Koh Chang, Thailand

11/29/16 

Wake up ass early. So proud. Mototaxi to bus to bus to truck taxi to boat. See the Pacific from the other side of the world for the first time, at sunset. Put Beyonce in and almost cry to one of the most intense sunsets I've ever seen. Dark masses of islands draw closer and closer. Another truck taxi. Background – some Tinder girl has already told me I can stay at the resort she works at – to which I'm the one who is sketched out and wants to meet her first. Sit down for food and wifi. She is working across the street and comes by immediately. Name's Nida. In ten minutes talk of ecstasy comes up, in a her: “Oh no I did ecstasy last night” and in a me: “You have ecstasy??” sort of way. She reluctantly says “...Yes.” Without much further talk it is assumed between the two of is I will be staying at her place, and without question takes me to her bungalow resort, of which she has her own bungalow and bed and a pool right outside. Within an hour of being on an island I found: Free nice bed, drugs, girl. Thanks, Tinder. 

Hang out for a while talking and smoking. Go to “Ting Tong Bar.” Open barefoot bar. Cover band is playing. I non-ironically love this band. Thai guy can sing “Take On Me” like a mufucker and guitarist can shred some Cheap Trick. After the same band every night is the House DJ. Eat drugs. Meet her babe friends. Half hour. I'm swimming in air sound. The bar is heavy and melting around me. I'm too heavy to dance. Smoking and drinking. She is holding my hand and scooting closer. My arm is around her sweaty back. Her hands are cold so I wipe them across my face. Press them to my neck. Mmmmm drugs. Convince her to dance. Biggest dumbest smile on my face while cheersing and talking to every bro and find them fascinating. Meet her friend – hot ass Belgian dude with horribly dumb gigantic baggy hippie pants. Sup? She is cold, somehow. I say “ohhhh well maybe we should go back to your place to get a hoodie we can come right back riiiiiight” she says “ohhhhh yeah sure what a good idea riiiiight.” Go back to her place. I'm going down on her. She's going down on me – nothing. I say “Can't fuck on drugs sorry let's go back to bar riiiiiiggghht” she's like “haha okay riiiiiiight.” Go back to bar. Eat more drugs. Repeat same scene. Pass out.

11/30/16

Wake after not really sleeping. Finally am able to cum. Shows me around town. Each town on the island is a different “Beach.” This one called “Lonely Beach.” This is the “Party Beach” where there is your typical island tank top flip flop bro scene every night until sunrise. The town is made up of a main road, and two dirt roads coming off of it, and every structure is a bar, hotel, or tattoo shop. Rent motobike and drive to waterfall. I pay $6, she pays $1. Sit and talk for a while about culture, social norms, politics, etc. Says so many of her friends live in city and are so consumed with work, looking good, not doing anything that could make them look stupid, fitting into their roles, etc etc etc. Confirms there is a “meak, shy, passive” thing so prominent in her culture with females. Says here on the island people are less concerned with all this and prioritize having fun. Follows this with telling me she is moving tomorrow morning to Chang Mai because she needs change after three years and has a bit of a drug problem. Legit. Oh, also doesn't care about the king being dead! The only person I've talked to so far that hasn't almost broke down in tears while talking about the king.

Meet her friends from last night at the party Kevin (incurably sweet Dutch guy) and his girlfriend Golf (Thai with body that looks airbrushed) for beach sunset drinks. Follow this with going back to the same bar. No drugs, but I get drunk. Same awesome cover band. Same shitty house music. She is super sad because she is leaving tomorrow after three years. Saying bye to everyone. I'm some random dude by her side as she is giving heartfelt life long goodbyes. Weird. Belgian guy says bye and apparently wispered “I love you” into her ear to which she is super freaked out about. Nice hot bros got those closet ghosts. Bang. Pass out.

