How did I get here?

I ponder…

 …At the ripe old age of 27 years and 23 days wondering among a jungle of decrepit half built skyscrapers and handful of Americanized Steak Houses all boasting to be ‘the best steak in town’. Down each new alley hang promises of delightful Japanese food and all night karaoke nailed to homemade shutters in seemingly abandoned concrete shells. I’m calculating my route home via counting 7-11s and weaving accordingly. I have no desire to go inside any. Each new turn brings a new aroma of downpour and human waste which stings the nostrils and heightens the senses. How is it traipsing this forgotten attempt at a metropolis have I come to be wandering unknown tower blocks alone contemplating how near to paradise all of this feels?
I ask myself again, how did I get here? How did any of get to where we are? I count another 7-11 and turn again, this time I’m hit by overwhelming stench, I gasp for breath, it wasn’t 2 hours ago I had to make a sharp exit from the mini-van as it deposited a beautifully friendly young passenger on her merry way to Udom Something, and  not a second too soon I might add.  You see how I got home, which is how I got sick, which is partially how I got here geographically, was via a ferry from Ko Chang and bus from Trat to Pattaya. Said bus was  a mixture of the typical of the kind of company one would expect to keep on such an excursion.
 A recipe for the perfect Pattaya day trips just add…

10 large, excitable, sweaty non-to-threatening Russians, in the possession of the smaller one of the group was one slim and rather miserable looking prostitute complete with blue false nails, maroon hair extensions and poorly etched dragon tattoos for protection.

1 agitated bus driver who kept in a  bag  that resembled those doctors carried in to 40's under the passenger seat, and stooped off every 60 – 80K to drop off a small parcel to men waiting patiently mostly outside empty garages.

And 3 friendly young men from Pakistan, 2 of which seemed in high spirits and excited about yet another trip to Pattaya, the 3^rd man from Pakistan, part of the way in to the journey went from feeling a little worse-for-ware into a full blown attack of oddly pale coloured projectile vomit and loud prayers to Allah followed, by tears and more vomit. These men were deposited at a service station, where a woman the driver claimed was his sister would take them all to the nearest hospital for an agreed fee.

The 3^rd man from Pakistan is how I’m assuming I became ill. Having eaten nothing other than a 7-11 sandwich in a considerable amount of time, I could chalk it down to only this. I foolishly helped the 1^st man from Pakistan carry his woeful friend from the bus to a nearby bench while a disillusioned other collected bags deposited from the 3^rd from the min-van floor.
My intentions on exiting the fun packed tour were simple; shower off the marvelous bus ride, ram everything I owned that would fit into 5l rucksack pop some rent on the table and quite frankly fuck off! (Either that or blow some cash on tattoo, by now I was leaning far more toward fuck off.)

 When I put key to padlock I was met with the ever present mewing of The Pig which is in fact the cat. Now The Pig (this is his formal name) was making a more hellish racket than normal and I open the door to see poor little Piggles staring up at me forlornly nursing what appeared to be a broken paw. ‘Oh Fucksticks and buggery!’ I was too tired for this. I allowed the door to slowly pull itself too shutting my bags on the wrong side. ‘This is bloody massive spanner in the works.’ I moan. You see I don’t even bloody well like cats! I’m dog girl always have been always will be, yet here I am about to make my great solo escape in to the unknown dimension of ‘ anywhere but sodding here’ and I’m thwarted by a sorry looking grey tabby ball of fur, looking up at me with these lost green eyes as if to say, ‘you see? You see what happens when you leave me?’   A reluctant heroin I sweep the poor bastard into my arms and hold him close. It’s a bloody good thing I came back when I did or he’d have had to wait a week for attention.  He’s quiet elation to feel some kind of affection chokes me. How long had he been limping? How long had he been mewing waiting for someone to come home? (We’d been gone 2 days, we have automatic water and food dispensers and we leave the window open so he can come and go as he pleases.) ‘You poor boy,’ I exclaim hugging him tight. You see I don’t like cats, but I bloody love this pain in the arse. ‘Let me see you.’ I know instantly I’m grounded till he’s fixed and where I’m selfishly angry I vow not to leave his side and move all and sundry (including the litter tray) next to my bed so the little might doesn’t have far to go. “Cats? Not me, never liked ‘em”

But that’s not how I got here, that’s how I got there December 30^th 2012 angry and alone talking in a baby tones to a bloody cat! Which is part of how I got here, but before I got here, first got what then man on the bus got… sick!

Magnificently sick from 4am what I think was Sunday night on wards, oddly pale coloured retching that seized the very pit of my stomach and seem to attempt to pull the very life force screeching from abdomen through my mouth and nasal passage, burning with a furious essence comparable to bleach. This was not the opportune time for bout of earth shattering about-to-call-your-mother-at-4am-her-time nausea and there were many reasons why.

1.)   I was alone. (Remember the solo exodus to pastures greener?)
2.)   I had no telephone credit to call for a taxi. (I’d ironically spent it all getting The Pig to      hospital)
3.)    It was New Years Eve so even I could call taxi it wouldn’t come.
4.)    If the taxi did come I had no money to pay for it (I’d ironically spent it all getting The Pig to hospital)
5.)    I was in very low supply of water. (I don’t drive and you can’t get to shop past 7pm without driving and I didn’t have any money)
6.)    My housemate had been suffering a fever before we left, so the pain killers I knew of had departed with her. 

