Well, it had to happen… and tonight is my last night on Koh Phangan, which starts a bit of a mini-vacation for me. One night on Samui, two nights in Bangkok, then I fly back to America.

It was sort of strange when I was done writing the book. I spent another day spell-checking it, reading the last stuff I had written once again, then prepping the files for lulu.com, so I could give it one last read before finally letting friends read it. So, lulu has my draft, and I should have a hardcover version of the book shipped to me shortly after my return.

The inght I finished the book, I rode my rented bicycle as far as I ever have up the west coast of Phangan, to Ananda, a restaurant linked to a yoga retreat. I had this amazing tofu dish, with brown rice, and the part that sticks out is how I’d never had a dish with such a pronounced celery flavor cutting through it. I have to admit, my food bias was ringing through that night, as I had something closer to what I would eat in California, and it did feel like the best meal I’ve had here.

Tangent: I wasn’t as impressed with the food on this trip. And I wish I’d found Ananda sooner, since it was bike-able, unlike the Sanctuary (more on that below), which requires a taxi to Haad Rin and a boat taxi to complete the journey. I had good meals, but it was almost like you could go to any resort and order food, and it would taste the same, since they would use the same green curry paste. However, with a food processor, you could so easily dump the ingredients for green curry paste and have it at the ready in five minutes, so it is strange to feel that I’m eating canned Thai food. Sort of like if I went to Italy and, behind an homestyle Italian restaurant, saw jars of Prego in the trash.

The other factor here is that differentiation would give you *so* much bang for your buck. If I’d found a place grinding their own pastes, and even moreso if they would grind me a vegan paste, I would have gone there more often and paid more for every meal, gladly. But similar to people selling the same items from store to store, the food follows suit. I did notice that Ananda says all of their curries do not include fish sauce, which means they’re grinding their own or found a veggie paste. Since they run veggie cooking classes (I found this out too late to take one, since they are only on Sundays), my guess is grinding. But I think if you grind pastes, people would eat a meal there, get blown away, and when they went to other places, with the jarred pastes, they’d not waste their time again straying away. I look forward to going to eat at the restaurant connected to SITCA on Samui tomorrow, where I took classes last time. I don’t need to take a class and grind my own stuff, though, they can do it for me. Even better if they have paste without fish sauce, but that’s setting the bar high. End tangent.

The next day after finishing the book, I had this strange feeling come over me, which was that I was in Thailand and all of this amazing stuff was available to do. Seriously, this is when it really hit me that I was in Thailand as a tourist, which is appropriate, since it was the first day I felt available to roam around and be one. Heh. Coupled with that feeling was another small voice saying ‘get me home already,’ which I ignored.

The day after that, I spent an afternoon at The Sanctuary, which is where I stayed last time I was on Phangan for a few days, and mainly for the Full Moon Party. As much as I like a place dedicated to veggie food, health, and yoga, for whatever reason, I got the same vibe as last time. It just has this sort of hipster vibe that I can’t digest easily.

Last time, I attributed that feeling to being on Samui in a more Thai environment for so long, a quiet bungalow on the beach, quiet, not as many tourists, and mostly Thai people around me. So, to go from that to a place where it is all white people, and a throbbing dance track permeating everything, and the long haired guys all pulled back into ponytails, with the scruffy faces, and everyone smoking cigarettes, it just never feels like the way I want to experience Thailand. But this time, I was just there for the afternoon, so swimming and veggie food was fine. But considering where I’m staying is about as non-traditional as can be here, with all clean white rooms, and very “California,” as the resort owner next door calls it, it does seem like I just don’t like the vibe of The Sanctuary, irregardless of where I stay beforehand.

On the way back from The Sanctuary, I took a taxi home. The guy who helps the taxi driver is someone I talked to before, his name is Kang, and he is a cute gay boy here. To be clear, by boy I mean he’s 31. So, he sees me and jumps out of the taxi and asks if I’m going home, and I am, so he jumps in back with me and two other tourists and we chat te whole way.

By the time we get to my stop, he tells her to keep driving, and we go all the way to Thong Sala, so that we can jump on his family’s motorcycle and he drives me back to the resort. And, he’s sort of been here ever since. Yesterday, we took a boat trip around the island together, although we got rained out of the best parts, although the tour guide made sure we had the right number of stops and all, so no one cried refund, but the swimming on a great beach and snorkeling up north were both changed to less desirabe places on the east coast. Of course, it was all just fun to be touring around, and not staying on the resort writing.

After our tour, we went for Indian food, which Kang never had before. So, I got him the sampler plate, since I don’t know the good meaty Indian dishes. He’s off now getting his young cousin (not sure of the family tree exactly, but like a 2-year-old girl) and she’ll come swimming with us in the pool for a bit, then we’ll have dinner at Phangan Beach, then we’ll go to the Half Moon Party together, which is sort of my last hurrah on Phangan.

Tomorrow, I wake up and go to Samui in the late morning. Tomorrow night, I see some of the shows at the gay clubs, which should be fun seeing as I met many of the performers hanging out the afternoon I was on Samui. Of course, if I have it figured out right, Britney Spears should be on Samui now… so, will I run into her, or maybe some of her dancers at the gay clubs? We’ll see…

There were times when I expected I wouldn’t be able to write this message, that I’d get to tout the progress I made, but fall short of the goal. But then, in the past few days, something happened… the work permeated. I didn’t want to read as much, swim as much, or do anything as much as I wanted to live in the world of my novel.

