Paradise (Fuck Yeah)/KO PHI PHI LEH

Like a lot of the more developed islands, we have to pay a 20 baht fee at the dock to get into Ko Phi Phi. Either Tyler or Sander is on the phone with the girls and says they're staying in a place called Uphill Cottage, so we book a shared room at the nearby US Guesthouse, because America is the greatest. Even these foreign accent-people get it! Or, they thought it was kind of funny after the thing with the Swiss guy in Railay. Either way, U-S-A!

For booking with US Guesthouse, we're promised a free taxi, which turns out to be a guy in sandals with a cart who carries our bags while we walk behind him. While walking in our show of uncomfortable imperialist-pantomime, we spot Hefina and some of the other girls eating in a cafe. We try to talk, but the man with the cart is on a mission and won't stop for nothing. When we get to US, we're told our rooms aren't ready anyways, so we head back to meet the girls.

Hefina, Anna, and Cyndi tell us they're going camping in Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Leh in about three hours, and ask if we'd like to join. Maya Bay is where they filmed The Beach, and a very popular tourist site. However, since the island is part of the Phi Phi National Park, there are no buildings on the island and all the tourist boats come during the day, which made this park-sponsored camping trip the only way to stay overnight there. It also made it quite pricey. I'd planned to see Phi Phi Leh at some point, but three hours was a little short notice, and I didn't really want to spend a lot of money to stay longer at an island I didn't care that much about in the first place. Both Sander and Tyler say no. I think about it.

What could it hurt? I knock Phi Phi Leh off my sightseeing list early, and maybe have some fun. It's not like I'd be doing anything more interesting by staying on Phi Phi with the guys, especially with all the girls gone. Plus, the ticket offered a free bucket drink once you got to the island, which seemed like a curious thing for a National Park-run camping trip to offer, but forget it, Jamie. It's Thailand.

I tell the girls I'm in, eat a waffle, pack some things in to my small backpack, and sunburn the time away until I have to meet them at the travel office. About a dozen other campers show up, and we're all led to a restaurant a few blocks away, where the park rangers lay out rules and itinerary. Once everyone is ready and has their bags, the rangers give everyone a stamp consisting of three horizontal lines. Which, if you've seen The Beach, you'll recognize as the brand the characters gave each other. This was some cutthroat kitsch, right here.

But I still kind of fucking loved it.

As we left the restaurant to catch our boat, I noticed one of the guides cutting up what looked like a solid brick of marijuana, before wrapping it in a cloth sheet. This camping trip might not be all bad. I should also point out that as of this writing the camping trip is no longer offered, for reasons unknown and incredibly mysterious if you don't read the next dozen or so paragraphs.

Just call me Marlow.

On the boat the girls have befriended a stout, older Scottish lass by the name of Imogen, with thick, messy hair and a freckled, sunburned face to match her garbled, peat-heavy accent. In between tired bouts of crossword puzzle-solving, I also meet two Irishmen and a smattering of other mixed-gender Brits before our boat takes a stop at Viking Cave. The way our guide explains it, the cave now exists mostly to harvest bird nests for rich Chinese dudes who like to eat nasty ol' bird nests. It also provides decent snorkeling for spoiled Westerners, so we're handed masks and jump in.

I'd much rather be at the cave where they harvest the Cinnabons.

We snorkel around the bay for a bit, one of the rangers showing off some clownfish hiding spots and tossing a sea sponge around, just the way you would expect a nature-conscious park representative not to do. The boat finally takes us to the anchor point for Phi Phi Leh, where all the other tourist boats are currently departing. The guides throw our backpacks into some dry bags, and we're told to swim for the shore. The water is fairly shallow, although sharp coral makes for some careful stepping. On the beach, we're led along a short path through the woods, stopping to drop our things off at an open-air bamboo hut raised on stilts.

Which is either here, or this is a narrative break. Choose Your Own Adventure!

We're shown a fire pit where dinner is going to be held, and more importantly, the small hut they've set up to dispense bucket drinks. At last, they show everyone along the end of the path to Maya Bay.

That's the one.

Where I discover my camera has a low battery. Figures.

So you'll just have to assume everything is real nice from here on in.

