No camel, no cry; no chapati, no chai!

No, I didn't make up that tag line, wish I could take credit for it. It actually came from the camel driver on my camel safari, but I think it is hilarious. He had a lot of others. Here's a few:

-Camel college, so much knowledge

-1,2,3 India is free, 4,5,6 nothing is fixed, 7,8,9 India is super fine!

-I'm a camel man, in the bloody saaand, imagination, life is your creation, come on camel, let's go party, ah ah ah ah.
-full power, 24 hour

So, India has grown on me a bit. Last weekend, I met up with Joanna and some of her friends in this town called Udaipur. Then I took an overnight bus to Jaisalmer where I did the camel safari. Last night I took a 20 hour train journey back to Delhi, tomorrow night I head back to

the United States. I am so ready to go home, but I'm sure that as soon as regular life sets in I'll wish I was off on an exciting adventure. I feel exhausted. This is beyond a physical or even emotional tired, it is an existential exhaustion. Perhaps that sounds melodramatic, but there's a part of my character that I've never seen before. Just kind of letting the world pass me by.

Since my last India post was not so positive, I figured I should give some of the highlights from the past week or so.

Udaipur--has the reputation for being the most romantic city on Earth. I'm not sure I would go that far, but when sitting on the roof having breakfast overlooking the lake, it certainly makes it to the top 10 or 20 places. I had a good time with the crew there. The shopping was fantastic, lots of original work by artists, but getting around the streets without getting hit by a motorcycle was less pleasant. Life was better on the roof, enjoying the view.

We did a hike up to the Monsoon Palace, which was more like a walk up a paved road where you had to watch out for careening motorbikes. Actually, come to think of it, that's kind of a constant in Rajistan. There is something about Indian Machismo that really gets fulfilled on a motorbike. Up there we saw a

whole bunch of monkeys that came out around sunset. To be honest though, monkeys in Asia are almost as common as dogs. But, I got a few good shots of them.

We also did

a day at this Brittish guy's guesthouse, where we went on another "hike," this time it was mostly on trail, but barely wilderness. We ended up at a cave temple. The dude was pretty cool. He had adopted three Nepali children after their father died and is moving back to Nepal so that the kids can be closer to their family. We weren't clear if the dad had been his partner or had worked for him. He had built this incredible house out in the country. Somehow when you walk in, it was like ahhh, peace. He must have

had a feng shui expert because every angle of the house was interesting. There was a sign as you walk in that said, 'The concept: freedom of body mind and spirit. The goal: Harmony, tranquility, love and friendship.' I think he attained it pretty well. Here's a picture of the little girl he adopted. I thought she was so cute!

