able to find a proper explanation for this, other than the complete and utter breakdown of civilization in Australia. Once you take away affordable drinks, it's just Thunderdome from here on out.

Somewhere, Whitney Houston is strapping on chainmail shoulder pads because of these prices.

Then, there was the Bell Tower:

Home to some bells that were such-and-such centuries old, but mostly notable for representing the cock and balls of the guy in charge of the project. Or, since the tower was cut down in size due to budget controversy, it more accurately represents his shrunken and emasculated package.

Back at the hostel I get to put my own sheets on my top bunk in an effort designed to make me uncomfortable as possible, before falling asleep to the gentle sounds of the couple below me dry-humping.

A good deal of the following morning is spent picking at my sunburn, letting the peelings drift down to the bunk below me where the couple is one of those types that took an extra bedsheet so they could drape a privacy curtain around their bed. Basically, fuck them. A short list of things I notice about my body around this time:

My blisters had not stopped leaking, and were rapidly exceeding the absorption capacity of my bandages (as evidenced by the thick, white patches in the photographs). In some spots, the adhesive would give out and I would find the discharge running down my feet. Also, typing "discharge" nearly made me throw up just now.

And I found these fun orange/yellow lines running down my legs. I thought it was just my skin being wacky, and later doctors told me they were lines of infection. So, in a way we were both right.

Finally, the Australian sunscreen I bought is so thick that it sticks to all the cracks in my face and outlines them, leaving me looking a little something like this:

Now that I look like a bloodless lizard-person, I'm finally ready to face the day. Preferably, in a cool, shaded, and mirror-free environment. Jessie and I go to a bar that has a deal on pizza and a beer for 15 dollars, making a grotesque mockery of the word "deal". Afterwards, we arrange to meet for an outdoor movie later, and I scuttle back to a Chemist's for some spray-on sunscreen and dressings, because those packs of bandages are also 15 goddamn bucks.

By now most of my old bandages have solidified, so I have to cut away the soaked parts and cover up the blister with my new dressings. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to buy any tape. Instead, I fold up some toilet paper and tie it carefully around my ankle in an impressive display of Boy Scout ingenuity.

I didn't think it looked too bad, all things considered.

I hop on the bus for the outdoor theater in Warwick, and no sooner had I sat down than my toilet-paper tourniquette ripped into a pile of carefully-folded pieces. But I was getting used to these trials, and after digging around in my backpack, I finally tie the dressing off with a USB cord. There are no pictures of this, because I had finally descended from Boy Scout improvisation to Hobo levels of desperation and despair. My only hope was Australians would mistake it for some sort of American-chic cyberpunk fashion, which frankly didn't seem too unlikely given the sea of popped collars I found myself in. Sometimes two or three to a single douchebag.

I get lost trying to find the theater, have to ask directions multiple times, and finally stumble to the right place 20 minutes after the movie has already started. And since I hadn't asked Jessie beforehand, what movie should be playing, to reward all my efforts? Burlesque, starring Christina Aguilera and Cher. A movie so foul that it should count itself lucky I used up my quota for the word "discharge". I tell myself that this whole "no plans, no details" bullshit needs to end now, immediately. After the living abortion of a film finishes, I'm able to find Jessie and eat some leftover Domino's. On each Tuesday every Australian in the world orders Domino's, because you can get a whole pizza for 10 dollars and if you happened to miss it amidst all my pus-talk, Australia is fucking expensive.

Back in my hostel that night, I'm treated to the obnoxious howling of drunken Aussie card players while I try to read and nurse a growing national prejudice. I sleep angry.

The next day, however, I awake refreshed and optimistic. My peeling had started to subside, my face had shrunk back down to an acceptable level of thickness, and now I was going to make the best of a beautiful day. Sometimes an angry sleep is all you need (True?).

So I go for a walk. Damn the expense, I was going to have a good breakfast and really see the town.

I wander into the college district, sizing up cafes here and there, noticing the surprising number of internet cafes for a country that only just figured out that the internet is not, in fact, an invisible monster trying to steal their women, when I stumble; a sharp, wet pain runs along the length of one toe. I look down.

And wish I hadn't. The reason for the blood geyser now erupting from my foot was a meter-long open pipe welded into the middle of the sidewalk. Why? My best guesses involve either Mad Max, or the government, or both. Fuck everything holy and beloved. I look around for any open storefront in the immediate vicinity, and leave a literal blood trail as I limp to an Indian restaurant up the block.

I don't know how other people would react in this situation, but I remember the main thought in my head at the time was, "I feel really rude bleeding all over these peoples' doorway." I ask if they have a first aid kit. They don't. Of course. What they do have is a pitcher of water to rinse away some of the blood, and a roll of paper towels to wrap the toe in.

All fixed.