As we all splash around the bay and take pictures before daylight gives out, someone calls out "Shark!" So naturally, while half of our group looks around their feet fearfully and/or heads for the shore, the other half starts stomping excitedly over to where the spotter is pointing. I'm only able to catch the dorsal fin of na shadowy underwater blob before it swims to deeper waters and away.

Maybe it's in this photo? I don't know, they're not labeled.

Unlike in the movie, the only sharks that hang around The Beach are blacktip reef sharks, which are kind of the pussies of the shark world. They've got a good sharky-killy look about them, but they pretty much freak out and run the second they see people. Lame.

Or maybe it had a reason to be afraid. Two reasons. (I'm pointing at my arm muscles.)

Once the sun goes down, our guides light a big campfire and barbecue dinner for everyone, which is as great as you'd expect. As people mill about, chatting and eating, one of the guides produces a guitar that eventually finds its way to me. Save the reluctance for Rastas and their blind child buddies, I always say. I've got future drinking partners to impress. This being a Western European audience, I figure maybe I can impress with some acoustic Clash. The only band that matters. I get through about a song and a half before: "Do you know any Oasis?"

Dejected and feeling not-at-all like a champagne supernova, I wander over to the tiny drink hut, manned by a sole female French bartender, to inquire about the complimentary bucket drink situation. The bartender is also noodling around on another guitar that the park rangers brought. "Do you want to play?" she asks, before making my bucket.

This female French bartender also happens to be cute AND responsible for all the booze on the island, and boy is that a combination I want to impress. I accept the guitar. Then she offers me a hit from a bamboo bong she pulls from behind the wooden counter. Oh my god. The coolest girl. I found her. Play it smooth, Jamie.

With the guitar in hand, I say confidently: "I uh, I used to know the chords to Ca Plane Pour Moi, if uh, if you know that one." I pause a moment. "But I forgot them." And that is how you pick up a French girl. My penis dusts its hands off.

"Ah, Plasteek Bertrand! In 2009 I worked at a gay club in Paris, I was bartender! One night, I see Plast-eek Bertrand, he looks exactly the same, he does not age. He was danceeng, by himself in the meedle of all the people, very high on cocaine, seenging this song to heemself."

She acts the scene of coked-out Plastic Bertrand dancing in place and mumbling lyrics to himself, which I find intensely attractive. The coolest girl. Finished telling the story, she turns to one of the Thai guides and starts up a conversation. She will be mine, I promise myself. (Spoiler: I get drunk and forget about her, and probably didn't have a chance in the first place. She was just too cool, like a sentient leather jacket that also plays bass for Godspeed You! Black Emperor.)

With my free bucket in hand I rejoin the group, where they're playing a drinking game where you burn cigarette holes in a napkin tied to the top of a cup and try to get the coin to drop in for the next guy. I lose the very first round, followed by the guy next to me losing the second and third. Meet Paul, an Irishman who I think may have been throwing the game just for more chances to drink. Paul is here with Phil, "a mate from uni" in his own words. Since I am the first American Phil has met on his trip, he starts singing "America, Fuck Yeah", which, I dunno, I kind of appreciate.

After seeing these guys throw back their bucket drinks, naturally the old debate about which nationality drinks the hardest starts up. Genuinely curious, I ask what the group thinks about Australian drinking prowess. "They're shit! They bang on about how hard they are, but can't hold their drink worth a damn" is one response, followed by a chorus of agreement. It gets decided that the best drinkers are the Irish, British, and Americans. And wouldn't you know it, our little group just so happens to be made up of Irishmen, Brits, and one lone hard-drinking, opinionated American.

Sitting on the other side of me is Imogen, and the more she drinks, the more I notice her laughing and oh-so-accidentally brushing her tits against my shoulder. I'm not interested, but man it does wonders for my confidence. Maybe you the Reader are a Don Juan-Casanova-motherfucker, but as for me I really have to appreciate the rare, fleeting moment when I'm able to actually pick up signals being transmitted from the opposite sex. Even better, they're good signals! Why yes my dick does look great in this humidity, and thank you for noticing.

