The World Cup and the Running of the Bulls

Chaos. Mayhem. Madness. Booze. And it was only day two in Koln...

That's pretty much how it went down for the entire three weeks in Germany. Bouncing from one Fan Fest to another in our beat-up Volvo station wagon, we sampled many beers and experienced the unique smells that can only develop when you're camping with three other guys and only showering every few days. Mmm... musky. There's nothing else quite like the world cup experience, though. The way that fans are whipped into a frenzy for their national teams is hard to describe, yet it never really managed to erupt into anything violent. Well, except that one night where we were chased by riot police, and that was mostly because Max and I were curious as to what it's like to be part of a mob of English hooligans. Other than that, all the fans were very civil toward each other, and even when the English eventually lost in Gelsenkirchen the worst thing I saw were some overturned porta-potties.

I'm not sure how participating in the running of the bulls can be a let-down, but that's what happens when you're in Pamplona where nobody gives a crap about soccer and the rest of the world is watching the final between Italy and France. I was told that in Viareggio, my home town and where Italy's manager Lippi is from, there were close to 200,000 people watching the match in the main piazza. I was watching it at the only bar we could find in Pamplona that didn't have its television tuned into a bullfight on a microscopic, static-filled television surrounded by French people. After that, I pretty much had to run with the bulls. I mean, I didn't want to go all the way to Pamplona for nothing. I learned two things from that experience: Bulls are really, really big, and don't count on Max waiting up for you if you're in the middle of a stampede.

Overall, much beer was drunk, many miles were logged, and there were many times when we wanted to kill each other. Other than that, it was great.

Check out the pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2m2TVgLr6sqDmeSu6

and

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Wjn64Lq2Spyzk7Fe9


Take 'er easy,
Dave

A Final Word

Hey everybody,

I'm cold. I haven't worn long pants or shoes in several months so my perspective is somewhat skewed.

Anyhow, my last few weeks in Thailand were pretty mellow... exactly what I was looking for. I went through some mixed emotions when I stopped working, I felt a bit guilty quitting while the work wasn't quite finished but I knew that if I didn't take some time off then I wouldn't have a chance to do anything fun before I came home. It was tough... I'd put so much into that project that I didn't know what to do with myself once it was over. It was like my reason for being there was finished so I wasn't sure what to do or where to go. I decided to treat myself to a 4-day liveaboard scuba trip, which turned out to be fantastic. The Similan Islands in the Andaman Sea are supposed to be some of the best dive sites in the world and the sea life I saw was spectacular. I have three words for you... Wall of Fish. It just has to be seen. Of course, I came back with swollen ear canals, I must've been somewhat congested because equalizing underwater was extremely painful, so I was laid up for about four days with throbbing inside my ears, which was fun.

I then took off for the other side of Thailand, the gulf, and met up with my old roommate Jimmy on Ko Tao where he and his brother were finishing their open-water dive course. We spent about a week on Ko Tao and Ko Phangan lounging on some tropical beaches and then I came back to Khao Lak to spend my last few days in Thailand. Last Friday they held a party on Koh Kho Khao to commemorate the end of the volunteer work... the houses are finished except for a few details that the contractors need to work on, but villagers have already started moving in. It was exciting and gratifying to see the houses in finished condition, many of the villagers showed up to the party which was my first opportunity to meet most of them. Jimmy was there as well, which in a way made it more real for me because it was a link to home. He took some great pictures, one of which I've attached to give you some idea of what the houses we've built look like. Then it was a 14-hour bus ride to Bangkok and 19 hours of flight+layover and I was home.

So, what do I think after 6 months in Thailand? It's an interesting country. Selling porn is illegal, but selling a girl named Porn is okay. There are two worlds living in parallel, the first and third world. Where else are you going to see a satellite dish outside a corrugated tin shack? There are more pickup trucks in Thailand than in any other country in the world. Everyone has a cell phone, almost no one has a flush toilet or hot water. Many towns don't even have water pipes, each family has to have their own well or cistern. Stray cats and dogs are everywhere.

