Yokel

Feeling more and more like a local now, as Rocker and I did our once weekly sweep into 'town' - Thong Sala to be precise, a grotty little mecca full of grotty travellers like us and one good restaurant and a hundred shops selling the same sarong, over and over again.

We made a pact that we would only go there about once a week to save ourselves money and to stock up on new books and cash our traveller's cheques. It's done us good so far, as you can't walk across the street there for being hassled to get into a taxi by someone.

At least here in Haad Salad, the tiny tiny village in which we have found ourselves, we don't have to deal with any of that. Aside from the restaurant owners that we see every night and the Voodoo Prince at the mini-mart we don't have to deal with anyone we don't want to, and that's how I like it.

I keep thinking how unfriendly people are these days, and thinking back to my year in Australia, eight or so years back. People were so friendly then, have things changed, or is it me? Have travellers become stuck up, or is it just the current climate we all live in, what with terrorism and the like? Shouldn't that make us all more deteremined to be happy and experience life to the full?

There I go again with my idealism, it's my best and worst quality, I swear.

But no matter, I have Rocker to talk to, that's all I need right now. I also have the select few to email and chat with, all is not lost.

Rocker has been bitten something awful by a big flying thing and his whole foot has swollen quicker than Mariah's waistline and I just hope he won't end up at the hospital. We bought antibiotics over the counter in town (put that in your pipe and smoke it, England - there's nothing, but NOTHING you can't buy over the counter here - yes, even tamarzipan!), so we'll have to see how that goes.

Other than that today I have done sweet FA and am proud of it. Sometimes it feels like I have been here forever and will never go home. Believe me if it weren't for Christmas, I mightn't even bother!