A pack of cards materializes, and we all play King's Cup while a joint gets passed around. By the second round the game has fallen apart, and one of the guides takes it upon himself to do a fire show on the beach, despite being both high and drunk. Crunk, maybe? He gets through a fair amount of sloshed fire-stick twirling before calling it quits, without any injury. There's a lesson there that I bet the liberal media doesn't want you to know about.

Another one of the park rangers produces some portable speakers, and asks if anyone has an iPod they'd like to hook up. Cyndi shares hers, and as The Arcade Fire begins to crackle out of the old, salt-stained speakers, everyone jumps into the night bay to swim with the bioluminescent plankton. As the couples among us all play DiCaprio and anonymous-dead-career-French-chick (did you know she said Leo was a bad kisser? scandalous!), I have a drunk chat with Cyndi about Pulp Fiction, which I guess is like nerd second base. In other words, almost as good as swimming in warm, dark waters literally glowing from the motion of your lovemaking. Almost.

Cyndi's song choices take a turn for the Linkin Park, so I scamper off to talk with a fellow American named Jenny. Turns out Jenny's a semi-pro Muay Thai fighter living in Bangkok. I mention that, not to brag or nothing, but I've done a little high school wrestling in my time. "Alright, show me what you've got!" she challenges. Now, when I did wrestling in high school I was on the lighter end of the weight classes, so it is with great experience I can say that I have no problem fighting a girl. Phil comes over to watch as we square off in a clearing between the trees, and it isn't long before we're soundtracked by more of him singing "America, Fuck Yeah".

Jenny is, not surprisingly, in incredible shape and very strong, but since we've established we're only going to grapple, I'm able to hold my own. With all modesty, I am pretty decent at wrestling, and after a couple minutes of grappling I'm slowly able to start pinning her. It's then that she gets desperate, and hooks her index finger into my cheek and pulls hard.

That's right, she fucking fish-hooks me. It does the trick, and while I'm reeling back in pain she pins me forcefully into the ground and celebrates. She may be a Muay Thai fighter, but she clearly grew out her nails for vacation. The inside of my cheek has had a good chunk gouged out, and while sucking on the bloody wound I'm only able to stammer out: "Iyyegal! Iyyegal!"

But Jenny is uninterested in my bloody-mouthed bellyaching. She shrugs and laughs "Man up!" And there we go, my sexual confidence back down to its normal levels of a preteen albino. I guess some guys might've stuck it out, but dangit my cheek really hurts, so I leave in search of a drink and a less-violent good time.

Dammit, Paul's already making out with Imogen. Fucking Irish! Not that I'm only here for quick, dirty vacation sex, but, you know, maybe just a little? And wouldn't you know it, the more bong hits I do with the Thais after that, not only do my half-remembered Smashing Pumpkin and Radiohead guitar covers get tremendously worse, but shockingly so does my game. I swim around a bit with Cyndi, but then she sneaks off somewhere during my weirdly passionate attempt to educate her on the musical intricacies of acoustic-folk-punk band Against Me!.

After striking out with a petite girl by the name of Lisa and getting myself another bucket, somehow I end up on a secluded rope swing with Hefina. Lovely Hefina, whom Paul has been hitting on so relentlessly on all night before bedding down with Imogen (loudly and obviously in the sand nearby). Lovely Hefina, sharing a warm and heartfelt conversation with me as the sky starts to lighten over the bay. Lovely, lovely Hefina, doubled over on the swing, puking next to my feet.

I find some Sang Som dregs to swill and pass out at the sleeping hut. I sleep for about an hour or two, and miss the sunrise. Whoops.

Good thing I saved my camera battery!

I'm told the clouds obscured it anyway, so a big ol' whatever on that front. Once everyone's up, we gather on the beach hungover and sleep-deprived to try and take the iconic "The Beach" photo. Over and over we jump, futilely trying to time it so that all 16 people are in the air at the same time, which as you may guess is goddamn impossible. Then the next person's camera is up, and the attempt starts all over again.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Good effort, team.

Hefina asks if I'll take a photo of just her, Anna, and Cyndi, which turns into 15 minutes of again trying to get all four of them in the air at the same time. Was the goddamn photograph even in the book? Christ. Fuck you, Danny Boyle. Finally, I hand my camera off to Hefina so she can use the last of my battery to take a photo of me. Timing the jump is a bit easier solo.

