Imagine Me Saying This In A Creepy, Taunting Sing-Song Way, Okay?

I've got a secret, and I'm not gonna tell you, even if you bribe me. . . .

Nyah nyah, nyah, nyah!!

This Is The Inappropriate Part Coming Out

This morning as I was dismantling my mosquito net (bright pink, veerrryy stylish), something brilliantly green and large caught my eye. It was a praying mantis, one of the scariest and largest bugs I've ever seen. Verdantly green, and long-limbed, and I could just see him leaping up and stabbing me through the eyeballs with his forearms like in Starship Troopers.

But as I was yelping and hopping around in panic, trying to figure out how I could get that mutant out of my room without touching it or indeed going within three feet of it, the weirdest thought popped in to my head;

That praying mantis looked exactly like Paris Hilton.

It's a Rough Life I Have

I have decided. . .and this decision took a good four hours because for the last week the only decision I've had to make is to roll over now, or give my back another half hour in the sun. . .that my next stop shall be Cambodia. I am going to Angkor Wat, which is the coolest thing ever. I just like to say that. . ."I am going to Angkor Wat." I, as in ME, going to CAMBODIA. Okay, last time. . .I am going to Angkor Wat! And then maybe Lao, after that. I'm also quite fond of saying that, "I'm going to Lao." Very lalala, I do this every week.

I'm giving myself another five days or a week here on Koh Chang, because I'm lazy like that and I want Kelly to be PHYSICALLY ILL with jealousy when she sees my tan, then cross the border which is conveniently located an hour or so away. Siam Reap, where the temples are located, is fairly far north but I'm told it's not difficult to get there. Lots of folks around here have traveled in Cambodia and say it's safe(ish) and cheap and that even if it weren't, Angkor Wat would be worth it. So I am monumentally bloody excited about this.

Unfortunately my camera has been acting up again- durn thing gets flung across a sand-filled room once and it quits working- so I'll have to get a little disposable or something to document it. So no online photos. Sad times.

But, you know, I spent this afternoon in a hammock reading Bridget Jones' Diary and drinking pineapple shakes, and occasionally paddling around in the ocean on a blue star-spangled floatie raft and so even though I will always find something to complain about (there's sand in my bed, my camera's broke, my shoulders are sunburned- just to pluck some out of the air) overall I just have to say. . . .LIFE IS GOOD. :-)

I Think There's Some Blood In My Alcohol System

I think this might be the longest I've gone without a post before in my entire life. I apologize to my adoring fans, i.e. my parents, but I've just been too, too busy lying on the beach with a beer in one hand and a trashy novel in the other.

I'm currently on Koh Chang and loving life. I get up around 10:30 every day, then swim in the just-the-right-mix-of-warm-yet-still-refreshing ocean, then lay on the beach and offer myself up to the god of skin cancer. In the evenings I have some Thai barbeque and chill on the beach with my assorted new friends.

Okay, Mom and Jack and Dad and all other people in either parental positions or under the age of 17, you might want to stop reading now. NOT KIDDING, JUST STOP. STOP NOW. I KNOW YOU'RE STILL READING!! NOTHING TO SEE HERE PEOPLE!!

That's the best time- the evenings. There are wee little tables out on the sand itself, and the bartenders all do this absolutely insane fire-juggling act that, even without the influence of four or seven beers, would be totally awesome. They also serve a sociable but toxic concoction called the "Samsong bucket" consisting of Samsong brand whiskey, coke, red bull, and lime, served in a smallish beach bucket such as I used to make sand castles with. It's sweet and yummy and goes quickly and is much, much more potent than it tastes, as I discovered on Tuesday night when I thought I was fine until I found I couldn't walk. And then, well I'm not sure what happened then except for the next day, nearly everyone at the hostel asked me how I was doing. So I can safely assume it had been a rough night, even though I swear I only had like one bucket. I mean, they need to put a warning label on these things.

Then again, maybe serving whiskey in a bucket IS the warning label.

It's a nice international group of peeps I've collected. Last night around the Samsong bucket there were two Dutch(ers?), two Britishers, two Swedes, a Thai person, and myself. Forget love, man, I speak the international language of drunk.

I shall be here, loving the complete lack of responsibility, for god knows how long. Next place I have to be in Bangkok on April 6th to meet my best good friend Kelly (WOO-HOO!!!) So it's entirely possible I will not stir my beer-bloated, suntanned carcass off this beach until then.

Smog-tinted Glasses, Maybe

I'm bizouncing on Monday, to start my much-needed and hotly anticipated vacation, and I've started getting all nostalgic already. It's not like I'm leaving Thailand- I'll be here for at least another 6 weeks. But I am leaving Rayong and I don't foresee a return anytime. . .well, ever. And because I am completely and totally a girl about these things, everywhere I've gone the last few days suddenly has a lovely memory attached to it. Which is weird, because although this town has been welcoming and fascinating, lovely and Rayong don't usually find themselves in the same sentence, unless said sentence also contains the phrase "is the opposite of."

This is primarily an industrial town, which means it isn't the cleanest or the richest, and anything that might deserve the title of pretty is located farther away than I usually feel like going. But walking down Radbumrung tonight, it was all transformed by the knowledge that I wouldn't see it again. The barbeque restaurant where you can grill your own seafood at your table. . . .the funky little clothing shop called Angel X-Corner where everything is 19 sizes too small for me, but really cute. . . .the motorbike taxi stand where grown men of dubious hygeine smoke weed all day and greet me with unrestrained delight. . . .even the guy who sells deep-fried insects from a pushcart kind of touched my heart today. I've eaten at every restaurant on this stretch of road, and from every food stall (except the deep-fried insect one, natch). I've pet every stray dog and carried on an elaborate hand-signal conversation with nearly every vendor. I've walked the quarter-mile to "Dragon Net" a hundred times. And, after Monday, I probably won't see this stretch of road ever again. For the rest of my life. Until the end of time.

That's a weird thought.

(Quick aside; the usual caretaker of "Dragon Net" is a chubby guy about my age who looks vaguely Chinese, as opposed to Thai, and I think that must be why I always think of him as "the Asian guy." It's ridiculous, everyone I know is Asian, including all the other employees at Dragon Net, but I can't shake it. He's "the Asian guy" to me, and he always will be.)

So, farewell Rayong. You're like that dorky study partner I had when I took Statistics in college- not the best looking, and you should really investigate the miracle of soap, but you've taught me a hell of a lot.

I'm Quite Familiar With This Phenomenon

Of course, now that I've gotten all triumphant and excited and up in your grill about going on vacation, time has begun cccrrrrrrraaaaawwwwwlllliinnnnnggggggg. Kind of like when you are forced to have a conversation with someone who doesn't speak very much English, so they have to ask you how to say the things they want to say to you, and after you spend 13 minutes explaining to them how to say something, they say it right back to you like they just thought of it, and time just seems to GO. SO. SLOWLY.