12/1/16

Wake. She leaves at 6am. I stay in her bed and sleep until noon. Second girl to leave me at 6am while they trust me to sleep in their bed. Had a bunch of earlier Tinder conversations so I go shopping. Meet the girl who works at the cafe across the street from Ting Tong Bar. Sit and talk for a bit over breakfast. Has been there for fourteen years. Jesus. Cute but sort and distant and distracted and dare I say – jaded after fourteen years. Rent scooter. Check into shitty hostel on another beach. Go and meet girl working in bar five miles down on North end of beach. Get hollered at by gaggle of girls working at the bar. Uh oh. This is a set up. Sit down with girl. Tall, skinny, Buddhist tats, perfect face. Beautiful. I'm high on Adderall. Ask her a million questions, of which she has one or two words answers to each. Play a game of pool. She destroys me. Buy her a drink. Sit and talk more. Cut the shit. Ask her “So, did you tell me to come here because you thought I was cute, or because you wanted a customer?” She says, “both.” Honest enough. I ask her about her former jobs. She says, “Carpet installation in Bangkok” – wow. Ask her about her future. She says, “working on the farm my parents own” (it's not a choice, it's definite). Ask her about all the old dudes and young girls and how that happens “Hope for love.” Ask her about if she likes all the tourism and guys coming here looking to get laid. She essentially says, “Yes.” I have nothing else to say at this point. She wants me to stay. I literally don't even know what I would do. I buy her one more drink, pay my expensive tab, etc. The one thing I never asked her and totally didn't think of and regret asking now is, “So, how often do you fuck your clientele, and how does that work?” A dangerous and slippery slope, Thailand.

Last date. Pick up girl named Tacky from work on scooter at 10:45p whose profile is all smiling adorable photos, a big American flag, and a line that says “just looking for friends.” I say, “great, I'll make a friend, explain to her how shitty the USA actually is, and go home. Sounds like a lovely evening.” I pick her up. She wants to go to the other big party bar across from “Ting Tong Bar” called “Himmel Bar.” Great. Go there where she meets her friends. So fucking loud. Zero way to talk. I don't want to party. I buy a bucket of booze to attempt to party. I'm exhausted from the last two nights. Belgian guy who was in love with Some Russian comes up to me and has the following conversation with me. Him: “How old are you like 33?” Me: “30” Him: “Are you on drugs?” Me: “No.” (well yes if you count adderall) Him: “You look creepy.” Me: “Thanks.” Fucking weird ass Russians none of the Thai people I've met like them and they are fucking everywhere.

Sit down with girl and map, she shows me nice places to go, explains to me she is moving to Chicago to nanny for a year as of a few weeks from now, I explain to her she is going to have the worst best time of her life, I buy another bucket of whiskey coke, we get hammered, all the songs are Top 40 songs and we are both singing to every song, she is telling me she hasn't been drunk in over a month and is now hanging on me, I'm high on Adderall so I feel nothing and don't care. Close the bar, 4am, laying side by side on pillows, she is tanked, I'm still on Adderall so I'm a super human, she asks me where I'm staying, I tell her hostel, she tells me she shares a room, I say okay let's find a room around here, stumble up and down the dirt roads for a while, find an entire Bungalow for $7 which is cheaper than my shitty hostel (note: when traveling and need to find a cheap good room just go to a bar in the area and ask). Incredibly sloppy drunk bang. Pass out.

12/2/16

Wake up. Super hangover no sleep shit bang. Drop her off at work on my scooter. Go for scooter ride. Go south to waterfall. They want $3. Fuck you charging for waterfalls. I take off on scooter bumping Drake and weaving through traffic. Get to other side of island which has way less traffic. Flying down winding roads bordered by rubber trees and an ocean. Go all the way to very southern tip of island called “Lonely Beach.” Nobody on beach. Sit and lay on beach for an hour. Watch crabs scurry back and forth and a lone black herring bob by me pasing the shores. Corona commercial type peace. Get on waterfall and make it back to my hostel in an hour (going sooo fast sooo fun ahhhhh).

Check out of hostel. Bring my shit to the bungalow. Hang out in my porch hammock and wait for Tacky. Go to pick her up. Wait on same steps at same time and smoke same cigarette and wait the same 15 minutes she is late. Peace with the trees and ocean lights and no motors. Finding a bit of routine in the chaos of travel. So nice. She wants to get hammered again. Fucking being 24 years old fuck. Go to beach bar with glow paint. Cover each other in glow paint. Drink more buckets of booze. Dance to House. I'm not having it. We go back to my place. Good long drunk banging. Ah to be 24 years old. Pass out.

12/3/16

Wake. Good long hangover bang. Glow paint won't come out of pants. Drop her off for work. I walk down to a cafe on the water and have some serious existential me time. The cafe/car is just a deck on the water. The coffee is instant. There's a few bottles of beer behind a makeshift bar. The deck is old and bowing. The view is astounding. Sit in an old wooden chair and contemplate my life.