Suck my nuts Boyle!

As the bay starts to fill with the morning tourist boats, we get on our boat back to Phi Phi, upon which everyone lounges morosely, either upset at having to leave paradise or more physically upset by the rolling of the boat on bucket-laden stomachs. Phil can't take it, and vomits over the side. Between heaves, I can hear him choke out: "America...fuck yeah..." As he hurls his chunky tribute to the Land of Freedom and Opportunity, the 9-year old son of a German-Japanese couple watches him and laughs. Truly, the Heart of Darkness of our times. Alex Garland eat your fucking heart out.

Komodo Dragons and Komodo Burns/FLORES - RINCA - KOMODO - KUTA

I wake up at 5am, because apparently sleep is a luxury reserved only for better people than I, and meet my ride outside the guesthouse. My shoulder aches and my hand has blistered up, because something something about actions and consequences, which I get to ponder over while my driver pisses next to the car, then it's off to the airport. It's a forbiddingly tiny terminal, but at least there are free internet terminals (are you listening, Sea-Tac?!).

As we cross the tarmac to the plane, I get my first taste of a crowd that will become very familiar throughout Southeast Asia: the new flyers. These quaint folk start pairing off in front of the plane for photos, which is heartwarming until they can't figure out how to work the overhead bins, and soon you're dodging a mix of falling luggage, crying babies, and crushing body odor just trying to get to your seat.

This was also the first time for another, more ominous trend on my trip: being seated in an Emergency Exit row. Reading, and rereading, the emergency procedure literature helped distract from the weaponized levels of stink on this particular plane and the nagging feeling that the universe is very soon going to try and kill me.

But we land. Take that, Universe. We're now in Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores, which is the jumping point for any Komodo dragon tour. It's in the bathroom of the airport here that I started to realize how far I was from the Western world, through stickers on the toilets advising you to sit on the toilet seats, instead of crouching on top of them.


I was a slow learner myself.

I'm met outside the airport by another driver arranged by my tour, who takes me down to the pier where my boat awaits.



And there she was, in all her sea-faring glory:

A fun game to play with this picture is try to figure out where I was going to sleep on this "specially-equipped" boat, along with the 2 Indonesian crewmembers. If you guessed the ratty mattress in the middle of the wet deck, you just won yourself an awful, sleepless night!

But enough of my white-person-whining. The captain informed me I had some time before the boat would be ready, and recommended that I take in "the sights."


Pictured: the sights.

After wandering through the streets of corrugated steel street stalls and trash fires (and one curiously out-of-place Tae Kwon Do dojo), my interest became piqued by the repeated signs advertising "juc alvokat". Throwing my highly-trained linguistic skills into overdrive, I deduced this to mean avocado juice, or rather, an Avocado Milkshake. I like milkshakes. I have no big avocado qualms in my life. And I had time to kill.


Pictured: One delicious beverage. If you want to make one of these beauties for yourself, just combine ice, condensed milk, chocolate syrup, blend with avocado, and the secret ingredient:


Trash fire smoke.


Pictured here on the left is the cute little girl who made me my little slice of heaven, and then proceeded to turn her back and ignore me while I drank it.

That is, until the elderly local sitting across from me decided to act as matchmaker. With the girl and I both unmarried and without children, we were obviously perfect for each other. In the old man's own words: "No baby? You, she, baby!" His logic was as simple as it was brilliant.

However, by now the captain was finished readying the boat, and I had no time left for all the courtship and baby-making rigamarole. In quiet, pensive moments I can still wonder...what if.


Here's the captain making things "ready" in front of my lavish sleeping quarters.


Another fun game here: where in this picture is the boat's toilet? If you guessed "in a 3x3 closet crammed behind the cabin, with a roof so low you can't stand up", then you're really, really good at this game.

Finally we set off into the waters around Flores, as blue as the sky and filled depressingly with discarded Pringles cans.


My body was a'quiver with excitement and avocado chunks. At this point I noticed my fingernails had grown quite long, and I decided to keep growing them indefinitely, so as to better fit in when I tried to find an opium den later on in my travels. If you go to an opium den without opium-den fingernails, they know you ain't got no class.

