live fast, diarrhea

ah, alcohol: creator of friends, solver of problems, delayer of plans. i was en route from mae nam (north of the island) to chaweng (east coast), and had to stop somewhere in between in order to turn in my motorbike. where in between, i couldn't be sure. my vacant mind couldn't remember which place i'd rented it from, and the thai lettering on the front of the bike was doing nothing to help. all i remembered was, the rental place was actually a bar, and it was right next to another bar. after driving back and forth on the main street a few times, i saw a place that looked vaguely familiar. with about 5 minutes left to spare in my 24-hour rental (not like anyone here keeps track of time anyway), i was delighted to have found the place. as i pulled up, a lady standing in front smiled and waved to me. oh good, this must be the woman who rented me the bike. i walked up and handed her the keys, and she asked if i wanted a drink. sure, why not? i was gonna take a cab the rest of the way, after all. no reason not to drink. for some reason, my keys were returned to me. oh well, i'll do the check-in process later.

i was only a few sips into my chang beer when i met dwight and wendy, a middle-aged canadian couple who were spending several months in the region. they turned out to be really friendly, and over the course of a few more drinks, filled me in on a lot of information about ko samui and the rest of thailand. eventually, as it got dark, i realized i better get on my way to chaweng to find a place to stay. as it turns out, a cab to that part of the island costs more than the daily bike rental. it only made sense to hold on to the chopper for another day. however, when i tried to plead my case to the woman at the bar, she seemed utterly confused. after 5 minutes of speaking, gesticulating and trying every other method of communication imaginable, i finally learned that i was in the wrong bar/rental place. insert "all asians look alike" joke here. well, at least that explained why she'd given me my key back. 5 minutes later, everything was cleared up at the appropriate bar, and i was once again mapless, using my "all roads lead to rome" approach to bring myself to the desired town.

thankfully, on an island with few roads, getting where you want to go is never all that hard. what was hard, once in chaweng, was finding a hotel that had vacancy, and was hopefully affordable. it took 'til my 6th or 7th place to finally find a room. not only was it a great setup (close to the bars/shops, high ceilings, industrial-powered fan, clean-ish bed, flush toilet, and the rare + elusive heated shower), but it was remarkably affordable, too! wow, my ship had come in. i showered, cleaned up, relaxed a little, then set off to see the town.

needless to say, this hotel, like every one before it and i'm sure every one coming up, had a catch. a big catch. a great big, wall-shaking catch known as club moda (or something like that), which seemed to share a common wall with my room. apparently, club moda is THE place for loud music in chaweng. naturally, i didn't realize my proximity to the club until i turned in for the night, which was at 1:45. not to worry, bars in thailand all close at 2.

well, they're supposed to, at least. club moda kept their speakers turned up to 11 until 5 a.m. this wouldn't have bugged me so much if there wasn't a room full of australians who emptied into the hallways to carry out their loud and long conversations at 7 that morning. crikey!

will i ever get a good night's sleep here? stay tuned. next stop, monks and monkeys in the mountains of krabi.

-sg