The Yacht Week Day 7 – The Day the Music Died

Saturday, January 2, 2016

The Legend woke us up at 7am to get back on the boat. Luckily I passed out at 9pm the night before, so I was feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the last day of yacht week. We had a long sail from Koh Phi Phi back to Phuket – about 6 hours long. I spent about half that time laying below deck watching Breaking Bad while most of the crew lounged on the net. Kim, however, got drunk. Wait, no, that isn’t a fair statement. Kim got shit faced. You’ll see shortly why getting shit faced on the last day of Yacht Week is a brilliant maneuver. We had a few final crew swims along the way, trying to get it all out of our systems before throwing in the towel. At one stop the Legend pulled us all behind the boat on a rope. Why is this worth noting, you ask? Because we tried this same little trick on our first Yacht Week five long years ago with good old “Zoran the Moran” as our skipper and he almost fucking killed us. I’m talking serious rope burn, near-decapitation shit. I wish I could bring the Legend home with me and just have him drive me around in my everyday life. And find me hot boys. Mark my words, if I win the lottery, that boy is going on my payroll faster than you can say “mega millions”. I’ll probably put Carly on my payroll too – I can’t be expected to pour my own vodka shots when I’m a millionaire, after all. And Brandon will get paid to speak in a fake German accent at all times. Fuck it, fake entourage jobs for the whole crew!

The final sail

Successful crew drag!

We pulled into the Phuket marina and the giant cluster fuck that is the last day of yacht week began. Yacht Week check-out is similar to being repeatedly punched in the face over and over again for about 5 hours straight. I would rather blindfolded myself in a Muay Thai boxing ring while confused ladyboys attacked me with blunt instruments than do a yacht week check-out. I know, it doesn’t sound that hard. Don’t you just pack up your shit, do an inspection, get your deposit back and bounce? Well this is Yacht Week – and they literally specializes in taking simple situations and providing incorrect and misguided information that leaves everyone more baffled than a rat in a maze. These people would send you on an Easter egg hunt on Christmas morning if they could. Nothing makes sense. Best to just start asking questions of anyone you can find that does not have a YW shirt on. So we pulled in, gassed up the boat and began the check out process. The first point of confusion: if you want to check out Saturday you couldn’t sleep on the boat that night. Second point of confusion: all bags must me packed and off the boat before you can even begin to check out. So the afternoon was a mess of cleaning the boat, packing up all our shit, and trying to book some hotels on the other side of the island near the beach party that night. Unless you are drunk-as-fuck Kim. Who is passed out for about 80% of this and therefore gets out of doing anything. That, my friends, is the work of a Yacht Week Pro. I’m totally stealing that move next time.

Just when we thought we were all checked out, the Legend and I had to sit in the charter office for two hours and wait for the ass hole who owned the charter company to stop groping girls in bikinis and come give us our deposits back. It was almost worth it though, just to see some American dip shit get into a full on screaming match with the owner over a deposit dispute. I think I found this so funny because the person yelling about the deposit is usually me. Because my moron skipper or dumb shit crew fucked something up and I don’t want to pay for it. This year, I had a seasoned crew and a Legend skipper, just a fucked up boat. So we got our deposit back, I refused pay for the fuel to make up for our boat problems (calmly), and I was told that I would have to discuss a partial reimbursement for our fucked up boat with Yacht Week (not holding my breath). All in all, a successful check out. Mainly because I didn’t come off looking like a psychotic bitch. Yes, I fooled them all for one more day!

After the longest boat check out in life, we made our way to our hotel. We got 4 rooms this time…we fancy. Tonight was the actual white party. Remember the fake NYE white party where everyone got the white memo but us? Well the joke is on those theme-disrespecting ass holes, because our white shit is clean. Well, clean-ish. Nothing coming off of a week on a boat can actually be described as “clean”. Including most people’s STD test results. I kid! Not really. Carly, my little vodka fairy, hiked to the store and got the good stuff while I showered, to reward my check out efforts. I’ll give you one guess what we did with it. That’s right, one last night of WARM VODKA TO THE FACE. I know it’s sick, but now that I’m back at home, all I can think about is how I want a shot of vodka. On a Thursday night. While watching the Real Housewives. Alone. In my bathrobe. I have problems. But I digress. We had a little pre-game in the trio’s room before the party and then headed out to the white party. By “we” I mean everyone but Kim. Because that drunk ass hole was too tired to go out. You know, from all her hard work during check out. Brandon didn’t have any white, but luckily the hotel had white robes. Yes, he wore a robe to the party. He looked like Hugh Hefner trying to dress up as Jesus. Anyone that knows Brandon would not be surprised about this. Anyone who doesn’t needs to get on his level.

Crew champs toast!