I also decided to attempt realizing my life-long dream of developing sea scurvy. I probably wouldn't be on the boat long enough, but I would stay from orange juice just to be safe. I was making lots of plans. I was excited.


And yes, all the islands around here look like Jurassic fucking Park.


About halfway to the first island, I was given a lunch of hot tea and bananas, with the generous choice of either under- or over-ripe. The first mate stared at me as I ate.

I spent much of the boat ride simply sitting on the open deck and watching the island scenery sail by under the noon sun. So, I'd like to take a moment to pass on a bit I wrote in my journal around this time: "I've hurt my shoulder, busted my shin, and blistered my hand, but I've only got two mosquito bites that I've found, and only lightly sunburned so far. Not quite a flawless victory, but I'll take it."

Oh, Jamie. You poor sweet dumb motherfucker.


After arriving at the island of Rinca, a man waiting at the dock ushers me along a path while my boat crew stays behind, hopefully not going through my things.


Just on the walk to the tourism center alone we passed a clearing filled with monkeys. By now I've had my fill of these little bastards, but at least these ones didn't try to rob me.


Pictured: one of the coolest things you're going to see all week. A display of all the skulls they've found of animals devoured by the Komodo dragons.

At the main building I pay an entrance fee and I'm issued a tour guide who'll guide me along one of the hiking trails and point out all the neat bits. I can almost taste those dragons.


Oh fuck yes. Turns out the scaly monsters were right outside, drawn by the smell from the kitchen. There's only thing left to do.


Ride the- I mean, take a picture a safe distance away from them. My guide was very insistent about this. I asked what would happen if one bit me, and he replied I would have to be air evac'd to Bali, where I would probably get a limb or two chopped off. Still, they look like they're just made for a saddle...

After me and the other few tourists around finished freaking out about the goddamn dinosaurs in front of us, my guide and I started our hike proper.


Here's a dumb old buffalo. At this point it was hard to think about animals in terms other than what they'd look like as a dragon-ravaged skull.


Here's some holes where Komodo dragons lay their eggs. Fun Fact: many of the holes are fake, to fool egg-snatching predators. Bonus Fun Fact: Komodo dragons are parthenogenic, which means the females can lay and hatch eggs without ever meeting a male. The eggs would hatch male, and then the males could mate with the mother, and produce male and female offspring, and repopulate an empty environment. You know, just in case (picture now, if you will, the Komodo dragon post-apocalypse). And provided the mother doesn't eat her children, because some of the adults do that. Cannibal lizard incest. The more you know.


"Yeah, I'll fucking do it. My mouth's got 57 different strains of bacteria, and they're all hungry."

Check out these trees, man. These trees are freaking punk.


And as we pass more trees, we find another morbid Komodo dragon trophy case. Fun Fact: Komodo dragons are also called Komodo monitors, by people who spend their professional and personal lives being lame.

But check out this island:

Seriously.

Jurassic Goddamn Park.


We finished the hike back at the main building, ready for more Komodo dragon pictures. And we were just in time for lunch! The National Park people talked a lot about how they didn't feed the Komodo dragons, and now they were going to feed the Komodo dragons. Plus, there were some adorable baby dragons running around. You know what they call them in Indonesian? Kodomo Komodo. I don't do this often, but hearing that... :)

Then my camera ran out of batteries. I did get to watch the video of the dragon-feeding that a German/Slovenian family had taken, and I could feel my hairline receding out of self-disgust. What I'm saying is, that video was amazing, the locals dangling meat on the end of poles out the windows, and dragons climbing and jumping off trees to try and get at it. Shit damn that was cool.

My hiking accomplished, I was getting ready to head back to the boat when the guy working the concession stand asks if I'd like a beer. Hey, don't have to twist my arm, buddy. Three beers later and I'm talking to two local Rincans using the true universal language: chicks. They discover I lived in Korea, and like most Southeast Asian dudes I've met they are hot as hell for Korean girls and want to know all about them. But when asked their favorite nationality for the opposite gender? One vote Russian, and one vote Uzbek. Huh. Alright. However, perhaps the biggest surprise these remote islanders had for me was they knew who Arcade Fire was. But, as is often the case, they said they prefer Michael Jackson.

