Crashing on the UN's Couch/DILI

I thought I was being very cool negotiating with that random motorcycle driver to pick me up in the morning. Making deals, improvising, international man of the people shit. Then it's 10 minutes past our arranged meeting time, and I'm forced to ask myself: why did I expect some random motorcycle driver to show up? I should've remembered my life is less fast-paced thriller, and more impenetrable Eastern European comedy of manners. It's not like I paid him in advance or anything, so he must just have a work ethic modeled after my own. I get another driver on the street, no big deal, and watch episodes of Treme at the Bali airport on my netbook, easy as you like.

With a few minutes to kill before boarding, I notice there's a cafe here serving Luwak coffee. The Luwak (the Indonesian name for the Asian palm civet), is an ugly opossum-looking tree critter that is fed coffee beans so that they can be pooped out and brewed after its particular digestive juices have worked some sort of voodoo magic on the bean. Needless to say, this coffee is very expensive, and breathtakingly trendy. It costs me $15 USD for a cup. I feel hipper than Zaphod Beeblebrox as I prepare to take my first sip. The coffee is certainly very smooth, and you can sense the underlying quality of the bean, but ultimately it was prepared badly and a burnt-tasting letdown. 

At least, I hope that's why it was gritty.

I've already secured a CouchSurfing host, Marcio, since East Timor seems a little more rough and unknowable than any of the previous countries I've visited, save Myanmar. East Timor is the newest country in the world, after all, and they almost certainly didn't get that way by asking politely. Might be good to have a home base. Marcio, who is in fact a Brazilian UN worker, picks me up at the airport and takes me to lunch before driving me back to his place.

Many of the buildings we pass are bombed-out husks, and Australian military personnel patrol everywhere.

Don't forget the slash-and-burn crop fires!

I think Marcio said the president lives here? Like, the president of the country? With a handful of bored armed dudes just sort of milling about outside.

All in all, nice place.

Pulling up to his house, Marcio points out two men in his yard wielding assault rifles and lounging in the sun as his UN-appointed bodyguards. Whoa. He gives me a short tour of the house, which is unremarkably house-ish, and then we have what was perhaps the most heavily guarded Young Indiana Jones DVD watching session in history.

The UN seems alright with me.

We go to dinner at a seafood buffet, which is way out of my price range. At the restaurant, we run into his scuba instructor who invites me to go diving tomorrow, which is way, way out of my price range. Fuck it. Money's just, like...a concept, man. After dinner, Marcio reveals that the only internet access in his house is through his iPad's 3G connection, which, if you've ever tried to use an iPad to connect to satellites in space from goddamn East Timor, you'll know is less than ideal.

This will be good for me. That's what Mom and Dad would say, and I've obviously followed all their life instructions to the letter. MOM AND DAD DON'T READ THIS.

I wake up early to dive with Dive Timor at a couple popular spots, Dirt Track and Bob's Rock.

Just once I would love to dive somewhere that Lars von Trier or David Lynch had named, like The Obscene Pinnacle or Screaming Gutter Reef.

These are reached by a shore dive, which is where rather than jumping from a boat you walk straight into the water from the beach, waddling awkwardly in your flippers and gear like some sort of British comedy sketch figure. The dives are fantastic. Beneath the surface sprawls rich, ragged beds of coral, blooming in sharp technicolor spires. Because the divers I'm with aren't using the hand signals I was taught to point out sealife, I nearly shove my face into a scorpionfish trying to figure out what a fellow diver is so excited about. Now, I'm no diving expert, but I can guess by the name "scorpionfish" that headbutting one would probably not be a great move for my face.

For lunch, we have fresh local fish from the villagers, eaten whole off the stick, plus some truly delicious coconut rice, biscuits, and cans of coke.

No joke, it's really good.

While we eat, wild pigs and goats come out sniffing for scraps.

What's up, wilderness buddies? You got this diving spot straight locked down.

During conversation, I discover one woman in our dive group doesn't know the children part of the Pied Piper story. You know, the end and entire point of the story. She just thought he cleared the rats out, and that was nice of him. Guess again, lady. I blew her mind with some stone-cold truth bombs.

It's barely noon when we get back to the dive center, so I'm left with a lot of time on my hands to check out what few attractions there are in Dili. There's a retrospective on the independence of East Timor at the library, but I can't find it, so I walk around town like an overly confident Alzheimer's patient. That is, lost and confused and a little scared, but damned if I'm going to let one of these strangers help me. There's also a boat you can take to see some other, cool island, but boats cost money. Take a word from Uncle Jamie: wandering aimlessly around a bunch of embassies is one free savings tip you can take to the bank.

