The Guilt of Ants

January 27 2010

21 days left in Thailand.

Today was pretty closely a repeat of the previous day except for a few things...

This morning I killed an entire ant colony. We’ve noticed that there is a slightly more aggressive ant problem in phangan, which is welcomed since our lizard and mosquito escapades. The ants are more of an annoyance. Especially when we absentmindedly forget to remove empty drink containers on the floor, they crawl on everything, infiltrating our bags and clothes. there is a system that I haven’t felt the need to interrupt that runs from the door of our bungalow, through the middle of the walking space, to the bathroom, along the sink wall and into the holes in the wall that are used for the sinks draining pipes. That is where they live. I was in the shower this morning, and out of sheer annoyance I sprayed the ones crawling along the want and flushed them down the shower drain, and just like when a bee hive is kicked so did this hole in the wall erupt, with ants. I had turned away to scrub night sweat from my body for probably 1 full minute to look back the wall was swarming with [hundreds] of ants. Recovering from shock and picking my jaw up off the shower floor I again sprayed and flushed them all. All of them, to their death.

I feel pretty bad about.

Brittney tells me not to be, because they were in fact chompy ants and we carry with us the itchy red bump evidence on our feet every day. But still...

Elena finally was able to venture out into the sun again, we laid out for probably around 3 hours, and she burned again after using SPF 70 and two applications... poor girl.

We had another dinner with the locals. We love these dinners, and they’re so cheap! if I’ve done my calculations correct it costs us $1.25 to get into town from our bungalow "resort" and our meals, I’ll use Brittney and my meal for example, $0.60 for two chicken egg rolls, $0.30 for a shish skewer of chicken, $1.25 for a container of chicken and noodles (that Brit and I share) $0.65 for a grilled corn cob, and $0.70 for a pure fruit slushy. Plus $1.25 to get back to the bungalow, the grand total and transportation: $5.30 per person. That is awesome...

We also got to watch, to our amazement and horror, a type of performance on stage at what seemed to be a section of carnival vendor set up with stringed lights and performers in full body costumes with what looked like tinsel glued to them. it was an extraordinary experience to say the least...

Until next time...