First few days on Ko Phi Phi Don

Getting to Ko Phi Phi, an archipelago just east of the resort town of Phuket (which Honi Mundi wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole) was quite a journey, consisting of a 12 hour overnight bus ride ...

... during which a tire blew ...

... followed by 3 hours in a Toyota Commuter van packed full with sweaty backpackers and their oversized backpacks ...

Will Smith likes it dirty

... like thousands of red hot ants crawling all over  ...
... like being immersed in a pool of vibrating ball bearings ...
... like an appendage waking up after having fallen asleep ...
... like a light electric current coursing through your body ...

2 Tourists, 1 Toyota Commuter

The Van

If you've ever been outside of the United States and Canada, you've seen one of these:

It's a Toyota Commuter Van. Like a Tijuanan hooker, while it serves a legitimate purpose, you don't want to spend too much time in one. Only tourists, masochists, and their friendly guides/drivers/dominators would ever submit themselves to spending an entire day bouncing around in  the back of one, knees by your ears, ass hurting, feet and forehead sweating, all the while cursing the operator who sold you the trip. How did we end up in one you ask? Well, we're tourists (maybe closet masochists?). Allow me to explain.

Russian, Wat?

After an over-stimulated first day in Bangkok that left us down and jaded, we woke up refreshed at 3AM after 9 solid hours of sleep on Monday morning with nowhere to go. We creatively killed some time, strapped on our sandals, and headed towards the river to start our day by catching a ride on the commuter ferry.

We found $00.50 USD at IST!

After several days of hectic packing and generally being at each other’s throats, followed by a tearful farewell with family, friends, and Felus, we find ourselves  sitting here in Istanbul's international airport, drinking our first international cocktail: a home-grown $1 dollar mini Evan Williams and $5 Turkish can of Sprite, 10:50AM Chicago time, 6:50PM local time (piwo z rana jak smietana).

Upon landing here in Istanbul, we decided to roam around the airport a bit, not looking for anything in particular, but just to stretch our legs and kill some time during our 3 hour layover here. We got to a dead end next to the Turkish Air VIP lounge, and just as we were contemplating how the hell one gets a ride on  one of those airport taxis that get dangerously close to running over people’s feet while honking incessantly through airports (this must be universal), lo and behold, we see ...