The Thai islands

Getting of the boat at 5am on the island of Koh Tao last week we had no idea where we were going or how to get anywhere and it was pitch black and the city was asleep and it may have been the only time we'd arrived anywhere in Thailand without throngs of people offering us hotels and taxis and guesthouses and exotic foods and massages and as we were walking what we could only assume to be the main drag a drunk native told us to beware of the tigers and dragons and we had put ourselves in this situation because Nate and I especially are incredibly cheap (I like to describe it more as having a discerning eye for value) and we had saved a few dollars by taking the night boat instead of the faster, more reliable morning boat that gets you to the island at a respectable time and amidst all of this uncertainty we meet Adam, the only American we have seen so far in Asia, a very well-prepared college grad from Missoula, Montana, toting with him the holy grail of travel literature to the congenitally under prepared likes of the three of us, the Lonely Planet Thailand Guidebook.
So, after a little walking, we found a place to stay for $4 a night right near the beach, and then spent the next week traveling with Adam all over Koh Tao, from the tourist geared beach of Hat Sai Ree, to the opposite side of the island, Hat Tanote, where we shared a desolate beach with maybe 20 other people.
I hold a small level of disdain for the gigantic all-consuming guidebook, but I would be lying if I said it didn't help us out quite a bit while it was in our possession. We never would have made the hour trek across the island through the jungle and up the sheer cliffs and down the other side to find Tanote, but in the end it was the most enjoyable part of our journey so far.
I convinced Kinsey to swim in the ocean by telling her there were no dangerous sea creatures lurking just beneath her and waiting to attack, and about ten minutes later I was attacked by a very mischievous and pissed off crab that latched itself onto my head and did not want to let go. We also were the only customers at a beautiful restaurant high on the hill overlooking Tanote beach where we ate the best food we've had so far and then proceeded to somehow get trapped into a game of dress up that "Momma", the proprietor, drunkenly insisted on. So we put on wigs and cowboy hats and I was forced to wear a hideous cat mask, and then Momma took a bunch of pictures of us. It all seemed very creepy for a while and we thought we may have stumbled into a horror movie, but once she started giving us free alcohol we realized she was just drunk and a little bit bored and lonely since the tourist season was in a lull. So we placated her for a while, posing in preposterous ways and taking pictures for half an hour, and she rewarded us with free scotch. In my mind, a very fair trade.
So after a week in Koh Tao relaxing and reading and eating and drinking and playing a lot of cribbage and rummy and hearts, we parted ways with Adam as he went back to the mainland and we travelled on by boat (a ride that both Kinsey and I threw up on) to Koh Samui.
We decided to bypass Koh Phangan, the middle island, as there was a Full Moon Party (if you don't know what this is, google it - I'm looking your way Mom) tonight, and Kins, Nate and I weren't really in the mood for it. The good thing about the party is that it took a good amount of the people who were vacationing on Koh Samui and deposited them in Koh Phangan, so now we have what is normally a rather busy and rowdy island to ourselves and the few other travelers looking for a peaceful time.
So that's where we are right now, and we'll be here for two more days until we catch a boat back to Surat Thani on the mainland. From there we'll catch a bus to take us all the way down into Malaysia before the 15th, as Nate's visa expires then, and we chose rather than paying for visa extensions or border hopping just to jump back into Thailand, to just continue south through Malaysia and onto Singapore and Indonesia. It looks like Kins will survive with us for another couple weeks, and then she'll probably take a train to Singapore and fly back to Houston from there, as it's much cheaper than Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur.
On a side note, we have all developed this amazing ability to attract dogs of varying size and demeanor to follow us everywhere we go, whether we encourage them or not. It's gotten to the point where we have to deliberately pay no attention or even be mean to them to get them to leave us alone. Not that we don't all love dogs, but it's getting us into situations where we feel like we have to take care of them, and a lot of these dogs belong to other people and when we leave, as we invariably do, it puts the animals into difficult and sometimes dangerous situations.
On another side note that only one or two of you will care about, even from Asia I am winning my fantasy football league by two games, and I haven't even seen a game since I left.
On a very final side note Kinsey and I woke up at 6am last Wednesday morning to watch seven straight hours of election coverage over a few Chang's and some of Thailand's best "blended spirit", Hong Thong. It was a very exciting day for us, and it was remarkable to see how many Thai people were concerned with the outcome. Over the last week we've spoken to people from all over the world and when we tell them we are American the first thing every one of them talks about is Obama. There is enormous support for Obama all across the world, and we are all beginning to understand how big a role America plays in the lives of people whose countries we know little about, and about whose politics we know even less.
Love to all, and with no malicious intent towards McCain supporters, let me quote my good friend Tyler Romes and say...
Barrack me Obamadeus
B

Since Tokyo

After meeting up with Nate, we all spent a week in Bangkok and met some great people both staying in our hostel and running the art gallery two doors down from us. We went to markets and ate great food and walked for days and days and at the point where it was a little hectic we decided to leave the big city for the country, or rather the jungle. We took a train to Kanchanaburi, then walked for a couple miles, caught a bus for an hour or so, drank a beer and finally hired a man who had a truck to take us six miles up a mountain where we found the Shanti Farm, run by a small family of five (Wan Pen, Mr. Hey, Nat and her two kids Bang and Ben) who we spent the next three days with, doing little more than eating and exploring the surrounding temples and jungles and monkeys chained to shrines.
After the farm we got a free ride down the mountain from a nice man then took the bus back to Kanchanaburi where we spent the next four days at a guesthouse directly on the River Kwai. We had planned to stay there one night as a transfer point back to Bangkok, but we were all too relaxed too often to motivate ourselves to leave. So we spent most of our time reading and eating and walking and then reading again and then avoiding the monsoons which came in every night near dusk.
Right now we're in Bangkok for the last time, staying at a hotel near the train station as we leave tomorrow at 1pm toward Chumphon, where we catch an overnight boat to Koh Tao to spend the next couple weeks living on the islands (Koh Tao, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan) off the eastern coast of Thailand.
Sorry that we haven't posted more pictures, as Kins stated below we're having a hard time with our memory card and Thai computers, but we'll try to post more soon.
Love to all,
B