This is a bombed-out church with what I hope aren't human bones tangled in their wall's rusted barbed wire.

Free Savings Tip #2: Sometimes people leave burned Vista install disc in front of Norwegian embassies. JACKPOT.

I hit up a bakery mentioned on wikitravel for my second lunch (or one of those meals that the British aristocracy/hobbits eat), and order some $5 pizza and a drink I've never heard of, "licar veiras". You might think I can't afford to be day-drinking, but I must repeat: it's a liquor I have not had before. If I'm not traveling to experience new things, what is even the point?

Whatever licar verias may be, delicious it is not.

With nothing else to do, I fuck around playing games on my mp3 player for a few hours, and walk back while listening to Morning Glory and Star Fucking Hipsters, another band Mathieu recommended. Unfortunately, it's getting dark, and soon none of the streets look familiar. A guy on a motorcycle stops and asks where I'm going. Fantastic, maybe he can give me a ride. I don't have a lot of money, but I feel lucky.

"Hi, where are you going?" he asks.

I tell him the street I'm looking for, but he doesn't know it.

Undeterred, he asks:"Do you want to go around with me?" What the fuck does that even mean, you...Oh no. He has a nervous yet expectant smile. God DAMMIT. What do I look like, one of those bendy sex monsters from Aeon Flux? East Timor was supposed to be different. I don't know what it is about me that screams vulnerable gay hitchhiker, but I would like it to stop please.

Maybe he was just a nice weirdo offering a ride, you might be thinking. You're free to think that. You're free to think that all the way into your own awkward sex nightmare. That's your right. As for me, I'm taking my genitals and going home. To Marcio's home. Once I stop being so stupid and lost.

A taxi stops for me, but he wants a stupid amount of money, and he doesn't even seem confident on knowing where the street is. This country the size of the Pizza Hut half of a combination Pizza Hut-Taco Bell franchise can't have more than six streets, yet no one seems to knows the one I'm staying on. Maybe they hate Whitey. They've probably seen some shit. I should've gone to that library, so I could be more sensitive to their plight.

I'm able to find the general area where I remember the house being, but it's dark now and figuring out exactly which back alley leads there has me going around in circles. It seems like every house in Dili has a guard dog, and they are all super fucking pissed that I'm sneaking around their yards in the night. It occurs to me these people may have some problems with crime. It continues to occur to me that I'm lost in what could be a very dangerous place, and it just keeps getting later, and even if I'm not attacked by criminals I could be attacked by people thinking I'm a criminal and those dogs just keep barking and I wonder what their gun laws are here and hey I keep passing some real shady characters playing cards in the street and since I'm lost I seem to keep passing them and MAYBE I should ask for help. Wow that took awhile to occur to me.

There's a teenage girl watching TV in her garage nearby, so I walk up as non-threateningly as possible and ask if she has a phone I can use. She does. YES. I call Marcio. He doesn't pick up. DANG. THANK YOU FOR LENDING ME YOUR PHONE THOUGH, STRANGE GIRL. I KNOW I'M A LITTLE STRANGE, IT'S BECAUSE OF MY FEAR.

I'm gonna blow your mind with what happens next: things turn out okay. Wait, I'll back up: I keep walking and trying new streets and eventually a guy notices I'm lost and points me in the direction of "one of those UN houses". It's Marcio's house! His guard doesn't bat an eye as I walk up and inside. Marcio comes out, having just woken up. Apparently he thought I was already home and asleep, so he went to bed and didn't hear his phone. Oh well!

I wake up at 2 pm the next day, after the 3 Xanax I took to help me sleep worked a little too well.

Not that I need them, surrounded by such comforts and fineries known only by the highest of the Emperor's concubines.

I've got what Sarah calls a xanax hangover and Marcio's gone, but at least I've got the cockroaches in the kitchen and the lizards in the shower for company. I make some instant mie goreng for breakfast and watch Young Indiana Jones for further nourishment. The water in the shower ran out, so I have to wash using the bucket method, just like that Swiss-German guy in Burma. It's cold as hell, but oddly reminds me of my mom washing my hair in the bath when I was young. In other words, I have no idea what I'm doing and I just want it to be over and hair is stupid anyways who cares.