So, I’m happy to report that, tonight, I finished the fourth draft.

Since I love caveats, I will point out that there’s still another day of work to do on the book, since the usual pattern each day is to review the work done the previous day and then start into the next portion. So, tomorrow, I will read what I did today, tweak it a bit, but then, when I finish that, there is no next portion to start.

It’s a strange elation to be at this point. And, to be fair, it seems hard to believe.

The reason I’m in Thailand is to be out of my element, to not have routine, or a common language, so that I can break through useless rules that have built up when I’m in a more familiar setting. That has certainly been the case.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been living in three alternating worlds. One is Thailand itself, and just sorting out getting supplies, cooking, eating out, and swimming. The second is the world of my novel. And the third is the alternating world of the different novels I read while I was here (see previous post for capsule reviews of those).

As none of the three worlds is my usual setting, it is still surreal to finish the fourth draft. It’s sort of like when I would work on my novel at 4 a.m. back when I was unemployed the last time. I would wake up in the middle of the night, and work on the book, then after 2 hours or so, I’d go back to bed. When I woke up, my first thought was that I needed to work on the book, only to remember that, no, I already had.

That’s how I feel now, without any sort of grounding, it still feels like ‘Did I really finish it?!’ I mean, I rarely know what day of the week it is. I tell time by the sun most of the time (the sun hits the pool at 9 a.m., I can work on the porch until 2 p.m., then the sun hits me, the sun goes down around 6 or so). And, aside from that, I have no routine here. So, it could be any time day or night on any day of the week, and I just shrug and work. If I wasn’t working on my book, I’d be reading novels in 100-page-in-one-sitting chunks. Many times, I would work on the book, cross-legged on the bed, and when I went to get up, my legs were all tight like I’d been sitting here for hours, which as far as I know I was. Time is amazingly shapeless here, hours can be fast or slow, and you just sort of chill out and watch how it all changes.

And everything was so easy. Like, today, knowing there was a good chance I’d finish the draft, I would be in the middle of an exciting chapter and my mind would think it’d be nice to go swimming. So, mid-chapter, I’d just go swimming for a half hour, come back, and pick right up without even scrolling back a paragraph. I just hit pause, went away, came back, and went right back into what I was doing, as I was in mid-edit. So, I was definitely in ‘the zone’ as they say.

Of course, I am naturally skeptical of things being easy, so I will not print this draft up for others to read until I can give it another scan once I’m back in America and out of my schedule-free, tropical utopia.

The good news is that I still really like the book. I think all of the improvements of this draft make the book are much tighter, solid read. The fourth draft started with 98,741 words and is now down to 86,705, I’m not sure if that’s it’s final fighting weight, but it is much leaner and flows better now. And, unlike last time, it actually has the right ending on it now.

And, the upside is that I actually have a week in Thailand now to be something new: an actual tourist. It’s time to take the working out of working vacation.

Figure I should document my reading while in Thailand, which has been rather extensive, just to remember the details and my impressions of the books.

When I am writing, I’m reading. The two are inseparable to me now, despite thinking the two couldn’t exist at the same time at one point.

I thought I may have brought too many books initially, but as it turns out I’ve torn through more than I thought possible. Here’s the breakdown:

Then We Came To The End, by Joshua Ferris
This was the first book I read on the vacation, since I knew it was about corporate America and layoff culture, as a team of people sit around watching as one person after another get called into the office and leave the building. Fun stuff, and a good one to kick off the reading extravaganza.

Catfish and Mandala, by Andrew Pham
This is about a Vietnamese guy who returns to the homeland he and his family left after the Vietnam war, and his bike trip around the country and he tries to reconnect with his roots and the life he left years ago. Good stuff, interesting read, and also helps for whatever reason that all of the action takes place ‘next door’ in Vietnam.

Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre
This is an interesting book, although I do have a slight issue with books that seem not to take place in reality. Like, he’s considered a potential accomplice to a school shooting that leave his friend and many others dead, but his actions don’t line up with that. His mother and friends seem to not care about the tragedy or his involvement, the cops don’t seem to want his side of the story, and as a result it all seems off. But worth a read.

Bangkok 8, by John Burdett
This was a great choice, given the Thailand setting and it being just a straight forward thriller with an interesting case. The touches of Thai culture were nice, as was the contrast with the Thai Buddhist police officer working with the Western counterparts, and each at odds with the others method of investigating crime, based on their different cultures. Easy, fun, worthwhile read. Highly recommended.

Clown Girl, by Monica Drake
Strap in for this one, it’s quite a ride. When I started reading this, I wasn’t sure I’d like it. It just seemed so off the wall, crazy, and taking place in a parallel universe that only seemed like our reality, that I didn’t know if I wanted to spend time in this world or whether Drake could pull this crazy book off. The answer to both ended up being yes. From religious balloon tricks, missing rubber chickens (for which she puts up lost chicken posters around town and offers a reward), this is a book that needs to be experienced to be understood. Drake’s fearless voice pushes through, and really makes you glad you read it. Drake studied with Chuck Palahniuk in Tom Spanbauer’s workshops, and you can see some of that influence here.