After Udaipur I took an overnight bus to Jaisalmer. It was something of an epic journey. While my first train ride was, let's say, a stretch for my comfort zone, more on the train experience later, the bus was not so bad, at first. I had my own little sleeper compartment where I could pull the window shut. I drugged myself with a bit of dramamine, and off I went to sleep. Although it didn't feel the cleanest, at least I was in my own space and felt like my stuff was safe. I had been warned that the first few hours of the trip would be very bumpy, and they were but after a while things were paved and that was good. At 4 am, someone from the bus company came to wake me up to tell me to switch buses. I was actually pretty amazed that they wake you up, because on the train you just have to keep asking people if this is your stop, and they always say yes, even when its not! But I digress. So, it is myself and this couple from New Zealand, thank goodness I have someone else with me. I had imagined I'd be changing at a bus station. No, this is a deserted street, but the other bus was waiting there as the travel agent had promised. We get our bags and bring them over to the other bus. The guy says, '10 rupees'. We're like, what? '10 rupees, luggage charge.' We're like, no, there's no luggage charge. There wasn't on the other bus. Now, to put things in perspective, 10 rupees is about 25 cents. It isn't the money. It is more that he's trying to extort money out of us in the middle of the night. So, after a few back and forths, he claims its because we don't have a sleeper compartment on this one. Finally, I'm like, let's just pay it. It is certainly not worth losing our bags over. And honestly, he could have said any amount and we would have paid it, right? 100 rupees. Which, in the grand scheme of things is also not much money, but sounds like a lot in the middle of the night.
Then, he tells us to get on the bus. We ask, can we use the toilet first. He points to the street urinal. Now, if you haven't been to India, you have no idea how disgusting these things are. All over India, men are publicly urinating. Either it is just on the street, in a corner or against a wall, or it is in these public urinals. They are basically a tall, recatangular prism with walls on three sides. I don't know why, when I walked in there, I was expecting to see some type of squatter. Oh no, just an opening between the floor and the back wall where they pee into. So, I walk past the Kiwi girl and shes like, 'I don't think these are made for girls.' No, no there not. So, I squat down and pee on the floor there, imagining it will flow back to the opening. To top it off, a number of Indian men from the bus company are watching us. Awesome. I don't actually care, but it is definitely not okay in India for women to be that, let's say, revealed.
Next, we get on the bus, and miraculously my other bus was early rather than late, so we're early for this connection. We're the only ones on the bus and we try to sit up front to feel less of the bumps. Oh no, the luggage tax man comes on and makes us move to the back. We're annoyed that we can't have sleeper compartments, but soon enough, we're glad that we have any seat. Within about 20 minutes, the bus fills to capacity and beyond. He starts sticking people together in the sleeper compartments, making the back row move over and add another. Soon, a fight breaks out because there are way more people than seat. It is all in Hindi, but the thing about Hindi is that it is such an old language that there are lots of words that don't exist, so they just say them in English, especially a lot of nouns. So what I hear is blah blah blah blah, sleeper, blah blah blah. Thus, you kind of know what is going on. Anyway, people are angry that they aren't getting the seat they paid for. And, I can't really blame them, but at the same time, there's clearly way more people than seats so just sit down on the ground so we can go. I put my pashmina over my head so I didn't make eye contact and thus my seat couldn't get taken away. At one point, a woman rang the police. It was crazy. I can't remember if they came because I was kind of in and out of consciousness.
Finally, we get to Jaisalmer, the golden city, which really is quite golden, with a sand castle-looking fort that makes up most of the city. We fight our way through touts and find the guy from the guest house that I had reserved. The Kiwi gal tried to ask the luggage man his name and all of a sudden it was, 'no English.' Funny, you had a lot of English last night. But, we let it go and moved on to the guest house.
While in Jaisalmer I did my final touristy-ness. Bought some more Indian cheap stuff, toured the fort, went on a camel safari and read a lot. The weather was lovely, clear blue skies every day, which was such a treat. I haven't really had non-smoggy or non-foggy skies in a really long time. I met a few other tourists, but didn't end up spending much time with them. Even my camel safari group was pretty quiet and kind of kept to themselves, which made the whole thing kind of boring, but what can you do? The desert was, well, deserted. Very barren and kind of looked them same as far as the eye could see. We did spend our night at these sand dunes, which were pretty incredible. There was really no one around, incredibly peaceful.

We stopped at different villages of untouchables, I guess the lowest caste in India. There we saw a bunch of children who seemed dirty but generally happy. Apparently they can touch dead camels, which I guess other Hindus cannot. So they find dead animals, skin them, and then sell to the towns where shops make bags, journals, wallets, etc, out of the hide. The kids did beg us for money, fruit, pens, etc, but when they didn't get it, they eventually stopped asking. It makes me sad that tourism has turned them into beggars. But at the same time, we are tromping through their villages. I'd rather my tour company actually support the village and do something to help them than just give a kid a pen. But, no matter what, in India, it is hard not to feel pity and guilt. Poverty is everywhere you look. We're all really lucky for all that we have, our ability to travel freely, our safety nets, etc. I don't say that to sound preachy. I've just seen so many disturbing things in the past two weeks, and I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.

After a 20 hour train ride, I think the longest overland travel I've ever done, I made it back to Delhi to spend one more day hanging out with Joanna and some of her friends that I now kind of consider my friends. Sadly, one of her best friends here, Mohit, had to go to a work thing and thus isn't around this weekend. But, we're off today to do some final India shopping. We had thought about getting Henna done, but once we found out it takes 6 hours to dry, we decided against it. Then tonight I head back to the States. Weird how 15 weeks has flown by. When I think about all that I've done and seen, all of the people I've met, and all of the different modes of transportation I've experienced, it feels quite full and I'm satisfied. Of course, there's always more places to see, but there just wasn't time. In some ways it feels like it is still summer, and the last four months kind of didn't happen. People keep asking me what I'm going to do when I get home. I'm thinking, Thanksgiving dinner is high on my list of priorities. No, just kidding, I really don't know, so if anyone has any leads to some job in education or otherwise, send 'em on. I'll be in Chicago Sun-Tues, and then Seattle Tues-Sat. I'll be back in the Bay Area next Saturday night, and I'm excited to see those of you that live out there.