I do eventually leave the house, because I am ostensibly traveling here, and have myself some coffee and cocktails around town. Listen to more punk music. There are a whole bunch of roosters around the houses, which Marcio later informs me are all for cockfighting, at least the ones being well taken care of. There are copious betel stains on the ground, but I don't see it being sold anywhere.

When Marcio comes home, we eat some more instant mie goreng and watch more Young Indiana Jones. Turns out Marcio's an Evangelion fan, and we have a chat about all that entails. Being a cool dude, he gives me a copy of Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, so now I have something new to read. I drink some Heineken and take more xanax. Look at me travel.

I only sleep in till 10 this time, and try to find the library exhibition again. I do not succeed. The days here are becoming monotonous: walk Dili Beach, punk music, drink a disappointing mocha, use the internet until it becomes so slow as to be pointless. At least tonight is Marcio's farewell party, so that's different. Dinner's at a Thai/Lebanese place (there's a niche for you), then a Brazilian cafe for the actual party. I get a ride with one of Marcio's coworkers to the cafe, but before we leave I have to help her check behind her tires for nails. She says kids here like to blow out tires for fun. Another coworker tells me about the time he and a bunch of others came out from eating at a hotel, with a walled, guarded parking lot, only to find every one of their cars with the tires slashed. Boys will be boys, snips and snails, they're the future...I have nothing to weigh in on this with, except an overabundance of white guilt, which almost always does not help.

Being the new guy in town, I have a lot of drinks bought for me, and I eventually leave Marcio to go with a couple guys to an after-party at someone's house. One of these guys mentions how he's seen both Pavement and the Pixies live, twice, so I know they're good people. I tell them the Brunei story, drink too much, and throw up in the bathroom. I cab it back to Marcio's (look at Mr. Moneybags when he's drunk!), but I don't have a key. I have to bang on the window for about 10 minutes before he wakes up and lets me in. I don't see the guard anywhere.

This may surprise you, but I feel like stale horseshit when I wake up. It sure surprised me; the Southeast Asia hangover buffer must be wearing off. Or I was wrong about some random Asian subregion conferring mystical drinking properties, but that seems less likely. Today's docket: sleep till physically impossible to continue doing so, pizza, coffee, mountain pilgrimage. The last one was not my idea.

No, it's dumb ol' Marcio who points out that Dili has their own Christ the Redeemer-like statue on an Eastern hilltop (I'm sorry Marcio, you're not dumb and I like you). At 27 meters tall, the statue isn't nearly as grandiose, but Marcio insists the view is stunning, and it's one of the premier (re: only) sights to see around here.

It's like Brazil's, only not as big or famous.

The walking path to the top takes less than an hour, and is punctuated by altars showing scenes from The Passion, or "Jesus and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

:(

It's nice! Again, this is like 50% of what there is to do in the whole country.

Just joshin' with the big J.

After hiking back down, we watch the sunset on the beach, which would be stunning if not for the cloud cover hiding the sun.

UGH gross

Marcio asks if I wouldn't mind tagging along to his UN office so he can finish some paperwork, and I gladly accompany him not only to print out some of my airline tickets, but also to see what this operation looks like. Turns out it looks like a bunch of barbed wire fences surrounding a drab collection of square buildings, trailers, and portables, not unlike a heavily-armed elementary school book fair.

This is inside the restroom trailer. The progressive UN not only provides condoms for their employees, but the sizes offered are very tactfully chosen.

We return to the beach where it's someone's birthday, but after last night I don't feel like talking to anyone, so I drink a cup of sangria by myself like...I got nothing. Just a guy drinking sangria alone on the beach. I feel like that's a pretty clear picture I've painted for you with my mind brush, no need for funny comparisons. One woman interrupts my solitude to talk about how lobster here is so cheap that at a previous birthday party, the host bought every guest their own lobster for dinner. Wow, that does sound like a better time than the one we're having!

The party eventually moves to the appropriately named One More Bar, where there's a house band doing surf covers, including a pretty good "Paint It Black." On offer is a $20 seafood buffet and awful orange juice. We move on, next is an expat joint that goes by Castaway. They have open mic, and some bearded asshole is playing "I Will Follow You Into the Dark." He dedicates it to his girlfriend, and I hate him. When he is done she runs up and kisses him, and people cheer. I want to take the stage and play acoustic punk covers as a punishment to this crowd for having different taste than me. It's possible that I am the asshole here. Whoa.

