You've Been ZAPPED!!

The free taxi from my hotel in Ao Nang, Thailand brought me to an internet place as I requested. Only one of the USB ports in front worked but I needed two. (One for the hard drive and one for the little card reader) With a dirty little smirk, he suggests that I try one in the back of the box and I already know what is about to happen. I rest my left hand on top of the box and an electric jolt goes through my hand and up to my wrist. Expletive that dude. I switch machines and the next next one tells me it's going to take 46 minutes to copy a volume of files that should take 6 minutes. I pack up my gear to take off to try another shop. He approaches me with a calculator and types in 15. I'm shocked and right away he says "OK, 10". I declined to pay and left, mostly pissed about getting shocked. It happened a couple times in Bangkok as well.

...And I was riding high from moments before when I was told by a gentleman staffer at the hotel that my pants were "beautiful". (Some navy Gap chinos I've had for a while)

Hey Cath, welcome to the weblog, thanks for the comments. I was hoping you might be following along because I had a note specifically for you. Here in Thailand, the appropriate way to drink beer is in a cup with ice. So if you liked Chang or Singha(Chang is better and cheaper and has more alcohol), you would fit right in and the Thai folks would love you. If you can do spicy as well, you will highly sought after.

So I'm Ao Nang, a tourist hole with a stark lack of street food quality, variety and volume. The real restaurants are far too expensive. As well, there are no Thai markets at all. The town of Krabi is fairly nearby, but I haven't spent any time there because I've been pretty busy out on a couple group trips. Yesterday we did a bit of kayaking where the highlight was going through a cave under a limestone mountian. I had never seen anything like it and it was quite breathtaking. The stalagmites, stalactites and other formations were amazing. As the only unattached dude there, I had the priveledge of paddling in the boat with the guide, and he switched between giving me the inside story on stuff, like all his girlfriends (2 Australians, 2 Finns, 2 Swedes, 1 Canadian(the list went on and on but I didn't have the means to write them down)) and sweetly singing Thai love songs(guess). He sang well, and as the guide we were in front and I was in front of the boat. So I paddled with nothing but the mangrove tree lined canal ahead of me and a sound sweeter than any radio around coming from behind. He also mentioned the challenge of learning the names of all species he would encounter on these trips and then finding the English names, to satisfy the guests. He also mentioned how he was distressed because next month, 3 of his girlfriends were visiting Thailand at the same time.

Today I did a tour of some islands nearby around the coast. We're pretty close to the island from James Bond; The Man with the Golden Gun and they play that up pretty big here. Nice stuff. The highlight was another cave. This time we climbed through from one side to the other, via a series of ropes and ladders, largely in the total dark. It was really cool, but maybe not for everyone.

Every day is great. Let's look into a couple pictures.

This woman was chewing on something that made her whole mouth tried. I failed to get her to smile for the capture. I failed.
I found myself in one of the grease districts in Bangkok. This sort of pile was certainly not unique.

I devoured this beautiful catch yesterday. The fish, sticky rice and botle of water came to a total of 60 baht. Not bad for a tourist town. I met a couple nice Brazilian guys who had been in Australia for like 7 months where the fish was too expensive to get. So the night before this meal, we shared a much bigger fish. Without them, I may have never tried the grilled/fried street cart fish. Typical Day in Thailand
Chicken Island
I hung out with this awesome Spanish couple a bunch today. Donthalo and Chris. How to light this type of shot: find a cave, and use what pours in from the midday equatorial(?) Thai sun. Nice.


It's pouring here. It does every afternoon or evening. I'm kind of stuck here but I'd really love some spicy food.

Sad news. My night-train from Bangkok to Surat Thani struck and killed a man. The attendant made some motion I didn't understand then gestured for me to look out the door. I saw the body a short way up the next car and looked away quickly. Whatever motion he made he did with sickening nonchalance that suggested this happened all the time. I was hoping through the night that the victim had only lost a leg, because that's what the attendant's action suggested, but I found out in the morning that he was dead. Sorry for the bad news.

In a couple days I go to Ko Lanta, a nice island. It was devastated by the tsunami and I've heard their internet is weak. I'll be back sometime. Keep up the good work. The rain's abated, I'm gonna go seek out a fish.

Happy trails.