2005-01-11 - 5:17 p.m.

Thailand, part 2
So where did I leave off? I think it was New Year's Eve, we just found a tent to sleep in, and I was so excited I almost passed out, like I did in pre-school when the teacher busted out cherry popcicles as a surprise. Anyway, we met up with Ryan and all his friends and ate dinner at this seafood bbq place right on the beach. Several (okay 2) terribly exciting things happened. 1-a praying mantis jumped out of a tree, landed in one of Ryan’s friend’s hair, and hung out at our table for at least a half-hour. Here’s Mike and our new friend.

I held him for .2 seconds. Mike was letting him crawl all over his head and the little cutie tried to get in his eye. Mike kept saying, “Julie, get him off my face.” but I was paralyzed with fear. The mantis was now digging its dainty little feet deeper into Mike’s eyeball. “JULIE GET HIM OFF ME.” I couldn’t do it. I sort of squealed and made slow-motion arm movements in the bug’s general direction, but for the most part, I did nothing to help. Mike had to shake it off his head, but he didn’t hurt it, and I was forgiven for being a bad girlfriend. 2- Some guys put on a fire show on the beach. I was mesmerized.

After supper, we went to bars on the beach and rang in the New Year in a very loud and rowdy way. We drank from buckets-and it wasn’t water. Here are pictures of seven kinds of fun on the beach. My memory is a little fuzzy, but apparently we had a good time…

we couldnt quite get it together for a group picture. I was trying to pick a fight with that picture crashing blondie. There was a Muay Thai boxing match going on-I didn't really get it-all they did was kick the tar out of each other.

These people are trying to light a lantern to let go in the wind. Lots of people were lighting them and letting them go at midnight, and they looked really cool floating away.

The next morning at 8:00 am I was rudely awakened by that awful hot hot tent feeling. I hate that. It was 7 kajillion degrees in there. Burnin Oven! I would have ripped that tent open I was so mad and hot and hung-over, but it was already broken, so I sort of rolled out and laid in the grass. I tried to wake Mike up because I was bored, but he wasn’t budging, so I got a massage and took these pictures while I was getting the massage.

That little baby was so cute. She played around me the whole time. Thai massages are heaven on a biscuit. Mike finally woke up and we immediately went to find a bungalow-here it is. It was fun, except I think a bug crawled up Mike’s nose in the middle of the night and bit him. He woke up with a huge blister right inside his nostril.
The island has motorcycles/scooters for rent and I got it in my head that since I rode motorcycles as a kid, I could easily do it now. Mike has never ridden one, and I said, ‘Piece of cake, Mike! I’ll teach you!” Famous last words---- Here we are before all the chaos

The stupid bike was so hard to ride, and you had to use your foot to change gears, and it seemed really heavy to me. I felt like I was about to fall over at any second, but it was not merely a feeling, it was really happening. Mike saw my pitiful attempt at puttering up the road and decided I would kill him if he got on. I kept begging him to hop on the back and poor judgment prevailed- he hopped on, and off we went, sort of…… I was successfully not killing us until we met a truck on the road. I went into full blown panic mode and just slammed on the brakes. I jumped off, but hung on the handle bars so I wouldn’t wreck the bike. The truck driver just went around us, and I applauded my quick-thinking efforts of pushing on the brakes, like they were my invention or something. I turned around to check on Mike and he was howling and hitting his feet and legs. I was so confused. The truck was gone and we weren’t hit, so why was he screaming and hitting himself? It turns out he jumped off when I did, only he jumped straight into a pile of leaves COVERED in those big red scary fire ants. These suckers were huge. I was still holding the bike up, and I looked down and they were starting to climb up the bike and my legs too. I pushed the bike away from the ants, and Mike literally ran away from me and the bike. Mike went to the beach, and I spent the next 20 minutes pretending I could ride the bike, even though I was seconds away from eatin’ dirt. It was okay as long as the road was flat and even, and there were no other humans or transportation devices anywhere near me. That didn’t ever happen once. It was a very stressful 20 minutes. That night we met up with Mike’s friends Darrin and Kathryn who got married on New Year’s Eve on another island. We originally planned on meeting them there but their island was full. So they came to ours. Mike, Ryan, and Darrin used to live together and I think they all get a little loopy when they are together. I think this was my most memorable New Year’s yet.It was a little surreal because of the tsunami, though. I kept thinking how unbelievable it must have been to be laying on the beach one minute, and swept out to sea the next minute. I'm sure I wasn't the only one, but I had mixed feelings about being there. I felt guilty. :( ... The trip was especially cool because I hardley knew anyone except Mike, but everyone I met was so happy and nice. I love nice people. Thanks to Ryan and Am for taking care of us…...Happy New Year!!!!!

For our next adventure, we spent a day in Hong Kong. I'll tell you ALLLLLL about it, don't you worry!!! ps- This little sweethead was all over the island all weekend. I love him.

?lt;/P>

previous - next