That night, back on the boat we head to Kalong Island for something I had completely glossed over in the itinerary (mostly because it didn't have the word "dragon" in it), and that's the nightly display of flying foxes. A flying fox is basically a huge bat, and every night tens of thousands of them come out and fly around this island looking for food.

My camera is not the greatest, so out of those thousands I was able to capture maybe half a dozen in photo. You are welcome.

We ate a meager dinner on the boat, and I tried to sleep, an attempt which I'm sure brought a smirk to the lips of any divine forces out there.


The next morning our boat cruises into Komodo Island with my enthusiasm waning a bit, having already done my dance with the dragons.


Still, I suppose it couldn't hurt to just take a look around, could it? Actually, yes, it could hurt.


For today marked the beginning of The Omega Sunburn. Remember way back when I wrote that boastful journal entry about not having a sunburn? Turns out, "sitting on the open deck and watching the island scenery sail by under the noon sun" is pretty much the worst idea when you have no sunscreen.

Whoops! Meanwhile, my skin was turning redder than a virgin period.


Just in time for some more HIKING! Having paid a ridiculous amount to be here, I'd be damned if I was going to let my demon burn keep me from seeing the damn island. Still, I did opt for the medium trail, on account of whenever I walked, sat down, stood up, or really did anything that required motion my legs felt like they were full of deranged mutant fire ants. And they had tiny fire ant knives. And I had slept with all of their girlfriends.

But at least I had good shoes. So let's get on that trail, shall we?!


I started the hike on the last island through a quaint meadow filled with monkeys. This time, I find a giant spiderweb, and no animals, presumably because there is somewhere a giant spider that has murdered them all.


This is a picture of some bird that, I dunno, is probably endangered. I only took this photo because there was no other wildlife around, at all. None of the wild horses or boars I was promised. But surely the place must be teeming with its namesake dragons?


This here is one of the very few Komodo dragons I saw on Komodo Island. At least he was a big fella. Did you know Komodo dragons were the inspiration for the dinosaurs in the original King Kong?


Yeah, I can see this being Skull Island.


And I found another one. As cool as it is to pose next to Komodo dragons, it's also a nigh-unbearable pain to kneel when the skin around your knees has taken on the texture and elasticity of fried chicken. Moving on.


Some Komodo dragon shit. Better than nothing? (no)


Even the random decorations set up by bored islanders weren't as cool as the ones on Rinca. Big-ass shells? That wouldn't work at all for the cover of a metal album!

There was, however:

quite

a

decent

view.

I found one more Komodo dragon, and this time my camera had a full charge. I was gonna film the shit out of it.

The biggest lizard on Earth, ladies and gentlemen.

This time when I finished the hike and was making my way back to the boat, I was approached about buying the same carved Komodo dragon figurines you can find anywhere around here. No thanks. After I declined, the same guy then offered "what about dragon claw?"

Okay, now I'm listening.

He brings me over to a friend of his, who opens a Tupperware container full of twine, jewelry, and yes, Komodo dragon claws. I bargain down to about ten dollars for one of the necklaces, take my prize and head back to the boat, watching out for park rangers as Tupperware guy warned me to.

But then doubt sets in. Should I have bought the thing? I definitely didn't feel good about contributing to poaching, if that's what was happening. What if I was helping bring about their extinction by encouraging this trade?! What if a mama dragon was gonna have to fuck her kids to repopulate, all because of me? Plus, you know, it was reeeal illegal.

In the end, I chucked it overboard, telling myself that I couldn't get the metal around the claw through an airport metal detector, and if I hid it in my luggage that was guaranteed to be one of the few things the x-ray guys actually look for around here.


Still. I miss you.

The next and penultimate stop for the day was at Pink Beach. And despite my terrible armor of devil-skin, I was able to appreciate the place for what it was: simply the most incredible beach I've ever seen.



The boat moored about 500 yards from the shore, because there was simply too much coral to go any further, which is one of the greatest problems you'll ever hear. This meant I got to jump off the side of the boat, and snorkel all the way up to the beach. And, of course, the coral was absolutely stunning.