As I mull over which Dead Kennedys song to scream so as to elevate the crowd's taste/make them the most miserable, I notice that the guitar keeps going back and forth between the same two guys, Bearded Asshole 1 and Shaved Asshole 2. We're all assholes. Them, me. everyone everywhere forever. Marcio and I leave for home and together watch the last Young Indiana Jones episode. Emptiness overcomes me. Marcio's not an asshole.

In the morning my toothbrush breaks, so I tape it up while feeling something of that ingenuity-in-the-face-of-oblivion they must have felt in Stalingrad. Every morning, there are children screaming and babies crying right outside the window, or maybe I'm just noticing now that I've reached the double day hangover combo multiplier. Spirits aren't exactly high over here, I guess is what I'm getting at.

I do manage to pull myself out of my infinite ennui long enough to go scuba diving. On the drive there we get a flat tire, and then once in the water it turns out my regulator has busted fittings and leaks air, and ohfuckit none of my problems are real problems. It's nice and lovely and I see a big humphead wrasse and a titan triggerfish and they're just so neat you don't even KNOW. At this one spot we're given the choice to go left or right, and I go right, but this photographer went left so he also saw a peacock mantis shrimp and a cuttlefish, so I kind of hate that guy, but mostly because I wish I was him.

Our diving group grabs some beers together afterwards, and what a motley crew this is. There's an old metalhead from Baltimore, a Norwegian backpacker girl about my age, and a freaking Minister of Finance from somewhere else in Europe. The Norwegian girl says a guy in her hostel sounds like that Swiss-German builder-of-schools I met in Burma. I'm finding that lots of people seem to know a guy like him. Really, the only thing that could make a rich philanthropist like him more interesting is if he was an international con man traveling under the guise of a rich philanthropist. I think about meeting back up with Marcio, but the metalhead buys anther round, so I stay on this carousel for one more turn.

Hungry, we try to order some nachos, but the kitchen says they're out of chips. Adam, our divemaster, proves himself an advanced thinker by swapping the nacho chips for french fries. This move baffles and titillates the non-Americans at the table, but me and Baltimore exchange wise, knowing nods. The waitstaff is unsure when taking the order, until after talking to the kitchen they're convinced it's just crazy enough to work. When the creation comes out, it tastes about how you'd expect. Either you're American, and you can imagine what chili cheese fries with a few extra fixin's taste like, or else your country needs a Jack-in-the-Box, and you probably haven't understood how my whole Southeast Asia trip is a metaphor for Cinnabon, in which case you should know the Un-Americans loved the fries. They, whose poor fingers have clearly never been orange with Cheeto dust. They deserve not our pity, but our sympathy.

Uncomfortably full, I finally meet Marcio at Castaway for some last drinks, as I fly to Jakarta tomorrow. We drink some large Bintangs and talk about Evangelion. Once hungry enough (again, this is not my first nacho fries rodeo), we break for food at this restaurant called K-4 where a young local boy watches us eat. His face is prematurely aged by the sun, and his giant smile makes him look like a Timorese version of one of those demon children in the "Come to Daddy" Aphex Twin video. These aren't the kind of thoughts you have before a hangover-free morning, no sir. You're in for a dark hangover, full of terrors.

Children scream in the morning. No sleep. Marcio drives me to the airport at 10:30. The plane is delayed till 4, and one child in the lobby occupies himself by pushing a plastic chair around the gate lobby, which makes the most exquisite racket. I log into my email to find that my CouchSurfing host in Jakarta bailed. There is also no drinking water in the terminal, because this is hell. This is hell, and I was sent here because I was too good-looking and smart and charming for this world. If I could take ten years off that chair-pushing child's life and get rid of this hangover, I would.

We're fed in the airport at a quarter to 4, which is some small relief (not least because it comes with a tiny cup of precious, life-giving agua) right before my mp3 player runs out of battery, and then refuses to charge, likely out of sympathetic spite.

No.

Whatever it was that was preventing hangovers before, please I would like you to come back. I am undiscerning and open to any creeds or messiahs or animal blood rituals. Maybe travel fatigue is finally getting to me. It was only a matter of time. Only 3 countries left now, anyway.

I distract myself by reading Women, the Bukowski book Sarah gave me. It's the first time I've ever read Bukowski, and I'm 99% convinced I'm the only person who has ever understood him.

You know what? I actually didn't take any drugs here, and these last few mornings notwithstanding my drinking cooled quite a bit. All it took was the looming specter of bankruptcy, and literally the watchful eye of a UN representative. And now I feel horrible. The solution is clear: must flood body with lovely toxins once again. What's my next stop after a night in Jakarta- Singapore? They definitely sound like they party.