They recommend I go back down a couple blocks to a cafe I had passed earlier, where they would almost certainly have a first aid kit. I hobble back the way I came, amazed all the while that my foot has enough juice left in it to still be cartoonishly pouring out blood. The cafe does turn out to have a first aid kit, and in addition to more water and paper towels I'm given a roll of gauze to wrap the toe in, and they call me a taxi to the hospital. While stitches were certainly looking like a necessity, I was worried about the cost. I didn't have travel insurance. One of the baristas assures me I'll get free health care, "almost definitely". Okay then. To the hospital.

Fact: Americans do not get free health care in Australia. As an American in need of health care, I found this news particularly distressing. After giving my name and information I'm invited to wait for about an hour with my fellow emergency room refugees, then handed off from nurse to nurse, who each ask me "This is about your sunburn, right?" When I tell the final nurse that No, it's actually about my toe that seems to have come undone at the seam, she replies "Well, we'll take care of that too."

And at the same time, I find out. I'm guided to a bed to have one nurse administer stitches to my toe, and another nurse deroof my blisters. It is my special fate to be able to explain that "deroof" means she's going to cut away all of the skin around the blister, leaving nothing behind but a giant damp red patch around my ankle, like I've been playing footsie with a pack of lampreys.

In case you were wondering what my legs were looking like right about now. Disclaimer: Some of the images in this post might upset you. If you have an easily upset stomach, you shouldn't have just looked at that picture. Whoops on you!

I'm given laughing gas, and the two nurses set to work. One of them jokingly suggests they make it a race, so I say "Pew!" and mime a starting pistol going off, which they don't get, and it turns out it's really hard to explain when you're on laughing gas. Anyways, stitches win (there were only two stitches, so if you're the betting type that would've been the smart money). My legs are then dressed and bandaged, and I'm asked to come back the next day to change my dressings at the burn clinic.

You can hardly notice.

Before I leave, one of the nurses asks how I got so badly burned, because she's leaving soon on a trip to Indonesia, and wants to know exactly what I did so she can do the exact opposite. Already, I was helping people. Touching lives. That's what it's all about.

I'm not able to pay just yet because the cashier is only open 3 hours a day, so I eat in the hospital cafeteria and hop a train to meet Jessie. I had been forced to check out of Underground Backpackers that morning, because I was only paying day to day, and it turns out that unless you're extremely lucky (as I had been), all the dorm beds in all the hostels get completely filled every day unless you book ahead. All 30 bucks a night, yet not a single opening anywhere. So instead, I would be spending the night in a tiny room in a garage at the home where Jessie did her au pair...ing.

I was curious what kind of family can afford an au pair, and it's apparently the kind that can also afford a house with this view:

I checked but alas, their toilet paper was not in fact a giant roll of unwanted money.

The following morning I try unsuccessfully to shower without getting my dressings wet, then catch a ride with Jessie as she drops off her employers' daughter at school. At the time I noticed that the girl was extremely polite, getting out of the front seat to offer it to me, asking how I was doing...Later Jessie informed me the girl thought I had a skin disease and was going to get my legs amputated.

I make it to the burn clinic an hour and a half late for my appointment, where I'm given new dressings and a bag of replacements so I can change them myself. There are remarks about how they've never seen a sunburn so bad, blah blah blah. I find the hospital cashier, this time open for business, and discover that no, my normal health insurance does not cover this, and yes, I should've bought travel insurance, and oh that x-ray I said I didn't want or need but they gave me anyway was going to cost a boatload extra.

I also realize that since they never checked my ID, I could've given a fake name and address at the outset of all this and made a clean getaway. Once more, dammit, This Is The Last Time I Get Taken Advantage Of. Or, don't take advantage of an opportunity where I could take advantage of someone else. Something like that.

This little piggy has cost me a fucking fortune.

On the plus side, I'm told to take some paracetamol which leads to me finding out you can get still get codeine over the counter here:

So that's neat. Meanwhile, my legs were now covered up by even larger stockings that were supposed to apply pressure or something, but just itched like the dickens.

How DARE someone assume I have a skin disease.

That night I sleep again in the garage, after another fruitless round of hostel vacancy searching. In the morning it takes a full hour to remove my bandages, shower, put them back on, moisturize, and put on sunscreen. I spend the day looking for open hostels, and find nothing. I notice that I'm getting a rash on my arm where the burn has peeled.

But it was just going to have to wait its goddamn turn in the scheme of things.

In the evening I meet up again Jessie, her boyfriend, and a number of their friends for karaoke, which was actually pretty great. That is, until we're outside and a drunken slutty mess nearby happens to know someone in our group and starts flirting with him in front of her boyfriend. As I observed from a distance, her boyfriend confided in me that he had "too much testosterone and jealousy," and was almost definitely "gonna punch someone tonight."

But he didn't, so far as I saw. Which was probably a good thing, because if it was me he punched I think I would have simply disintegrated at this point. I spent the night once again on Dan's couch, trying to fill my head with images like this:

The happier, crepe-and-bubble-tea-filled side of Australia, as opposed to the fighting-drunk, toe-slicing nightmare I found myself in. Sleep did not come easy. But then, it never did.