The Book of Revelation, by Rupert Thomson
A male dancer is kidnapped and forced to be the sexual slave of three hooded women for 18 days. The writing is blunt and beautiful, and even though the story is unconventional, you’re never bored the whole time in a richly realized book.

Lisey’s Story, by Stephen King
I saw Stephen King on book tour for this, and for some reason had it in my head this was a somewhat conventional book, and a love story. I have no idea why I would think such a thing, as this book is pretty out there by any standard. I always love King, though. For whatever reason, you just get the sense that he loves telling stories, no matter how off the rails they might seem to be.

The Breakdown Lane, by Jacquelyn Mitchard
This book infuriated me for a strange choice made by the publisher. The book is about a disease that isn’t revealed for 124 pages. But for whatever reason, the ackowledgments from the author appeared before the text for the book, in which she thanked people for their help researching the disease, which she names. So, the whole first third of the book, as the character is trying to figure out why things are happening to her, if you read the ackowledgments you knew the answer, robbing it of any mystery. Beyond this, I didn’t really connect to this book. The book was also written in two voices, but they seemed to similar to me. And the epilogue mentions things that try and turn what you just read on its head, I’m guessing, although by that point, I could only shrug.

This Book Will Save Your Life, by A.M. Homes
Wow, I know this book won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it certainly was mine. Just a blunt, subtle delight of a story. When you have blurbs from Stephen King and John Waters, you know you’re in strange territory, but the book delivers. It’s a simple story with some crazy scenarios, but for whatever reason it works, and this was definitely my favorite book of the trip.

Gutterboys, by Alvin Orloff
Since I’m on an island without a gay scene, I figure I should bring one all-out gay book, and I just saw Orloff perform recently in SF before my departure, and enjoyed him immensely, so I brought Gutterboys along. He didn’t disappoint. Set in New York City at the height of New Wave, this book was a fun trip of unrequited love, bohemian living, and great observations.

Snark, by David Denby
This is actually a non-fiction book about snark, and how it is pervading our culture with negative ramifications. I have said that Facebook has surfaced some snark in me, which I do not find desirable, so I wanted to explore the roots of snark, and see exactly where the borders are with its more desirable cousins, irony and satire, so I am better prepared to not cross them. It’s a small tome, but I’m guessing not something most people would run out and read. Certainly interesting, though.

The books I have left for my remaining week and a half on Thailand are:
– Brief History of the Dead, by Kevin Brockmeier
– Being Dead, by Jim Crace
– Remainder, by Tom McCarthy
– Excuses Begone, by Wayne Dyer
– Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
– Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh

The latter three are coming back to San Francisco with me, so I’m reading those last. The others are not huge books, so I should finish them up before departing Phangan.

I thought I brought too many books at first, and that I was overly ambitious to drag this many on the plane, but it worked out great. Some I liked more than others, but no regrets, which is the best you can hope for… so I’m coming home with a heavier brain and lighter luggage.

Woke up today and the sky was blue, instead of what has become our usual cloudy and threatening, so decided it was time for a field trip. So, after my morning swim and tropical fruit salad, I took a taxi to Thong Sala, and got supplies for the afternoon. My first stop is the bakery, as I want to pack some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, as I think where I’m going is a bit off the grid and requires lunch in tow.

I’ve been to the bakery before, and know they have bread (obviously), and they sell homemade peanut butter and homemade jams, so this should be easy. So I look on the menu, expecting to order it directly, and it’s not there. I ask the girl behind the counter, and she looks confused, so the owner yells back for someone else to come out. A young guy comes out and asks what I’m trying to order, so I tell him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He looks confused. “What is jelly?” He asks, the word not coming out of his mouth sounding like a word at all.

Forgetting that they sell it there, I try to describe jelly, that it was sweet, could be made from strawberry or grape. He says, “Oh, it is like jam?” Bingo. So, once we’re on board that for all intents and purposes, jam is the same as jelly, we’re off and running again. “And you want to put peanut butter and jam on bread, as a sandwich?” This has never come up before? It just seems hard to believe.

I describe it to him, and he goes into the back. Finally, he comes out with four toasted pieces of bread (which I normally wouldn’t do for PB&J), and two ceramic clam shells, one with jam in it, one with peanut butter. “I didn’t want to do it wrong,” he says, “So, you can put it together, then I’ll wrap them up for you.” So, aside from the fact that the peanut butter in the clam shell is half what I’d normally put on one sandwich let alone two, I start assembling them. And the owner, the cashier, and the guy I’ve been dealing with, all stand in front of my table and watch me make this foreign delicacy. Crazy…

After that, I get two big bottles of water, and two cans of diet Coke, and pop them in my backpack with my PB&J, laptop, camera, and iPod. I head over to the motorbike taxi stand, and tell them I want to go to the Chinese Temple. Similar to my doing editing at Wat Khoa Tam, I figure I’ll work on the novel this afternoon at the Chinese Temple. So, despite paying more than it seems it should cost (150 baht), we’re off to the temple.

Echoing other elements of this trip, it seems strange that someone who doesn’t even have a bicycle in San Francisco because of safety concerns jumps on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet, and starts winding into the rainforest with his laptop and heavy bottles of water strapped on his back. But, seriously, it doesn’t even register as strange, you just sort of run with it. Also, just like I did for Full Moon Party, I’m trying to wear flip-flops as much as possible, since the locals seem to live in them and do everything in them, so even though in my head they aren’t motorcycle-riding gear, I wear them. It’s never an issue.