As I depart, I feel like I haven't delved very deep into the culture here, in the blog or the country itself. Still, I think there should be some sort of final word on my experience, so in my opinion they're good people, because of that one girl who let me borrow her phone. A+, would approach in moment of need again. The diving's good, and the Jesus statue is pretty big, as far as they go. Plan your vacation now!

Drinking and Diving/KO TAO

Somehow, incredibly, I wake up on time to catch my boat. Well, not on time-on time, but only a little late, as opposed to major missed-the-boat-fuck-everything late. I'm finally getting off this rock. Ko Tao here I come, to dive and relax and be merry. I throw my stuff together in a rush and check out. The guy at the desk only charges me 300 baht for losing the key, instead of the full 500 penalty they have written. I'm all feeling good vi-bra-tions.

As per the instructions on my travel ticket, I wait on the side of a road about 10 minutes walk from Venus. A songthaew (a modified pick-up truck with bench seats and a roof in the back) pulls up, a few minutes early.

"Are you the pick-up?" I ask.

"Yes yes!" A middle-age Thai woman in the passenger seat nods, and waves me in. I heave my backpack onto the vehicle, and we take off. There are three other foreign passengers, none of whom seem to have the same ticket I do. Before we reach the dock, the driver lets out two of the passengers, who, instead of handing the Thai woman a ticket like mine, pay in cash. A few minutes later, the driver stops again at an ATM, so another passenger can withdraw some cash to pay the woman.

"Do you have a boat ticket yet?" the woman asks me. Considering I have a joint ticket with the car pick-up and the boat arranged together, alarm bells are ringing. Man, am I tired of metaphorical alarm bells.

We pull into Thongsala Pier, where I get out and start walking away. Immediately, the driver and the woman start yelling at me for money. Pulling out my ticket, I insist I've already paid, because hey look at this ticket I have that I paid for. "That is for van! Not us!" she yells.

Dammit. Yes, it was probably my fault that I got into the wrong vehicle. Yes, considering my recent transformative drug experience, I could probably be a little more patient and understanding. But I've just had way too little sleep for this enlightenment bullshit. Breakthrough drug trip or no, I'm ready to get ugly. I mean, unless they call over the cops. If that happens, I'll totally pussy out and pay them whatever they want and apologize shamefully and profusely. But otherwise, I'm your motherfucker.

"You told me to get in! You can call the ticket people and get your money, but I'm not paying!" In response, the woman calls for the driver, a short and stout older gentleman, who steps out of the songthaew. In the back are still two German girls, watching the whole scene. The driver walks up to me and brandishes a handful of coins.

"You call! You call people! Here, I even pay for phone!" I check the ticket, and as I thought, there's no phone number, because why the hell would there be. My resolve starts to let up, and I offer him half the cost of the ride. No dice. Growing angrier, he demands the full amount, shouting that it was my mistake, that I need to call the travel people and get my money back, and pay him his due.

"I can't! I'm leaving! Take half, or nothing."

He stops shouting now. "See what happens if you leave," he says, leaning into me.

I figure if this dude really wanted to pursue a legitimate restitution, he would've called the cops over at any point. And as it is, despite the number of brutal Muay Thai matches I've seen, pudgy 5-foot songthaew drivers just don't intimidate me. That's just the form my racism has taken, I guess.

"I will leave!" I wave my ticket in his face. "I've got my ticket! My boat's over there!"

"See what happens," he goads.

"Okay," I say, and turn to walk towards the ferry. He grabs my arm. Every muscle in my body tenses at once. I lean right up into his tiny, fat face.

The woman calls out something in Thai from the songthaew, and the man relents. He gets in the vehicle, while she waves me off angrily. I walk away carefully, an enormous knot of adrenaline vibrations tying up my joints. I buy a tuna sandwich for the boat ride. 100 baht. That's how much he wanted me to pay. I almost fought a cab driver for 3 bucks, and it was probably really my fault to begin with. I really need to get off Ko Pha Ngan.

At the end of the pier I find our cast thus far: Sander, Tyler, Hefina, Cyndi, Bethany, and another Brit girl, Anna. Janice has left, off to pursue her own interests. As we wait for the ferry, Hefina mentions how she and a few of the others had to wait while their van made a stop for some "boy" who never showed up, and asks where the hell I was. My answer is vague, as I don't feeling like telling them about the songthaew. The less I think about it, the less my actions have consequences.

