I am so pissed off with 1and1 this week, on Monday and Tuesday my email was down, and now this morning its down again! I pay these wankers for a hosted Microsoft Exchange account because I need a robust mail solution for work, what’s the freaking point if its down for three days a bloody week?

On a slightly different note, it occurs to me that I meet more loonies here in Surin than I have ever met anywhere else. Let me briefly introduce a few of them.

• Ghost Butterfly Man - This Thai guy frequents the small cafe across the road from my apartment, he only knows two words of English, the word ghost and the word butterfly, and he insists on having a conversation with me based around those two words whenever I see him, gripping stuff!
• Idiot Samlo Man - Another Thai guy, he rides a samlo, which is similar to a rickshaw. He is a complete idiot, he see’s me pulling out of the apartment block on my motorcycle, so he stops to ask me if I need a ride, what the fuck?
• Dance Freak Woman - This Thai woman works in the local food market selling meat, but once a week she turns up in the restaurant across the road from me, dumps a ton of change into the juke box and stands there dancing in the middle of the restaurant for a few hours, really weird.
• Take My Dog Man - He lives in a wooden shack on the land next to my apartment block, every time I see him he tries to give me one of his dogs, horrible ugly things with an entire ecosystem going on under their fur.

This is just a handful of the wacky characters I deal with every day in this town, honestly its fruit cake central around here, so I fit in well!

Myself and Nuth got to chatting today, we were looking through my Thailand guide book from a couple of years ago and it was apparent that she hasn’t seen an awful lot of her home country.

I thought about this a little bit and realised I haven’t seen as much as I would have liked too either. So and idea started to form. On the way back from lunch we popped into the local metalworkers and asked how much it would cost to have one of the sidecars they build for scooters made, they are a metal frame and are used to carry cargo or people. I decided the price was good so ordered one. So we are going to take the scooter, with the big add on side frame, and myself, Nuth and little Leon will go on a 6 week tour of Thailand.

I have to say, I’m rather excited!

I run a website that attempts to cover all of the beach/dance parties that Koh Phangan is famous for. I interview people attending the parties, take photographs, record the DJ’s and then post a review of each party the day after it happens.

Whilst this has proven a great vehicle for gaining traffic to the site in question, it does take rather a lot of effort. It means I have to attend each party for several hours, often leaving my house at 11pm and returning at 6am. This used to be no problem but these days I have so much other, more lucrative work on my desk I am not sure it is a valid use of my time anymore.

The thing is that this particular website took a lot of work to get going, I really do not want to just throw it in the garbage, I would much rather find somebody else to run it for me, they would need to be a local though and somebody who is going to be here a long time. I just cannot think of anyone who fits the bill and might want to give it a try.

I have a very close friend here on Koh Phangan named Mick, he has kind of adopted Buddhist beliefs since he has been here although he is still somewhat of a rogue.

A few days ago the string that goes around his neck and holds a small Buddha figurine broke and he was looking everywhere for this special type of string to replace it. Somebody mentioned he should just go to the local Wat (temple) and they will give him some new string and bless his Buddha at the same time.

So yesterday off he goes to the Wat, and he tells me it was a very strange experience, he walked in and started talking to an old Monk who seemed to act as if he had known Mick a long time. The Monk then told him yes told him that he had a Buddha necklace in his pocket that he needed fixing and asked him to hand it over.

The Monk fixed the necklace and blessed it before giving it back and Mick thought nothing else of it. But since this has happened some really cool stuff has happened to him and he can’t seem to put a foot wrong! Probably the most incredible thing is somebody made an offer on a house he has put up for sale in the UK, the first offer in months!