At 4 am, a loud thud woke me up. I then heard laughter. Luke, an English backpacker, fell off the hammock outside drunk. Ludo, the Italian, pushed him off the hammock. They were both drunk. I asked myself, how did I fall into this group?
Well, it all started when I met this English couple named Will and Daisy, both 19. They both asked me to join them and to come to the beach. They asked gently and patiently and somehow convinced me to come. I felt like a grumpy old man inside, not really wanting to hang out with kids - who were going to get drunk and wasted and do nothing else. I just wanted to read. But I liked them. So, I went with them to the beach with our Indonesian guide, who we named: "Mr. Happy."
On the ride to the beach, I met some Brits. bunch of British people. This place is crawling with the English. One of the people in our group was a girl named Lauren - a Scottish lass. She had red hair and a cheery face.
I liked her accent. I liked it so much that I kept making fun of it. I told her, "I know all about Scotland. It's cold and dark and dreary."
She asked, "And where did you learn this from?"
"Game of Thrones. In the show, it always says winter is coming in Scotland."
"And what else do they say?"
"That there's ghosts and castles and its cold."
She laughed.
"And you have to wear fur, when you go outside. The show also says that red haired people are kissed by fire."
She laughed again, "Are we really now?"
"Yeah. That's what the show says."
"Let me tell you something: Game of Thrones is not National Geographic!" It took a few seconds for it to register. Then, I did something, I don't remember doing in awhile. I just started laughing and laughing.
Her humor pierced through my heavy shield of past suffering and cast away the dreary and buried spirit of gloominess. Something understood.
That day, we just spent on the beach. I ran an hour on it. It felt good.
In the evening, we ate at the night market. I had frog legs and rice. The frog legs were quite small; so, it was like eating a small fish with way too many bones and not enough flesh.
They went out to party. I went to sleep.
The next day someone scheduled a tour to see the monkey temple - where apparently monkeys run around everywhere; the waterfall; and the rice fields. They asked if I wanted to go. Did I really want to?
Might as well go - I thought.
But on the paper, I saw my name on the paper already. Someone had already made the decision for me to go.
I asked the group, "Who put my name on the paper?"
"Lauren did."
"Did she now?" What a cheeky girl. I thought.
The next day we toured a waterfall, a rice field, and a temple in the jungles where many monkeys lived. Nothing that special happened, except a monkey tried to bite Daisy. One climbed up on me and tried to pull my necklace off. No wonder why they call them cheeky monkeys.
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| Kuta Beach, Bali Indonesia |
On the ride to the beach, I met some Brits. bunch of British people. This place is crawling with the English. One of the people in our group was a girl named Lauren - a Scottish lass. She had red hair and a cheery face.
I liked her accent. I liked it so much that I kept making fun of it. I told her, "I know all about Scotland. It's cold and dark and dreary."
She asked, "And where did you learn this from?"
"Game of Thrones. In the show, it always says winter is coming in Scotland."
"And what else do they say?"
"That there's ghosts and castles and its cold."
She laughed.
"And you have to wear fur, when you go outside. The show also says that red haired people are kissed by fire."
She laughed again, "Are we really now?"
"Yeah. That's what the show says."
"Let me tell you something: Game of Thrones is not National Geographic!" It took a few seconds for it to register. Then, I did something, I don't remember doing in awhile. I just started laughing and laughing.
Her humor pierced through my heavy shield of past suffering and cast away the dreary and buried spirit of gloominess. Something understood.
That day, we just spent on the beach. I ran an hour on it. It felt good.
In the evening, we ate at the night market. I had frog legs and rice. The frog legs were quite small; so, it was like eating a small fish with way too many bones and not enough flesh.
They went out to party. I went to sleep.
The next day someone scheduled a tour to see the monkey temple - where apparently monkeys run around everywhere; the waterfall; and the rice fields. They asked if I wanted to go. Did I really want to?
Might as well go - I thought.
But on the paper, I saw my name on the paper already. Someone had already made the decision for me to go.
I asked the group, "Who put my name on the paper?"
"Lauren did."
"Did she now?" What a cheeky girl. I thought.
The next day we toured a waterfall, a rice field, and a temple in the jungles where many monkeys lived. Nothing that special happened, except a monkey tried to bite Daisy. One climbed up on me and tried to pull my necklace off. No wonder why they call them cheeky monkeys.
Sounds awesome - met a few people who did the monkey temple thing and they all reported primate theft attempts too! Sometimes you gotta get out there with strangers and have some fun! Best thing I did in Thailand was hire some motor scooters with an American guy called Jordan and basically drove them to the end of the road on the island we were on, stopping to see old wharves, fishing villiages and paths that went nowhere.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great comment. I wasn't expecting to meet people. I was looking for a quite time to read and write. Didn't really happen.
ReplyDelete