There's an incredible amount of natural beauty in this country, especially on the beaches and in the jungle, but if you want to see it I suggest you go now.
Thailand is whoring itself out to tourism and it doesn't seem like there are many controls on how it's being done. Air, water, and noise pollution don't seem to be of much concern to the general population. There are plenty of areas designated as national parks, but these are slowly being sold off to the highest bidder, usually a resort. In 10 years' time it's going to be a completely different country, for better or worse.

I'm going to miss a lot of things about it, though. Thai people are incredibly welcoming and friendly... everyone smiles at you when you walk down the street, kids will wave at you from the school buses, people will try to randomly start up conversations with you whether or not you speak the same language... just being back home one day reminds me how different that is from the US, at least California. I'm going to miss seeing a family of 5 piled on one moped or 25 laborers in the back of one pickup truck. I'm going to miss papaya salad. I'm going to miss the relaxed attitude toward just about everything. I'm going to miss the crazy driving. I won't miss Thai pop music.

Well, that's just about it. Sorry I didn't have any more ass stories for ya, but the opportunity didn't present itself. I did moon a guy when I was scuba diving, but he didn't see it so I guess that really doesn't count.

Well there are a few final pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/isDpxXSiYyaExW4t6

Take 'er easy everybody. As always, the dude abides,
Dave

Khao Lak Asstravaganza

Pictures are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mcEuLpDZmuiLy3UP6

Greetings from Thailand, where if one more Thai guy calls out to me "Zidane!" I'm going to punch him in the face then shave my head,

Well, the last few weeks have been mostly focused on finishing the work on the island. We've reached the stage where all the heavy labor is done and the detail work like paint, ceiling tiles, and debris cleanup are all that's left. Strangely enough, I think this may actually have been my most dangerous month. Why? Two
words: Thai scaffolding. I think when they put the scaffolding up they expect the houses to be painted by circus monkeys. Balancing on a 3-inch wide beam 20 feet in the air while painting some eaves under a roof usually involves strategic placement of the ass cheeks, as I've found out. The only thing worse is when we try to build our own scaffolding. Oh... yeah, that's top notch stuff, I'm sure up to the highest OSHA standards. If you're ever in charge of a volunteer construction site, there's nothing better to keep annoying old guys occupied than to put them in charge of scaffolding construction. They'll use up about 3/4 of all the wood on your site, and by the time they're finished you would probably have painted about 4 houses, but it's worth it to keep from standing over your shoulder saying "That's not how I would've done it" or "Why do they do it this way" or "Why don't we have a [insert random tool name that is impossibly expensive or impractical in Thailand here]?"

On the plus side, the houses are rounding nicely into shape and from the exterior a lot of them look almost finished. We're having to move a lot of supplies and equipment around, so the last couple of weeks I've been able to drive the dump truck. That's right... dump truck. You know when you're a kid and you get one of those Tonka trucks and zoom it around your backyard. Yeah, I get to drive a real one of those. Oh baby, you wouldn't believe the turning radius on one of those things! I could probably parallel park it on Lombard St. Okay, maybe not. Still, the point is we're at the stage of construction where a lot of the ceilings and electrical are done, so we just have to finish floors and painting for many of the houses to be in move-in condition.

Actually, we've gotten so much done that a couple of weeks ago they told us volunteers to take a week off from the island so the contractors could catch up. We ended up becoming volunteer mercenaries, kind of like the A-team, working a couple of days each at different projects. We did some beach cleanup, which basically involves waiting for low tide and going out into the water to pick up chunks of concrete and other debris. Man, there are entire houses out there. We had to break an electrical pole into bits and dig it out of the sand underneath a couple of feet of water. It's pretty incredible to think that this stuff was planted into the ground somewhere inland, and that it's been over a year and it's still there. We also worked a day at Thap Tawan moving sand (about as fun as it sounds) and a couple of days at Nam Kem digging septic holes. That is so damn satisfying... knee deep in mud or clay, cursing at a future shithole because the walls are caving in on you, finally getting the concrete rings into place... that's a day's work, baby! Actually, we've gotten pretty good at it... the Nam Kem team asked us if we could come back and dig more but there was work back on the island for us.