The ferry to Ko Tao takes about 2 hours, during which we're solicited by a handful of shills for the island's various diving resorts. The decision is made to stay at Big Blue Diving, on account of someone having seen the name in Lonely Planet. Apparently my new traveling buddies make a vast number of decisions this way. The brochure-pusher for Big Blue makes a call, and by the time we dock there's a ride already waiting for us. Great schools of fish coil beneath our feet as we walk down the pier to meet the Big Blue rep, and get taken to the resort.

Once checked in, we're all split into two rooms with bunk beds but, more importantly, AC. After dropping off luggage, we all reconvene to peruse the diving packages. I opt to get my Advanced Diving license, because Ko Tao is one of the cheapest and best places in the world to do certifications, so even if I can't actually "afford" it, at least it feels like I'm saving money. Everyone else opts to do various fun dives, except for Anna, whose leg is still healing from a scooter accident, and Hefina, who is terrified of diving, but we peer pressure into getting her Open Water license regardless.

Sander, having sat still for over an hour, does flips for awhile.

Not only does Big Blue have some decent deals on diving, but it also has a floating bar, where you can wade knee-deep into the ocean to drink beers from a boat moored twenty feet offshore:

It's...beautiful.

A few of us grab some kebabs, and explore around our neck of the island. By coincidence, Fred, who I previously gabbed about Dragon Tattoos and such with, has also ended up on Ko Tao. Bethany and I tag along with him back to his diving resort, Lotus, and watch the best fireshow I've seen yet:

Of particular interest is one of the fire dancers will walk into the audience, still spinning his fire cups, and twirl them so near to one's face that he can (and does) light a cigarette.

If we were sober this would probably seem really dangerous.

Staying in the same room is an eighteen-year old Israeli dude by the name of Amzi, whom I meet the following day after an afternoon dive. We hit up the floating bar for some light conversation, and as a perfect island sunset falls into our drinks, Amzi tells me all about terrorism and how this skinny Israeli kid with the goofy hair knows how to drive tanks.

With the appropriate amount of libation, Amzi, Bethany, and I find our way to Ko Tao's only ladyboy bar, known as The Queen, where I may or may not have been dragged on stage to pole dance with the ladies.

To be fair, that could be any handsome, devilishly charming, horribly sunburned foreigner.

Aw geez.

Afterward, our bartender host Mickey challenges me to a game of Connect Four, which is what one comes to expect from bored bartenders in Thailand. And I'm proud to say, for the first time in Thailand, I won a goddamn game of Connect Four. Upping the ante, Mickey brings out a Jenga set, and ropes Bethany in. Ladyboys fucking love Hasbro, I guess. The loser has to drink out of a warm, haphazardly mixed bucket drink that seems to be mostly backwash and sand, so the stakes are high.

Jenga-high.

Cyndi shows up, and makes about a hundred requests for Lady Gaga. I'm done after hearing the second remix of "Just Dance", and leave for a party at The Castle, a club in the middle of the island that takes far too long to get to, and maybe it's pertinent somehow that I have a particularly deep dive early in the morning that I should probably be awake and ready for, but you know what The Castle has a neon glow-in-the-dark triceratops:

Eat it, every other club in the universe.

Now, if only you weren't filled with assholes...

My dive instructor in the morning sees my Castle stamp and expresses grave reservations about me being prepared for the dive, even though he's Scottish, and I feel like there's some type of stereotype there that he's not playing by. Regardless, I dive, and I'm fucking awesome at it. Afterwards, I take a quick nap before our night dive on the same day.

As our last dive for the licenses, Iain doesn't even wait till we've showered off the salt water before taking our diving license photos.

Motherfucking Jacques Cousteau.

Bethany decides spur-of-the-moment that she wants one of them bamboo tattoos, so I go with her as moral and physical support. We end up at The Office, an outdoor bar that has a very strict music request policy:

Good for them. I have some more drinks on the beach with Bethany and Mathilde, our Danish roommate, and go back to the room, to smoke more cigarettes with Bethany and enjoy my first night in Ko Tao without diving the next morning. The only place I want to see now is Chumphon Pinnacle, on the off-chance of seeing a whale shark, but the boat tomorrow is full.

Bethany leaves early in the morning, whispering goodbyes to all in the dorm room. Hefina heads out for Chumphon Pinnacle as the last dive of her Open Water, as I go with Cyndi, Anna, and Sander to inquire about cliff diving. The local shop, Good Time Adventures, disappoints with the news that we'd have to get full-day packages, as a recent storm has destroyed all the bridges between cliffs, making it impossible to go by land. Instead, we ask about wakeboarding. Their boat is broken. The four of us end up climbing rocks on the shore, get ice cream, and venture out to Kimg Rama Rock.