The mototrcycle driver leaves me off at the Chinese Temple, which is really in the middle of nowhere, although it seems like a reasonable hike to the beach on the north of the island from there. I think he’s more perplexed that I plan to stay there and leave him depart, since it is a bit out of the ordinary. If you wanted to cross this off your itinerary and feel you saw it all, that would probably take five to ten minutes.

Finally, he turns around and says he’ll wait for me. I tell him I’ll be here long time, four or five hours, too long to wait. He seems suspicious, like I don’t yet know how little there is to do here. Of course, what I plan to do here is in my backpack, this is just a backdrop.

What will I do when I’m done, he asks. I tell him I’ll walk to the pier, and get a ride back to Thong Sala. This doesn’t sit right with him, either. First I want to go where there’s nothing to do for a long time, then I plan to walk on the road, in the afternoon, to the pier that’s further away from the place I want to go to? “I’ll come back for you,” he says. I tell him he doesn’t need to, but he asks, “what time?”

I say I’ll be here until at least 4 or 5. It is shortly after 11:30 a.m. when this conversation is happening. I figure this will show him I really have planned to stay here most of the day. He says, “I pick you up at 4?”

Finally, I cave in and say, “Sure.” Part of me wonders if it’s the right thing to do, since I may not get up this way again, and never saw the beaches on the north side yet. But there is something nice about having a ride swoop in and grab me here later. He is as hesitant about this plan as he is of my entire day. “You sure? 4 o clock?” Yes, I’ll be here. “You promise?” Yes, 4 o clock. He finally comes over to shake on it. I shake his hand, and say “See you at 4.” He turns around and we’re both probably thinking it’s unlikely we’ll see each other again today. I think he’ll bail on me, because he still thinks there’s no way I’ll be at the temple this long.

The temple is nice, one of these crazy things that seem so perfect yet out of place. According to Lonely Planet, the temple gives people luck. And it was created about 20 years ago after a visiting woman had a vision of the Chinese Buddha who instructed her to build a fire-light for the island. So, in the middle of the jungle, there is now this colorful, inspirational place. I imagine someone seeing nothing but jungle here and turning it into something unique, a crude metaphor I extend to me coming there with my novel today.

I walk around, deciding where to perch for the afternoon. The actual temple seems too decadent for working on the novel.I decide to use the obvious place, some concrete tables and benches off to the side of the temple, which are also under a canopy of trees.

Either the book is getting better, or I’m too lenient, but I’m really finding I’m not editing as much as I thought I would. I mean, sure, there are whole sections getting changed, deleted, rewritten, and all of that, but structurally, it seems fine to me. This of course makes me suspicious, as my impulse is to think I’m being too soft in paradise rather than thinking the book might actually be shaping up. Who can tell… I just keep pushing ahead.

After three and a half hours, I am getting restless, and decide to walk down the road to the waterfall, which I think is close to the temple. I’ll just double back and get here before 4 p.m.

I walk for a bit, and see Wat Pa Saeng Tham, and decide to check it out, may as well see another temple in the jungle. This one’s a bit rustic, and looks like they’re in the process of rebuilding. A female monk greets me in English and takes me to what seems to be a meditation hall. She shows me how to bow three times before Buddha, and then invites me to see 30+ oil paintings around the open-air hall, showing Siddharta’s path to becoming the Buddha.

I keep double-taking on the altar, as there is what seems to be a mummified monk sitting in a glass cube on the right. I ask the monk, is he real? I know Koh Samui makes a big deal about having a mummified monk there. It’s even a star on the island map that says “mummified monk,” so it seems strange to find one randomly with no fanfare. She tells me that he built this wat, and tries to convey how being a mummy makes him even closer to nirvana, but that part’s sketchy for me.

I ask if we’re close to the waterfall, and she says something in Thai, another monk comes out and points up the hill. That seems to be the direction I came from, and the waterfall is supposed to be further down the road, on the other side. He pantomines me going up and over this hill, then says “30 minutes.” I thank him, but can’t imagine a waterfall is in my future. After more temple fragments here and there, and a flight of stairs helping you traverse a hill, I am back at the Chinese Temple. I figure that’s a sign, so I forgo the waterfall, restart my Macbook Air, and do some more work on the novel.

At 3:40, my driver returns and whisks me back to Thong Sala. I decide I’m way overdue for eating durian, so I pick one up from one of my regular fruit stands. She gets the durian started for me, but then packs it up in a bag, wrapped in newspaper, to protect me and everything else from its spiky exterior. Often described as “like eating an amazing gourmet custard in a sewer,” durian is an acquired taste. I keep debating whether I’ve acquired it, which is a really clear sign you haven’t. I buy a small one, since I’m eating it alone.

Once home, the small durian seems like a mistake, because the size of the stuff between the durian pods takes up a lot of space, and the pits within the durian don’t seem any smaller, so you mainly just get a lot less durian flesh for your baht. It also brings up how good any custard would have to be for you to endure eating it in what smells like a festering port-a-potty that’s filled and been out in the humid summer for a week. That said, I can appreciate why people eat it. It is unique, the strands of flesh that turn into pudding in your mouth.

