Day 66: Miss my bus ...

Awake around 11am, clearly missing my 6am bus pick up, whoops. Shannon is gone, he actually caught his at 7am, making me look a bit lazy. Yesterday Shannon looked pale and confused, slept a good 6 to 8 hours during the day, still felt dizzy and looked blotchy that evening. I feared it might be Dengue Fever or Malaria, encouraged him to hit up a local clinic, get some drugs, and confirm his health. He took my advice and was taken to the doctor as we made our way out the door to the Pub Crawl. We returned to him asleep in his bed, good news, it was just a high fever and the drugs were taking effect. The fact that he caught his 7am is impressive, the fact that I slept past my 6am pickup is what I call executive. I had made the decision before my head hit the pillow, the alarm was set to off. Head downstairs, pay for an extra night, reschedule the bus trip for tomorrow morning with a pickup at 9:15am, dang I'm good.

Pick up my failed thumb drive, grab Tristan, head out the door, arrive at the "tech" store that locked me out last night, my plight will be known! Different person behind the counter, no worries, explain my issue, he tests it ... same message, "reformat drive d". He reformats it, puts a few small files on, removes the drive, reinserts, it works. "It works, see?" Yeah, I think it's an issue when you put over 3GB of information on it. "It works, see?" I know, but again, you only put a MB on the drive, it happens when you go over 3GB. "It works, see?" Yo, R2D2 listen, you must have many more files on it, 3 or 4GBs not 3 or 4MBs. Understand? "Yes, try on another computer." No. Proceeds to nearby laptop, drive still works with his 4MBs of info on it, I'm done explaining. I don't care, I don't trust it, either give me my money back or upgrade me to the SanDisk, those are the only two options. After 10 minutes of language barrier confusion, he agrees to the SanDisk option, for an additional $3. I would of paid $5 to kill that conversation earlier. As we exit, we see him trying to carefully return the bunk drive into it's original packaging ...  

Spent the afternoon at the Blue Pumpkin, a bakery-cafe-coffee shop concept. They excel at coffee and shakes, but steer clear of the burgers. It quickly becomes my favorite stomping ground with the upstairs lounge being home to aircon, wifi, and 5 foot deep couches that act more like beds. Kick my shoes off, Tristan follows suit, we eat we drink, its good. Tristan heads back, I jump on the iphone, spend a good 4 hours lounging, drinking shakes, and catching up on my emails, and all for about $4, it's a rough life. 

Return back to the hostel via the central market. If you want it, that's the place to go. Nothing's real, nothing's as cheap as you would expect, but the variety of options and expanse of space is huge. Leave with empty hands, finding nothing I wanted to lug around for a few months. That's just one of my tests for buying any item, no matter how shiny or interesting. The three tests are as follows: 

1. Can I easily manipulate into my bag without ruining it.
2. How much weight would it add to my pack?
3. Is it worth packing, unpacking, and repacking a good 50 times?

If the answer is "No" to any of these questions, then I walk away. And I have walked away from some great bargains on a lot of interesting and unique stuff that, well to be honest, 30 minutes later I'm thrilled I did not buy. Feel free to borrow my system anytime ladies, especially when packing for trips ... Do you really need 12 different pairs of shoes for a weekend in the desert? 

Hit up the hostel and kick it in the pool with Andy, Chris, Tristan and Airlie. After a few hours we all go our separate ways, Tristan and I off to dinner at Tavern, where the BBQ beef is amazing. Both of us are craving dessert so we hit up the Blue Pumpkin and splurge on some banana splits. 

We get talked into a $3 fish foot massage at the station next to Blue Pumpkin. Yeah, a fish foot massage. First saw this in Bali and then a few other locations around South East Asia, but there are so many of them here. Here's the concept, they have hundreds of these special kind of fish that eat dead skin, put them in a reinforced kiddie pool, and let people dangle their feet in the pool for 20 minutes at a time. It sounds weird, but for $3 I have to give it a go. Not gonna lie, it's a strange sensation, tickles a bit, not sure if it actually works or is just a gimmick, but afterwards, my feet feel pretty good. Worth it.

Head back to the hostel, this time I'm not missing my bus, play a few games of billiards and then it's time for me to hit the hay.

Nite nite Blogstars! Peace via the iPhone Blogger.