When we stop at a local shop for water, I find this sign, which is far more educational than any number of years in higher education:

Mathilde gets a tattoo, and once again I provide a hand to hold as her foot is punctured again and again by a thin bamboo spear.

When we finally get back to Big Blue, it turns out Hefina's group out at Chumphon Pinnacle spotted a whale shark. As they happened to have a cameraman diving with them, they show the video to the benefit and dripping jealousy of the entire resort. The boat was full, they told me. I sign up for the Pinnacle tomorrow. I will not be denied my whale shark. It's something special to think that these are my life problems now.

That night, I return to The Queen, with Amzi this time. It's finally Cabaret Show night, and we get seats around the stage in the back for an hour of intricately choreographed and costumed lipsync routines.

For the climax of the show, select audience members are brought backstage, dressed up, and then trotted out to dance with the stars. Amzi is picked as I snicker and jeer, mostly to cover up my shamed jealousy. Man alive, do I need attention. It isn't long before Amzi's brought back out in a gold sequined bra, matching pantaloons, and a massive green frightwig:

Drinks are expensive at 200 baht a cocktail, but through some miracle of space-time gymnastic happy hour comes around right afterwards. I have one last drink with Mathilde at The Office, and head home.

I finally dive Chumphon Pinnacle in the morning, but the whale shark has already left the area. Typical. Our divemaster is a tiny girl whom we watch taunt a huge triggerfish on the seafloor for about 10 minutes, because every other divemaster at the resort has been attacked by one, and she'll be goddamned if she's odd man out. Unfortunately for her, the triggerfish merely swims away, confused but unfazed, leaving her totally and disappointingly unharmed. Today's just shit luck for everyone. On the boat I try to show off my language skills by chatting with a Japanese couple, who call my bluff by inviting me to dinner with them. Since using the little Japanese I remember has already given me half an aneurysm, I don't feel up to it, but I do hang out with them and watch the sunset.

Outside Big Blue, the fastest banana pancake vendor alive has a stall. I get a banana pancake that I don't even really want, just to watch the guy make it. Are these the Halcyon days?

I wake up around noon, having slept about 12 hours. I check Facebook, and there's a surprising amount of talk about Osama bin Laden. More specifically, his being super duper dead. Outside, the TV in the bar is playing a BBC report intercut with Obama's press announcement. I watch for awhile, on uncertain emotional ground, before Iain finds me and hands me my Advance Diver License. Of all the things I'm feeling, at the forefront is how me getting my Advance License just got overshadowed somewhat.

I drink a tall boy in the sand and run around with a pack of beach dogs. It could be the bin Laden thing, or my lack of food and water combined with the burning afternoon sun, but I feel reeling drunk.

I eat dinner with the whole gang, and find out that all these Europeans have both seen and love Napoleon Dynamite. As the only one with an American accent, they're in awe of my impression, which gets those panties a-soakin', or at least until I order a Grasshopper and all my work is undone.

Sander, Tyler, and I go to AC Bar, where we get hammered immediately, Sander does some breaking in the sand, and shortly thereafter he and Tyler pull a pair of girls together. I dance on a stage area by myself for awhile, a lone uncoordinated wolf, until I'm approached by some ladyboys, who dance to Shakira with me. I must have sent out some sort of pheromone, because soon an old Thai man starts hugging me and kissing me on the cheek, saying he loves me, over and over. I get away from him, only to have another younger Thai guy approach and motion to kiss me on the lips. I shake my head no, he kisses me on the cheek instead.

Tearing myself away from all the Thai man-love, I finally find a girl to talk to, who I only realize is Thai after trying for about five minutes straight to speak Japanese with her. Karma, I guess, for missing dinner the other night. Tyler shows up, says Sander is leaving with the girls. We catch up, and I find out that one of the girls is pissed because Tyler called her a lesbian after she rebuffed him. I can identify, I think. They say they're going to sleep. I buy a beer and do the same.

I wake up to Sander coming into the room at 9:50. "Checkout's in 10 minutes," he says. Fuck it. I sleep in till noon and take a shit. I'll be glad to be rid of this toilet, with the cracks in the seat that suck in your ass flesh and pincer it viciously when you try to stand up. Sander and Tyler have already made arrangements at a travel agency for passage to Railay, so I get a ticket for myself and drop off my big backpack at the agency. The sun is starting to set, so I drop my small backpack off in front of the Big Blue reception with a pile of other bags, and hit the Sea Bar for a view with brews.