Of course, snorkeling is a bit trickier when your entire body is trying to reject your flesh like a hostile virus, and your muscles give out on you every few strokes. Still, I made it to the shore and proceeded to just lie in that perfect, perfect sand while the world simply stopped all around me. Very likely, making my sunburn worse all the while. I just...couldn't...care.

But eternity came to an end and I made it back to the boat after summoning what little energy was left in my pitiful mess of a body. I try to move as little as possible as the boat heads back to Labuan Bajo in Flores, the tour come full circle. After we dock, I'm taken to my hotel room for the night, cruelly situated at the top of what seems like all the stairs in this hemisphere. My driver asks if I'm okay, I ask where I can buy some sunscreen, or aloe vera. He's never heard of either. Goddamn tanned islander sons of bitches...

I'm given a free meal ticket for dinner, but I blow that off to sleep, and then sleep some more. When I wake up, it's night out, and I find that my sunburn has not disappeared within the last few hours.


Dang.

I finally eat at a place called The Lounge, because they have a sign saying they're recommended by Lonely Planet, and I was not in the mood to be flexed with right now. I was in the mood for brick oven pizza for tourists and some sort of tropical fruit smoothie, and that's exactly what I had before limping back to my room to lie perfectly still on my bed till morning. Except when I had to pee, which involved trying to massage the skin around my knees enough so that standing upright in one place hurt a little less than the worst pain de Sade would imagine upon his enemies.

When it's light out I attempt to shower, which feels like someone's replaced my water with battery acid that is also on fire. My driver for the airport shows up with some breakfast, and we motor off. At the terminal I overhear a Swedish guy talking about some anti-inflammatory medication he bought, and I hobble over to ask if I can buy some from him. He's out, but gives me an Ibuprofen. The flight back to Bali was fine, except for the child crying directly behind me, and the person seated next to me who thought I had a skin disease and was trying his hardest to minimize contact with me. S'okay. I'd probably do the same. When we land I look for the guy who's supposed to drive me into Kuta, the party center of Bali (me being in perfect condition to do such), but I don't see any signs for my name. Instead, a couple Swedish dudes (including the same one who gave me the Ibuprofen) ask if I'd like to share a cab with them. They're headed to Kuta as well, cab fare split 3 ways is dirt cheap, I say yes.


I'd also like to point out that by this point my burn was so bad that my face had swollen to twice its size. I did not know that was a thing that happened.

The Swedes get a room in a cheap guesthouse, where they let me stash my backpack. They've noticed that my face is, well, wrong, and I go with them to finally get some motherfucking aloe vera. While we eat some sushi, I just rub that shit all over. I would've drank it if i could.

I don't have a flight to catch till later that night, so I also join them in looking around town.


This is the Bali Bomb Memorial. We asked for directions to it, while standing right here.


This is a monkey riding a tiny motorcycle. Because sometimes the world is great.

But sometimes...

Your sunburn forms monstrous hell-blisters around your ankle. Imagine my surprise when during dinner I notice my socks are itching, pull them down, and find these.

The guys suggested I lance it in the bathroom. So I did.
And filmed it. Be thankful you can only see the process in silhouette.

We eat dinner at a touristy joint called Mojo's Flying Burritos, which happened to be playing a mix of Abba tunes all night, much to the delight of my new Swedish friends. At least in my suffering I was not alone. The rest of the time before my flight is spent with them back at the guesthouse, drinking copious amounts of Bintang beer and listening to Pixies and the Doors. The day had ended up being one of my worst mornings and best nights.

At the airport I'm actually stopped by the check-in woman for my flight to Australia, who noticed my ankles and asked with genuine concern if I was okay to fly. Of course, I responded. I was drinking lots of water, and had some aloe vera. What more do you need? Better aloe vera, for one. This shit had alcohol in it, which I later found makes aloe vera just plain not work.

The flight itself was underbooked, so luckily I was able to lay down across an entire row of seats and sleep in short, fitful bursts between the sounds of children crying and the flight attendants waking me up for awful fried rice I had pre-purchased. I was done with Bali, at least for the time being. My body was a wretched wasteland of open sores and skin that was hardening at a frightening rate, but in a few hours I would be in Australia. That would make things better.

Maybe.