asian flair

i've been wandering around the markets here, looking for finds, finding not much.
i think about the money i have, and the time i have left. i think of countless souviners and what ones i still have from trips past. i have already purchased and "lost" several items of clothing, a doller here, three dollars there. i am however becoming more and more tempted to adopt this wild asian flair for dressing.
polk-a-dots, layers and layers of lace and ruffels, stripes in every size and direction...strange cute logos that look as if they've been vomited onto an artical of clothing. i saw a Sam Flores knock off today, so tempted to buy it for what it was and send it to him, tell him he's huge in Thailand, so Soy if you talk to him pass it on.
so far i have resisted, or sort off. i grow weaker and weaker every time i go out, and as my own clothes become smelly, oh so smelly, i eyeball the ridiculous.
i worry for myself. i have never really known where to stop when wild fashion is at hand. i'm never to sure if that is a good or bad thing. i am all for self expression, and if you got style then fuck it, do it, oh and i have style, but...i have some style skeletons in my closet. oh a walk down memory lane brings you kristine in so many different ways, it makes me laugh and that can't be bad.
i love fashion, i love asian fashion. someone please stop me. i think there are 12 step programs for this...i'm glad i live with soy, helping me with my asain bling bling.


i didn't sleep at all last night. i couldn't sleep, at first i just couldn't, then i was reading, then i had a friend come to visit, i started to call him clyde. he was a /is a cockroach and he is sharing my room with me. clyde is quite a large roach and body alone i would say close to my palm size, not counting his feelers. i saw him on the wall, hiding, and it really freaked me out. so i had this great idea, i'll throw a towl on him and throw it into the hall. good idea. so i grabbed a towl, knocked him off the wall, under the towl, and began to ball it up so i could fling it into the hall. Clyde being a cockroach and a descendent of Houdini, easily crawled out and under my bed. i was uncomfertable with him on the wall, but really freaked out with him under the bed.
i used to date this guy, who will remain nameless but he was an oober rich baby, and he used to sleep with the lights on in his apartment because he was afraid of cockroaches. i always hated that, i hate to sleep with any hint of light, but as soon as i turned them off i had a heebee-jeebee fit, lights bach on, i really didn't want to spoon with clyde.
so the lights remained on, but beside that there was some screaming thai sex going on close by...i felt like i was listening to the soundtrack of a really pornographic manga. this litterally stopped and started, but went on for a few hours. and as soon as the chicks voice got really high pitch and loud the dogs in the area started howling. i kid you not. so between the two i simply stayed up, finished my book, did some yoga, some stretching and before you know it it is light outside and i have a coffee shop down the street from my place.
i know the thrills of travel, don't you wish you were me?

3buses later

so here i am...oh where might that be? you ask? well i'm glad you asked, since last i wrote i've taken several bus trips, one was to a little place called Nan. i arrived at 9pm -ish and the town had already been sleeping for a few hours...i tried to blog, wrote my little heart out about bad modes of transportation, and riding in a hotdog cart, but no the connection wasn't having it, bye bye to cyberspace. after that i really didn't have the heart to write.
i have now been on the road for 33ish days and the man next to me just farted SO LOUD, yeah not really a problem here, anyways on the road, some amount of time. the honeymoon period has worn off and believe it or not pad-thai just isn't as tasty as it once was. i did however have a wonderful thai ice tea off the street today, they made it like a fancy bubble drink and it put a pep in my step as i searched for a lonely planet recommended vegetarian resturant. oh i'm in Chaing Rai by the way, Nan was only for a day. you have to worry about a town who has the logo "you'll never know till you go!" yeah well i know and it really wasn't worth it...but i can say i've been!
so yeah traveling traveling. i am at the golden triangle gate way, i gues back in the 60's and 70's this was THE place for opium and heroin. it is still pretty popular i hear, and now also a gateway for meth...fun. i'll be searching out an opium den later tonight and passing the next 5 months there, mom and ded please send money ASAP! heehee just a joke ded...
so yeah not much really, i've been on the look out for jewlery and i've just been really dissapointed, well maybe in Lao, i can't come back empty handed, then the troupe really wouldn't take me back!
i had a ride in the most ass backwards contraption. think of a pushcart, or i imagine one of those hotdog venders in down town, basically a weird box with 2 wheels. this box is surrounded by a metal cage with one side open. then it is propelled by the back half of a motorbike. just the back tire and the seat, it is steered by the man on the bike holding onto the cage, and it has a strange peddle system to stop and go. the passanger of course sits inside the box, and watches through the front as you are flying down the street. what is protecting you from bumps and simply falling forward, out of the box and INSTANTLY getting run over by the cart and the driver? nothing. nothing except for the fear of your life as you hold onto rusty metal bars...not my favorite means of transport, you also get the front line of bugs hitting you in the face. yeah kinda stupid, it's like the opposite of a tuk tuk, they had to do something with all those spare parts!
i think that i will remain here in chaing rai for another day or two and then travel south to chaing mai. kristina has yet again pushed back our meeting date, but she is VERY busy. i'm happy to announce that she was in the 99%-tial in her LSAT scores and is simply perfecting her law school application as i type. i am insanly proud of her and take credit for all her glory, thank you thank you...
so until then travel and i are going to couples therapy and we are trying to work out the "problems" we are having.
uh oh our governator is on tv, time for me to skip out of this internet hole. -xoxoxoxox

