on your MARK, get set, go!: NEVER A DULL MOMENT

Hello All,

June 15th

So I made my way over to the Bangkok Airport earlier today without having booked a flight. I put the names of three Thai Islands on pieces of paper. Then put them in my pocket. Then pulled one out… One ticket to Phuket please? Phuket is located 60 miles off the west coast of Thailand down by Malaysia. I always wondered where Malaysia was. Under Thailand! Who knew!?

I don't know what I will do here but my hostel is right across the street from the beach. So, I'll start with that. I pulled out all the stops on my accommodations and am dropping $7/Night. High rollin'!

Oh, worth noting… sort of.. They held up my plane in Bangkok for some Thai movie star. He was handsome. Then I found $5.

Tomorrow, I will try and get my bearings a little bit and see what's what. I'm hoping to enroll in a Thai Boxing Academy. Allegedly this is where some of the sport's superstars train. However, most of the academies have reservations on taking in short term students. Lets all keep our fingers crossed.

Mark/Chops

PS.. It took 70 days but I finally am getting destroyed by some "it must have been something I ate" illness. There is no place I'd rather be than on some island off the coast of Thailand doing battle with GIardia. Sarcasm. Ughhh.

Night

June 16th-17th

Where do I even begin? AT 8AM this morning as I was set to head out the door to run the beach, I was approached by an older Thai woman at my hostel's reception. She was trying to tell me something and she wasn't happy. Cutting to the chase, she was telling me that I had a lady of the evening with me in my room last night. "Ummm what??!! That's news to me" I said. Making a long story short, she was looking for me to pay a $15 fine for having a prostitute in the hostel! No calling the cops. No kicking me out. Just a $15 fine. Where am I?? Oh yeah, Thailand. When I politely asked to pull up the surveillance camera from the night before to prove my innocence, I was obviously quickly set free. There WAS a gentleman that hired a lady of the evening at my hostel. Worth noting, he was 19, from Uruguay, bald, and his skin was twice as dark as my best tan. I could see how I could be mistaken for him…. not. Can't make this stuff up. Thank goodness I dodged Thailand prison!

I'm sure most of you are aware, but I am probably one of the last humans on earth that would hire a lady of the evening. I'm like a pilgrim on first date so don't get any ideas ladies! For the record, last night I started the book We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver and was sound asleep by 9pm.

So yeah, that all happened.

Also, sticking with this dodgy theme, the amount of tubby white men from the western world with twenty something year old lady friends here in Thailand is scary. Everywhere I look, I see Bob from accounting with a girl that wasn't alive until the 90s. I lost count somewhere around 200 Bobs.

Aside from all this, I have been filling the last few days with Thai Boxing, reflection, and pounds and pounds and POUNDS of white rice.

Tomorrow, at the crack of dawn, I plan to make my way to a place called James Bond Island. Allegedly it is OFF THE HOOK. (are kids saying that these days?)

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DADS! I can't say that I know of a single dad that reads my blog, but I am just making certain to cover my bases.

Mark/Chops