It's been hard to keep up morale and keep people motivated the last month since we've mostly been painting, especially the long-termers who know what it's like to do much more satisfying concrete and digging work, so I've been doing my best to try to keep things interesting. In late December, we began to wage a campaign against all the other teams involving serial mooning, or b.a. as it's also known. We started off small... shoving a pair of ass cheeks out of the only functioning window on the shark while two others were pressed against the glass as we passed by Thap Tawan. But then, as the regular moonings became too banal, we tried to raise the stakes. One fateful morning, the planets aligned so that we were able to moon five (5) TVC vehicles on the way to work: 3 from Thap Tawan, the Thaikea truck and the environmental restoration truck. I thought that was the pinnacle, but I was wrong. Soon thereafter we strafed the crew from the Pakarang boatyard. The cool thing about that is that we had just helped them load up a boat on the trailer behind Scott's truck, and the entire boatyard crew was sitting on the boat with nowhere to hide or shield their eyes. It was magical. I may have been overzealous in my pantsing that day because one of the boat crew later claimed he could see my boys, but that is just part of the legend. The next day, on the way back from working at Thap Tawan, we had the first all-female mooning (thank you Bec and Tammy) on one of their trucks, which we later discovered was full of Australian christians and being driven by a pastor.

Then, last week, Dean took the two station wagons in for servicing and gave me the songtaw to drive around. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically a pickup truck with an enclosure welded to the truck bed and benches lining the bed so it becomes a passenger vehicle. What it really becomes is the perfect mooning vehicle. There was only one group left to moon, Nam Kem, and I really wanted to come up with something special for them. Then, as if in a vision, it came to me... the Ass Pyramid. One fateful Thursday morning the opportunity presented itself, and we did not let it slip by. With Richard behind the wheel driving like Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity, Luke, Tammy and I formed the first known Ass Pyramid in the Khao Lak area. Luke and I were on the bottom and Tammy climbed on our backs while we passed the first Nam Kem truck and pulled directly in front of them. What the hapless drivers were treated to was a triangular formation of slapping asses for approximately 30 seconds until we sped away. But that was only the appetizer. The main course was when we finally caught up to the big Nam Kem truck. We got at least a good 45 seconds of ass on them. I really don't think they appreciated the coordination and dexterity it took to balance three people on the back of a truck bed while pantsless and using one hand for slapping. Anyway, about a minute after we stopped laughing I got a phone call from Tilo at the TVC office and the first thing he says is "Did you just moon the Nam Kem vehicle?" Apparently, one of the people in the front seat of the truck was one of the Thai bigshots at the TVC and he didn't think it was so funny, so I got an earful about that one and ended up going to Nam Kem's worksite to apologize to him personally. It's not the first time I've made an insincere apology, and I'm sure it won't be the last. I mean, how can you not appreciate the planning and execution that goes into an ass pyramid out of the back of a moving truck?

Undeterred by my slight setback, I set about strategizing on one final magnum opus of mooning which I could pull off while I still had the songtaw. The perfect opportunity presented itself at last Friday night's TVC costume party held at an outdoor restaurant on the main strip. It was a couple of volunteers' birthdays so they thought it would be fun to throw a dress-up party where everyone had to show up dressed like a character from a movie. I didn't really feel like finding an outfit, so I jokingly said one night at dinner that I was just going to show up in my underwear and say I was King Kong. Well, after I thought about it a couple days it didn't seem like such a bad idea, but I thought I should probably do something more than just go in my underwear. So the day of the party I completely smeared myself in Vaseline, which was cool, and then put on a layer of shoe polish to make me more dark and ape-like, or at least that's what I was thinking. Turns out I looked more like "Just crawled out of the sewer man" or "charred corpse man" than King Kong, but it was already done so I went to the party. Anyway, back to the ass. So the party kicks off full swing, probably about a hundred people drinking and sporting some really creative outfits considering resources are limited, when me and seven other people sneak off to pick up the songtaw which was strategically parked only a couple of blocks away. I'm proud to say that we performed the first-ever recorded two-level songtaw seven-ass mooning, with four asses sticking out of the bottom row and three of us (Luke, Tammy and I) on the roof. Rich was driving and basically stopped directly in front of the restaurant honking the horn while we slapped away. I can only describe it as sheer poetry, a crowning achievement of human spirit and vision, really possibly the eighth wonder of the world. I'm not kidding, it was that good. I have it on video.