Revelation A) I can do anything with my life that I want. I can't keep moving forever. I need to start something again. I need a project. An establishment. A business. A non-profit. And it needs to be my own. Cafe/bar? Experiential art commune? Acid tour company? Just acid drug dealer in a beautiful place? We can do literally anything with our lives and that becomes the most apparent when you get out of whatever idealogical concentrated shit bubble you live in and have in part created for yourself. Listen to you at eighteen years old – do whatever you want forever and fuck everyone else.

Revelation A part II) Fuck Denver. I'm miserable almost all the time I'm there. Or even worse than miserable – apathetic and vacant. I fill my time with shit I make up I need to do. It's just a time filler of random jobs and tasks. I love the Tool Library, but hate just about every other aspect of it. I can't deal with it anymore. It's soulless, expensive, entitled, and flavorless. I'm out.

Go on a quick scooter ride to find some rivers and waterfalls. All the rivers are not super pretty and/or blocked off by fences so can't hike up them. Come back. Sit in bungalow hammock for a bit longer. Pick Tacky up from work. Go to both Beach Bar. Teach her dice games. Get Thai girl who has no idea what gambling is super into gambling (Cheeaaaa!!) Play random Europeans. Cute tiny Thai girl wins everyone's money (Cheeaaa!!). Go to Himmel. Dance to more Top 40. Drink three buckets. Watch bros dance on bar. One bro pulls his pants down in front of us so I shove him and he almost trips off a platform. See at least one girl I was talking to on Tinder mackin' on other white guys. What a funny island. Bang. Pass out.

12/4/16

Sweet goodbye to Tacky. What a cutey. Tell her I'll see her in Chicago or Colorado fo' sho'. Drop her off and return my sweet scooter. Wait for taxi with a rice, egg and pepper breakfast plate and a mind blowing delicious and huge fruit smoothie drink. Collective taxi to ferry to truck taxi. Some bro is all fucked up from what looks like a scooter wreck waiting to get to the hospital. Van to Cambodian border. Cue trombones from hell.

Immediately gaggle of dudes asking me where I'm going telling me the most expensive ways to get there. They are swarming around me while I go through border check one, where I meet some cool ass kid with headphones, who sees my passport and goes with a smile on his face “So... what do you think about trump?” I tell him, “He's the Devil.” He gives me a bunch of information about the cheapest way to where I'm going (Kampot). One of the flies from the gaggle comes and talks at me while I get to border checkpoint two. Some lady at a fold out table points a laser at me to take my temperature and charges me fifty sense. Then a guy in regular clothes takes my passport, some other guys sit me at a table, some other guy offers me a beer. I'm drinking a beer listening to another weezle looking guy explain to me there are no more buses and I need to take a taxi three hours to where I'm going and it is shared and he wants $50. I tell him no fucking way and to leave me alone and I'm going to take a moto taxi to the next town and spend the night there and find a bus in the morning. This guy won't shut the fuck up and I have five other guys in the meantime talking at me trying to get shit from me and I'm the only white person among a pack of Cambodian vultures. I'm telling offfering the dude $30 because if I'm to believe what he is saying the hotels in the town are expensive and the bus sucks and it's all lies but I don't know shit so there is a chance it's not a lie. The guy is making counter offers and I'm not playing and just ignoring the guy at this point. The rando visa guy is taking $40 now from me for my visa and I give him $60 and he walks away with it. At the same time the beer guy is walking away with my change and I'm yelling at him to give me my change back and the visa guy is trying to get me to go to a booth to get pictures and finger prints taken and I'm trying to watch my bags so none of these vultures peck through my shit. I get my fucking visa and walk away and then as the weasel guy is pulling out to drive I say “Hey fine $35 to Kampot” and get in his Lexus. I hate this dude but I just want to get to where I need to go. Classic white person move.

The guy shoves another person in the front seat of the car with me. Fucking asshole. I'm yelling at him that one of his selling points was it was more comfortable than a bus. He calms me down by buying me a beer. I'm just pissed and listening to my headphones. He drops me off in the middle of nowhere and tries to guilt me into giving him more money for his friend to pick me up and drive me to where I paid him to take me to which I say “Fuck no.” Friend picks me up. I'm so pissed. Drops me off at a hostel in Kampot. I have a beer and a cigarette and talk to Jeff on the phone. I love Jeff. Walk around a bit and get veggie dumplings to eat. I love veggie dumplings. Pass out at 10pm.