A Frenchman buys me a beer because of bin Laden's death, and tells me about a "temple valley" in Myanmar that is spectacular "if you have an ipod". A Lebanese girl toasts me "Kessak".

I go to put my sunglasses away, and the reception area that was previously full of bags is totally empty. My backpack is gone. It's 7 pm, and I have to leave at 8. I walk around Big Blue asking people if they've seen my bag, more and more hopelessly. The Thai don't want to help, and the Westerners don't know how to help. After an hour, Sander and Tyler take off ("Sorry man, don't know what to say...Later?"), and I'm forced to check back in to Big Blue. With my wallet (containing 500 bucks in Chinese yuan), debit card, netbook, and a gallimaufry of other electronics and travel accessories in the lost backpack, all I have left is my big backpack full of clothes, and whatever's in my pockets. My camera, and a little less than 200 USD. More time passes, and by now all of the staff know my situation, but no one can offer any help. I decide to drink.

They're playing beer pong in the Big Blue bar, which I hang around while waiting for news and sucking down Long Islands. I have a conversation with the bartender that goes something like this:

"So I heard you lost your backpack?"

"Yup, with my wallet in it, with all my cash and my debit card. Can I get a Long Island?"

"Sure, I imagine you could use one right now. That's so horrible. Anyways, that'll be 6 dollars."

I eat nothing, because I need to save money, and drink more Long Islands. A lot of drunken gazes at my wrist tattoo. "Don't Panic." Probably not the Halcyon days.

I wake up in bed, with no memory of leaving the bar. A staff girl comes in, and asks if James Wilson is here. Miracle of miracles, she has my backpack! Which, when she hands it to me, feels suspiciously light. Sure enough, no netbook (despite the Korean sticker on the cover that says 'Don't Take Shit Anybody"), no mouse, no expensive headphones, no Nintendo DS, all my cables and cords are gone, and I can't find my wallet. They even took my cheapo USB drive and the soap I had just bought. After turning the backpack inside out, I find my wallet in a pocket I didn't know existed. My debit card is floating around outside the wallet, and all the Chinese cash is gone. Curiously enough, the Xanax is still here. I check out, and even if the bartender wouldn't comp me a pity drink the night before, they don't charge me for the room. I get a new ticket for Railay and get some espresso at Tao Cafe.

I overhear some Canadian girls talking about how they heard someone say you don't get hangovers here. And it's true. By all rights, I should be hungover. I should've been hungover from Day One. I check my card's transaction history, which is clear. And so much the better, because I'll be damned if I'm going to stick around for a replacement card. After some prodding from the Big Blue staff, I file a police report, which amounts to exactly what you might figure. Some rumblings of a Burmese culprit ("Couldn't be a Thai..."). Of course the security guards didn't see anything. Of course the cameras are broken. Of course, nothing ever gets stolen here.

I get a massage, only to find massages aren't that relaxing when you're thinking "When I am relaxed, all my problems will be over" the whole time. For dinner, I eat something called the Hungry Hippo burger:

Because I'll always love you, Jamie.

A truck pulls up to the travel agency around 8, where I've been using the internet and feeling sorry for myself. A quick drive, and I'm put on a boat to Surat Thani, where everyone has a 3x5' bit of padded floor demarcated for sleeping. Some try to read, undistracted by how they haven't been robbed.

Like that one there. Look at that smug personal property-having dick.

At least I've got my camera and my debit card, and whatever health left before I soon destroy it with titanic amounts of drink. And to play devil's advocate, the 500 dollars cash wasn't really mine, as I hadn't yet paid Sarah back for it. So really, I'm just fucked out of my new netbook. And my cables. And my DS. And my goddamn soap. Optimism is an uphill fucking battle.

He knows.

Still, I can't bring myself to read, or sleep. Did I mention this is my first theft, ever, in my life? I can see why someone might get worked up! It definitely isn't all smiles and banana splits. Before I left for this trip, I considered doing it Luddite-style: no electronics, no diversions, no Western bullshit. A real gritty classic adventure. Of course, I laughed the thought away a second later and took all my toys, but it seems forces are pushing me the other way. Maybe the thief did me a favor?

Fuck. I had the new episode of Game of Thrones on the netbook. I hope that goddamn thief gets AIDS.