Nan stop

i am off the beaten path, in a little place called Nan, it makes me want to eat indian food, but i think i will be luck with plain rice in a place like this.
it is small and supposidly full of hill tribes, however they look like the rest of the thai's to me. i hear you have to take a trek to go visit their "villages" but that it is more like old town reinactment of what hill tribes were like. i'm trying to find the down and dirty here but it may just be too much tourism. there isn't much english spoken here and my 5 words in thai hardly does the trick, i'll have to dig out my phrase book...only passing the day here, i'm leaving tomorrow to go even further north.
on a wonderful note kristina scored in the 99%-tial on her LSAT, i always knew she was brilliant, and is inindated with law school applications...we will meet up soon and head into Lao together.
the past few days have been temple after temple and rides in tuk tuks that are more like hotdog stands being pushed forward by the back half of a motorcycle, not my favorite way of traveling...not a very smart transport.
the humidity isn't so great up here, or the season is cooling, or both. tourist season is coming up but i am the only person at my guesthouse. i arrived last night at maybe 9pm and the whole town was shut down, they had to wake someone up to let me in. but i did finally have a cave dark silent room and a great night of sleep, so maybe i should stay just for that.
i'll let you know if this town holds any treasures for me!

head north little lady

i wish i could put you behind my eyes.
rest you on the bridge of my nose.
i want you to see every little thing i am seeing. i want you to understand why i'm here and what i'm doing. i want you to experience with me normal, and not so normal things that now make up my every day, make up my existance at this point and time. my one regret at the moment is in my bad grammer, and fully flawed spelling that keeps you from me, from the me that is the expereience of the thing.

i was trying to hide out in bangkok, i had a cheap room, new where to get cheap food, the only thing that was expensive was the beer, and that by american standards was dirt cheap. i promised myself to hole up, to relax, regroup. i celebrated my one month mark of traveling by staying in my guest house and promising myself that i would watch movie after endless movie played on the tv's there.
the morning started out great, Bring it on a cheerleading movie was the first on the list, just the thing for me. i reviled and relived my highschool cheerleading days, getting drawn in and excited by the miindless junk flashing before me. i drank beer and ate french fries, i sweated and looked at my journal, pretending to write, pretending i had something to write. the second movie came on, 50 first dates another flick i'd never seen and was happy about my mindless state, getting more mired in brainless relaxation.
then of course out of the blue i meet an old friend. old friend in backpacking terms meaning we;ve meet before. down south in ko chang, a french-canadian write called Gi-on, okay good luck with kristines hooked on phonics, doesn't work for me, so he sits and he talks and he is headed for india tonight. we are staying at the same guest house and he talks to me through half the movie. he is a nice so i talk back. we then end up going all through the ghetto of bangkok searching for an elusive vegetarian resturant, it is never found. we eat cheap paid thai and get stuck in a sudden rain storm...my day of rest turns into one of adventure. our number increases as we are joined by a german girl working in bangkok. i really just want to throw my lazy body down somewhere and not be required to give any responses. i struggle with that action and am rewarded with secrets of the neighbrhood that will serve me well when i return to bangkok.
hours later it is time for him to leave. i say good bye, and talk about meeting him in india, then thankfully i am on my own.
i board a bus the next day for Aythua, a couple of hours norrth of bagkok. the tuk tuks have turned into sharks because with the insurgance of toourists they smell fresh blood. i hear several lies, and am constantly overcharged, i have to walk over a block away from my area before i get a decent price to the bus station, and even then it is a barganing war..
the rest is easy, uneventful. in aythua i find a shithole of a guesthouse, i head out walking and am lost for a few hours, only to hire a motorbike and find that i was almost there, i am charmed by a thai boy with a british accent to eat at his resturant, afterwards he wants me to stay stay with him. my thick skull doesn't really get it at first until he spells it out for me. oh, duh, like stay stay with you...not likely. i fabricate wild stories to him, and other annoying boys about a husband, a boyfriend, a family at home. it get's kinda fun sometimes, but then i have to be careful and not get my lies tangled up. i tell tales to them of different lives i wish i had, different dreams to cast into the future. it is interesting, when questioned, to see what i really want in my future, how do i feel when i tell thwem of this phantom husband, what do i turn him into, what do i really imagine to myself. it has turned into a fun game.
but Aythua...first day i was lost, first day i took a boat ride and felt as if i was weightless and glidong above the water without the help of the boat,. second day i got up early, before the heat, i rented a bicycle and took to the streets. my fate was in my hands as i drove through traffic, it was scary, the bike was old, there are no helmets, and it had handbrakes unlike my plush cruiser at home.
i saw temples and wats and elephants and beauty. i sat for a break and was accosted by a kittenm that would have easily fit in my shoe. it was stil;l so young and clean, it launched itself into my lap and promptly fell asleep, i was contented.
i left that day for Sukothai, and here i am. more Wats to see tomorrow at dawn, the heat of the day makes it a sad place to venture about. so north and north and north i go. i'm to meet kristina on november 2nd in chaing mai, so until them i will make a tour of the area. sukothai has so much to see, such a nice place to relax.
more later...

pickpockets and the long road home...