I stop mourning my lack of edible durian, though, since I think I’m not on the acquired taste side of the house. I pack up the shell, pits, and everything else, and walk them out to the main road, not sure which bits may stink up my resort after the fact. I think I ate the part that smells awful, though. Eating durian warms your body, it’s a strange thing. And, as I walk to the garbage can on the main road, I feel my body drift, like the thing gave me a buzz, as well. Drunk on durian? Who knows?

Walking back from dumping the durian remains, I hear a constant thud on the ground. I see a guy standing in the field, holding a rope that goes up into the trees above him, and from the palm trees, green coconuts and being tossed down. It takes a beat to sort out that he has a monkey on a long leash, and its job is to toss the ripe coconuts down. The man seems bored beyond belief, looking up to make sure he doesn’t get hit, but otherwise looks like he can’t wait for this to be over. And it just seems wrong to work with a monkey and to be this bored. He really seems to have no role here. He’s not gathering the coconuts. His job is just holding the monkey’s leash. The monkey doesn’t throw them all down, either, so it seems like he knows what he’s doing up there.

I had a falafel craving today, but on my return to Thong Sala, the meditteranean place wasn’t open, so I went home. I decide to bike into town later, and all three places I know that serve falafel are all closed, so that seems strange. I have some basil, tofu stir-fry and call it a day without any falafel.

The ladies all know me by now (and by lady, I mean prostitute, that is the standard term here), since I ride my bike into town most nights. So I just get more waves and ‘hellos’ now, and less cries for sex and to take them home. You never know, though. The other night, three ladies ran out into the street ahead of my bike and did a Charlie’s Angel pose making fake guns with their fingers, trying to get me to stop. They don’t have any customers, may as well do something to break up the night.

Last night, at a different lady bar, about 8 ran out and formed a wall, blocking the entire lane from curb the dividing line, so I’d stop my bike, then the tallest one walks over to me and straddles my front wheel. I need to be careful, though, as this is one of the girls that I’m pretty sure is a ladyboy. So you can’t just say you’re gay and get out of it, if it’s a ladyboy. Some ladyboys, I’ve been told, are girls above the waist and boys below. Some are girls above and below the waist, although I have to question if the person in question has breasts and a fake vagina, how is that still a ladyboy? Just a lady at that point, no?

She wanted me to stay, have a drink, then she’d come home with me. I tell her no, I need to go, that I’m getting ready to go swimming. I immediately wonder why I’d mention swimming, which was my plan upon returning, as a late night skinny dip is probably not out of the question for a lady. She asks where I’m staying, and I tell her the name of the resort next door. They should be closed up by now, and the only obvious error here is they don’t have a pool, but I don’t think ladies come track you down anyway. The whole time I was in the pool, though, I kept imagining a dozen ladies and ladyboys showing up and jumping naked into the pool. I’d definitely see how well I clocked the ladyboys, if that happened. But, thankfully, it was just a quiet night, and I swam alone, under the stars.

I wake up abruptly at 7:30 a.m., as crazy oompah music echoes through the resort. The short song plays on endless loop. There is a man’s voice singing, then children singing the chorus with him. It can best be described, after numerous listens, as the perfect theme music for a Thai pedophile.

As this music wakes up me, despite my resistance, the Thai pedophile story plays out while I lay in bed and the music continues. His song can only be heard by the children. No adults can even hear it. The smart kids know to stay away. Other kids debate whether their life would be better or worse if they follow the music out of town, behind a man dressed like a clown (of course) whose baton thrusts into the air to accentuate the oompah beat.

When reality kicks in, I find out the music is coming from the nearby school. I decide to investigate. The street is chaos. Police and military have everything blocked off. They stop all the Thai people driving toward the chaos and ask them stuff as they pass on the road, but ignore me totally, so I pedal my bike past the checkpoint. It seems that every school in Koh Phangan is meeting nearby for some huge sporting event, which starts with a parade of all the schools and the students in elaborate costumes and uniforms.

The pedophile’s theme song was someone’s idea of keeping the crowd entertained while they waited for the parade to make it to the school from wherever it started. I learn later that the song’s lyrics are about coming together to play sports. I’m still suspicious. For the past two days, I’ve heard enthusiastic play-by-play bellowing from the school.

But this is normal for Thailand. Everything seems a bit unusual and often dangerous. Lawnmowers are a whirring, unprotected blade held up by two bicycle wheels. Three years olds stand up and hold the handlebars in front of their family on motorcycles, as many as four riding at the same time, with no one wearing helmets. Drunk tourists are enouraged to do the limbo under a flaming bar on the beach here. And there are signs for a flaming jumprope you can try, though I have yet to personally witness that in action yet.

Things are fine here. Been working more than touring, so the updates have been thin. Although there is stuff I need to check out on Phangan before I go. For the whole of July, I’ve had a bike on Phangan, although I typically only ride back and forth from Thong Sala. Been cooking more meals, although the gourmet intent has been abandoned. Instead I tend to have my tropical fruit salad for every breakfast, and then cook another meal in, usually corn on the cob or steam some fruit, and a vegan sausage. Some days, I’ll have both meals in, but usually I eat out for one meal, at least, at the resort next door for a quickie or, for variety, I go to the meditteranean place, or Karma House, which has some additional veggie options. There’s a nice Indian place on Haad Rin, but I don’t get there much.