I think this may be it from the travel blog, but perhaps I'll feel moved to write about adventures in the homeland. We'll see. Thanks to all my dedicated readers out there!

Cheers,
Dina

honk, honk, honk honk honk

That pretty much sums it up. So far, I can't manage to get out of crazy cities. Hopefully tomorrow, but really, I'm dubious that it can be a peaceful country. I know nice places must exist, but I haven't been to them yet. Basically, so far, I spend my days witnessing craziness, seeing old forts and palaces, and buying cheap stuff. India is pretty much what I imagined, as I explained in my last post. The streets are crazy, I get overcharged for everything, the food is pretty good and the men are jerks. Okay, not all of them, not the people I know, but most of them on the streets--the shout things at you, touts lie to you on a regular basis, and people are completely unhelpful when you ask them where something is. I've stopped trying to negotiate for taxis bc I have to reserve my energy just to do things like find an internet cafe (took an hour, a taxi, a stomp through garbage, enduring catcalling, and asking about 15 people. Meanwhile, I get here, these are the oldest computers on the planet, there's skype but no headphones, and you have to sign in with your passport # and an address); buy a train ticket (wait in line for an hour, scream at people to wait in line, get to the front there's no sleeper car left, pay an exhorbitant price for a chair car for an overnight trip) or find a restaurant (mostly just sticking to the guide book bc I'm wigged out by people's stories of being sick, which i know, is kind of lame).

Anyway, here's a couple examples of India at it's most classic.
The metro: for those of you who have been to Buenos Aires or Mexico city and taken the subway there, it is somewhat similar. However, this is even more crazy. First, you wait in line forever to get a token. The lines are extremely slow and as soon as peole are about arm's length away, they start trying to push past the people in front of them and shove their money under the window. Why they don't have machines for buying the tokens, I don't know. The tokens are actually these non-wasteful things that get reused, pretty cool. Plus, the escalator only starts moving when someone walks past the sensor. Places that developed later certainly have more thought toward green energy, etc. Then you go down stairs and there are nice lines for each door. There's police there with sticks pushing people into single file. However, as soon as the sign says 2 minutes, the lines start to inch forward. Then as the train is coming in people start shoving forward. The line goes to hell and it is a bumrush toward the train. Basically, you have to take your shoulder and push into some large Indian man's potbelly until you manage to get onto the train. If you are with someone else, you grab them and pull as hard as you can. But, at the same time this is happening people are pushing their way out in the same manner. Chaos ensues and you're lucky if you are where you are trying to go. Mind you, I saw this on a Sunday, I truly have no desire to see what it looks like during rush hour. H0wever, I would say all of this is preferable to being in rush hour traffic where you see your life flash before your eyes on a regular basis and the honking never stops. I've taken to plugging my ears. I'm consdering starting to wear ear plugs.

The regular train:
You get there, there's no sign telling you what platform, you have to fight your way to an 'enquiry' desk and ask. He says it through a mic so if you are lucky, some other tourist is asking about your same train and you don't have to fight through the throngs of pushy Indian men.
Find the train, it comes, often very late. Climb onto the sleeper car. Character building. I wouldn't use the words clean or modern to describe it. No one checks your ticket as you get on. They come through after a few hours and only check the tickets of the tourists. Couldn't anyone just get on the train without a ticket? I'm befuddled by that one. They don't announce the stops, you just have to ask people and also know about how long it takes to get to your destination. Get off the train, there are touts there try to take you to commission hotels, and next to them, police men threatening them with sticks if they get too agressive with the tourists.

Well, that's enough of a rant for now. I've had some good food, seen the Taj Mahal, done some shopping and seen a lot of tourist attractions. Sorry no photos now, bc the computers are the pc equivalent of apple IIe. I'm pretty sure this is where computers from Western nations come when we throw them out. Probably will have to wait until I get home for them. Which is in 10 days.