wow so i'm back from Cambodia...i have a little story to tell you and you might think it's a wee bit crazy, but it is all true.
so Cambodia i had a REALLY hard time getting into the country, if you're keeping up on my blogs you know this, but i wanted to give it a chance. i mean supposidly God was living here so i had to give it a chance. i went, i saw, i photographed. i was having a delima trying to decieded to go east or west, thailand or veitnam. on my last day i saw some distant temples and spent so much time on a motorcycle that i rather wished i haddn't done the trip, the road was rather rough and my legs and ass are just not used to prolonged motorcycle travel. the end of the tour only took half a day and i had the rest to spend in town buying presents for all you lovelies at home.
as stated previously there is a large begger population in cambodia, and unfortunatly it is the children that swarm you and grab you and tell you they're hungry. well being the huge child lover my first reaction is to kick them or push them, knock them to the ground and make them cry, anything to keep them away from me. well i just really wanted to fight that urge so instead i was trying to have a little fun with them and talk to them. well that wasn't a very good idea either, because somewhere between touching the little street vermin and packing my bag to leave the next day my camera was so skillfully removed from my backpack. those little fuckers. i went out into the night and asked at my hotel, i asked at the resturant i had been in earlier, i searched the street for those dirty little kids, and found nothing. they were good and i was dumb, and for my stupidity i spent today shopping and spending $150 on a new digital camera. part of me wanted to resist, not to buy one because i just bought this one for my trip, but really who would that be punishing? so all the pictures i've been promising you, they aren't going to happen. a month of tourist snapshots down the drain. me getting my feet tattoooed, angkor wat, countless bus rides.
so bad taste in my mouth on the last night in cambodia, after that i was hurt and upset and ready to blow this pop stand.

the next day 6am. insomnia is a bed hog and i had been tossing and turning through the night waiting for some reason to get out of bed and leave the hard twin mattress to it. sunrise was reason enough. i got up, i searched for the camera thinking i had simply done what? misplaced it? i searched several times...no luck. i hefted my pack, weighed down by a few new purchases, and headed down to wait for my 7am bus. there are already 2 canadians waiting and i leave my pack with them and go to get some fresh bread and water for my trip. the bus trip from siam reap to bangkok is supposed to take like 8hours, about 4hours to the boarder and about 4hours from the border to bangkok.
if you have ever traveled by bus in asia, or any 3rd world country you will no that no rules apply. they never leave at a certain time, unless you are late, and they never ever arrive when they say they will, and the trip is always longer than you are told.
so the 3 of us pile on a semi decent bus at 7.30 and leave to pick up the rest of the passangers. all the passengers are backpackers, and of course it takes another hour to get them on the bus, figure out we don't have room for everyone, try and figure out who doesn't belong, where are the bags going, etc. so finally we leave, but then we stop to get the driver breakfast, then we have to pick up several cambodian friends that lounge in the isla, then we have to stop for gas, and then we just stop for the sake of stopping. then we go.
we are on the road for maybe an hour, getting out of the city into the country side, it goes from pavement to rumbeling dirt, and then it stops. or we stop. there is a traffic jam ahead. a traffic jam that is so large and has been there so long that a few entrupenurs have set up shaks and are selling food and drinks. what's the problem? well flooding, flooding that the government and the bus companys know about, but sell forginers "un-refundable" bus tickets anyways. so there we are about 25-27 backpackres sitting in a bus waiting fo something to happen. there is a huge line of buses and trucks ahead of us, so the driver turns off the engine and gets out like he is suprised. so we all get out. there are about five good sized buses and trucks stopped in front of us full of other tourists and local people, we walk past them to where the water starts. we now have a running river infront of us about 30yrds across, and there are two trucks that decieded to drive on the side of the road in the water and have sunk half way. they are blocking the road.
so we sit for hours, while they try to move the trucks, this consists of nothing. cambodians scratching their heads, looking at the trucks and doing nothing. there is a french woman with us who is getting angry, she needs to get to bangkok tonight, she is mad. being an american i'm like, hey i paid my $ they have to get me there, plus i have time on my side. i sit i chat , i am unworried. the french woman goes to work. i suggest we do a passanger swap with a bus on the otherside of the river, she wades across for info. but no no passenger swap, instead the driver stummbels onto this magical idea, he just happens to have a friend parked right next to us with a dumpster like tractor, that has been there since before we got there, and if we each pay an additional $10 dollars his friend will take us to the border, money up front of course.
we are mad, and don't want to pay, especially before we get to the border, we argue with the driver, a lot of people are told to fuck off and go back to siem reap, i think this situation is funny, but definitly don't want to go back. we decieded that the french woman will hold the money and once we are at the border the driver can have it. so we go. we take the route directly between the two stranded trucks, which were going the same way as eachother so who knows why they decided to veer off the road and into a deep ditch when it was obviously flooded. so there we are, out in the bright sunshine, i had left off my sunblock for the day because it has been hurting my eyes, and in good faith i assumed i'd be inside a bus all day, all the bags are under us and we use them as cushions, i'm thanking God that i pulled my mamiya out of my big bag and packed it in my day pack this morning. i fell sad as i think of my film getting pressed out of shape as someones ass is resting on my bag at the moment, but there is nothing i can do. we cross the first river with sucess, and the crowd cgeers as if we have performed some biblical like mirical, we have crossed.
in the next oh 6hours we will cross aproximatly 15more rivers. our truck humps and bumps and knocks us into eachother, there is nothing to hold onto, nothing to hide under. i take my wrap out from my bad and kiss it. i twist it around my body and my face, i feel like a muslim woman in rhinestone glasses and i hide from the sun.
our truck is not infaliable and gets stuck twice, we all jump out only to find ourselves in thigh high waters, the tires spin uselessly. the first time there is another tractor near that pushes us to the shore, the second time we push us out of the ditch. out of the truck into the water, walk to shore, into the truck, drive a few minutes, out of the truck, into the water, push the truck, hang onto the camera, walk to the shore, get in the truck.
we finally reach an impass. it is what i imagine closed borders to look like when people are trying to flee. they are all dirty and tired, possessions strung around their bodies. we are tired and dirty, we gather our bags, our meager possesions and we are told to walk, there will be two trucks waiting for us. so we beging to walk. my pants are already soaking wet so i don't bother to roll them, i heft my bag, clutch my camera and remove my flip flops. the current of the river makes it hard for me to walk in my shoes, it trys to pull them away from me with every tiny step, but when i take them off i am trapped betwen a bed of sharp rocks and a bed of clay so smooth and slippery i slide with every little step. this is no good. no good at all. i find a shallow spot, i put the shoes back on, the current fights me for them. it grabs my left flop and pulls the toe piece out of the foot pad, it dangles and threatens to carry it away, i drag my left foot quasi-moto like behind me until i reach dry ground. the trucks are waiting.
there are two small toyotas waiting, we pile the bags in, people jam into the cab, jam into the bed. i hop on the roof of the cab with he canadian i had meet earlier, proped up on bags my scranny ass sits directly on a crisscrossed metal roof rack. we are told we have 2.5 hours till the border.
now imagine if you will the movie grease, remeber the bad guy with the poc marked face? well take his face and flatten the contures of it into a road, a road with potholes so deep you could lose a kitten in them. that was our road, that was the 2.5 hours to come with several other rivers to cross.
the novilty of riding on the roof quickly wore off. i sat backwards feeling out journy before i actually saw it, the road dwindeling. i never new when we were about to cross water until we slowed, slowing was a bad sign. it ment bumps, it ment throwing me to one side, into a canadian, or throwing me to the other, towards the edge i already had my feet dangeling over.
i had to close my eyes, i had to focuse on my hands, my fingers, keeping grip on metal bars that bit into them. i had to twist my body as my weight constantly was thrown, my back and my but and my legs bouncing into the roof rack, my feet looked for somewhere to rest somewhere to help me hold my weight, hold my place. my mantra became almost there almost therealmosttherealmostthere. they wouldn't even stop for us to pee, so i doubted they'd stop for me to change seats, and who would want to change anyway? we looked like a buncj of refuges 12 of us in the back of this truck. i watched as the other forginers turned lobster red from the sun and then a sick unreal orange as their sweat was combined with the dirt from the road. i wrapped my wrap tighter, and crossed it over my face tucking part of it in my mouth so i could hold on with both hands. my day pack sat in frot of me, arms looped backwards through the holes, my arms getting rubbed raw from the rougher part of the straps.
i tried to become very zen with it, very in the moment, and actually it worked, it was fun and adventourous and it would make a good story, but fatigue began to set in and i just prayed i didn't let go.
we did eventually make it to the border, and across. i never thought i would be so glad to see thailand. waiting for us was a double decker luxery bus, a bus with seats so plush that streched so far back i thought i was in heaven. a bus that palyed us movies for the next five hours as we wound our way into bangkok. o loved this bus, i could have cried when i got on this bus and curled up in a seat.
we got into bangkok late last night, about midnight. i showered, i drank, i ate cheap pad thai, it was all a girl could ask for.
today i stayed in my pajamas till 3pm, i brushed my teeth in my room and spit into an empty beer can so i wouldn't have to walk down the hall to the toliet. my body is sore and i think i will hide out here till i'm ready to brave a bus again.
so in closing i really hate to say, i hate cambodia, but the verdict is still out on that one. Cambodia was definitly an experience, overall, except for the camera, a pretty funny one. but i fell as if we are star crossed lovers, it is my romeo, and maybe i should just relish the time i had but stay far far away from it.

