Death of a travelling thesis-person problem.

“There is never enough time to do all the nothing you want” – Bill Watterson

"Except right now" -Ben

Fuck Phuket

Besides crowded beaches and a pumping night scene, there really is not too much to see in Phuket. It’s a bit hotter than your average European beach resort, but otherwise identical to any place you would find on the Canary Islands or in the Mediterranean: Rows upon rows of beach chairs, promenades with non-descript restaurants and sunburnt tourists wandering around with flabby beerguts hanging over their fanny packs. I suppose this kind of environment is fine for a certain type of holiday, just not the one I’m looking for. When middle-aged Finnish tourists start to turn up in droves, it’s time for me to vacate.

I’m actually thinking I might postpone the month or so I have reserved for beachbumming till a bit later. I have heard a few tales about a little slice of paradise further up north, where you can have an entire island practically to yourself.  On first thought at least, this sounds far more like my scene than the tourist-infested hives off the Eastern coast. This has nothing to do with The Beach either, although by some  bizarre coincidence, in Phuket I did find myself staying in the same hotel and the same room that DaffyD, one of my all time favourite literary characters, stayed in the movie. Freaky. 

Looking for that caramel coating

I realise now that the leap south has put me in the heart of sun-worshipping country, where beach-goers seek the transient glory of a solar bronzing. I too do love the beach, but unfortunately my skin and the sun have always been on rather awkward terms. I suppose it’s my partly Celtic heritage which causes me to burn to a crisp even when standing under a moderately bright LCD-screen. Although I do pick up a bit of colour eventually, the first time in the sun is always a bit traumatic. If you think you know what I mean, you don’t. The natural tone of my skin is pretty much the shade of an albino Klu Klux Clan member in a snow storm. When I take off my shirt on a beach, children scream and run to their mothers. Adults shield their eyes and look for a mushroom cloud. Birds fly into windows, cows won’t milk, and all photographs taken within a two mile radius are overexposed. I think once I heard someone exclaim: “My God, it’s full of stars!”

It’s bad, and the only thing keeping melanoma at bay is military-grade sunscreen; I bet you didn’t even know they had SPF lotions of strengths in the format “ten to the power of x”. Under these circumstances successfully negotiating the tightrope of not getting skin cancer and developing anything even remotely resembling a tan is going to be challenging.

Mr. T does SE Asia 

It just occurred to me that despite the lengthy prose already adorning this page, I have alas not yet given any specifics as to the content to come. Let’s rectify that state of affairs post-haste ;)

My mission, should I choose to accept it, is best described as something of a mixture between the plot of Amelié and the scene from Office Space, where give their annoying office-printer a beatdown. Let me explain: My thesis has been the bane of my fucking existence for the past seven months. Writing it was without a doubt one of the most frustrating tasks I’ve ever undertaken, not least because of the ludicrously vague topic and my own never-wavering self-criticism bordering on self-loathing. I can hardly even remember what life was like before I started working on it. Must’ve been great.

Anyway, after so much time spent fretting over pointless research and so many wasted nights shouting at MS Word, I need to do something cleansing, something truly cathartic to get it out of my system. Therefore naturally I am taking my thesis, whom I have named Mr. T. on a tour with me through Southeast Asia. I will take photos of him in various places, have fellow travellers write in him, and really show him around, to make sure he has a good, fulfilling life. Then, when we get to Cambodia, I will take advantage of the large surplus of arms left after the Khmer Rouge regime, and shoot Mr. T with an AK-47. Or a bazooka, I haven’t decided yet. If anything is left of him, I will keep the remains as a souvenir.

Now, I realize going to all this trouble to shoot an inanimate object clearly puts me in the “completely-bat-shit-Tom-Cruise-crazy”-zone. Be that as it may, if you knew how much mental anguish I’ve had to endure thanks to old Mr. T. here, you would understand my desire for retribution, be it rational or not. I’m not sure how I could possibly begin to convey the suffering to you properly, but if you would like to simulate the experience, I’m pretty sure that jamming a Q-tip up your urethra might give you some idea. Then twist it around. For seven months.

Without further ado, here are the first photos of Mr. T living the good life in Thailand. Just like me seven months ago, the poor S.O.B. has no idea what horrors await. 

You never realize how much stuff you have until it's time to move

Didn't feel too bad about leaving this place in the pitch-black morning

Mr. T is always the life of the party

Mr. Scaramanga ain't got shit on Mr. T

That should start the ball rolling. For me, the next few days will most likely be spent rock-climbing around Krabi, hence I will be incommunicado.

P. S.  Quoting Natalie Portman: “Listen to this, it will change your life.”

The Shins – New Slang

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q322n-f3FlU&feature=related