Wish me sanity and strength.
namaste
Dina

India- A whole 'nother world

Yes, it is really true. India is very different. And exhausting. And polluted. And loud. And crazy. But, also fascinating and so far, I've been really just laughing at some of the insanity. Plus, I've had Joanna (my friend from college0 and a bunch of her expat friends to help me, so the past two days have been really easy for me. They negotiate the taxis and tell them where to go. I'm staying in Joanna's second bedroom. She's got a french press and Peet's coffee, not to mention cable, a wii, dvr, washing machine, internet and a computer I can use. Overall, this is the best I've had it in months.
But, I'm heading off tomorrow to the Taj Mahal and then I think out to Jaisalmer where you can ride a camel and sleep in the desert.

So, here's how my first two days went. First off, Air India may possibly be the most classicaly Indian Airline in the world. About two weeks ago I get a message that they have changed my flight schedule instead of leaving Bangkok at 9:40am, laying over in Bombay and getting to Delhi that evening, oh they changed it to leave Bangkok at 6:30pm, lay over in Bombay over night and then fly to Delhi in the morning. Just getting in touch with them and communicating what was happening was a nightmare in itself of buying credit for my phone, trying to call chicago during business hours and being put on hold forever as I think of my credit ticking away. So, even though I fought with them, they wouldn't give me a different itinerary. Thus, I did enjoy a number of hours in the Bombay airport between 2-6am whereby I couldn't find an ATM and they only took Rupees so I was so parched my lips were drying out. I mean, they have these kiosks with information about the airport, the weather, news headlines, even games you can play while you are waiting, but no ATM. This is an international airport. And yes they have money exchange booths, but not open at that hour. For sake of brevity, here is the list of how my flight with Air India went.
-5:00pm bus to BKK airport
-6:30pm arrive at airport, check in, asked where my flight printout is, well they never emailed me a new one, so that was impossible to have, three different people have to work on pulling up my flight info since for some reason, my passport isn't enough for an e-ticket
-7:30 go through security
-8:00 board the plane-apparently the idea of calling by rows doesn't exist in Asia, they just sort of all bumrush. I was one of three non-indian people on my plane. Everyone else seemed to be on some sort of corporate retreat or something with matching bags. They were constantly taking pictures of each other in the airport and on the plane until the flight attendant announced they weren't allowed to do that.
Get on the plane, they are all switching seats without waiting to see if someone is in that seat and the flight attendant is getting angry. He keeps telling them to go back to their seats.
Plane starts to take off, this woman decides, oh there's a middle seat next to her friend in my row, clearly she should move there. So she just walks over and starts climbing over me. No discussion or excuse me or anything. I'm like hold on, I'll move across the way.
Fly to Mumbai, it is all fine until we get there and have to circle the airport for a full hour.
12:30 am-land, everyone hops up and starts clamoring to get off. Guy behind me hits my butt to get me to move out of the way! Excuse me. Oh, since we were so late, we have to wait for stairs to attach to the plane and busses to come get us.
1:00am-I'm not kidding, half an hour later, we can get off. Take a bus for 20 minutes to the terminal! Seriously.
1:20am-go through immigration, oh but first you have to go through this ridiculous line where you hand over your swine flu card stating that you don't have it. It gets stamped and then you bring it with you to immigration. All these Indian men are trying to jump the line.
2:00am-collect luggage, go to a domestic connection waiting area. Show my flight info to a guy behind an Air India counter, another guy standing next to him, plus the guy who showed me over to him.
Guy #1: Where are you going?
Me:Delhi
Guy #1: Looks at my paper, searches the computer.
Guy #2Where are you going?
Me:Delhi
Guy #1: searches the computer some more, speaks in Hindi to guy #2.
Guy #3: Where are you going?
Me: Dehi
What is wrong with these people?
Guy #1: Finds the reservation, okay have a seat wait for the bus. There are about 10-15 other people also in this little lounge.
2:30-bus comes, 25 min ride to the domestic terminal. I sit down next to another foreigner and start talking to her. Ask her where she's going, Hydrabad to do a mission. Quite typical actually, a lot of mission groups travel to places like that. She asks about my trip, wow, she thinks that four months on my own so brave, blah blah. Then she asks about my favorite place, whether I've brought electronics with me and whether I've found my faith on this trip. Oh boy. Then she starts spouting on about Jesus being her savior and how she just knows that her son who is into drugs is going to find Jesus for himself and on and on and on. I'm trying to be polite, but I've been traveling for like 10 hours at this point, it is the middle of the night and I'm really just not into being saved right now. Thankfully Air India is announced and I can hop off the bus.
3:00-enter domestic terminal, it is not obvious how to get to departures, go in a sketchy elevator with a weird Indian man.
3:30-Air India opens the check-in counter, go through security.
6:00-My flight is announced, hand over my boarding pass, get on a bus for another 25 minutes! Clearly, where your plane is has nothing to do with what gate they send you to. I'm looking around, does anyone else find this bus ride ridiculous. No, not really. Mostly on this flight were business people who looked like they were going to meetings in Delhi and stuff. Less of a bumrush situation all around.
8:30-flight lands, get my luggage, go outside to find Joanna, she's not there, not sure what to do. I have her number, but there aren't any phones, I don't have any rupees, etc. Finally find an exchange desk, get some money, ask a taxi stand guy if I can use his phone, I pay him 100 rupees, probably more than he's seen in a month, but I didn't care, I needed to find her. She finally comes, apparently Air India has sent her to the International terminal and basically she's been on a wild goose chase for an hour. Finally she finds me, all is well, and we head back to her place.