aaahhh mom not another wat! or cambodian cookies.

oh good lord i have reached a temple limit. no more, i've had my fill and my brain is full.

God was not at any of those places either. i saw a massacre of butcherd buddhas, and a whole town of grubby children trying to sell me everything from a seed i'm supposed to eat to british pounds.
i've spent the past three days on a motor bike, and my ride today was to far reaching temples on bad roads. the ride was long, and if i closed my eyes i could easily imagine that i was on the back of a mechanised bull, except for my öh shit!" handle was under my butt. there was a time or five that i thought i would be thrown off, but i have a really strong grip.

this morning was a zombie ride, i think i took two pictures and couldn't even tell you the names or even what the wat's looked like.

i secured myself a bus this morning, i'm about to go fast and meditate and get myself ready for another boarder crossing. the final decision, the piece of lint that tipped the scales between east and west, you may wonder what it is...

i really wanted some chocolate last night. i have a huge sweet tooth, and have been fighting it off, valintly, but last night i gave in. i found one of theose random shops with single rolls of toliet paper, dried squid, pringles imitations where the first ingrident is MSG, and random jelly in a ball flavors. i found one of them and they had a box of chocolate chip cookies. yumm i think, i will have some for the bus tomorow, whichever bus i was taking.
so i bought them, and put 1/4 of one in my mouth. now how could a cookie be horrid? like so bad i won't even give them to street children. i wouldn't even swallow this one. i choked and spit it on the street where all other garabage goes when in cambodia.

so the scale tipping for me? kristinas going to make my favorite cookies! yeah i'm a tough one i know. cookies. i of course have to wait 10 days or so but hey, it's good to have something to look foward to.

wanderings

so i came here to wander, and to wonder, at everything.
i really didn't put much planning into it, i would arrive and figure it out.
so now i have to make a choice east vs. west? which way to go?
i have a day to do it.
i think in the long run it really won't matter, if i did or if i didn't. i could quote some wonderful travel quote here that i have snuggled into the part of my brain that should be doing long division, but i have been doing long division in my head so it isn't complete.
so i'll spare you.

hmmm where would you go if you where me?

rockstar

when i first arrived in cambodia i let myself get overwhelemed by the constant crowd of people trying to get my attention.

