OK, I can appreciate Nepal in all respects but the FUCKING INTERNET! This will be the THIRD time I'm writing this email, the first time being lost in a brief power outtage and the second being stranded on the computer I was writing it on when the connection to the internet failed. The browser was even too old to have the autosave function on it. AARGH. Let me at least mention how beautifully written, elegantly composed, and marvelously executed the past two blogs were. When was the last time a blog made you stand up and cheer, then cry? Well that was what you missed. Thanks, Nepal. Now you just get this shit:

Ugh, I've started this thing twice already so you'd think I should remember how it goes. Oh yeah, in one version I continued the analogy I had of coming back to Thailand in order to switch gears between my two main trips, Southeast and South Asia. And, because I'm new at driving a stickshift, I rode the clutch for about three weeks and then popped it out about two days ago fast enough to give me whiplash. It happened when I woke up on the floor of this girl's place I had seen the day before, but had no recollection of where I was or how I got there. Looking back on the day before, my birthday, I realized it had been an absolutely great, drunk, crazy, fun time. Fit to be the last. For a while anyway.

That was 3 days ago. Since then I've shaved my head, enrolled in a monastery, and am getting ready for a 3-week trek through the himallayan wilderness. Well, maybe it's more like a buzzcut, a 10-day vipassana course, and a long walk along a path, but it sounds cool anyway. The buzzcut's awesome, I look rediculous! If I can find somebody to take a picture and email me, I'll post it up. I look just like one of those Goombahs from Mario Brothers. But it will really make the meditating and trekking a whole lot easier.

Anyway, Nepal: as it tends to happen, I came here at exactly the right time to witness the Holi festival, a day when the entire country of nepal celebrates the coming of springtime by hurling bags of colored water at each other. This really happy looking nepali guy who owned the bakery I had my breakfast at invited me to come back at 11 and celebrate Holi with him. So I went back, thinking we were going to throw water around, but instead we headed to this really tiny, totally local restaurant (about 10 by 15 feet long, including kitchen) and ordered food and beer. The beer, however, came in the form of a bucket filled with fermented millet. It looked like wet, rotten birdseed and smelled like sake. Apparently they wet it, add yeast, and let it sit in the corner of the room for a month, then scoop it into a bucket and serve it. The waitress then added hot water to it until it was full and gave us a metal filter straw to sip out of. Tasted like sake, too. When we're finished, she adds more hot water. Basically, you keep adding hot water about 5 to 7 times until you've washed the seeds of all their alcohol, and by then you're really drunk.

So then it was time to head outside for the festivities. I got painted up to look like Braveheart, because if I didn't someone else would do it for me. I had a much better description of this in the other posts that were lost, and I don't really have the time to go into it right now. Just imagine zig-zagging down the 10foot wide streets, trying to dodge the bags filled with parasite river water being thrown at you by kids on the roofs of 4 story buildings lining the street, and simultanously trying to dodge the motorcycists and rickshaw drivers who are doing the same while doing their best to miss the massive potholes that litter the road. Tourists make great targets. I developed several strategies of not getting hit, but most tourists, particularly the girls, were absolutely covered head to tow in color and water. I remember this one part of the street where the concrete was completely obscured by green, yellow, and red color. Women were hard to find on the street, because apparently Nepali men have no idea how to flirt so instead of actually approaching a girl they wait until this festival to pelt them with bags of water. Instead, the girls are high up on the roofs throwing their own bags down at the lonely boys.

Anyway, I gotta run. This meditation course starts soon and I gotta register. It's a 10-day Vipassana course, you can learn all about it from www.dhamma.org or ask any hippie. Alex made it 8 hours, so my immediate goal is to make twice that. I'll do my best to stay the whole 10 days, but I get the feeling that those first few days of sitting still, without talking, without eating after noon, without reading or writing, and waking up at 4 will be the most difficult thing I'll ever do out here. Wish me luck.

I'll be out of any kind of contact for the next 10 days, but between this post and the last one it should be enough to fill my quota.

Happy Birthday to me.

I've had some pretty crazy birthdays but there's always been some kind of expectation to fulfill, people to "catch up with," or hidden agenda somewhere. I guess what made this one so much fun was that I didn't expect it in the slightest. I mean, 24 isn't that special of a number (except, of course, that it's the last time for 22 years that I'll have consecutive even numbers, which is great), but everybody around me was looking for some reason--any reason--to go nuts. I must have just hit the bill.

