It’s all about the Journey

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It’s hard to complain about today starting off as a bad day when in reality we are living on an island surrounded by beautiful oceans and breath taking views, but this morning started off rough. After the accident, (Yeah, Mike …you told me so) we’ve just dished out about 600 USD. And than we understandably found out we won’t be getting our deposit back from our shitty bungalow. So in total; we woke up about 1,000 USD poorer. In perspective, that money could have paid our rent for a quarter of the year. It could have paid for both of our visa trips, both times. (We are currently on a 4 month, double entry tourist visa.. Aka need to cross the boarder twice to still be legal immigrants) It probably could have paid for an unlimited supply of Pad Thai and Chang for at least 3 months. In this country, 1,000 American dollars can go a very, very long way. So you can see why we were a little bummed starting off our day like this, when we haven’t even been here for a whole week. Anyway, as Bob Marley always reminds us, “Every little thing is gonna be alright” and so we moved on with our day. 


Our landlords at our bungalow are sweat hearts. The woman is from here and her husband is Swiss. The man took Mike to go rent a bike from a more reputable place (we’re working on buying one) as I began to unpack our belongings and started to organize a little bit.

When he returns we head into town.
It’s a beautiful day. A little cloudy, and as always my skin is a little damp with sweat, and I can see the condensation rolling off my beer bottle. There’s a nice breeze blowing my hair off my sticky neck every so often. It doesn’t feel as nice as my already habitual float in the ocean would have, but no one can reject the enjoyment of a nice breeze on a hot day.
We agree to stop for lunch at a burger place we pass by. After we ate we headed to the market and bought some necessities – bleach, rags, plates, cups(utensils ect), beer, vodka and a few other items. We also bought a new lock for our bungalow (even though our landlords told us not to) but earlier we had discovered any key can open the door when Mike accidentally walked in using the bike key.
We head back to the bungalow, me on the back of the bike, holding onto Mike with an extra firm grip today. I take a mental note on how impressive my sense of direction has been since moving here. My backpack is weighing me down from everything we purchased.

It was about 5pm when I finished deep cleaning and almost had completely finished unpacking our new home. I sent mike off to enjoy some snorkeling and run a few errands, insisting that I was fine. I honestly don’t really mind cleaning, it’s even a little fun when your scrubbing and dancing around to “Dancing in the Moonlight” 
It’s pretty hot living with just fans and no AC, but somehow I think we’ll manage.
When Mike got home (home! We are home!) I finished what I was doing, we showered, and headed into town to check out the fair. Its only about a 5 minute ride on the moped. The fair was more of a NYC canal street, I managed to hassle my way to a pair of closed toe easy slide on shoes and flowy pants for only about 10$ total . For the first time in my life, I really actually needed to buy shoes. I don’t like riding on the moped with sandals and out of respect we need to take our shoes off at almost every place we wind up, so my little red converse did not pass the test on this island.

Anyway, the reason we went to the fair to begin with is I saw someone post on the FB Koh Tao community board that the fair was serving bugs. When we first decided to move to Thailand, Mike brought up how badly he wanted to eat bugs. So, since he took such good care of me last night, I decided to make my baby happy and feed him some bugs. 

EL OH EL

We spent 20 TBH (20 Baht: 60 cents USD) on a little baggy of cooked grasshoppers and larva. To my surprise.. But not really.. Mike forced me into trying one, insisting “it tastes like chicken!”

If that’s what Mike thinks chicken tastes like than I’m afraid to ask him for a bite of his steak.
It was crunchy, fishy, cat foody, salty, goosh-y, cockroachy, grossness.
But really, with all do respect; try it!
We left the fair soon after to find a real dinner.
We ended up in Sairee Beach, walking around a little and finally deciding on a little place right next to the she-man strip club. We ordered 5 beers, 2 water bottles, one order of yellow curry with chicken and an order of red curry with duck for a total of 590 TBH (14 USD). Per usual, we found ourselves together feeling good, happy, and free. …(and full)

So you know what? Today started off rough. But hey, that’s life. And even though we are yes, living in paradise, we also need to remember that we are still human beings and still living a reality. Life doesn’t always go accordingly but that’s never stopped us in the past, in fact, as I remember it’s always made us wiser and more understanding.
So here I am now, laying in my new bed, next to the man I choose to spend my days with, he’s rolled on his side enjoying some soft music from his laptop as we both share the only fan we have blowing heavily and directly on us. We hear thunder,
the leaves start to rattle and the wind is hitting them harder and harder with every new blow. The sky starts lighting up every few minutes as we anticipate a storm, I bring in everything hanging on our clothes line out front alone as mike has already fallen asleep.
So I’m going to end my story here, and enjoy this night with the man who deserves endless back tickles and all my lovin’
& As always, my heart is happy & today was wonderful.
Lots of love
– Cassie

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