From secluded beaches to ladyboys

Wednesday, October 22nd

At 6am I got woken up by thunder. Loud thunder. What to do besides roll over and go back to sleep. At 7am, I gave up on sleep and decided it was time to wake up. Wake up to do what though? I read for a bit until 7:30am. Then decided packing was a good idea. So I brushed my teeth, washed my face, gave all my electronics to the receptionist to charge, and went on packing. The thunder didn't stop, but it didn't rain either, so we were sure it would come down pretty hard later. It is the end of monsoon season here and we've been pretty lucky with the weather so far.

So from 8am to 12pm, steph and I did our daily ritual at the sanctuary - eating and reading while staring at the beach as it down poured with rain. The best part of the sanctuary, besides the clean and healthy food, is that you can eat any meal whenever you want. For breakfast, steph had a cashew spread melt and I had a tuna melt. It was yummy in our tummies.

At 12pm we got a taxi boat for 150 baht to go into hatrin to catch our ferry. Our first stop was the internet cafe to do some admin stuff like book our flight from auckland to christchurch, and buying the east australia guidebook. We then stopped by a restaurant to eat some italian spaghetti before heading onto the 50min ferry ride to ko samui for 200 baht ($6).

The ferry ride was quick and enjoyable. It's the first time in a long time that I got consistent blackberry connection, so I was very happy to catch up on my emails. The added plus was I got to catch up with graham! It was 2:30pm (am in NY) and he was up! He just got home and was flying out in 2 hours for a meeting. What a trooper! We spoke about life and my travels. I was trying to share with him my new perspective, which wasn't so insightful...but the gist of it is that life is not all about work and career. We should work to live not live to work. There's so much to see and experience in the world, and what a shame to never be able to enjoy it because you get too caught up with money or your career. That's just my two cents. I still need to figure out my life endeavours. I'm still a very confused girl.

We got a taxi van for 200 baht total to drive us to our guesthouse (embassy guesthouse) at chaweng beach. The driver was a bit confused where this guesthouse was, but in time he figured it out. The front of our guesthouse is really nice and trendy, and our rooms were clean and basic. We had to share bathrooms, but we're used to it by now. The room is pretty cheap - 400 baht ($12) a night. We found it on hostelworld.com, which has been working really well for us. Good recommendations for cheap accommodations.

After chilling a bit in our room, we headed out to town to have dinner and go out. We first stopped by an irish pub for a pint of hoegarden for steph and franziskaner for me. Delicious, especially after our detoxing at the sanctuary. We then went to search for some dinner, but steph stopped by and bought some yoga pants first. Our dinner spot was a nice italian pizza place. We shared a caprese and prosciutto pizza. It was nice to have real cheese and ny style gourmet pizza. No complaints there.

With a full stomach, we were ready to scope out the night scene at 8:30pm. As you can probably imagine there wasn't much of a scene. Not only was it early, it's also off season on the eastern islands. No worries, we decided to find our own fun. We stopped by this supposed to be happening club - green mango - and the bouncer said to go back at 12am instead. Steph and I ventured a little further and decided to bar hop. Although there were few tourists about, there were tons of scantily dressed thai girls. Some old enough to be my mom. We felt sorry for them. They look like they try so hard to find a guy to latch on to. In a bar across the street there was this giant fat bastard sitting alone being amused by this pretty good looking thai girl. It was really gross and sad at the same time. The girl tickled his ear and had him slap her ass. Gross gross gross!

On our side of the bar there was a stunning girl playing pool...we later concluded that she was a lady boy trying to hit up some dudes. Also gross. But she...he...sheman had a beautiful body.

We thought it would be amusing to sit at the bar across the street to see how the thai girls would react to us there. We were playing spy. Sitting there, minding our own business, a girl that was half dressed approached me. Her name was lucky. She was wearing a shirt that tied around her boobs and super super ass tight shorts. I guess she would swing both ways? She was amusing to talk to. She said she moved here because she made more money to support her mom back home. Sad story. She asked if I would buy her a drink, and I just sort of ignored her and she went away.

Oh I forgot to mention all the bars had dancing poles. The guy to girl ration was 1 guy for every 10 girls...yes the guys can pick whoever they want and the girls will respond. There's a sign at the bar that said "thai ladies have been voted the best housekeepers in the world. You buy and they keep."

After we got rid of lucky, some other girl snuck up behind me and started tickling me. I was squirming away. Eventually she went to amuse the dude next to me. So sad.

The next bar we hit up we met some weird americans. They wanted to offer us work. They started their own company in thailand to sell villas (I think) and they said if we sell one they'll give us $20,000. How weird? It was totally unsolicited. I guess they don't really know how to charm girls. One dude used to be a diplomat based in hong kong and he spoke amazing mandarin. Steph was excited to practice her language, but more excited to find out there was a ladyboy show starting at 11pm. We quickly left the bar in search of our ladyboy spotting.

We snuck in for free and sat on someone's reserved seats without ordering anything. Free show with great seating - sweet. The show was rather spectacular. The ladyboys only lip-synched and it was like a glamour vegas show. These ladyboys had awesome abs and can move like no other. We were both pretty jealous. When we were leaving, we took pictures with them...they asked for tip afterwards but we just played dumb and left. Man we do not look like our stunning selfs next to these hotties. So if you are a man, can you oversee the snip snip and still make out with a gorgeous lady boy? I think it would be more tempting with more booze.

We headed back to green mango at midnight. The place was jumping, but not overly crowded. Steph stuck to beer while I got the thai whiskey with diet coke concoction. All enough to make us drunk. We saw more ladyboys and busted out some dance moves. At around 2am, we got bored and started to head back. A walk back after a long night of drinking is never complete without some food. Good thing mcdonalds was open so steph and I chilled there for a bit. We ordered fried chicken and cheese fries....let me say it again....CHEESE FRIES at mcd's. How wonderful! We chatted away while eating the food. Delicious. So good steph got another helping of cheese fries.

After all the fun and games, we continued our journey back to the guesthouse. The streets were not lit up, and we had trouble finding our guesthouse. Good thing some dogs were following us. Steph was so pleased with their service she went to subway to buy them a sandwich. Steph got a bit pissed when the lady wouldn't just give her the meat in the sandwich with no bread. Eventually, she just bought the whole sandwich and rationed it off to the dogs. How sweet!

In due time, we found our guesthouse, but I was still retarded. I couldn't figure out how to open the door. Thank goodness steph did. At around 3:30am, we called it a night...a fun night that was.