Helloooo from clean clinical very expensive funky technowiz obsessed giant shopping complexed Singapore! So the complete lack of response to my previous email has lead me to 1 of 2 conclusions... A) you're all b******s (ok not everyone...but you KNOW who you are!) B) it was freakin boring and miserable and you didn't even get to the end! (my fault i fear) hehe... SO... in order to share the cool/scary/interesting incidents of the last few weeks we've decided to TRY be as brief as possible. These are our last few stories: 1)The Hippie Experiment: To Be (a hippie) Or Not To Be... 2)Bangkok to Singapore...BUSINESS CLASS!!! 3)Kirst Rides A Scooter! Kirst CRASHES A Scooter! (twice!) Kirst Rides Again... (yeah THAT got yr attention!) ...so feel free to choose skip speed read as you see fit! 1)The Hippie Experiment: Having spent a few days in Pai aka Hippie Central, and after a lifetime of turmoil, i have finally made peace with my love-hate relationship with hippies. (i.e. I CAN'T STAND dreadlocked*-smelly-greasyhaired-clammy-pot-skinned "yeah-like-peace-and save-the-earth-eat-organic-bruthuh while hypocritically cigarette-butts-everywhere-littering (BAD solo UNRHYTHMICAL-middle-of-the-night-bongo-playing-hippies.... VERSUS ..."I wanna be one! (minus qualities listed above of course); i wanna wear bells on my ankles and have, like, wild hippie hair and like, say things like "like" and it's all relative!" and wear faery wings at music fests! Dilemma. So we conducted the ultimate experiment... Hypothesis: Hippies are gross* Experiment: I didn't wash my hair for 11 days. Result: It was gross Conclusion: I may sometimes wanna dress like a hippie, but the truth is i'll never be one, and i'm really okay with that. *Note: Dreadlocked hippie prejudice is limited to those of Caucasion group, and does NOT include Black or Asian Rastafarians, who are authentic, rather sexy, and frankly, tre's COOL! 2)Bangkok to Singapore...BUSINESS CLASS!!!:
We got upgraded! I haven't had a decent glass of wine in nearly 3 months!! So we had Champers before we took off, i had 3 glasses of THE most deeeelishus wooded Chardonnay and some exotic Port (alongside our 3 course meal, Dahlings!) We arrived in Singapore feeling very pampered and rather pished! 3)...If you fall off the horse...you gotta just get back on it man!! or Kirst Rides/Crashes/Conquers A Scooter! What with Darren not being your typical male oaf and me not being your typical girl either, we've sometimes had a bit o role reversal on our trip (don't be rude). For eg: Since we left for SE Asia, i have been dying to drive a scooter down a windy hilly road. D, on the other hand, thinks scooters are dangerous, scary and silly. (and he's right). From the minute i got onto the bike i was in my little element, a bit shaky and nervous at first but once we were on the open road it was coooooool!!! First half of our day trip was pretty incident-free, driving up and down hills, challenging little windy roads and hairpin bends ...noooo problem; we swam in a waterfall, got ogled at by the locals, etc. Then we hit a dirt road - not really meant for navigating on a crappy Marie-biscuit wheeled, top heavy 100cc scooter... we only realised this in retrospect of course (and when we returned ours to see that every other scooter-for-hire had the same scrapes and scratches in the same places!). So we're coming down a rather huge hill on a red-sandy slidey dusty road, and i brake to slow down, the wheels lock and we slide... bike lands on it's side, rearview mirror totally buckled, scratches on the body. (FAMILY: i was only going about 10kms/hr i swear! Ask Darren!) Though D and I were totally injury free, i was obviously really shaken at the prospects of how bad it COULD have been if i wasn't going so slowly, and how little control it seems i had over the bike on a dirt road compared to a tarred one. Fine, get back on the bike and go S L O W E R... and 2 mins later it happens again!! The minute i touch the brakes on a downhill it skids and we're on our side again. At this point as you can imagine we're both now completely poeperig (sh*t-scared) and all we know is we have to get off these dirt roads! ...in 1 piece! So we survived a very slow tense trip back down the mountain. I'm completely traumatised - feeling sure that even though i'm back on tar, the wheels are gonna skid on the road if i try to brake down a hill, of which there were loads! This is not fun anymore. Back into town, we head to the nearest swimming pool (it's FREAKIN hot!) and knock back a stiff Mostly-Samsong-Whisky with about a sip-of-coke and decide that we've had just about enough scooter-exploring for one lifetime. But i feel defeated. I really wanted to ride a scooter, i was driving like a little ace BEFORE the sandy roads and now i've lost all my confidence. What a sh*tty way to end the experience. Miserable. But the BIG GUY above had other plans for me. Oh yeah, there are times in my life where i feel "God" or the "higher power" or who/whateveryouwannacallit that sometimes steps in and gives you a second chance, and this was one of them: Later on that afternoon we had planned to go with one of the locals to the site of his new guesthouse that he was building. We met him in the town, on the scooter, me shakily driving slowly, D on the back being "confidence" coach, the sweetheart. (We'll drive in the town but NO MORE DIRT ROADS!) Mr Pong has a much nicer faster bike so he tells D to ride with him, so it's just me on my own on the scooter following the both of them. D tells Mr Pong to go slowly. Mr Pong says yes and, of course, doesn't. He didn't go dangerously fast, he simply drove like a man who's lived there and navigated those roads for 20years... with me following... IT WAS THE MOST FUN I'VE EVER HAD!!! I had no choice, i had to keep up or i'd lose them and be completely lost. I was PETRIFIED... EXHILARATED... FREAKED OUT... ECSTATIC!!! In short, i was having a conversation God the entire way and after a while i felt completely safe and really like it wasn't me driving that scooter behind them, like it was someone else guiding me every step of the way. Talk about facing your fears!!? First we were on the tar roads (whoohoo!, without D on the back i only have me to worry about, the bike is easier to control, and i have an excuse to go fast yippeee)...then with no warning, we're suddenly on dirt, but it's kindof hard lumpy bumpy dirt roads (ooooh-kayyyy...me grinning desperately everytime a very worried Darren looks over his shoulder (far in the distance) so he won't worry). At this point i realised exactly what was happening, i knew this was my chance to really enjoy the ride, scary as it was, and to conquer it, because i had no other choice. And then it happened... a sandy slidey red dirt down-hill appeared right in front of me with no warning, my ultimate fear... ....AND I ACED IT!!!!!! How? Well i left it to God/TheBigGuy/Chick/TheAngels(TheAnnunaki? hehe) and made it down this massive dirt dip and up again with no prob at all. (I also didn't touch the brakes once which also helped). Talk about indoctrination by fire. And if that wasn't bad enough, i still had to do the same freakin trip again on the way back! It was AWESOME! It was TERRIFYING!! And i really appreciate being given another chance. It was freakin FANTASTIC!!!! Well people this email is costing us many $ maaan, i know there are loads of replies owed to lots of people. Please be a patient. Tonight...we fly to Aus!!!! Lots and lots of love to everyone, K&D