Phewsh, what a night.

The streets of Delhi are pretty much exactly what I imagined. We take autos (tuk-tuk for my south east asian traveler buddies) everywhere, so we are exposed to the air constantly. After just one day it was black when I blew my nose. There is the honking and general traffic patterns of Vietnam, mixed with the poverty of Cambodia, plus the just general insanity of Asian roads. Cars going the wrong way; trucks, busses, autos, cars, bikes, rikshaws all on the same streets; saw a guy pushing a cart of potato chips open topped on the highway yesterday. I mean, just complete and utter insanity. We've had a few auto drivers who are arguing with other people or just complete maniac drivers, but I'm told this is not the norm. Shantytowns with "houses"made of cardboard, children begging on teh street, garbage everywhere. But also, we went out to one of her Indian friends parents house. Oh my goodness, this might be the nicest house I've ever seen in my life. With probably half a football field as their yard, a pool, amazing rooms, really classy. Incridble place and then her dad sits down and starts chatting us up. It was so funny. It is really normal for Indian 20-somethings to live with their parents, I think until they get married. Which is not that different from a lot of countries actually. But to me, of course, it seems really foreign and strange that they are always talking about family obligations, parents being upset about a broken mirror on the car, etc.

The nice thing about visiting Joanna is that she's got lots of expat friends, most of whom are ethnically Indian and either grew up here and then lived abroad for a while and now are back, or actually grew up abroad and are now here, lots of different situations. But, many of them speak Hindi and of course, understand the culture. So, it has just been a wealth of information and help to meet all of them. Plus, they are great and it is so fun to have a group of friends to hang out with. Yesterday we hung out and watched three episodes of Californiacation, went to brunch, ordered dinner, went to the bookstore, etc. They've all been really welcoming to me and it is nice to see Joanna having such wonderful people to hang out with. I imagine they've all made it bearable for her to be here, because living in Delhi is no cake walk.

Last night we went to a Halloween party at another expat apartment. Yes, a week late, but a lot of people really got into the spirit. We didn't but it was fun to see others dressed up. One of the hosts worked really hard on making an auto out of cardboard to wear. Here's a photo of me and Joanna inside it. Was a fun night, but started to unravel when some creepy Indian guy that no one knew was walking around slapping women's butts and had to be escorted out of the party, but not before he peed all over the floor of the bathroom. Then some other really drunk guy decided to chuck and empty bottle off the fourth story balcony and could have killed someone, thankfully it just hit the ground. However, the security guys claimed a windsheild was broken, which it wasn't, I think they were trying to get money. I don't know, it went on for a while, finally we told Sam the host to just go back inside and forget about it. It wasn't really that insane of a party, but somehow weird things were going on.

Well, that's about all that's happened so far. I've had some incredible food and generally am basically living in the lap of luxury here. I find it funny that many apartments have marble floors throughout but long florescent bulbs like they have in schools. I think there are a lot of odd juxtapositions like that. I'm sure I'll find more as the weeks wear on.