I’m hooked on this new item that seems to only be around in the mornings. I don’t know what it even is, exactly. When you buy it, they are wrapped in banana leaf, I think, and come in pairs. The only English I get out of the vendors to describe the item is coconut, and there is some gelatinous young coconut/milky exterior, but then there’s a sweeter, dark center that I can’t identify. Whatever, it’s good stuff, and seemingly vegan.

It’s hard to figure out where the days go sometimes, with the writing, reading, swimming, and massages two or three times a week. It’s a very chill schedule. But night seems to come quicker than it should a lot of days.

In less than three weeks time, I’ll be home, so a lot of time here yet.

I’m enjoying the books I brought with me. No stinkers in the group yet. Although, it seems wrong to say, the book I still enjoy most is my own. I’m approaching the halfway point in the draft, some chapters stay intact and just get polished. Some get trampled, rewritten, or removed. It all seems a bit random. My goal is to ship this draft off to lulu for printing before I board the boat to Samui on the 31st. It’s definitely possible, we’ll see…

And to prove my case for the awful Thai pedophile song, here it is for your enjoyment (for my experience, put it in a loop for more than an hour):

01-theme-music-for-a-thai-pedophile1

Considering I rarely go out much in San Francisco, the irony isn’t lost on me that I’m staying in the party capital of Southeast Asia (according to the T-shirts). Last night was the famous Full Moon Party, and travelers going through all different corners of Asia descended on our little island for the traditional all-night beach rave in Haad Rin.

As I said previously, my last Full Moon Party was six years ago, and ended in a rejected marriage proposal and cuddling on the beach with Dae, explaining why I couldn’t bring him back to America with me and be his husband, through our drunken states and language barrier. So, I knew to ratchet down my expectations this time. In fact, I don’t think I would want it to be crazier than that night, heh.

I entered the beach near Cactus playing a “Kids” remix by MGMT, so I took a mental note that I knew I liked the music there already. I arrived around midnight, so the party was in full swing. The beach was loaded with day-glo drunks as far as you could see. It was hard just moving through the crowd.

I went south first, checking out the shorter patch of beach from where I entered, then went all the way north, stopping at every dance area to sample the music. There’s no evident gay area, yet, if there ever will be. Last time may have been a fluke, a boy jumping onto a stool as a beacon for everyone else. After that, our little haven may have been just as hard for anyone else looking, but once you were there, it was a tiny little gay club.

Of course, trying to find a gay vibe among drunk straight boys wearing bikini tops amid the gay-glo references their friends wrote on their backs is certainly a challenge. On top of that, all the country-specific gaydar adjusting, it’s near impossible.

I stay very buzzed the whole night, which is to say it was pretty perfectly executed. I would have one drink, get a bit buzzed, then switch to water or diet coke. As soon as the buzz started dipping, I’d have another drink. Just did that all night. Took more than 5,000 Baht with me, just in case, and came back with more than 4,000. No buckets this time, which caused my premature Half Moon departure.

Last time, with George Bush’s pride flag of terror in full swing with all its fearmongering about kidnapping and other craziness, and Bush being president in general, the last thing you wanted to identify as was American. Many Americans put Canadian flags on their backpacks. This time, I wore my Obama T-shirt, which got all positive results from everyone who referenced it, and it was interesting hearing people from around the world offer their slight twist on saying “Obama!”

I am continually drawn to fire shows, and watching tourists do the limbo under a flaming bar. Some come dangerously close to injury, since no one’s sober. It is the same fire crew as the Half Moon party, so I’ve seen most of this before, save for limbo. A few boys try to hang under the bar, bent in limbo stance, and light cigarettes off the bar. They never succeed. Thankfully, most attempts at lower levels are aborted, as they all seem like they will only go wrong. The Thai boys can make it under the bar that seems to be just above my knee, but is probably a bit higher.

I stay on the lookout for the gay enclave, but never find it. You see random gays with groups of friends, and say hi, or nod knowingly and smile. But that’s about it. I use my normal method of going to the club whose aggro drum-n-bass is the worst music on the beach to my taste, figuring that’s where I’ll find the gays. That’s usually how it goes. But no dice, so at least I’m spared spending time listening to this mess.

Cactus seems to be my touchstone. I go from place to place throughout the night, but that is always the destination of choice. They also seemed to spin a lot of Michael Jackson, and the crowd all cheered and sang along in tribute. At one point, I’m inside, watching a very happy, very drunk Thai boy come on to all the ladies. He talks to them, they move away, he smiled, then he comes back to me and says stuff I rarely understand. I don’t get his name, but that he lives on Phangan and loves Full Moon. I ask him if he is going to take girl home with him tonight, and he smiles and nods. That is the plan.

Another Thai boy comes over to him, whispers in his ear. I can’t hear any of it, but the other boy keeps pointing to me. Then he says, they are going to the beach, do I want to come with them? Sure, I have nothing else going on. He keeps smiling and dancing as we head out to the beach, making sure not to lose me as we navigate through the crowd.

As soon as we get to a clearing, the first boy stops. The guy I was chatting with continues to dance until someone with their hand wrapped around a bottle clunks it into the back of his head. He turns around, wondering what the hell just hit him, but not phased. Until in front of him, he sees another Thai boy, with a bottle in each hand coming at him directly, this assault misses as he walks backward and stumbles onto a group of tourists sitting on a blanket. To my right, the guy that invited us out also has a bottle in each hand. So, there is definitely an ambush going on. They don’t look at or care about me, so I never feel in danger. And within a second, this guy is off into the dancing throng, being chased down the beach. I double up to the main road off the beach, and head in that direction, figuring if he gets away or injured that will be his path back, and especially if he’s injured I want to make sure he gets help. But I never find him.

