Author: Sarah Northway

Longtail Wanderlust
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Things I won’t miss about Thailand:

water outages
being called a farang
conservative clothing
satelitte internet

We haven’t really fit in here perfectly… we still can’t speak Thai which is probably why people still think of us as “farang” (white foreigners). We have met some very nice friends here, but the people we seemed to have most in common with were usually short-term visitors. But this is a geek speaking; only 0.001% of humanity wants to talk about computers and movies and video games with me. I’m sure we’ll find more likeminded geeks in Tokyo than we did on this laidback little island.

Things I am going to miss about Thailand:

snorkling
laid-back attitudes
our neighbour Beeya
watching the ocean from our livingroom
the dogs
shopping at Thongsala market
Wan’s, Lipstick, Starbugs, Ando’s, etc
swimming in the warm ocean
geckos
drongo song
toilet sprayhoses
sangsom buckets
sleeping in to the sound of the surf
paying 1/3 as much for everything
noone worries about being sued
the bike

So the bike finally made my “good things” list! I was terrified of motorbikes to begin with, and when taking into account the road conditions and reckless drivers, I didn’t think we’d make it through six months intact. But the freedom of jumping on and being on the road in seconds is incredible. The size is just right: even narrow roads seem spacious, you can park it anywhere, and gas goes a long way further. And on Koh Phangan there is little traffic, no lights (well, there is one), and if you get a flat you can have it fixed for $4 and be back on your way in 30 minutes. It’s so… civilized.

There are so many other things that I love about this place. I love that most businesses are run out of people’s homes, and it isn’t uncommon to walk into a travel agency and see a child sleeping in a bed in the corner. People worry less about doing things “the proper” way and worry more about getting things done. Yeah, this leads to injuries and badly built houses, but I’ve seen a lot of innovation come out of it too. The real point is people here don’t care if their buildings are crooked or badly wired or whatever. You could spend your whole life fixing things, or just accept them and spend more time at the beach.

Living on the beach has been… well I can’t imagine a nicer place. The tides, the fish, the birds: nature is great. I wish I could go snorkling every day; walk on the beach every day.

Tokyo is going to be sooooo different!

Warm puppy
Originally uploaded by apes_abroad.

Today is a bad day.

Kurt Vonnegut died today. He is still my favorite author. The articles he wrote about the world and his country were sharp right till the end.

Closer to home I think this was Brave’s last day on this earth as well. Early this-morning he came to the deck and hudled against our bedroom door. His intense shivering caught my attention while I was editing the most recent batch of pictures.

He was all wet from the ocean and scared and very sick. I held him and scratched him while he shook. He had diarea and wanted to go back to the ocean but could barely walk without falling over. I helped him to the water but he couldn’t stand upright and I made sure his head was above water. I tried to sooth him and make him comfortable.

He started to choke up white foam and decided he didn’t want to be in the water anymore. He crawled up into some bushes he and his siblings used to play in. I tried to keep with him and keep him from being afraid but I don’t think he wanted to be around me, or his mum, or his sister. He unsteadily lurched back to the house and to the bushes beside the house.

I went inside to find out how Sarah was doing looking up the illness and trying to contact the vet. When I came back with a bowl of water and some aspirine hidden in a clump of rice he was gone.

I searched for him up and down the road and the beach but I couldn’t find him.

The symptoms suggest he was poisoned. Something that happens to homeless beach dogs here.

We liked Brave so much. He was one of the greatest dogs I ever knew. We were sad having to say goodbye to him after 6 months of playing with him and watching him grow up but this is infinitely worse.

I wish he could have been born in Canada. I wish he could have been our dog. But now I have to be satisfied that he lived a happy, energetic life surrounded by siblings and friends, cut much too short.

We miss you Brave.

6 months of Singha and watery lagers

I asked my parents to bring me “something dark and sticky” from home.

Just had my first glass of Tree Brewery’s Spy Porter which they brought over (on recomendation from Alan).

In Canada I considered this porter over carbonated and with too low an alchohol percentage to really get at the back of your throat.

It is the first BC beer I have had in 6 months. I want to sum up the experience immediately after the first glass (drank in a single long pull). That summation reads: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Vive la saveur!

Presumably the Traquair Ale is going to blow the taste-buds right out of my mouth.

We are officially all set for Japan.

We have tickets to Tokyo arriving on April 15th. You can stay in the country for 3 months without a visa but you need tickets out and pre-arranged accomodation. So we also have our tickets home 3 months from now.

We’re renting a place in a shared house (gaijin house) in Tokyo for one month for 84,000 yen. Which is 840$ pretty easy currency conversion eh?

We’re going with Pierre to Kyoto for Golden Week in the last week of april. I am really looking foreward to this. Especially because Pierre is doing all the setup (thanks Pierre!).

After the month in Tokyo we might stay in Tokyo longer if we really like it, or, more probably, we’ll travel either way up north or way down south.

We’ve both wanted to see Hokkaido with its BC like climate and its ethnically and culturally distinct population. But hopping the string of little islands in the south would be fun and tropically warm. Which we have become fond of over the last several months.

Life without 28 degree weather and a beach? Uncivilized!

Colin seys:

I tried to convince Sarah to write the book merchants an email explaining why they are losing business: if it is easier to steal your goods than it is to give you money for them you are doing something wrong!

Don’t count on people’s inflated sense of morals to make them go through tedious and unnecesary steps to get what is ultimately a crippled version of what they want.

You know why theft is easier than purchasing? Because theives care more about user experience than companies do. Companies, who have money, could work to make your experience a pleasent one but don’t. Instead the theives do it for free. Bit torrent is just an open-source solution to a problem the retailers refuse to solve.

In the end mabey this is just such a mess because amazon owns a patent on ‘one click’ purchases.

The Fucking world is broken and only the pirates are trying to fix it. Everyone else is trying to make it worse.