Goodbye Paul...

Had a sweet 9 hour slept last night. Up fresh and ready for some coffee and the walk into the village. I was out the door around 7:15am and on the road. The walk was nice as always, and I crossed the usual assortment of Thais and Burmese on the way in. About ¾ of the way in, I was passed by Chris and the young Burmese worker, then shortly after by Chiyoko. Seems everyone is in need of supplies today! I got to my rest stop under the tree at the clinic and took a ½ breather to cool off. I noticed that more people than normal were heading by taxi and onwards to the ferry. Maybe it is because it is a Sunday, or the start of a new month. Regardless, once I had my battery recharged I walked the last bit into the market and made my purchases. In addition to the usual items, I need some mosquito spray, post cards, and muesli for my fruit salads in the morning. Once it was all bought and paid for, I flagged down my taxi gal, and off we went. Got home, unpacked and ate breakfast at around 9:30am. I organized some of the photos and videos I have taken, so that it will be a quick process to upload when I go back to Ranong for my Visa run to Burma on Mar 09. There should be some nice shots for people to see. I have tried to take my camera around with me, but it can be a pain in the butt if I am heading to the market. It is just one more things to weight me down. The were 2 batches of rain and wind today. It is nice and cool when it is going on, but about 30min later the humidity keeps up, and out come the mosquitoes. So, it was a good day to have picked up some more. I think I got 4 on my feet without even knowing it. In the village, I had seen Paul. He is off to Ranong tomorrow, and then to BKK three days later. He mentioned he’d be stopping by around lunch time to say a final good bye. I did some final calculations on my February expenses, and came to the conclusion that I saved myself about $250Can by doing things myself, as opposed to buying all food, drinks and smokes from bars and resorts. Not too bad, and things should get even better, by far, once in Laos. I am thinking somewhere in the $500Can/month range. If/when there is some income generated, it only gets cheaper! There has been some confusion over the “Leks” I am mentioning in this blog. The Lek from last trip is still not around, the Lek I have seen in Ranong this trip, is the sister of a friend, and strictly plutonic! No romance for this guy. Matters of the heart only complicate things. Paul came by around to for the final good-bye. I guess his ailment turned out to be salt depletion and some dehydration. He had stopped by a pharmacy store the day before, and the shop owner had told him that he needed a product like Gatorade to get his electrolytes up. Unfortunately, this guy was out. Paul then had to walk an hour back into village, where he eventually found some. I guess by this point he was basically like a zombie. He went back to his bungalow and mixed the powder into a bottle of water, and collapsed with his head on fire. At about 3am, he woke up and felt his condition rapidly improving, and by morning was a new man when I saw him in the village earlier this morning. When he showed up at the house, he was looking good, and was finishing off another litre of the magic elixir. We chatted for a couple of hours, exchanged emails, took a few photos, and he was back on the road to the village for his last night on then Island. Tomorrow he takes the speedboat, which is a new service last year, into Ranong for a few days in town, before flying to BKK for three more days and eventually home to Boston. It was a pleasure meeting you Paul. I hope to see you again next year, should you decide to return. Later on, I made another batch of chicken strip and sweet chili dipping sauce for dinner. I cooked the eggs I used for the chicken and flour, as scrambled eggs, and also eat some left over yellow curry rice. It was all very delicious and probably the biggest meal I have eaten in 3wks. Being quite full, it didn’t take long to feel pretty tired, so I got cleaned up, put on Talk Talk’s Colour of Spring and… zzzzzz…