NO GAS!

---

The political situation in Thailand is pretty interesting right now. There was a coup in September of '06 in which the military overthrew Prime Minister Thaksin and took control of the government. Thaksin jumped ship and left the country amid corruption charges and the people split into pro and anti-coup factions. The military has had control for the past year while attempting to draft and promulgate a new constitution that both sides are relatively happy with. Last Monday they finally voted on the draft, which meant yet another day off for us so everyone could go vote. It's been a pleasant surprise getting a few days off this term for random events and holidays of unindentified significance. I choose to call them all "amy's happy beach days." The one I did figure out was celebrating the Queen's birthday. Huge deal. They love her almost as much as they love the King. That's a big almost. I have seen women cry just talking about the king. He is bigger than Elvis here. In fact, I kind of love the king now too. Don't really know why, but after the 10,948,9387th billboard, the marketing started to get to me. I'm a sucker for target marketing.

But I digress....with this newfound twenty-four hours of freedom, we decided to jump on the bus and head back to Koh Tao. It was nice to not have to figure out any new plans and feel a sense of familiarity upon arriving. Getting in around 9am after an overnight bus, we decided to just chuck our bags in the bungalow and head out to rent ATVs. Now i've decided after spending a lot of time on the back of motorcyle taxis and scooters with friends, not to mention being in three accidents and counting, I'm not the biggest fan of being on the back of a motorcycle. In fact it's terrifying 80% of the time. Being on the back of an ATV heading down a rocky hill towards the water made me want to vomit and cry at the same time. I decided I wanted to have control of fate in my own hands and took over from Stephen. In that instant, my life changed. I know what I want to be when I grow up and it's an ATV driver. I don't know if there is a school for it or exactly how one earns money, but i'm willing to take that risk. I had POWER. I was Lara Croft Tomb Raider. I smoked those mountains. It was now Stephan's turn to cry. We had been heading up this pass for about twenty minutes, when we saw a white doll tied to a tree in what looked like some weird voodoo warning. We decided to heed the gods and head down. I've heard some rumors of beheadings down South and even though it's way down on the Malaysian border, chancing any kind of confrontation seemed a little silly. I like my head. I've always kind of thought I had nice hair. So what goes up must come down and we had a long way to go. My heart was literally pounding out of my chest. As I tried to navigate around a rock pile, I lost control of the ATV and started barreling toward a ditch. When you start to see your life flash before your eyes, the natural reaction is to pull back on the wheel right? Unfortunately the gas worked this way as well so i actually started accelerating. Luckily Stephen was a boyscout and had the catlike reflexes to reach over and yank my hand off the gas and turn to brake. Death narrowly escaped.

Ferris Bueller you're my hero.

---

Photos

Koh Tao
View from ATV ride

Night out at Lotus
My favorite bar in the world. I'm holding a whisky bucket which is what everyone drinks in Thailand. It's a combination of Red Bull, Coke and Thai Rum. It's rumored that when Red Bull mixes with the coke and alcohol it produces amphetamines. I would normally call this an urban myth, but after one or two of those i'm like a drunk billy elliot. I just want to DANCE!