Thursday, June 22, 2006

Here comes the sun! . . . and several playful puppies!

Before hitting the beach in the morning, I collected my laundry from the washerwoman who lives down a little alley next to the 7-11, only to discover that she'd managed to lose one of my bras as well as the bottom half of my pyjamas! I'll add those items to the long list which currently includes my toothbrush, my alarm clock, my watch (well, actually that broke but at the end of the day I no longer have it!), several pairs of underwear, a memory card, and my mobile phone! I guess losing a few items is inevitable bearing in mind that when you're travelling you're packing and unpacking and moving on every few days.
We had another beautiful sunny day on Ko Samet. I finished reading 'Smoking Poppy', fell asleep on several occasions and got woken up by a couple of playful puppies running across my stomach - on several occasions! I don't know what it is with me and dogs lately but first of all I looked around the beach and noticed that, of the many dogs that had fallen asleep on the sand, most of them had decided to do so within a metre radius of where I was lying. Secondly, out of all the people on the beach, a couple of mishchievous little puppies decided to have a playfight on my sarong with me lying in between them. They kept running across my stomach, trying to bite each other and biting my leg or stomach instead, rolling their wet sandy bodies all over my sarong, licking my face, and trying to run of with my flip flops and my shorts. One of the little buggers did actually run off with my shorts, so that i was there tryng to wrench my shorts from the jaws of this puppy in the middle of a beach full of people who were finding this the most hilarious thing they've seen in months! The trouble was, the little puppy thought it was all just a game too, and subsequently fought even harder against me and my shorts. I finally threw down the gauntlet and added my shorts too the ever increasing lost property list at the beginning of this entry.
This evening I watched "Ray" (I saw the film about 18 months ago at the cinema but it's a first class film so I didn't need any persuasion to watch it for a second time) and then joined Danny, Jesicca, Paul and a collection of other people whose names I can't remember, at Naga Bar. There was a different D.J on the decks there, who was playing a much better set and mixing the tunes a lot better than the other guy too (lots of the prodigy, which met with my approval). I also had the chance to make up for the appalling pool game I didn't play the other night : I won the first game with tall guy (well, that's what I shall call him as I didn't catch his name due to the loudness of the music) and then only lost the second one on the black ball. Due to not really chatting to anyone in particular and just mingling amongst the crowds (most of whom I recognised from Naga) I drank my way through several large beer Changs and was subsequently bouncing around on the dance floor at the end of the evening! (which was actually around 3am!)
The following morning the sun was already shining with all it's strength by 10am, so that when the cloud had properly lifted it was so hot I had to go for a swim every half an hour. I sat up in Tok's Little Bar at lunchtime, and was soon accompanied by a Thai guy who calls himself FBI. I've seen him walking along the beach several times, a few of which he's tried to talk me into having one of the henna tattoos he sells. So, I made polite conversation with him. He was moaning about how quiet it was on the beach now that it's low season and that no-one wants a tattoo. Assuming he makes little money from selling tattoos in the rainy season, I asked him if he has an alternative job. He subsequently started to look shifty, lowered his voice, and told me he sells marajuana. He then proceeded to open his shoulder bag, produce a large bag of the green stuff and asked me if I'd like to buy some for a "special price". I have now been offered weed in all four countries I've visited over the past 6 months : from members of the hilltribes in Laos, tuk tuk/moto drivers, guesthouses and restaurants (basically pretty much everyone!) in Cambodia, book sellers and market stall owners in Vietnam, and henna tattooists in Thailand!
Later on that day, he approached me to ask if I wanted to watch the sunset with him; he'd take me to a beach around the other side of the island on his motorbike. Maybe his intentions were perfectly innocent but I wasn't about to jump on the back of a motorbike with a complete stranger, so I told him I was still feeling hungover and just wanted to spend a lazy day on the beach (which wasn't entirely untrue). The misheivous puppies also made an appearance again, but fortunately didn't try to steal any more items of my clothing or take chunks out my flesh. They just covered me and my sarong in sand and when i'd shaken my sarong down and dusted myself clean, they came back to do it all over again. Don't you just love 'em?
Photo to follow.

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