but then i thought, hey it's like i'm a fucking rockstar. i pull up on a huge bus, people are there holding signs, waving and pointing at me, sure they have hotel names instead of "we love you kristine!" written on them. but they want me. they all want me. they bang on the windows and point at me, i choose who out of the crowd is gonna drive me to my hotel tonight.

as i walk down the street they gather around me, they touch me, they ask me questions, sure it's usually "hey lady you buy t-shirt one dolla"and not""wow kristine how is it that you fucking rock so hard, will you sign my stomach.

but it's pretty much the same thing.

fly paper or sesame seed bars

i am sitting in an interenet cafe staring up at a strip of fly paper, that oddly enough from this distance looks like a sesame seed bar. there are hundreds of small bugs floating around, and one or two large mosquitos i am trying to keep my eye on.

so i spent my first day fearlesly riding a motorbike around the heavenly temples of angkor wat. the ruins are breathtaking, the ascent to the top is enough to make a nervous man loose his lunch, and the descent is felt to be near impossible. the steps are thin, even for my small feet, and then add in the wind, and the rain storn that started when i was at the shelter of the highest peek, you have a lovely morning.
i could see so much from the landing. just amazing temples and reliefs carved into stone hundreds of years old.
headless buddhas littered all the temples i saw, decapitated for money, sold for a profit over the thai border. cambodia is working to replace all these heads, but there are so many missing.

so i looked for god today, and despite the unparalle beauty of this sacred sight i think there were too many tourists there, too many stands selling $1 cambodia t-shirts, too many kids pawing and screaming for you to buy their books. if disnyland is americas disneland and kyoto is japans disneyland angkor wat is definitly cambodias disneyland. don't get me wrong i LOVE going to disneyland, but i don't think god really digs it so much.

i have two more days paid to to explore, it is a hefty ticket price to get into this joint...

i was going to write more but little nats are falling on me like snow, i have about twenty of them enjoying their final rest in my lap at the moment, make it 25. i wonder how many more will tangle in my greads and decompose there? eww.

i woke up this morning with the sweet flavor of a well loved life on my tounge. i had wonderful dreams last night, and a quiet room...i have an endless amount of time to wander, and feel as if i am finally setteling into my own skin again.

taking a bus to see God or tracking time by my roots

i leave at 6.30 am for angkor wat tommorow and am interestedto meet up with God.

i felt like my last post was pretty grim so i didn't want everyone to think i was having a horrid time. it is the breath of travel, the in and the out. you have to have the good with the bad, and sometimes the good is the bad and vice versa.

i think it is fitting that God or Buddha or Whomever is on my list for the week. i have been travelig for three weeks now and the new car smell is faded away to the green tea sadly spilt into the floor matts. the toughts ad emotions that spured me to leave my lovely home are at my throat and have me in their grips.

i have been having a resurgence of lovely memories from my relationship with jason and they are breaking my heart. they are the most wonderful things, the essence of what life is made of, but i don't want them. i don't know what to do with them, i reall don't think i can get rid of them, they are part of me, as sure as a layer of skin, but i don't want tem anymore.

i want to move on with my life. so why can't it be as easy as washing my hands, or throwing away a tissue? why is it a coating, a tattoo that you pay for lazer removal? but it is something you cannot see, and cannot touch that bites you in the ass when you least expect it. hence my TMI entry a little it ago.
i am good at filling my life with distractions...i am the distraction queen, yet i'm not so great at what? forgetting?

i wanted y relationship to end, i of course ended it, but it doesn't mean i wanted to lose everything tht went with it...but that's what it has to mean.
i think there should be a yearly award for shaking up a life and i nominate myself.
i wouldn't have it anyother way...but that doesn't mean i'm not still dealing with it.

i feel cheated. i know i'm not the only one. i feel sad. and i feel a little stunned that it wasn't something we could work through...but how do you work through the loss of the essential love?
i also feel the loss of my friend the most, i have never been one to be friends with my old lovers, i just don't know how to do that. i am to posessive, too much of a bitch.

but i am going to go and visit with God and one of the eight wonders of the world.

this place is a photographers wet dream, i have already used a great portion of my film, and am hoping i can find some 120 around here...

the roots of my hair are growing out, i think i will use that to measure my time here. only 3 weeks, but that time has flown. it has been a gecko filled dream with spike licking my face in the end...

hell-aday in cambodia ir the phantom spider

so i'm in cambodia and i;m gonna keep it short and messy because i'm on a keyboard with almost no letters, and yes dial up...

wow i heard that God lives in cambodia but so far my experince here blows. really it is just the painfully bad border crossing and border town.

it is a panicky feeling, like a mis-srep in a pool, or a rouse wave that tumbles you over and under face planting you in a sand bar before spitting you onto the beach bikini falling off. it is running the gaumet from the thai border throughe no man's land and into the extreme poverty of cambodia itself.

i was ripped off at the border for the price of my visa, i was surrounded and intemidated by cambodian men wanting me to through money out to them for doing nothing. it was the overwhelming rush of sick chilkren and amputees grabbing me, begging as i am lead into the police station by police wearing undershirts flip flops and gold chains. it id my motor blke driver wanting to give me a tour of a shit hole border town, it is pressure of changing $$ and getting ripped of ny the rates. it is commen practice of crossing into a third world country that i had forgotten about. it is my driver trying to make me pay for toll crossings and then demanding a tip from me. it is walking around in my fair skin with my back pack making me a target of welth in a poor poor country.
i do feel for these people, the poverty here is devistating, but at the same time it is a hell of a game to play.
it could have been worse, but it could have been better. it is a game that i had forgotten the rules to, but it's okay.