I do see the guy that invited us out onto the beach at Cactus later, looking like nothing unusual happened. And, after telling this story to the staff at the resort, they don’t seem to find this out of the ordinary. They said bottles are often a lead-up to knives or a gun, so who can tell. I’m intrigued what he could have done to merit this, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to go chat up that guy and ask or not. It’s still dark, so I skip it. I figure, if I see him when it’s light, and he’s less likely to do anything, I’ll ask. But, once the sun comes up, I never see him again either.

It’s always interesting how resilient you can be, and something like that happens and sort of shakes things up, but then within 30 minutes, you’re dancing again. But it never freaked me out, I was just a witness, tangentially involved. Thankfully, the action moved away from me lightning-fast, so I never had to decide to protect him or anything. By the time I knew what was happening, it was far away from me.

At some point, I do find a cute boy dancing up on a stool, and I do my part and gravitate. But I am the only one responding to the beacon this time, which is fine with the boy on the stool. He tells me he is Goff (which is probably entirely wrong), he works as a tailor in his family’s business on Samui. He seems way young, but insists he’s 19. He’s there with a group of friends, a grab bag of gays, girls, and who knows. So I’m dancing with Goff, then he leans in to kiss me. So, we dance and kiss a bit. Then we leave his friends and go for a walk on the beach, just chat mainly. Seriously. But at this point, it’s like 4 a.m. and he and his friends are going back to Samui at 4:30, so we return to his stool, they gather their things and he heads back to the pier with them.

The longer the night goes on, it’s interesting how it devolves. All parties have a hint of this, and if you’re sober or not drinking much you can usually chart the progress. It seems more obvious when you see everyone freshly-painted and ready to have fun and, a few hours later, you’re straining to see what their paint initially said, they’re passed out in the sand, or walking like marionettes with a clipped string and defying gravity. And the crowd is a lot more thinned out by 5 a.m.

It’s hard to judge the sobriety of people, though, because by the end of the night, we all stumble around like zombies, as we step on bottles hidden in the sand and have to shift awkwardly to not fall, kick straws out of our flip-flops. So, we all move with a bit of zombie flair, and most wear the appropriate faces for the role, but not all.

Eventually, you see the line of the hills that surround the beach, a silhouette forming as the sun starts making an appearance. But this isn’t sunrise, just an indicator. I’m staying for proper daylight before going home this time.

Finally, it’s light enough and I call it. Head for the taxis, and head home. On the taxi home, you see the remnants of party on everyone. I have specks of day-glo paint on me here and there, just from rubbing against people all night to make progress. You look around the taxi, and British girls tease their friends about the hickies on their necks, and the drunken people they received them from. The half-Swedish, half-Japanese boy next to me, from Japan, has most of his day-glo tattoos rubbed off, and I can’t piece together what they once said. He fills me on that one isn’t even a word, after I give in trying to figure out what could have rubbed off to leave this piles of letters remaining, but he says it is just that he is a member of the Yokihama Beer Drinking Group or somesuch. Just something he and his friends made up, as a club to which they all belong.

Everyone shares their history and stories and hometowns with strangers, and their more scandalous Full Moon experiences with friends, and we all listen. When 10,000 or however many people gather on a beach, 10,000 versions of what exactly happened last night exist.

This is mine.

With Full Moon approaching and through meeting a lot of new friends as groups of tourists flutter on and off the island every few days, you notice patterns. One question that comes up a lot is whether this is your first time to Thailand. Pretty standard stuff. From there, you often build to stories about anecdotes about this trip, last time, etc.

For me, the two stories that seem to repeat the most are my crazy tuk tuk ride looking for sex in Bangkok (because the driver refused to take me home until I found a nice boy) and, of course, my last Full Moon Party. That story usually includes a quick recap of Dae to set up his asking me to marry him. Famous last words, but I have to imagine I set the bar pretty high last time.

A lot of my memories of Thailand include Dae. Yesterday, I toured Haad Rin, to get a sense of the layout before it is overwhelmed with drunk, bucket-toting tourists. And a lot of the structures were still ripe with memory, and I know it’s memory as I lost my camera (or it was stolen) that night, so none of it is documented. I know where we posed for pictures, sat on the beach together, and well, we danced everywhere, so that’s easy.

So, I decided I needed to go to Samui for a day trip before Full Moon, and ensure that I couldn’t find Dae. I knew it was unlikely and a fool’s errand, but it seemed rude not to do it, especially as I’m planning to stay one night on Samui before returning to Bangkok (since I don’t want to get up for a 7 a.m. boat to catch my flight, heh). I keep thinking what if I’m here all this time, more than a month, and on the day before I fly to Bangkok, I go to Samui and Dae is easy to find? Works at the same place, or nearby, and he is happy to reconnect and I have to be like ‘Actually, I was on Phangan for the last 5 weeks, and I’m going to Bangkok tomorrow morning.’ Even though we didn’t exchange contact information, so didn’t stay in touch, it seemed respectful to make a Samui day trip. I mean, hell, I published an essay about his wedding proposal in an anthology on gay marriage, read it to a packed bookstore in San Francisco at that book’s launch. It seemed right.

