Malaysia!

Having reached the low point of his existence, an inebriated Jojo takes a "time-out" shower.

Railay Beach.

Behold, buildings!

Evidence of leech offensives stain the feet of myself and Jason.

The provision stores for our jungle jaunt.

For many of you who read upwards of 5 blogs now, this is probably all getting fairly repetitive, so I'll skim over the boring stuff. From Koh Lanta we had an awful little ride up to a place called Ao Nang, where after hanging out drearily on the sidewalk for a half hour, Mr. Jason Lush managed to secure a single, fancy, AC'd room for the 7 of us to lounge around in and plot my demise. That night, being the last of Adrian and Randy before they broke company, and being the eve of my birthing day, the fellows stitched together a plan to punish my body with copious amounts of alcohol. I don't remember a lot, and I'm not sure that I want to.
Our hangover the following day was spent watching all 3 Rambo movies without leaving the apartment, until the next afternoon saw us venturing to Railay beach on the far side of Ao Nang. Nice beach, but to be honest, I'm a little tired of beaches, never having been that big on them in the first place, but the scenery lying around on the beach was a different story...
The next day we grabbed a few buses and eventually found ourselves south of the Thai border, in the futuristic, Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. I must say that Malaysia in general has been a big hit with all of us, although we suspect it's because we've stopped drinking and have actually begun to "travel" again. We were able to find cheap food and accommodation in one of Southeast Asia's most reputably expensive cities, a victory for the pocket book.
After spending a few days seeing the sights of Kuala Kumpur, including their magnificent twin towers (I suspect they were behind the 9/11 plots in an effort to raise their stock...but that's all hearsay), the five of us ventured into the Malaysian jungle to find some peace, quiet and leeches. After a few buses, a boat ride and then an hour or so trek through the vines, we emerged to find our beautiful little Hyde, which we had booked for 3 nights. The park ranger looked strangely at us when we did so (very few people seem to just show up on their own and book a single hyde, without proper provisions or any plans outside of that), but reluctantly signed over our little abode for the allotted time.
We had done a little grocery shopping before and all came to the wonderful conclusion that we would have no trouble surviving our jungle seclusion if all we had to eat were a few apples, some cans of fruit and copious amounts of Peanut Butter, Jam, Honey, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Peanut Jam Butter and a dozen loaves of bread. Our few excursions out into the surrounding jungle, were beaten back by a barrage of leech soldiers, who would cling to any available skin or clothing and begin their dreaded draining of our precious lifeblood, which meant that for most of the 3 days, we sat, alone, in a hut in the middle of the jungle, eating sandwiches and complaining about our beds and Robert Jordan. It was an odd event and I'm still trying to figure out whether I'll look back on it with fondness or bewilderment.
Hiking out of the jungle early yesterday, we quickly secured transport back to Kuala Lumpur, where, after waiting in the train station for 3 hours (and each having a much needed shower in the washroom there), we caught a night train back up to the Thailand town of Hat Yai, where we now reside. I'm very happy to announce that I have found a fellow troubled sleeper in James, and after sleeping a meagre 3 hours between the two of us, we found ourselves huddled in the dining car at 2:50am, eating cups of noodles and rambling on about cowboys until 8am. In another 3 hours, we board yet another night train, finishing our trip back up to Bangkok to meet some more of the Lush clan, this time we made sure to book actual beds. I'm beginning to fall asleep on this keyboard, so I shall end it here!