i forget that in 3rd wolr, poor 3rd world shit doesn't work, they are not on an american time standard, and they want your money more than anything.

the 10 hour bus ride through the country that looked as if it was created by landmines calmed me. the friendliness of the villagers at the numerouse ferry crossings helped sooth me, and finally wandering the streets of phnom phen has relaxed me.

so no worries, espically to me very worried sisters, life is lovely again.

i am taking a motorcycle tour of the city and going to see the killing fields. there is so much amazing history to this place, so much amazing things happenng today.

oh the spider...as many of you know i HATE spiders, i just can't say enough about that. in the first hout of our drive a wpman upfront started yelling stop stop!

we pulled over and she described this "spider" that sounded more like a tarantula...yeah i wawtched the floor as much as i watched the roadside. luckily the spider wasn't spotted again, i think i would have gladely gone through the window if it had been near me.

someone told me that God lives in Angkor waht, i'm planning on goiung there tomorrow and finding him.

TMI interlude

so here i am doing what i set out to do, and what is that exactly? i think a lot of you may be confused as to what i really am doing, well join the club.

so at the moment i am living in a hut and swiming in the warm waters in the gulf of thailand, and mostly when it's not raining staring at the water. yup just sitting there staring at the water. i was hoping that the ocean would give me answers, but i am the only one that can give me answers. the ocean is very good at taking my thoughts and washing them so far out to sea i can't hear them anymore, that is nice. but one thing i realized is it can't make me still. i mean physically i can lay in a hammock all day staring at that lovely point where the water and the sky meet and my little hamster is still in its wheel running around like it's on crack. so how to still that?

it is amazing the kind of thoughts that surface when you sit around staring at the water. i think i could spend the rest of my life doing this and never run out of thoughts and memories and questions. the mind is limitless, and i have always had a really bad memory, so i'm amazed at the things i am remembering. it would be amazing to see how long my sister jen could sit and think because she has the best memory i know of. the pesto kids? huh?

so of course because i am single now i've been putting a lot of thought into all my past relationships, especially the recently past, and thinking of future relationships. i've figured out that i have been basically in a relationship fot the past 13yrs, not the same one granted but moving quickly from one to the other. and the wonderful saying "the quickest way to get over someone is to get ontop of someone else" continually surfaces in my mind. i mean it is definitly true, be it a rebound or an honest to god relationship that lasts for some time. i mean i've definitly done it, several times in the past. so it is refreshing to now be starting my 5th month as a single person. of course by traveling i take myself out of temptations way, but whatever...

all i'm saying is that this is a new feeling, like taking the training wheels off of a bike. don't get me wrong, i love being in love, i love being in the right relationship, i don't particularly like being single, but i'm okay with it. it has it's perks. it is also giving me a clear veiw in looking at myself in a relationship, because when you're in one you can't really see what's going on all that clearly, at least i can't. also the baggage. why would i want to carry a dead boyfriend with me into something new and alive? i have a hard time letting things go, truely letting them go. it is an adams girl trait i think, almost like a challange, and when we have that object in our teeth and the desire to hang on, we are hard press to let it go, even when letting go is best.

so maybe that is why i'm here. to let go. or to grab hold of all the amazing things that exist. i love traveling because it alters me as a person, it refreshes and amazes me and makes me happy to return home where my real friends and the things of substance are still waiting for me.

it hurts to bet on a horse that didn't even race. you feel foolish, you feel like your judgment will never be accurate again. i mean i know that's not true, life is life and as you continue on in one direction it is the right direction. i feel like i am going the right direction. i feel like a sleepwalker that has suddenly woken up in the middle of a grocery store during the 6pm rush. i am a little startled but amazed at the sudden varity to life, the color and the smells. it is something i would have had a hard time doing at home.

it was funny when i meet up with kristina she commented on the fact that i looked the same as last time i saw here ie; my hair was the same, style of clothes. it made me laugh and i told her everything else in my life has changed this time, so my apperance is the only thing that remained the same. i think it comes with being happy with who i am. i mean as a person both physically and mentally. there is of course always room for improvment and maybe some new goals and a sense of direction, but i still have some time to go before i'm home.

so okay that was my TMI interlude blog. i'm still a dumbass with posting photos but i'll figure something out.

those of you on myspace can see some flicks there. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

toe by toe or how i almost saw a tsunami

so here i am lost in paradise, or someone told me it was paradise and i believed them. i guess it's really not their fault because cheap ass that i am i am traveling during the "off" season. so you read about the trek out here. well the next day i woke, bug free and was happy.hmmm i should really refresh my old blogs befor i begin writing because i forget where i left off.

well anyways i have this great hut that the water almost runs under, it's got a big hard bed that leans so the first night i woke up curled up at the end of it, last night i put my head there and slept alright. the sheets have flowers on them and the mosquito net is princess pink and i can sleep with the door and windows open and listen to the ocean. last night i had some room mates, two geckos both as long as my elbow to my finger tip, and a moth the size of my hand. they weren't much for talking but they listen really well.

so last night was the start of season crazy stoner bash at the place i was staying, so i left early and went back to my hut to swing on my own private hammock, that's when the rain rolled in. i mean it rained the night i arrived, and then yesterday morning, but last night it RAINED! all night long well into the morning. when i say morning i mean like 11am straight down pour. i heard that on the mainland of thailand 2 people drowned from the floods. i thought about ditching the island because all i was seeing was weird old men and cool hemp art but after hearing about the flooding and thinking of the long road back into thailand i opted to stay and wait the stoem out.

