Friday, May 26, 2006
phuket rocked.
soft gently-sloping sandy beaches, and waves that curl and roar and glisten invitingly in the sun. bodyboarding (well not really, more of getting sucked under, near-drowning, and battered about on rocks, but still) and sandcastle building. waving lightsticks around madly at 2am under a star-filled sky.
good food overload! spicy green curry filled to the brim with vegs and chicken, and delicious chicken fried rice, and (i am assured) mega-tasty cheap seafood tomyam, with mussels and prawns and crabmeat. cold glasses of thai iced tea (tehpingheaven. ahh.) to wash away the burn. friendly shopkeepers and jenga ateugen's restaurant.
bungee madness. that 1 minute going up where you're thinking, "what the fuck did i get myself into?" and you're standing on that tiny platform, with the jungle 50 metres down (and thinking hey, this kind of looks like the view from my apartment 20 storeys up) with your stomach churning and palms sweating, and you pray and hope that suspiciously-frayed-looking rope holds, and did that guy tie it around your feet tight enough? is that carabiner going to be the only thing keeping 3stan from sending an extra-large wreath to 10A Braddell Hill? the first 2 seconds of freefall, and you're sure you're going to die, and then the rope holds, and you can feel it stretch and you're bouncing, screaming now not out of fear but the pure exhilaration that comes with cheating death, and oh my god, it's the best 30 seconds of your life. i swear.
atvs are great-- mudsplashing and highpowered ramming. but so is haggling with shopkeepers (paaang! song roy hat sip!) and watching muay thai, and strange thai shows (unfit for print. ask me about it).
a spectacular holiday! but when the plane curves into its approach and i see tiny hdb flats rising in the midmorning sun, i know i'm where i'm supposed to be. back to the country where everyone takes a few extra sweets at the immigration counter (for my siblings!) and noone queues for the mrt. ahh, the crushing pace of life in singapore. i am a city mouse indeed.
all you 3stanis! i missed you! and you too. even though i'm not going to see you for (possibly) 1 month, or more. bah.
+ fictions&fires
3:24 PM
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plangere, latin: to strike, or to lament.
in the depth of winter i finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
--albert camus
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to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
-- ee cummings
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