I investigate the gay scene on Samui online the night before, finally finding an updated site with all the info (there are a lot of outdated sites out there). Speaking of which, I couldn’t determine whether the place Dae worked, called The Site, was still open or not. Some places had it listed, others didn’t. But, in my search, I did find one interesting thing, a place called Boy Zone (not to be confused with the ‘bar’ called BoyZone in my crazy tuk tuk ride linked above). At first, I checked it out and it sounded interesting, all the gay bars put on nightly shows of some sort, so it seems like it’d be fun to see them. My day trip will be brief as the last boat to Phangan is at 6:30pm, and the shows start much later.

But, I kept going back to the BoyZone site, it just had a familiar feel to it that I couldn’t place. Even its logo appealed to me. At first I was like, they use palm trees, too, just like Oasis. Then I looked again. Then I opened up a different browser window and launched Oasis. Hmm, I don’t think they use palm trees *like* Oasis at all, they used the palm trees *from* Oasis! It’s all rather hilarious, because one of the things I like doing here is seeing how so many unlicensed things are used here even in bar and restaurant names. Last time I was here, I remember there was the Scream bar, and it used the mask from the movies as a logo, etc. But Oasis? What are the odds?

I take the slow boat over from Haad Rin in the morning and arrive at Big Buddha Beach, grab a taxi into Chaweng. The last time I was there, I wasn’t in Chaweng much, just for cooking classes and whenever I needed to have people around me, since I was staying in a more remote area up north. But, wow, has Chaweng been built up in 6 years. I thought it was too developed before, but it is just end to end development now. And the strange part is that more development here just means more aggressive tailors, more T-shirt shops, more Thai restaurants. Differentiation isn’t a big thing here. Although, to be fair, I did have grilled veggie fajitas for dinner at a place called Coyote where all the Thai girls walk around in cowboy chic with big hats on, etc., heh.

On Chaweng, I see familiar places, worn out places, worn out faces… bright and early for their daily races, going nowhere, going nowhere… And I find it kind of funny. I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I’m dyin’ are the best I’ve ever had… err, where was I?

So, you’ll see a place that’s familiar, but remember it sort of on its own before, now there are shops on every side of it, and everything so smacked together. I couldn’t imagine staying there for 6 weeks, then again, I don’t know if the places I stayed last time are still around and not overdeveloped. Of course, there was construction going on when I was there last time. It was headed in that direction.

Finally, I find the new gay bars, although it’s too early for them to be open. To get my bearings, I go to the Thai Cooking School, since I know my way to where Dae works from there. I trace my steps back, and it is either one of the new gay bars or an Internet café now. Can’t tell exactly.

I head back up the road to the Star bar, which has a nightly drag cabaret. They just opened a downstairs internet café and restaurant, so I sit there near their fan, and order an iced tea, and figure out that the white guys near me are the owners. I ask about “The Site,” and the one thinks back and says “The Site” later changed its name to “Amsterdam,” but closed about two years ago. They give me the run-down on the new places, most of which I knew from my Internet search. I mention Dae, but they don’t seem to register the name.

After a tourist trash lunch at Subway, heh, I go back down to the gay strip for a Thai massage at Boy Zone. After the massage, I talk to the owner, as I boot up my laptop. I already asked the other boys at the bar before the massage about Dae, and no one knew him. But there’s a lot of turnover. No one I meet that works in these places has been on Samui more than two years.

I tell the owner about Oasis, and what we do, and finally showed him the image posted above, with the two logos. He doesn’t look happy, but says it is interesing how similar they look. He says he’s going to ask his designer about it, but that he wasn’t aware of their logo coming from anywhere else. He says it is on everything, showing me stationary, business cards, and such. Just to make sure he knows my intention, I tell him I think it’s funny, and at least it’s a gay bar using it. I tell him I should get a free T-shirt at least, but he doesn’t have T-shirts. I head across the street to the Male Box, which is now sort of open.

One of the managers is at the bar, and we talk about my trip and I tell him I will have to come back and see their show on July 31, as well. The shows seem to be all costume and dancing, based on what I can tell from the websites. The staff is having a meal together in the middle of the bar. All talking about ping pong girls in Patpong. They tell me the secret is before the show, they use some liquid which creates gas, and then remove the liquid before they go onstage, but it still keeps creating gas. Who can tell.

Finally, I tell the manager I had been on Samui before, mention The Site, Dae, etc. He doesn’t know him. But then he seems to be thinking about something, and says, wait, and leaves the bar.

He didn’t register when I said Dae, so it can’t be that Dae is working down the street. But in a few minutes, he comes back and says a guy he knows giving a massage down the street used to work at the site, and knew someone named Dae. We don’t have much to go on, since I know so little, but the approximate ages are close, that he trained in Thai massage in Bangkok, worked in Phuket before Samui (that I didn’t know), but in any event, this seems as close to a lead as I’ll get.

So, he knows where Dae is?

The manager tells me this Dae moved to Germany a few years ago. No other details.

For how much I know Dae wanted to leave Thailand, it is good to think he made it out. And I feel better knowing I did what seemed the right thing to do, to at least try and find him while I was here.