Anyhow, we went back to the party afterward and I wasn't in trouble, which was cool. Unfortunately, it was at this point that my "outfit" began to cause me some discomfort. First off, no one would come within three feet of me for fear of getting some kind of black greasy concoction on their clothing. Hey, it's not my fault about half the party was wearing white. Secondly, I smelled like shoe polish. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, my skin was starting to feel a slight tingle that at some point began to turn into a burn. At that point I decided it might be a good time to go home and take a shower, which turned into a 45-minute scrubbing epic to which I sacrificed an entire bar of soap and a formerly light blue towel, now slightly blackened. I can't imagine how I could've gotten that shit off if I didn't have the vaseline on.

I had a plan this week to moon the new volunteer orientation, but unfortunately it was foiled when they decided not to come to the island. I really don't care whether or not I get kicked out of the TVC at this point because I've given them my notice... Friday the 17th will be my last day on the island. I think it has a nice symmetry to it, I started on September 17th. I'm probably going to relax for a few weeks, get a lot of sleep, and then come back to the island for the official dedication ceremony on March 10th. After that, I'll be homeward bound I reckon.

Hope you're all doing well and I'll see some of you fairly soon.

As always, the Dude abides,
Dave

Happy 2549!

Pictures are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LXgHDE6XTgQkK8mr9

Greetings from Thailand, where happiness means a hot shower. The year here is 2549, which means we are like 500 years ahead of the rest of you idiots and have far superior technology available to us. The large, public bonfires, exposed wiring and squat toilets are just a ploy to throw you all off. In fact, I am currently writing this message while orbiting around Alpha Centauri in search of minerals to power the new fusion-driven longtail boats. I'm not sure exactly why the year is 2549, but when in doubt, the answer is always "The King."

Things have been going really well on the island as far as the housing construction goes. Friday we finished pouring the 2nd story columns on house 7, and today we poured the final columns for the final house we're going to be working on. I'll have to admit... the Dave got a bit emotional over that one. It's the first big milestone for completing the island project. Also, I love to pour the concrete. Lastly, and most importantly, it means all we have left to do is paint, which is somewhere between listening to Gilson for three hours and rubbing a cheese grater over my face on my list of favorite activities. In other construction news, a few weeks ago I almost destroyed a cement mixer while trying to move it with the Bobcat. The wheels were stuck in concrete, and thinking that brute force always wins out, I just tried to lift it up regardless. The result... a cement mixer minus a front axle. No problem, though, we put the mixer up on cinder blocks, like some kind of redneck mixer. In other island news, I found out a few weeks ago that, since I work on Koh Kho Khao, and apparently three consecutive monosyllabic words are too much to master, people around the office and volunteers from other worksites refer to me as "KKK Dave." On top of that, there's some crazy Thai local that's been hanging out around the worksite with us "helping out" with some of the work. He's a short, chubby, toothless fella who likes to walk around barefoot. Anyway, I was standing around during lunchtime the other day, minding my own business, when he comes up to me, points to my earring, moves behind me, grabs both my hips and proceeds to have mock anal sex with me, cackling all the while. Yes, one of the highlights of the volunteer experience... interacting with the locals!