Alright, that's it for now. Namascar.
Dina

Taking stock

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I've been down on the islands of Thailand where internet is ridiculously expensive so I've had to postpone my blogging for a bit. I'm now back in bangkok and tonight I'm headed to India. I'm excited for new adventures but a bit nervous as well as I've heard some horror stories. But I'm just going to try to relax into the insanity. Plus, I've got the added benefit that Joanna will be there, at least at the beginning to help me get my India legs.

So, let's see, a lot and not a lot has happened to me in the past week and a half. First, I endured about four days of over-land travel to get from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh to Bangkok to Krabi. It was a series of busses, trains and squishy mini-bus. My bus from Phnom Penh to Bangkok was supposed to take 10 hours and it took 14. I paid extra for the "first class bus" but if that was first class, I don't want to see last. More likely, I got taken. Anyway, at the border I had to switch to a mini-bus, which would have been fine, but the driver made about 10 stops, dropping off the cheap cigarettes he bought at the Cambodian border, going to McDonalds 20 minutes outside of Bangkok, picking up and dropping off passengers, the list goes on. I was losing my mind, wishing I'd flown.

After a day at the weekend market in Bangkok, I took the train down to Krabi. Again, I should have just flown, but well, I was trying to save money. And by the time I realized that I wanted to buy a train ticket, well, there was only fan left. So, I figured, it'll be at night, no problem. Well, yes, it wasn't actually that hot. But it was buggy because the windows were open, loud and stuffy.

On top of that, I had these Thai ladies across from me who were very interested in everything I

looking that great by the end no matter what.did, I think because foreigners aren't usually in the fan car. They were kind of strange, kept fixing their make-up and stuff. Seemed

a bit prissy. And then, all of a sudden, a tree kind of whipped one of them in the face, (because the window was open) which knocked the chips out of her hand. She kind of jumps and then quickly grabs her make-up and starts fixing up her face again. Now, mind you, we're on an overnight train. In a fan car. Can't really be

Anyway, I managed to get to Krabi through a series buses and trains, however, I felt I had won a victory because I bought my bus ticket when I got off the train instead of in Bangkok, thus saving myself 120 Baht (about 4 dollars.) Ah yes, it is the little things. I beat them at their own game. Krabi was an odd little town. There was some sort of festival going on, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was for. Lots of people all in white, sort of seeming like they were doing

capoiera or something. Anyway, didn't love Krabi, but I did manage to go kayaking there, which is what I went there for. It was pretty incredible. Kayaked through these caves, saw some cave paintings, saw a set of lizard-type things that I guess have been around since pre-historic times. It fills its cheeks with water and then lives on land for while using the stored water. I got a few photos, but of course, I didn't have the big lens on at the time. Also saw a king fisher bird, which I guess is pretty rare. Ruth, Dad, other birdwatchers, you know about that one? Similar to the lizard problem, camouflaged and small lens. So don't be too excited about the photos. The guide was pretty good. He wouldn't let us use flash inside the cave because it ruins the paintings, picked up cigarette butts, etc. I felt good that hopefully I was giving my money to a company that is doing something to help the environment of Thailand. The guide was also quite knowledgeable, so for once I felt like I was getting my money's worth. Sadly I was with two fat Indian guys who live in Dubai who were a bit lazy on the kayaking, so it was a short stint of actually doing anything. Anyway, was a nice day.

Next I moved on to Railay, some of the best climbing in South East Asia. Well, as you may have guessed, I haven't done much of well, any exercise in the past four months. So here I am ready to do 2 days of climbing on 80m walls. Yes, was a bit painful, but also amazing. You have these views of the clearest green water and white sandy beaches. Just so thrilling. I had to re-get over my fear of heights and try to remember some of my climbing skill, like turn my body, but overall, was fantastic. By the end of the two days my legs were ridiculously bruised, my muscles ached and I had ripped up my hands. But it was all worth it. Here's a photo of my instructor, Tik. He was pretty awesome. Called everything lovely. Which is pretty funny coming from a Thai guy.

