fiNaLLy, sHe sPeaKs

dear jess

One of the books i flipped last week told me that some stories go untold are wasted. Writers can be considered the most egoistic people on earth, as they jot down the events in their life, and think that someone would pay money to read it. I suppose my trip feels a little like that, and somehow it always feels better to tell you the 'harvests' of my thoughts rather than the ride itself. However, i may be so boastful to say that indeed some stories gone untold are wasted, and although i hate to write too many letters to you too soon, as i know you might not read the one below that might just be worth your while, here it is anyways. The first part of many. If you dont enjoy it? its okay, the letters were somehow always meant for myself..

we board the plane after the eventful night at zouks that we knew then we shouldnt have done with less than 3 hours of sleep under our belt. The slight feeling of over dancing, over drinking (not the same definition as getting drunk), over partying and undersleeping meant two dazed and worse still, two unexcited girls heading on a plane to thailand on their maiden backpacking voyage.

Okay, so one stupid thing down, we head in to the airport only to have our names announced over the PA, a first for my fellow traveller whose flown so many times, then stripping my belt off after the metal detector awakes me from my half awaken state and head into the budget airlines that sometimes im sure should pay us to use their planes.

The stewardess looked like she had spent a week at zouks inztead of our one night, she had make up that ran, and uncombed hair, but that didnt bother me in the least bit. It was the steward that had his gayish walk that came over to the two 'brilliant' girls who sat down next to the exit doors, have him POINT at the sign on the exit door and rudely tell us that our bags should be up. Of course this is after he rudely tells us to take off the seatbelts that we had put on. Reasoning? maybe the seatbelts will be to hard to unbuckle whilst the plane circles the airstrip and my begs are filled with stones that i wont have time to open the emergency exit and save the life of the rude steward.

Yes. grouchy start to what should've been paradise, After all we were on the way to phuket and phi phi, one of the most famous beaches on earth. If people got paid to be rude, alot of us would be rich by now wouldnt we?

From the plane, we were tucked into a minivan, or minibus. By mini they were right. By bus, they were way off. Its basically just a van. The 45 minute journey into phuket town was long, ut we were dropped off to be harassed by a local tour agency who then tries to sell us lodging and our trip to phi phi. We bought it, mostly because we couldnt say no, but thankfully, they turned out to be good deals. Of course we had the 7 or so people wait for us as we were last again..

We had a long ride of a man who decides to sit behind us, and who just also happens to think that he knows just about everything in the world and couldnt stop talking. The worse part is he was malaysian.

And we hadnt even reached the beach.

yours retracing,

jess