oh my. todaY, MY CAMERA stopped working. and in the process i exposed a full roll of film, so all knd of things will have to live on in my mind.

i left koh tao and landed in the jungle. I nearly died on the night ferry... deciding to save money and being (previously) blessed with sea legs, i thought a nine-hour ferry would be a great way to spend a night. I didn't count on the storm that tossed the tiny boat around in 4m waves. I didn't count on 100 people crammed into the bottom of a cargo ship - on rice mats on the floor, behind storage containers, on top of flats of coke bottles. everywhere.

I was the first person to puke, hurling my pad thai into the sunset. i take solace in knowing that i was definitely not the last.

I think the very worst part of it was that there was no railing on the ship. I wrapped an arm around a wooden post, and clung there, half a foot from truly massive wavesn as the ship rocked back and forth... for five hours, shaking, vomiting, holding on for dear life.... (and not really sure that life was all that dear).

and then... land.

land. i have never been so glad to feel solid ground under my feet. Never appreciated ground in such a way.

I landed up in surat thani at 6am, and then at a national park by 9am, and they told me that a rainforest tour was leaving that day... in five minutes. I had spent the night vomiting over the side of a ship, and all i really wanted to do was walk and walk and breathe fresh air.

So off i went. Into rainforest, and mountains, and bamboo forests. I walked through jungle. Hiked for hours. I swam through caves, admiring stalactites, dodging bats and spiders. That night I slept in a floating straw hut on an emerald lake... quiet creaks with the waves. Jungle sounds all around. So beautiful. In the morning, I climbed up a waterfall. Carefully. Stepped two feet from a snake... ergh. I am slowly overcoming my fear of crawly things. Still have freak-out moments when i catch sight of a lock of hair out of the corner of my eye and think it's a tarantula. It's a slow process.

I went looking for wild elephants. Quietly.

I am covered in scrapes, bruises, and leech-bites, as the treks are just not easy. But it's so good to be pushing my body like this.

today i went rockclimbing, and then down into a canyon to a lagoon... Enormous ferns and trees rising out of steaming jungle. i hadn't planned on it, so i did it barefoot, in a skirt. so not smart... i was calf deep in bright orange mud and loving it (except when sliding down steep cliffs on my ass, frantically seeking a handhold... it's been pouring here and the entire world is liquid mud) i really don't believe i have spent enough time playing in mud in the past few years.

i did not see tigers, nor did i find elephants (although they were SO close! freshly chewed bamboo shoots. dammit, i was mad). But i have seen gibbons and sea eagles and monkeys, so that's something. Oh, and cockroaches, but i won't dwell on those. And leeches.

Fuckers. Those things get on you out of nowhere and they just crawl up and up, and even when you think you've got them all, you've got the sneaking suspicion that they're in unmentionable zones.

i'm in an internet cafe on the beach, now... i've left the rainforest, and i'm truly hoping that my clothing will dry out in the next century.. everything about me has taken on the (not-so) pleasant smell of mold.

a small sacrifice for the good times involved.

Not sure where to next... think i'll just read on the beach for a couple of days and relax while my clothes dry. and my pack. and my shoes.

i've been reading carol shields' "stone diaries"... a passing canadian told me she died last week. Is this true? That makes this story even more poignant. People who write (well) seem so immortal to me. It seems impossible that they are gone, will never capture a thought again.

I keep thinking about how close we always are to death... that I can be here and then not, and there's hardly anything keeping me in this space... a micrometre thin skin holding all my atoms in place.

i think it was the night ferry that did it to me. Or maybe the rockclimbing or the crazy taxi drives i've taken. We don't like to thnk about it, but it's true.

I'm not sure how i got on this tangent... i guess the only way out is to say that i'm not planning on being Not-Here for some time yet. There's just too much to see.

(side note: "yet" means something akin to "fucking" in thai, and i have to be really careful not to say it, cause it just makes everyone laugh and laugh and then look at me strangely.

11:11 p.m. - 2003-07-24