also i had a tattoo apointment for this morning so i couldn't bounce out on that.

well back to the rain. i have nothing better to do so i lay in a hammock for about 20hrs a day, swinging back and forth staring at the sea. i am also reading this AMAZING book called the tibetan book of living and dying and loving it! but part of the book talks about how buddhists imagine their death, to prepair for the fact that you can never really know when death is coming for you, or coming for others. so the storm starts and all i can think about is tsunamies. this was a really bad storm. the sky was black as well as the water, and the wind was physically shaking my hut, shaking the trees, blowing people over. the waves were getting really high and i watched nervously from the commen deck are for the water to get pulled way way back just once...i was eyeballing the room for something to hold onto and wondering exactly how long i could hold my breath. i'm such a chicken, but of course i wasn't worried enough to get out of my hammock

so the storm persisted through the night, and hence my lovely bedfellows.

so i get up this morning to the storm ragging and i head out for breakfast and then over for my tattoo.

yeah traditional thai bamboo tattoo. can i just say that having really sensetive feet i should have re-thought the toe tattoo. this shit hurt like a mother fucker, but it's done with. my mantra was "stabstabstabstabstabstabstabstab" and then it was inturrepted with "toe by toe buddy just take it toe by toe"
my tattoo artist was really nice and his wife and daughter hung out with me, his wife spoke english but he didn't say much. i think my favorite part was when he was smoking while tattooing me. i have a picture of that.

well fortunatly the rain stopped and i had some really spicy food. i'm trying to work up a tolerance while here but baby steps...i think i feel down the stairs with the last meal and have plumped up botox lips to prove it. ugh kids, thai kids with screaming loud voices. yuck. okay i'm going to try and post pictures of me being tattooed, let's see if i'm lame enough or what. xoxoxoxoxo

not sure what day it is or whaaat?

okay so really i'm not sure what day it is, mmm thinking it's monday but just feeling so confused.

what did i tell you last? i think i was in kristina's village. well i think i was. anyway we caught a bus north, but we had to get out of her village, so we had to walk to the road and catch a public truck, the truck was large and packed with people, but because i am a forginer they gave me a seat. from the truck we jumped on a bus leaving at 10am, not bad, 2nd class AC thai bus, that means three people squish onto a 2 person seat. so i was squashed between kristina and some thai dude, and people just keep getting on and getting on. we made it to nong khai by 5pm, you do the math.
then from nong khai we catch a bus up to mike and AJ's village. this is a third class bus, so take what i said above and multiply the people by 10 and take away the ac. to add to that we had two monks get on...so they are thai equivalent of our old ladies, and women can't touch them. so it turned into a tuna squish fish circus act. we were in that bus for 1.5 hours, THEN we caught a 45min tuk-tuk up to the banks f the beautiful mekong. wow.
once we arrived there were four pretty drunk peace corps volunters...so we began to drink and drink and drink. we walked over to the bank of the mekong, drunk, with a full moon above our heads, and 2 of the boys jumped in. one was immediatly sucked down the river by an EXTREMELY strong currant, but no worries he was a big ass dude and made it back to the shore.
i was thinking about how nice it would be to swim in the mekong during a full moon, but as "big rob" was getting swept away i thought about the intestinal worms that are commen in water around these parts and kinda backed out.
after that we pretty much passed out. the next day brought PC girls that were crazy and started us drinking at 10am to gear up for the festival that night. i really can't remeber the last time i drank ALL day long, but wow these volunteers sure can party. so that was my day drinking. later at about 6pm we all went down to the river to wait for the fire balls blown by the dragon. now this is a natural occurance that happens every year at the full moon, no one really knows why it happens but it's been going on for years now.
the sun is setting and the mekong is smooth, there is a long boat filled with piles of half coconut shells that have been converted into candels. there is another boat we can see stationed further up the river from us. as it really begins to get dark monks are rowed out to the boat and they begin to light the candels and lt them go in the river. they do this becuse the fire balls need friends and encouragment to come up to the surface. this goes on for a little more than 2 hours. i am content to watch the beauty of it.
so no fire balls for our village. there were some seen about 30kms down the river but none for us. after a long day of drinking all i want to do is pass out, but as soon as i'm in bed i am wide awake.

i didn't sleep well. i got up the next day and we had to get back into town. with random luck there was a bangkok taxi in the village and he took us to the main road. from there we hitched a ride in the back of a truck and went to a small bus depo, from bus depo to nong khai where i had to wait three hours for a bus. the a 14hour overnight ride to rayoung, from rayoung a 4 hour ride to trat, (i'm on my own from nong khai on) from trat a truck ride to the peir, from truck to ferry, to another truck, to a road that went and went and went. and here i am...i am really tired but wanted to catch up.

after it taking so fucking long to get to this beautiful little island i think i will stay. once the exhaustion wears off i will be fine.

i am staying in a hut with no electricity, but the water at my front door, for about $3 a night. this is true hippy burn out land. i will write more later but it is time for me to go and relax.

oh next time i'll tell you about the monk on the bus...it was amazing!

where's waldo or the 7-11 jenga

so i'm really bummed out. i am having the worst time uploading photos here. i mean i uploaded them to kristina's computer, but they are to large to load onto my photobucket site. i don't think kristina has a program to resize them, and anyways she needs her computer for law school applications, so i don't have a lot of time to be taking it from her.
we've come into town today specifically to use the internet and the two things i need to do i am unable to...pooo. well i'll figure it out.
this whole week or almost week has been very mellow. i have been living the semi village life, full of bugs and water that will shut off at any moment and refuse to turn back on. it rained the first few days here, heavy and long keeping us indoor, but actually we have been in door by choice as well. kristina has a lot on her plate, but we spend time getting to know each other again. we have been friends for about 20yrs now and she described me as the "where's waldo" of her life. for the majority of the important events i was there, lost in the crowd amongst all her friends, continously sticking out because i am not like her or any of her friends. it's funny i've been described as a lot of things...a few of my favorites are "5 feet of heaven", "dreadlocked aphrodite", and "creative maniac", so i don't really know how to wear the "where's waldo description.