My birthday surprise officially started when my night bus to Bangkok arrived at 5AM. It was still dark and I was tired and pissed off that any hotel I find was going to charge me full price for the 2 hours of nighttime left. I literally spend 3 minutes walking (covered in backpacks) before some Thai gay guy and his pretty lady friend pull me into the bar they're at and start offering me drinks. Alarm bells started going off in my head, particularly when i got a good look at this girl. She was skinny. Real skinny. I mean way too skinny for me, even, but there was no sign that this form was the product of any illness or disease or anything. I figured she was probably just a whore and, in any case, the gay guy was with kept buying me drinks hoping I'd go for him.

The sun rose and I got drunk. This girl didn't come onto me one bit, which gave me enough confidence that she wasn't going to ask for money. So I hit on her a bit until she invited me to stay at her place, on account that I didn't have a room yet. What a sweetheart. It was a nice welcome to Bangkok, anwyay, but I woke up at noon and, after checking to make sure she didn't take anything, left to find myself a real room.

That was a nice start to the day.

So I went out to buy a plane ticket outta there. It turns out I fucked up and forgot to get my Indian visa and I would have had to wait a full week to get it. Nepal, on the other hand, offers visas on arrival. So at the drop of a hat I changed my plans around entirely and bought a ticket to leave two days later for Kathamandu. I guess that's why I travel alone.

I met up with my friend Mark, whom I had known on the 10-day motorcycle trip and for a few days before and after in Chiang Mai, and whom I'd seen for another week down in Ko Pangan. When we went out, it turns out he had a table full of friends here, and when they asked what it was I wanted to do for my birthday, I said the only thing I could, considering it was almost my last night in Thailand. "I want to see the worst smut imaginable."

I mean, I wasn't out to get laid (that need had already been fulfilled), and I wasn't out to see any disgusting child-porn or slavery or pissing or shitting or anything like that. But I did want to see what it was that everybody came to Bangkok for, because it definately wasn't the temples. Anyway, it was enough to get half the table up and with us. There were three Marks and two Thai girls (one of whom was the legitimate girlfriend of "my" Mark, the other was being paid by another Mark to be his girlfriend for the past 10 days). After the cab ride to the Pat Pong district (otherwise known as the PingPong district), the guys decided to have a quick drink at a local cafe first, since beers will be so expensive inside the clubs. I was already a little drunk, but before we could gulp down our drinks and go, the waitress stuck a cake under my chin and the whole place sang happy birthday. It was one of those really sweet, really tacky moments that made me realize I'd actually made some good friends out here. Back in Ko Pi Pi, ludo (the french guy from the motorcycle trip) gave me a birthday present of videotaping a series of video birthday messages, including singing the tackiest, most hilarious version of Happy Birthday I've heard so far, and burning me a CD of everything on his camera since my camera had been broken. Some of you will meet him, as he plans a Las Vegas trip at some point int he next year.

Anyway, I blew out the candles and went to see a pingpong show. It was a little disspointing, but since we got there a little late they had ended their major show. I did get to see a girl spit two (non-hardboiled) eggs into a cup, and then some other girl smoked two cigarettes out of hers. As this was going on, some really pretty hooker comes over to one of the Marks and then jumped on me when he told her he had no money, it was my birthday, and I was full of money. So she jumped on my lap, and gave me quite the lap dance as she chewed my ear off. At first I tried to pull her hands away from where they were going, then I realized she had nothing better to do and kept my own hands on my money and enjoyed the ride. Eventually I told her I wasn't going to pay for anything and she left with a slightly dissaponited grin.

But it any case it got my heart pumping. They turned on some aweful dance club music and I started dancing with both Marks' girlfriends. Soon enough, I was up on the pole myself with the hooker girlfriend dancing with me. I was basically sober, and I had absolutely no sexual desire behind it, but there was this massive grin on my face that I only then realized had been missing for the past month. It was back. So I kept dancing with this hooker girlfriend, who was actually a really cool, funky, witty chick that is really good at what she does--being that cool, funky, witty girlfriend you wish you had, and can have at a price. Oh yeah, and her boyfriend of the time was a 40year old fat bald Englishman who was a real cool guy, but albeit not quite attractive. Anyway at some point I managed to make him jealous, which he later told me screwed with his head since you're not supposed to ever get jealous of a hooker, and so i stopped. Actually, by the end of the night I picked up the bartender, of all people, but she was too nice of a girl, living with her family, and I couldn't be ok with leading her on. She did call me later, that was nice.