Railay was an interesting mix. There are three areas where you could stay. I chose to stay at the more budget area which felt a bit cramped. There were resorts built on every possible inch of the place. When I first got there I thought I was going to lose my mind trying to find a guest house. I walked from the boat with this other single traveler named Ana. We thought maybe we could bargain for two rooms. So we find one place, we talk to the guy, bargain him down to 300 baht for a fan room. Walk all the way up the hill, oh they don't have any fan rooms. Go to another place, it is beautiful, bargain down to 400 baht for each room, go see the rooms, they are like

dankest, nastiest rooms on the island. The rest of the place was awesome but I guess they were showing me the bottom of the barrel. Go to about 3 other places, all around the area, it is hot, carrying my backpack, etc. Finally end up back at the first place! I just give in and pay the 500 baht for air/con, hot water. Oh, and then my hot water doesn't work. I go down to the reception, talk to the woman about it. She says, do you want to change rooms. Yes, please. Someone else comes in, what is the problem, I explain. Okay, follow this woman. So I follow a worker there who doesn't speak any English. She goes about 5 steps towards my room, sees her friend and goes the other direction. I'm like, am I supposed to follow you? She looks at me like, who are you? So I get her to go back to reception, where they speak English. Explain for the third time. They are like, okay, follow her (again, same girl). This time she goes to my room. Checks it, yup, doesn't work. We go back to reception. They talk a bunch in Thai. Do you want to change rooms? I'm ready to lose. Yes...please. Ok, but the room isn't ready. Wait 10 minutes for them to clean it. Ahhh. Okay, well it gets worked out in the end. But there are so many times where I think we've communicated when clearly, we haven't. Ah well.

Had a funny experience eating a papaya salad in Krabi as well. I've really developed my spice-ability, or so I thought. I got a papaya salad from this woman who runs and internet cafe/tailor shop/restaurant/travel agency/whatever else you need. Anyway, figured it would be pretty good since those are the best places. She asks me how many chilis. I say, mmm, 2? Oh my buddha. My eyes were watering. My nose running. My pulse quickened, I was sweating. But it was so good I couldn't stop. My esauphogus was burning. The women were laughing at me. They just looking over being like, you okay? I'm trying to look half-way normal, fine fine. Finally the daughter comes up and offers me some sticky rice. Clearly I should have ordered some to go with my meal, eh? It was hilarious.

Let's see, what else. Well, I love it when the locals try to look out for you. I went in to a pharmacy yesterday to buy some sunblock and a new toothbrush. The woman is like, oh toothbrush, do you also need toothpaste. I'm like, no thanks I have some. Then I get some sunblock. She's like, be sure to reapply every 2 hours. Funny. Then I had a guy who works at a restaurant whose job it is to bring in people. He's kind of an older guy. Anyway, finds out I'm traveling alone and can't really understand that. He's like, oh there's an Austrian woman traveling alone, maybe you can travel together. Then I come back later, oh these kids are going out to the halloween party, maybe you can go with them. On and on. Just very worried I might be alone.

The south of Thailand was interesting. First of all, it is mostly Muslim which is really different from the Buddhist north. So you've got women in Burkas driving motos, fabric flying behind them. Also, in general, tons of fat Thai people. Super strange, haven't seen that anywhere else in Asia. I had a nice time in Koh Lanta, an island near Railay but it was pretty quiet. I'm not sure if everyone was at the full moon party in Ko Phagnan or what, but there was just no one around. A few families and couples. Luckily, a german couple and these two Irish guys that I had met in Railay also ended up in Koh Lanta, so I sometimes had people to have dinner with. But mostly it was a chill solitary time. Rode a moto out to a cave, laid on the beach, went snorkeling, general beach time experience. It was nice and just what I was looking for before India, but I did start to get a bit antsy by the end. Oh, the full moon, where I thought there would be a party, was quite tame. But they do set off these cool flare things that work under the principles of hot air balloons. There is a silk bag thing that goes around wax that you light and when it gets hot enough it flies up into the sky. Quite pretty, I think it happens across South East Asia on November full moon. Supposed to be for good luck. Joe, one of the Irish guys had bought three, so we each set one off. Sadly, they were the small kind and they never really got off the ground. So, I don't think my wish will come true. Ah well.

Well, I think that's about it for now. Am going to get a thai massage, eat some curry and possibly hit up a movie today before my flight tonight. I considered doing something touristy, but well, I guess I'm lazy. And I think India will be a re-start on that side of things, so I'm mostly just enjoying my last time in Thailand. Alright, 2.5 weeks until I go home.

Cheers,

Dina