an art is what it is, and i am a master!

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i have become quite proficient, if not lucky, at leaving a country with no foreign currency to dispose of. sure, some will remind me that i have gone a bit hungry in this pursuit, but excellence has its' price.

anyway, today i left malaysia for thailand. what a headache. i asked in 'tanah rata', "how do i get to thailand". i was told to take a bus to 'alor setar', so i did. once there, 1.5 hours later than prescribed, i discovered that there is no bus to thailand from this city. idiots! somehow i thought to check the train schedule i had in a pocket. i had about 15 minutes to get across town to the train station. so i opted for a taxi. i made it with time to spare since the train was late.

once at the train station, i could only buy a ticket to the border. so i did. this left me with plenty of malay ringett($ or RM), or so i thought. i bought a drink and snack. once i checked into thailand, i discovered that i could use ringett to pay for the onward train ticket. i happened to still have 27 RM left despite my having just stopped at yet another snack stand (fortunately, i decided i really did not want a snack). the train ticket to the next town was exactly 27RM. now i want to tell u that 27RM was traintrack robbery. the first leg of the trainride was 5 RM and both legs were about equal in distance. when they have you by the balls they have you good.


i have also now left thailand. i went to the airport with an extra 200 baht because no one could tell me what the exit tax would be. i would rather have more than less, and i did. it was 500 baht. so i had some breakfast leaving me with 56baht. i went to a fruitshake shop and talked the clerk into selling me 3 pieces of fruit for that-i smiled a lot. i would have been better served if i had turned in my baht for about $6US but i didn't know that i would receive breakfast on the first leg of my long journey home (27 hours including all taxis, and layovers-i cut off 6 of the expected hours at LAX- as well as the hitched ride home).

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