well. today was quite the adventurous day. for the first time in the history of my web log, i'm going to have a guest writer---ms. julia cassaniti--to describe today, as she is such a beautifully verbose writer......



A nine-transport kind of day



The day started out like any other - a knock on our pastel bungalow well before 6 am, a sunrise over the silent water of the Gulf of Thailand, a non-swim in the curvy pool and we're off, missing the songtauw pickup and hailing a cab to the dock, to go to the mainland of Surat Thani. Of course, the dock we go to is (of course) not the one we're actually to leave from, and the bus scheduled to bring us to it is 5 minutes gone - the three of us jump on the back of waiting motorbike taxis and speed bond-like across the island [Audrey: "Anna & I FEARED for our lives"; Anna: "I was thinking about my funeral and who would speak and if my mother would be mad at me for dying in such a stupid way"], cutting ahead of the bus barrelling down just as we spot water. The slowboat of two hours meanders its way past some spectactular islands as Audrey's magazine flies out of her hand in the wind and Julia climbs over the fence with the sign NOT ENTRY to retrieve it, waiing to the disgusted bridge-man leaning out watching. The transport continues as we're shuttled onto our aircon bus for an hour to town - on getting there many people are looking out for our welfare, asking us "Where you go?" and "You go Samui? You go Phuket? Bangkok? OK Tuk-tuk - 10 baht". Disoriented the three intrepid, burnt explorers find our way (via pickup) to a vegetarian restaurant, where we point and nod to noodles and ginger, ready again to brave the throbbing chaos of early morning Surat Thani. Two hours later a phone card has actually been procured, Julia and Audrey walking the streets as Anna valiently guards the luggage and chats it up with the lady-boy at the internet cafe.



The Wat Son Mok Forest Monastery is the destination, a renouned sprawling center an hour away, where Julia will spend a 10 day retreat at the first of September and her kind and benevolent friends have come to drop her off for a night. On arriving via large orange bus with many flowers and hacking smoking women we arrive at the grounds. The grounds are sprawling and strange, with robed monks wandering around distantly, and we wander around confusedly until we collide, figuratively, into each other. We're then led into the Women's Quarters, which should be more appropriately entitled the Women's Ward: Barbed-wire fences, thick gates around cement, bars on windows in the cement cell, a cement bed and wooden pillow. The accomodation is fine, mosquito net and all, almost charming in its rustic minimalism - it's the barbed wire and heavy locks, the obvious inferiority of the women (head warden: don't walk alone. Don't go to the meditation hall. Don't think you're equal to the men, who have the rest of the 5/6 of the place to themselves.) - as this is accompanied by a dramatic rape story of a couple of weeks ago we look at each other and, after laughing near tears back in the room at our sorry position, leave. Julia doesn't have to be there until the 31st, 4 days away, and Anna and Audrey are ready to never set sight on the place again, so we think, what should we do? The thought comes in a flash: Bangkok, a good 15 hour train-ride but only 45 minute flight away. And, pickup truck ride later, we're at the airport, booking Royal Executive Class tickets on the economy-full flight to our favorite 5-star city. The flight is, as they say on Thai, smooth as silk. At this point we're beyond tired, that absurd time when everything, just one step off, seems purposefully bizzare. At the baggage claim we tromp around restlessly, only to realize everyone else had gotten their bag but Audrey. It's lost! We ask the belt-man desperately, as he points quietly to the next baggage belt over, where Audrey's bag sits silently alone, the whole flight come and gone. A taxi ride and then we're Home: The Dusit Thani, our favorite all-inclusive suite with three rooms and vases and bed-side air-control and crystal glasses and swimming pool, spa, buffet breakfast and stunning vista in the heart of the Thai capital.



Of course we don't sleep, as any sane person would, and instead, after captivated for a full two hours by a castaway tom hanks, trip over furniture and find our way outside, across the street, to the tourist-crazed, redlight-district, "you wanna buy a rolex? polo shirt? ping-pong show?" Pat Pong. We've wandered around now for a few hours, well after midnight, too energized even to sit down for a drink. Weaving in and out of streets, it is time for Anna, Audrey and Julia to go to sleep.