as i mentioned there are more than a few bugs out here in the sticks, in fact there was a flying walking stick like creature that pearched on our door the other night wanting to pop in for a bit of chang beer. there is also of course the flying roaches in plentatude, jumping spiders, geckos from the size of my little finger to the size of small children, ants, and millipeds or centepieds (yeah i know my spellings fucked). all of these wonderful creepy crawlies has lead me to the revalation that i don't think ugly things should be capable of flight. it just doesn't seem fair. i mean let's forget about poverty, famin, and terrorism, let's get down to the real travisties of the world...nothing ugly should fly. yup. that's now my mission in life, if you are an ugly scary creature you will be grounded, so that i can squish you, or at least jump onto some furniture and be safe from you.

i don't know if i shared you this with you yet but i found out that the thai have one setting for AC, and that is blizzard. everytime i walk in somewhere that has the ac on i begin to shiver befor the sweat has actually dried and it is a comfort to get back out to the stiffiling humidity. it is no wonder thai's are so small, i think anything would shrink in this kind of heat! i am beginning to deal with it, and the rain has brought a little bit of relief. i have learned to coat my entire body with powder after a shower, and this helps to keep me cool, and soakes up a little sweat when it does start. so little tricks here and there. i stupidly waited on buying bug spray, and have recieved more bites in the last week or so than i have in my entire life. i am now religiously coating myself yet am still being bitten. this morning i woke up with a huge welt on my wrist, actually it looks as if i have no wrist at the moment just a hand attached to a forearm. very very cute i assure you. it is a fashion i want to bring back to the states.

i took a walk through the village this morning befor we caught the bus so that i could photograph the area, and while walking down the road i was not only followed and viciously inspected by a small black poodle, but i was chase by a cow.
yup. in hindsite i think it was trying to play with me. so i'm walking and there's this young cow, it is what i think is called a brahma cow, or the kind you see being worshiped in india, it is a baby but it is big. it's head stands a few inches above mine, no horns thankfully, and then it has a cow body behind it with a lot of extra skin. it's chilling mooing by the side of the road and i go over to take it's picture. like the little kid on swiss family robinson i'm like "come here little cow i won't hurt you"...i get closer and closer, about 2 feet away, and it shy's back from me, i take my picture and back away. as soon as i turn my back to it the cow runs out of the bushes towards me. i spin around to face it and the cow stops, he jumps back, and then advances. we actually bad a full circle in the middle of the road because i wanted to pass him, and he wanted to kill me. everytime i turned my back he came towards me, and when i turned around he stepped back, but then would begin to advance. i thought about a nepali lady that had been gored by a water buffalo in town and was thankful once again that this baby didn't have horns. i did end up passing him, and i'm sure i put on a good show for the villagers but it was a little scary because he was so big. i did have to walk back that way, and when he saw me coming he began to run towards me kicking up his heels and bouncing like a funny dog. i keep my wide stance from him, and luckily he didn't cross the road to see me.

so i thought america had a lot of starbucks, like 2 on one block in some areas, that is nothing compared to the amount of 7-11's that can be found here in thailand. i think i even saw a 7-11 next door to another 7-11...just kidding but it is that bad. kristina has a theory about the 7-11's in thailand being like pieces of the game jenga. now i've never played this game so it's a little hard for me to fully visulize, but i liked the metaphor and thought i'd pass it on. so now i make it a point to frequent these 7-11's because if one is shut down that the whole economy of thailand may collapse and i really don't want that on my head.

this is a lot for today, tomorrow i load up on a bus and head north to nong khai...

FYI or more words about nothing

so i found out in my settings that i can open comments to everyone, so you don't need to join this site to post a comment about my blog, sorry if you are already a member!
thank you for those that do comment, and that you are NOT commenting on my bad spelling and grammer, i am so over it!but i can't seem to answer to the comments, i'm probably just being slow, or lazy, but yeah. send me email's too, i love emails!

i love that people are actually reading it and responding, it makes it a little more nerve racking now knowing that you know about my close encounters with a thai massage lady, although that story was pretty PC.

my adventure since i last wrote was basically i set out to go one place and never made it. i walked and walked and walked and walked and NEW i was going the wrong way, but was unwilling to turn around. i walked by the government house and the tanks are gone, too bad no photos. i recieved cat calls from a truck full of thai military men, which made me laugh because i am definitly not looking hot in a good way right now. more like hot in a wear you pj's outside and sweat hot.

i did buy a new outfit today! of yeah spent about $5 bucks on it, things are so fucking cheap here!

i walked through a food stand where they were selling some sort of beetle to eat, deep fried crabs, and what looked to be a meat stuffed pigs foot.

the heat, the meat, the smell, and the press of the people made me want to scream, but i just pushed through. in this country i'm a big woman. they are so aware of size here, and although i haven't yet been told i'm fat i'm waiting for it. it won't bother me because i confident about my body and am actually at my lightest weight in like 13 yrs, amazing what a break up, and living with a wonderful cook can do for you!

oh the food here is killer but it is no soy cooking that is fur sure!

no more deep thoughts for now.