We left the club and followed some skeezy salesman guy to the "afterhours" club, which was basically a tacky (crowded) club with a line of whores sitting on red velvet cushions with their backs to wall mirror, waiting patiently to be picked up by her new "soulmate." So we left and ended up right back to where i had initially got off the bus less than 24 hours before. Buckets were $5 (one pint of whiskey and two redbulls) so we just got hammered. By then we were dead sober from the price of the drinks, and one hour later we were dead drunk from the price of these drinks. It was 4 or 5 AM and I don't remember much after that. I remember I unfortunately ran into the girl from that morning, who then took me back to her place when I was in no condition even make it home.

I woke up the next morning with absolutely no idea where I was. It's been a long while since this had happened to me, and to be honest it was a lot of fun trying to piece things together. "Where am I? Why does my head hurt? Hey, this place looks familiar, kinda like that girl's place yesterday. Holy shit, it is that girl's place from yesterday. And that's her lying next to me. But she has her clothes on. Did I get laid? I gotta get outta here" Slowly it came to me that she led me back there, then I vaguely remember lying down for a second and then I woke up. It was almost 1PM. She must have been pissed off. I wake her up and she's got nothing nice to say to me, so I say goodbye and leave. As I walk home i realized she'd taken $12 from me. Bitch. At least that habit I'd formed of never taking anything valuable out finally paid off. I went back to her appartment and banged on the door, demanding my money back. She lets me in and falls back asleep, denying everything (poorly) and saying I could look around if I want; basically, that I wasn't going tofind it. I went home and fell asleep.

The next day I flew to Nepal and here I am. I'll be back online later to give the whole report.

I was having a beer with my new "best friends" on a dinner beach table watching that Corona commercial cliche beautiful sunset over the white sand beach, when a small family came out of their bungalow onto the sand. One of our group who had been "traveling" in the same bungalow for 3 months said "Families are going to ruin this island."

I was pissed off at first, thinking he had no right to claim this island in the name of young single travelers looking for sex and sun. But on the ride back, we got to stop by the construction site of a group of villa bungalows, the future time-shares that will, at the expense of obstructing and stealing the prescious scenery, will most likely be occupied at most one month per year. I've come to agree with my friend at least that families will transform the island in the end to become that serene, expensive, winter getaway that we all see in the brochures. I gritted my teeth in frustration, knowing full well that the next time I visit this island it will probably be with a family of my own.

But tourists will always want to avoid tourists, and finding paradise out here is a cat-and-mouse game of colonizing a new island before the fat vacationing sandles-and-socks fanny pack Europeans move in. Ko Samui is beautiful but overrun, go to Ko Pangan. Ko Pangan's too touristy, go to Ko Lanta. Too many people in Ko Lanta, head to Ko Lippe. As it stands now, everybody's going to Ko Lippe to run away from tourists. It's an island at the southern end of the archapelago, takes two days to get there, is full of unpopulated alcoves and beaches, and is cheap as all fuck. Basically, it's got two years before it's overrun itself, and it gives me the impression that we'd be more successful trying to run from our own shadows.

A few days ago I landed (and am leaving in one hour) on Ko Phi Phi, also transliterated as Ko Pee Pee, which is more phonetically accurate. I came here to meet Ludo, the French guy I'd been travelig with in Laos and Cambodia, before I head off to India and dissappear forever. It's the site of the movie The Beach (coincidentally about trying to find that hidden paradise before anybody else gets there), and, unfortunately happens to have been one of the Tsunami's biggest casualties. The island i'm on consists of a north and south mountain, and when you have two large rocks like that in the ocean, sand collects in between. So basically there's a 150m strip of sand and soil connecting the two mountains, on which the whole tourist city is built, and is where I'm sitting right now. The wave swept over the whole thing and sent the city into the water. I went on a night scuba dive to the site of a bungalow that had been transplanted 2km from shore last year. It was surprisngly intact, but between the weightlessness, the torch-lit darkness of it and the fresh trajedy, it was turned out to be far creepier and Indiana Jonesy than my sunrise exploration of Ankor Wat. On the other hand, the city has been completely rebuilt in the past year to the point that, if it wasn't for the pictures and frequent shrines, I'd have had no idea about the devastation.