I found a new place to live which is off the main road but only like a 10 minute walk away. It's huge... it has a front room, a bedroom, and a kitchen, and I only pay about $150 a month. And... it has a hot shower. The first hot shower I've had in two months. Oh, baby... splendiferous. There are a couple of drawbacks to the place, though. Apparently there's some insect wild kingdom shit going on, or maybe they built the bungalow over some sort of indian burial ground or something, because the place is swarming with ants, spiders, cockroaches, caterpillars, and, my favorite, leeches. One night I had a few people over in the front room and when I walk in there after going to the bathroom I see 6 people, grown men and women, huddling to one side of the room and pointing at the wall on the opposite end. I look over to see this large, disturbing arachnid... it had about a 4-inch legspan, and they were not those needle-like skinny legs, they were thick, man! So these guys are all looking at me like I have to do something about it, and I'm thinking "Damn you bitches, I'm cooking you dinner" but it was apparent they weren't going to do anything. I mean, Lee is like 6'1", 240 lbs, used to play rugby so he looks like he's been hit in the face a few times with a cast-iron skillet, and he's standing on a chair like the housewife in one of those old Tom and Jerry cartoons. Anyhow, I go outside and grab my flip-flop so I can smash that thing, and I tried to smack it a couple of times but it would just sprint, and I mean sprint, into one of the corners of the room. So I grabbed two (2) cans of insect spray,one in each hand and layed into the spider. The thing was just laughing at me. At this point, as a last act of desperation, I grabbed this long, thick stick I had in the room, and just tried to beat it to death. I mean, I was smashing this spider, giving it a few whacks with a large stick, and nothing! I thought at one point it was going to take the stick away from me and start chasing me around. Eventually, I managed to stun it enough so I could kill it, but I've been sleeping with one eye open ever since.

As far as the xmas holiday goes, I have to admit that I really enjoyed the holiday season here in Thailand. Why? Because there is no holiday season. No incessant commercials on TV, no near-brawls in the stores, no advertising bombardments on billboards in the street... none of that crap. So, to be honest, christmas day kind of snuck up on me. I was wearing a santa hat all day and when I was in a convenience store one of the Thais came up to me and said "Merry Xmas!" I mean, he literally said "xmas." A couple of volunteers organized a dinner with actual turkey, so about 50 of us turned up at this outdoor bar with a view of the beach for the meal. They even organized to have an elephant come to the party for about 15 minutes, which is not as good as the original rumor that Ricky Martin was going to be there, but still not bad. I decided that, since I could, I was going to go shirtless all day on christmas, and I did. So as not to show bias, I bought everyone on my team the same gift: a bowl of Cup o'Noodles from 7-11. I also gave out 60 eucalyptus nasal inhalers to all the volunteers at the party, just because the thought of giving out 60 nasal inhalers made me laugh. Then I went around and made them all pose for pictures with nasal inhalers inserted.

The day after xmas was the tsunami memorial, which I've had a million questions about, and I have to be honest with you, it really didn't mean that much to me. I mean, I wasn't here when the wave hit and I don't really feel any sort of personal connection with that particular event, even though it's the reason that brought me here. For me, the things that get to me are more like when I was riding on the ferry with Amnat from House 16 in Bang Sak (he lets us use his truck) and he was telling me about how he lost his wife during the tsunami and he was left alone with his two kids, and that anytime I come back to Thailand I'm welcome to come stay at his place. That means something to me, not some kind of dog and pony show. It didn't help any that the ceremony they had in the morning was, to be honest, very cold and unemotional. They set up a stage in Bang Niang in front of the police boat, the weather was blazing hot, and there was one speech by some kind of deputy prime minister that lasted about 10 minutes. Then there was some kind of rugby scrum to place commemorative flowers by the police boat, and that was it. Mica had some very strong negative feelings about that ceremony which were actually published in The Guardian in the UK (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1674037,00.html),
but honestly I was glad it was short because I was drenched in sweat. The nighttime ceremony, which was the one with the princess and where they lit all the lanterns, got a lot more coverage and is probably the one you all heard about. I didn't go to that one, but the people who did said it was very well done and that the lanterns were spectacular. Still, like I said, for me the anniversary was sort of an abstract thing... I would've been more like a voyeur at the ceremony and not really a participant. One of my friends who is a volunteer was actually a tsunami victim (she was seriously injured and she lost her boyfriend) and she spent most of the day going around to various memorials in the area. Clearly, her experience and her point of view on the anniversary are going to be different than mine, and I know that she had a bit of a rough time with it, so maybe I'm not the best person to ask.

