noodle quest 2006

we ended up staying in trat for the night as we were all to tired and lazy to do anything else. we went to a night food market for dinner and ate heaps of deliciou vegeatbes and spicy meat things with rice for $.50… good deal. in the morning we went for breakfast at one of wan chuk’s friends’ restaurant and then got on a super luxorious VIP bus with foot rests, televisios, and butlered drinks and snacks. when we got into bangkok, nat’s (a.k.a. wan chuk) girlfriend named Tuk met us at the bus station and we all went to Jao’s house by taxi. Jao lives with his friend Bee who is this kind of crazy spoiled little rich boy from singapore but who is half dutch half thai or somehting. they live in a three story townhouse and jess, nat, tuk and i got the top floor. after arriving we ate some food and then went to jao’s favorite bar called the witch’s tavern which is an american-esque type of dive with the heinously overpriced drinks (5$) which were rectafied by the super cute thai band which was almost negated by a mostly terrible line-up of american un-favorites they were crooning, which was salvaged only by the silliness of the friends we were with. all in all a good time.
the next day we woke up ready to shop. the thai’s went bowling (i think this was the most excerise they ever got- every one was sore and tired later that day) and we went to the patunam market. [read on]

i am still f-ing here. unbelievably, we went shopping again today. i can’t really explain how this makes me feel in printed word as the only way my pain can accurately be expressed is through violent howls and shaking sobs and maybe a little hair-pulling, and eye-scratching for good measure. it’s not like we are buying new stuff everyday (i mean, not major stuff…. aaaaaaaaagh!) it’s just that all of the clothes we are having made have to be fitted 400 freaking times and then when you go back to fit them sometimes they convince you to make something else. i’m not yet ready to discuss the amount of clothes i have bought. sometimes at night, jess and i lay them out silently on our beds. once and a while we laugh about it but usually we feel great shame and change the subject. we watched gothica on hbo the other night and screamed very loud. my tolerance for being hassled by vendors and well just about everyone on the street is wearing thin. it is becoming difficult to keep perspective of why these people need to be so persistent in their hassling instead of feeling apathetic towards constant cat callings of “you buy something, my shop!” the two most common calls are 1. women who follow you down the street who start by “hello” then, “where you from” then “you come take look in my shop!” (not a question). repetitions of “no thank you” fall on deaf ears and at this time in our stay in shopping town it is hard to add the “thank you” to the end of the “no!” i often feel like i am seen as a walking atm here. of course there are many people who make up for this, locals and travelers alike. Yu, a young girl we met in an art gallery (where jessie bought i think 1,200 peices of art) was super cute and nice and Alexandre, a turkish friend that i met and hung out with a bit while jess was sick and again with jess today for brunch was also a very nice and warm friend to have in this sea of craziness. other thoughts: today i have so many mosquito bites that my leg looks deformed. everytime we go to the cloth market i see three rats. pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don’t let a rat come too close to me. i would eat 3 cockaroaches before i touch a rat. it is going to cost me mad loot to send my pruchases home… gnite.

hello friends, good news... JESSIE LIVES! yesterday she was feeling a bit woozy in the morning but somehow had it in her to do a 12 hour day of shopping and today seems completely healed. i really hope this ... [Continue reading this entry]

hellllllllo! we took the nighttrain which was very cool and arrived in hoi an at around 11:30 in the morning. since then we have been eating delicious food and shopping our brains out. so much so, in fact, ... [Continue reading this entry]