I had almost run out of time with my Thai tourist visas (you only get to stay in Thailand for 90 days out of 6 months before you have to leave) so I had to send my passport off to Austrailia to get a Non-Immigrant B Multi Entry visa, which allows me to stay in Thailand for a year.  The only problem was that I had to cut my vacation short and take over one of my coworkers trips, because he had to go home to Oz.   We arrived at our beach destination, Krabi, and spent 3 days relaxing on the beach (when it wasn’t raining).  My passport was being mailed to our hotel, so evryday I would check to see if it had arrived.  Which it never did.

The trip was scheduled to head to Malaysia, but I still didn’t have my passport back.  So evryone had to go on without me.  Luckily I was training a new leader, so he was able to take over as tour leader for the group!  So I’ve been stranded in Krabi waiting for my passport to come.  (It’s definetly a good place to be stranded though.  I’ve just been relaxing on the beach and swimming in the ocean all day.)  My passport finally arrived today, but it was too late to catch up with my group, so I get to have 5 days of vacation!  Yeah! 

I’m going to head back to Bangkok tomorrow and hang out with Jenn this weekend.  There is a Canada Day celebration at the British Embassay (weird location, huh?)  and I think I’ll attend that and pretend to be Canadian in order to get a Western style bbq and drink Canadian beer.  Then I’ll probably stay with Jenn for a few days.  (I’m getting so sick of hotel rooms!)

I’m starting to think that after living in Asia for the last 1 1/2 years, nothing would surprise or shock me anymore. A man riding a motorbike with a monkey sitting on his lap-Boring.  People eating chicken feet and snails- Yawn.  Elephants walking down the streets of Bangkok-Sad but not really surprising.

But when I was in Ko Samui last week I saw 2 things that really surprised me.  The first thing was when we were driving to our hotel we passed a big sign adertising a Chubby Bikini Contest, no big deal yet, but then on the bottom of the sign it said to qualify as chubby you need to weigh 115 lbs or more!  Talk about depressing! 

Then on the next night my pax and I went to the Lady Boy show.  Watching the drag show is always entertaining, and this one seems to have new songs/dances/costumes everytime I go.  For some of the numbers they have little Thai guys as the back up dancers.  They are ushually dressed in vests (without shirts) and tight pants.  This time they did a Beyonce number where the backup dancer boys were wearing skin tight Army camo pants with little furry black vest (no shirts underneath) and knee high black highheeled boots.  We’re talking a 4 inch heel plus platforms.  It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.  Plus they were supposed to be acting like tough macho military types, while wearing the high heeled boots over their camo pants.  How funny! I really wish I had a camera with me.