By some strange twist of fate, since the tsunami this island has been almost exclusively recolonized by the Swedish. Even the Swedes don't quite understand it, but everybody's tall, blond, beautiful, and prissy. And at the beach it seems like they don't even sell women's tops around here. I really can't complain, but I keep getting this wierd Deja Vu about Santa Monica beaches. Even the French guy I'm with tells me the girls here are stuckup. That says alot.

Well, it was my foot. I was driving back home yesterday morning after bringing a Thai girl back to her place (by the way, every time an ugly middle-aged "I'm not here for the pagodas" man drives by me while I have a Thai girl riding on my motorcycle with me, every one of them inevitably lets out this huge grin of relief that there are some young people out there as well who come here to pay for sex. That grin, which has followed me every time I ride or walk with a local for any reason, betrays the same sense of personal comfort that makes the man feel better about his local "hobby" and, in almost every case, makes me feel like a slut and her feel like a prostitute. I have no problems with the sex tourism industry, but for god sakes I wish they'd stop making the rest of us feel like assholes). Anyway, as it turns out I was completely wrong in my last post about the speed necessary to traverse these roads. A slow speed makes it necessary to try to tiptoe around the potholes and rivlets, whereas a relatively fast steady run in 2nd gear lets the dirtbike tire treads and shocks take effect to cling to and absorb the impact of the bumps and troughs. Basically, by some cruel twist of fate, the drive becomes safer as you go faster and approach with more confidence; in other words, when you're drunk. So I had no problem driving home even with someone on the back seat, but a few hours later when I was sober, tired, and nervous, I hesitated to speed up when I was about to lose my balance and I fell off the bike as it came to a stop. I've had worse falls before, but since I was only wearing sandals, my right foot got pretty scratched up. That's nothing to cry about, but a few hours later I was kickstarting the bike with the same sandals on and the kickstarter sprung back up unexpectedly and jammed my heel into some metal bit just behind it. That one hurt, not so much that it left a deep scratch but that compounded with the other scratches to incapacitate my right foot for anything other than walking. I guess it serves me right to not respect the bike as I should, but fucking hell it puts a damper on any swimming, running, or soccer. No more exercise for me. Oh, the agony!

But the coolest thing that happened to me on this island so far came at a point last night when I was about to renounce my title as one of the luckiest people I know. I was at a jungle rave, which was cool but nothing to call home about, a few hours after my foot turned into a gauze bandage, and an hour before sunrise I realized my bag had been stolen. I left it behind the blacklight psychedelic mushrooms (thinking nobody would ever come up to the blacklight psychedelic mushrooms for a closer look....stupid), and a few hours later it wasn't there and all the useless crap I was keeping in it was neatly taken out of my posession. My swim trunks were in there, I was kinda pissed off about that. Anyway, once the sun started rising I stoped around the perimeter of the party with my fists clenched and a big frustrated frown, all pissed off about the way the day had been going, when (shortly after finding someone's used condom in the bushes) I came across a small wad of money. I looked around, saw nobody was watching, and pocketed it to later find out it was 3500 baht (at 38 baht to the dollar, this makes it almost $100). Holy fuck, there's a week's budget. The jew in me relaxed all my previous tension and the hippie in me replaced it with guilt. But, after hearing so many stories that night of stolen bags and packs of cigarettes, I felt better knowing that I probably deserved it more than the people who would take it 2 minutes after I put it back. If that wasn't enough to lighten my mood, I came back to where I was sitting and found, under the light of the newly risen sun, that someone had earlier dropped their "emptied" bag of ecstasy (no pills, but about a half pill's worth of residual powder) directly in front of where I had been sitting the whole time. Let's just say my sour mood was alleviated.

On a completely different note, I'm finalizing my plans to get the hell out of this den of debauchery they call an island and head to what somebody told me is the biggest lump of shit on the planet, India. Hopefully I'll get there before my birthday, so I can invite a Billion people to my party. Meg is also scheduled to meet me there at the end of the month, so at least I won't be swimming through shit all alone.

To sum up this post:
Bets are closed for first motorcycle injury.
All bets on for first gastrointestinal disease acquired.

Odds (pay/bet):
1:2 Diarrhea
3:1 Disyntary
5:1 Gihardia
7:1 Uncontrollable explosive vomiting
10:1 Green poop
15:1 Red poop
30:1 Tapeworm

Other offers considered.