HOLY SHIT.

Actually, last night I was at a street bar in Bangkok and had no idea any of this was happening. Some drunk guy named Martin came in and told me that there were tanks in the streets but I just sort of ignored him. I think that this really says it all:

The United States, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand condemned as undemocratic Thailand's first coup in 15 years but its 18th since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

18th?

Other than there being soldiers in the streets (and not that many of them) there is no evidence that Thailand is under martial law.


More to come...

Oh, details to come about Sonya. Man, did we have FIGHT last night. "I not young girl Josh! You like young girls!" POUT POUT POUT POUT

Oh, did I mention I was dating a Thai woman?

God, I've been bad about this. Ok, NOT teaching now. Decided against it due to airline woes and money woes and etc...So, I've been in Bangkok now for about a week. I came back and hung out with my friend Justin who I knew in Nong Khai again and we went out and went to this bar where we bought an entire bottle of whiskey for us and all the girls that worked there. I woke up at my hotel the next morning with no idea how I got there and I called Justin and he said, "Um, well, I didn't wake up alone." but there was no more discussion on that and he headed back to Nong Khai. I've been here in Bangkok just sort of hanging out not doing too much. I mean, really not doing too much. Right now just in the midst of figuring out getting back home which will hopefully be around Sept 28th. So, what am I doing? Mostly just kind of wandering around Bangkok. I met a Thai woman named Sonja that I've been hanging out with who works doing some sort of thing at the Bangkok stock market that I don't really understand. She's very bizarre actually. I asked her what was the last book she read and she got all suspicious and asked why I wanted to know. Then she started talking about how she owns 425 pairs of shoes and her father knows police captains and so on but when I asked what he did for a living she said "It's a secret.". So, that's certainly interesting. I realized that being mysterious is really easy if you just say a bunch of things and then don't elaborate on it in any way.

Awww. Thanks for the comments!

However, remember when I was in Nong Khai about a month ago and was offered a job and I turned it down? Well, I came back to Nong Khai because it's cheap and I have a few friends here and I was trying to figure out what the fuck to do with my life for the next few weeks, and lo and behold, I was here one day and someone said to me "Want to teach English for five weeks here? Pays 10,000 baht." so I guess that's what I'm going to do. So, it looks like I'll be coming back a little later than I thought but still in enough time for Halloween I hope. Due to all my tickets and so on coming home will be an adventure in sucking. Bangkok-Doha-Moscow-Zurich-train to Frankfurt-New York. This will happen all at once. No stopping. Fun! Lesson learned. Don't buy your tickets beforehand.

Message to Sterling: I'm finally reading Lord of the Rings and this time enjoying it.

Due to some bullshit about "money" or something like that I'm coming home early. How early hasn't been decided but it's looking like October.

Hey, I'm not dead. The gang members didn't kill me. In fact, they were nice guys. I finished up writing about them last week and hopefully it will get published but you never know I guess. Also, a lot of what you would have read here is in what I wrote. Regardless, it was great to be traveling with a purpose rather than just my own self direction which can be lacking at times. It's interesting since on the last day of the yoga course we had to do this thing where we pick out a word from a pot and that is the word/thing that we need to focus or meditate on. My word was "purpose" and despite the total hippie dippieness of the whole thing it was absolutely right. Now, purposeless once again, I'm finding myself thinking that maybe going to see "My Super Hero Ex-Girlfriend" here in Bangkok isn't such a bad idea.

I have a long thing I want to write about Phnom Penh and where I stayed and the people there complete with pictures but give me a few days to get that up. There's some interesting things going on there. I don't think I got a picture of my friend the motorbike driver, Day. Day was a good man. He would take me all over to eat and hang out at these different Cambodian restaurants and bars where I was definitely the only foreigner. Day spoke English pretty well as well as Thai and Chinese passably but couldn't get a job so he was a moto driver.

I went to Siem Reap and saw Angkor Wat but unfortunately the day I got there I got pretty sick so I did see Angkor Wat but I was feverish the whole time so the whole experience was kind of muted. Still, it was pretty fucking impressive. Yet, like many many things it doesn't take you three or four days to see the whole thing. You can really do it in one.

Oh yeah, and my camera (well, Harry and Amy's camera) got stolen. So, no more pictures other than the ones I haven't posted yet.

Lack of posting has been due to not all that much going on and just general "the blahs" but will pick up.

I'm in Bangkok now waiting to get my teeth looked at before I head off to Russia. I have to wait until Monday to see the specialist and then it will be four or five days after that before I can get the permanent crown. Bangkok as a city is ok but I've been here for a week before when I lost my bank card so I've kind of done the tourist route. So, now I'm looking around for some other things to do. Like I said, self direction not my strength sometimes.