7.) I don’t think I need a 7^th I believe that’s quite enough.  So, like a boy scout I rationed my water, and drank some with the correct portions of salt and sugar every hour or so to replace what I’d lost via the toilet bowl. Heated up Oolong tea in the microwave (we were out of gas) in order to be able to drink the tap water, and left it at least 3 hours after each time I expelled some stomach tablets, containing a dose of paracetamol I found in the drawer, before attempting to swallow more.  Where I will admit there was a point I did a lot of crying, this was shortly after waking up at midnight to the sound of fireworks whilst wrapped around the toilet bowl in a kidney bean shape in head firmly in the waste paper basket, I feel a little braver than the 3^rd Man as I never once got to the stage of bartering with God, my overwhelming competitive nature held tight to that one, even sickness can be a game. (Not the most fun one mind you and I do hope the 3^rd Man is okay, I feel your pain buddy)

At some stage on the eve of New Years Day the vomiting passed and when chronic cystitis (due to my genius water rationing) and fever crazed madness had kicked in (By fever driven madness I can assure you twas nothing short of this, I turned momentarily into a rather delirious, immobile version of Lara Croft. In a fit of worry, caused by a ludicrous nightmare, I convinced myself that the stalker my housemate and I accumulated could sense I was home alone, I will explain the God awful man later, so with expert prowess, so as not to be seen in the nude from any of the windows,  I took all the sharp objects from kitchen and with ninja like stealth and precision hid them all over my room so I was never more than 2 leaps away from a weapon, [due to being at deaths door, this was a guess rather than a tested theory any actual leaping could only end in transforming into a pile of unconscious matter on the tiled floor] the largest knife resided in the bathroom, in case there was call to attack through a locked door. I must have assumed at this stage the high temperature gave way to superhuman strength where I could drive blunt cutlery through a hardwood finish? You know how you get in the throngs of 38+? I need not explain myself.)  I came to the conclusion rather than bartering with ‘The All High’ I would sulk with him for mocking me so harshly. I decided, as he was only joking with me, I was out of the danger zone as far as choking on my mystery stomach bile when under the influence of heavy sedatives and ingested 50mg of Amytripatlene, BOSCHOK, lubly jubly job done! No need to lift so much as a spork in self defense!

When I awoke I thought it best to leave the flat. Although in hindsight I didn’t put a single knife back in rightful place. That ought to case at least mild confusion if I’m not the first to return.

Today is the 2^nd of January. It’s 3:22pm. In order to complete my detailed plan of escapology one would have to have landed by now or at least be well underway and the fever has by no means finished with me. I’ve allowed the heathen beast the best part of 2 days (or is it 3, I don’t have the foggiest?) of my holiday it shall have no more, mark my words!

I didn’t catch a plane, I caught a bus. A 40THB, half an hour bus to get here, here is undoubtedly where I am now. Why do we feel the need to explore miles away from our doorsteps, when the truth is we might feel more at peace with our lives if we truly got to know where it is we actually live? To know beauty is within arms reach would surely be equally as satisfying reaching middle age and running gun hoe through Egypt wearing preposterous white cotton lungies on a rented Camel? As a child in your home town or village you have an unquenchable desire to explore, to conquer every square inch of your environment, behind the sofa, the back of the cupboards, abandoned houses, abandoned boxes, holes in hedges, holes in tree, holes in socks, hole is walls, the back very of your mouth, the furthest point inside your nose, inside a friends nose, up the dog’s nose, under the rug anywhere that seemed a little foreign or unknown that could potentially yield some grand new adventurous discovery. (I will add after writing this that  the opposite side to my argument is men who keep firm hold of those desires in adulthood have a high potential of being part of the Bush Dynasty, so there is a fine line to my point.) 

When you grow up you move away, and then you move again, but you don’t really spend enough time behind the sofa or under the rug to really get a feel for the place. Yes you redecorate, add a touch of you, at least a throw rug here and there from your travels, you visit the odd pub or two until you find the one you like, the odd a club, a restaurant here and there and a stroll when you’re not too busy or too tired. When do we stop looking behind obvious things for other things? What's behind your sofa? Could be Narnia, could be the TV remote, or at least the batteries a few forgotten keys, some earring backs and some dull coppers, once even they were treasures. 

Do we ever stop yearning to find these things? Is it just that once you have explored your fair share of nasal pathways and yielded the same glistening gob of results you assume each path leads to goo and give up? 

Having once managed to squeeze 5 whole pieces of sweetcorn into one small toddler sized nostril (my own I hasten to add) my mother, father and I (and whoever else aided in holding me down) have firsthand knowledge that the fascinating inexplicable missing link between solid and liquid is not all you’ll ever find up there, sometimes there may be a golden nugget. Yes, I know I had a hand in the nuggets residing in the particular magical cavity, but that’s my point. You have got to put something different in to get something different out.  

 
So now I’m alone in Sri Racha in a rickety old wooden hut built over the sea, with a bed shaped like an old donkey’s back and my very own navy blue hole in the floor, listening to the sea lapping at the stilts of the hut like an excitable puppy yapping at your feet, and I truly am in a paradise of sorts.

2013 has begun...