I've got to commend the public restrooms on this little island of Koh Tao, though they are spaced sparingly. They are clean enough, with little hoses like the ones on a kitchen sink for squirting clean your bottom. And a sink with soap always! It makes those frequent visits quite bearable, and even lovely. Which is to say, yes, the travelrhea has begun. From rich and loose chocolate moose to green curry in coconut milk, the flavors and textures have really started running the stool spectrum in the last 24 hours.

But I don't blame the food! The food! Oh, a dream. What glee to wake up each morning and know there are three tasty plates ahead of me, even if the interrim toileting might stagger my cuilinary confidence.

I'll say we did try the fresh sea-food yesterday, and indeed it did contain the little purple octopus and tentacles and all manner of popping fishy rubber flesh, but we did it. Kyle enjoyed his and even said that beyond the texture he found the little morsels to be as or more savory than beef. Imagine!

The finding of nuisance in one another's nuances has also begun, culminating in several tats today. He compared my wanting to blog once a day to a father constantly making business deals on his blackberry on the family vacation. I tried telling him that no! it's not that, it's not for money! it's for passion! Our brains work differently and I feel the words bubbling in me and I'm not settled til they're spat. And it's just a lot faster to type than hand-write, and I'm really trying to give this blag thing a solid go!

Last night though we saw our first official transvestyte cabaret, and what a spectacle of micro-exacted choreography and exaggerated movement. One act right after the other, 20 girls or more, and all along the gamut of genuinely pretty to comically scowl-faced. I've never been more sure than now after seeing that show that I am destined to be a poorly paid, exploited sexual side-show for international tourists.

Speaking of, I have now received three emails from anxious dad pleading with me that I not alter my body surgically. "No mutilation!!!" He's full of concern. Sorry, Dad!

There were little kids at the show, and a two-foot puppet penis in one of the acts as well. The lady-boy pulled out the long dark sock and jerked and yanked and rubbed and even deep-swallowed the fully illustrated tip. The song she performed must have had something to do with all of that, but it was in Thai so I'm not sure. I'm not sure why she had black freckleds painted on either.

No more motor-bike wrecks yet, but Kyle's calf wound is festering. I've been going barefoot the last two days because of a foot-sore, and because it's magically appropriate, even fancier, to do so here. No shoes inside! But today we found several bits of glass in my heal, so that's something to consider!

Then we found a pair of flip flops abandoned for free in the road! Oh, island mercy.

Snorkelling yesterday was the most unreal and beautiful think yet. It took me a few minutes to navigate the mechanism and stop breathing the brine, but soon I was a diving and frolicking otter among a thousand varieties of flickering life. I touched a sea cucumber! (They're supposed to spit out some of their guts when agitated, so the predator will eat that and spare the motherload, but mine only flopped like any regular land cucumber would.) There were little brightly colored puff balls that sucked into the coral if you waved your hand over them. Parrot fish full of all the colors of the neon rainbow! Terrifying sea urchins only feet away as we flippered through the dense coral landscape. Glowing green eyes, yellow eyes, clear green water you could see through forever and beyond.

Land on this island, albeit towards the middle not beach-front, goes for only 1200 Baht per square mile. That's $40. And they build you a house as well. Nothing's ironed out for certain, but I'm just saying, the snorkelling was really nice, and the motorcycle makes me feel very powerful. Powerful enough, I'd say, to own this island.

Needless to say we're destroying this island before we leave a little later today. No one can enjoy it if we must go.

And I'm about due for another massage. Our first was nice but a little bit taxing. The thai massage involved the little lady maneuvering you with a great deal of force, bending and pulling and pushing, and most of the time she is poised on top of you. My service-woman was fat, and I nearly died. Next I think I will take an oily rub-down, to soothe my sun-beaten shoulders.

Oh! It's been too long already and Kyle will be back! I've got to get off and pretend I've been reading or he'll sass me like he always does.

So far no tattoos, but Thailand has been an otherwise gracious and compliant guest.

Soon we will touch the monkey! And the elephant!
(And own them.)


Hoping the fever, sneezing, sore-throat and headache pass quickly,
and are not indications of swine flu,
or my desperately weakened system,
Kan DeWitt