A few days after the memorial I was driving back to my new bungalow, which happens to be up the road from a Burmese camp, when I saw that the road was blocked by some kind of commotion. So I pulled up and saw that there was a truck surrounded by Burmese, and in the back of the truck was a group of white people chucking food and supplies to the Burmese workers. I just turned off my car and sat on the hood for a while, waiting for these guys to finish up. At first I was thinking that it was great that someone was paying attention to the Burmese, who essentially are the cheap labor in Thailand. They set up these aluminum siding work camps and live for months or years in Thailand while supplying the construction labor for most of the projects going on. They only get paid a couple hundred baht a day, at most. It was a bit strange, though, because there were these three white people standing up on a truck chucking food to the outstretched arms of maybe 50 Burmese, and it made for a strange and perhaps a little disturbing visual image. Still, I was glad that they were at least getting something. A few minutes later, a truck zooms by me honking its horn and forces its way through the crowd of Burmese and next to the other truck. An obviously agitated man, whom I recognize as Scott, the boatyard project manager, jumps out of the truck and starts yelling at the people handing out supplies. So I get off my hood and make my way toward the commotion, and by the time I get over there Scott is right in this other guy's face and they're just screaming at each other. Apparently, Scott thought that this was really not the best way to distribute food and that it was demeaning and condescending to the Burmese, and that the way they were distributing the supplies was unfair to those who could not physically force their way forward. Well, the other guy didn't take that very well, and these two are about an inch from each others' face, and I'm thinking there's going to be an all-out fracas any minute. Then they started dropping f-bombs and challenging each other to take swings at one another, so I kind of stepped between them and without really saying anything just tried to pull Scott away from the scene. I think the Burmese were more confused than anything at what the hell these foreigners were yelling about. Scott finally calmed down a bit and got back in his truck, and the other guy climbed in his truck with his people and drove off. Ever since then I thought that I could definitely see Scott's point, even though he handled it poorly, so I wondered if I should've been angry about what was going on instead of just sitting back and observing it. I did think it was great that the Burmese were getting something, but in retrospect there was no need to make a big show of it like that. They could've headed into the camp and dropped off the supplies to be doled out by whomever is in charge there. Still, I just couldn't get fired up about it.

For new year's I took a caravan of people to Krabi in my car, The Shark, which is on its last legs. The back license plate is hanging on by one screw. Two of the inside door panels have come off. The rear windows don't roll down. The front driver's window rolls down but won't roll back up unless you lock the doors. When you brake the steering wheel wobbles. The gas tank plate is off its hinges. The aircon vents in the back of the car don't work. The front passenger seat belt sticks. The stereo is broken. So, really, it's a pleasant ride for all, especially for three hours. Anyway, I won't get into too much detail, but I highly recommend spending new year's on the beach. There was the requisite firedancing, and the requisite Chang, and as for my personal experience... I was a dancing slut. I mean, I danced with whomever would dance with me... men, women, monkeys... I didn't care. I'd have to put it in my top three new year's.

Ever since that night, though, I've been fighting this cough and sore throat which has been dogging me for a few days now. I thought I remembered Jeremy telling me to buy some medicine with a dragon on it because it had opiates in it and would knock you out overnight, so I went to the supermarket and found a bottle of the stuff. So afterward I go for dinner at a small restaurant next to the supermarket where they know me and the guy asks me how I'm doing and I tell him I'm not feeling so well. He says something about taking medicine and I whip out the bottle and show it to him. He looks at it for a minute, moves away for better lighting, continues reading, comes back over to me and says "For lady." Then he starts laughing. He walks back into the kitchen and I hear this chatting in Thai and more laughing, and after a minute or so his wife comes over to me and says "Medicine for lady!" Then she writes out something in Thai for me to take to the supermarket and get instead. So for the rest of dinner I'm getting these sideways glances from the staff, and then a couple of their friends come by and I see them pointing over at me and laughing, so I don't think I can eat at that place anymore. Then when I tried to return the lady medicine to the supermarket they wouldn't take it back. I asked Bum to translate it for me, and when she read the box she just laughed hysterically for a couple of minutes before telling me that it's for a woman's period, which I suppose makes the dragon on the box an appropriate emblem.

So that's what's been going on with me. I'm sure I've forgotten something, but as usual I've written more than I intended. Hope everyone's doing well and...
happy festivus!

As always, the Dude abides,
Dave