Yes, today was really all about me getting a tattoo but I did do other stuff too.

Granted, it wasn’t a bunch of awesome stuff.   Certainly not like getting a tattoo…

The hostel I’m staying at – WH Hostel – is run by a couple with their infant sun.   It’s made up of railway cargo cars stacked up onto of each other.   I know it doesn’t sound appealing when I phrase it that way but it actually is a really cool setup and the rooms are just the right size.

The owners are so helpful and they just make the whole place feel like a home rather than a place you’re staying the night at.

Because of the home feeling to the place it’s been conducive to meeting people and I’ve actually met more people here than any other hostel I’ve ever stayed at.

Or maybe it’s because I’m carefree and easy going again because of all the stuff that happened last week.

Either way, I’ve met alot of cool people the last few days here.

There’s Tim from Germany who came home one night at 9:30 in the morning and then the next day he ended up on the roof of the hostel somehow.   Trying to recreate Hangover perhaps?   At the very least, I’m sure he had a hangover.

Theo, who’s also from Germany, and I went together on our first mission yesterday during the day.   It was his GoPro waterproof camera that was capturing all the craziness.

The second mission, the one at night going to Subway, was the three of us plus two Latvian girls Kate and Laura.   Although we were going down the street under the guise of teamwork and protecting each other, that didn’t last long as the temptation to spray a target in front of you was just too much.

Kate and Laura were the first Latvians I met and I will never forget barraging them with knock-knock jokes.   Although I am still waiting to hear a good Latvian joke…

There’s also the two guys from Houston, Texas – Mike and Trent.   They were just finishing up their trip and were on cruise control the last couple of days (much like me, incidentally).

And finally, there’s Dianna – a Mexican who just finished studying Chinese in Taiwan just for the hell of it.   She was so bubbly all the time and alot of fun to be around.

Alot of us would just hang out around the hostel and talk about life but mostly about our travels and similar experiences.

I went to breakfast, well, really lunch with Mike, Trent and Dianna.   We went to a little place just down the street.   This place is in the opposite direction of all the craziness so our chances of getting wet were reduced.

We still had to get past a group of little kids and their big bucket of water that they were drawing from but we made it unscathed.

We had gone here the day before and I had had pad thai for breakfast.   I decided to have pork fried rice instead this time just to change things up.

I figured I could get my pad thai fix at dinner time.

You see, I need my pad thai fix every day.   It doesn’t matter when – breakfast, lunch or dinner.   I just need it.

After breakfast/lunch, the guys went over to the craziness of Khao San Road while I joined Dianna on her errand of buying a train ticket for tomorrow.

I didn’t have any plans for the day so when Dianna asked if I wanted to come with her I told her I would go wherever she was going.

We snuck out the back way of the hostel to the BTS station.   We did take a couple of shots on the short stretch of main road we were on to the station but once in the station we were good for the rest of the trip.

BTS changed to MRT and then we got off at the rail station.   No need to walk outside into the gunfire.

She bought her ticket, tried countless ATMs to accept her card, and then we had a couple of donuts.

Ah, donuts – a great way to end any task.

In the afternoon we just kind of hung back in the hostel when the events leading to my tattoo transpired.

After getting the tattoo it was kind of late – 8pm – and Dianna and I walked back to the hostel to meet Mike and Trent for dinner.   They said they would wait for us but we kind of suspected they maybe went off on their own as we were quite late in getting back.

We actually saw them walking down the road from the hostel as we were walking up so we turned around and joined them for dinner.

It was their last meal in Thailand, in fact, their last meal in Southeast Asia since they were flying back home to Houston later in the night.

When they said they wanted to go to a Mediterranean place down the road that they liked my first though was, damnit, I won’t get my pad thai fix today but I got over it pretty quick.

After all, this was their last meal and I was more than willing to do what they wanted.   I ordered a lamb leg with rice for 250 baht ($8).   The waiter tried to steer me to the other lamb dish with rice for 300 baht ($10) but I figured he was just trying to upsell me.

Turns out, he was just trying to point me in the right direction.

Now, when I’ve had lamb leg before it’s been like a lamb shank.   The meat falls off the bone.   Well, this dish wasn’t quite like that.   The rice was great as it was served atop some crispy fried bread but the lamb “leg” was actually just a bunch of bone and cartilage.   There actually wasn’t any meat on my plate.

I just kind of laughed it off and ate what I could off the plate.

Luckily the rice was a big portion and I actually couldn’t even finish that.

And, that, was the rest of the day…