Crew at the White Party

We arrived at the white party and most of the boats were having dinner. We didn’t have dinner at the club because when the Yacht Week delegated pageboy came to our boat to tell us about the party she said “it’s too bad they are all booked up for dinner already, the food is sooooo good”. The Yacht Week translation of what she told us is “Hey, come to this really cool party, but don’t eat anything, because I gave all the tables away to the boats who’s skippers I’ve fucked”. Luckily for her we’ve had seven days of training for not eating, so joke’s on you! We got to the party and found a table (I guess they weren’t fully booked after all) and I immediately ordered two bottles of champagne. I went an entire week on a boat without popping one god damn bottle of champagne. My inner P. Diddy was bursting at the seams. Sometimes all it takes it a little “pop” to get things going, ya know? We all made dramatic drunk toasts in which we told each other that we are the best crew in the world, how much we love each other, and how awesome we are. Because we are. We are so fucking awesome it hurts. We did some dancing and took some shots and tried to get people turnt up. Kevin, my old skipper who you may remember from my description in an earlier post, showed up to say hi, because apparently he lives in Thailand now. I gave a fake smile and kept it moving. Once you have a skipper like The Legend, you can’t be bothered with yesterday’s inferior skipper news. Out with the old, in with new and improved! Sadly, nothing too exciting happened. I obviously took another swing at hot Aussie skipper. After talking to me for about five minutes, hot Aussie told me that he had to go “wash his face”. Oh right, that makes total sense, because I take care of all my person hygiene in the middle of beach parties too. Now I’m no stranger to rejection, but at least have the heart to come up with something believable. I would have preferred “I’m going to go join the circus”, or “I better go, Scotty is about to beam me up” to washing your fucking face. Come on! He’s lucky his dirty face is so damn pretty, because that is the kind of bull shit that gets you bitch slapped. Pretty sure he didn’t even walk away in the direction of the bathroom. OUCH. Swing and a miss! That’s like strike #5. Woof. Don’t you just hate that feeling that you have unfinished business? It’s going to drive me nuts. I’ll have to find a hot Aussie to replace him. Maybe the Legend can mail one to me? Like a mail-order bride, minus the nuptials, exploitation and desperation. Okay wait, keep the desperation.

And so this is it. The end of another yacht week. At the time, I couldn’t get off that damn boat fast enough. But now that I’m back at home, I can feel the post Yacht Week depression setting in. Are there any Yacht Week ass holes reading this who have the inside track on this Brazil route I keep hearing about? If so, please hit the “contact” button. Because this bitch needs a boat ASAP. A boat driven by The Legend while Carly and Nicole pour vodka down my throat and the Lesbians whip out their tits as we sail through some islands in South America. Who the fuck doesn’t want to read that blog? Because I sure as hell want to write it.

I just got a hold of some of the crew’s pics, so I’ll leave you with a little gallery for your viewing pleasure. I officially sucked at picture taking on this trip…will work on it next time.

Vodka to the Face!

Turnt Up

Flip cup!

Yacht Week Games!

The three yachtweekteers

Crew NYE!

Kim in her element

Sunset yoga

Our skipper the ladyboy

Partying in Patong

Glow Party!

Glow party!

January 8, 2016 1

The Yacht Week Day 6 – Keeping it Classy

Friday, January 1, 2016

Gotcha! Did the title fool you? If so you need to jump back in this blog and read days 1-5 of the Yacht Week series. The first day of 2016 certainly started off innocent enough. ..

This morning we awoke to the Legend telling stories of Adonis getting his ear bit off the night before. Talk about a happy new year! But we also awoke to increasingly rough seas. Kim and I were on a mission to get the hell off the boat. We were actually crawling out of our skin to get off the boat. We had enough of this anchoring bull shit, taking long tail boats back and forth between the boat and the island, and the vomit-inducing rocking of the sea as we drank warm beer from our broken boat fridge. So we headed in Koh Phi Phi town to get breakfast and regroup. First on the agenda, Kim found us a nice longtail boat driver to take us all out to Maya Bay. Yacht Week field trip! Next on the agenda, get some food and book a hotel room for tonight. That’s right, we are cheating and sleeping on dry land. When you are actually 25, surviving seven nights on a boat is an adventure. When you are pretending to be 25 but are actually 30, seven nights on a boat requires more Xanax than the FDA currently allows me to carry. And it’s not that easy to get in Thailand – trust me, I tried. So yeah, I’m booking a room so that my head can be the only thing swaying when I pass out tonight.

After breakfast we headed out on the longtail to Maya Bay on Koh Phi Phi Ley, which is just a 15 minute boat ride from Koh Phi Phi Don. Yes, I had to google that, because we were too drunk to figure out what island we were on most of the week. This is the island where the movie “The Beach” was filmed. If it’s good enough for Leo, it’s good enough for me. The islands consists of tall limestone hills contrasted with amazing ice blue water and beautiful sandy beaches. We pulled into the bay and immediately noticed the cluster fuck of Chinese and Russian tourists frolicking around the beach in all their offensive glory. What’s worse than laying on a beach with a Chinese tour group breathing down your neck to get a good selfie? Doing it hungover. So we found a nice little cove and settled in for a few hours of sun and snorkeling. Quality crew time without booze! Honestly, we didn’t even know what to do with ourselves. We either forgot how to speak while sober over the course of the week, or we were just so fucking sick of each other that we soaked it in peacefully. I’m thinking it was the latter. But all relaxing things must come to an end on yacht week. We hopped back in the long tail for a frightening ride back. Over the course of two hours the sea had gone from mildly choppy to the perfect storm. That ride was more fucked up than a water slide at a Vietnamese water park (side note: never go to a Vietnamese water park). We stopped at our boat to grab our shit and headed to our hotel.

Snorkeling fun

Peace Maya Bay

Single Ladies!

Don’t worry, I’m getting to the party. I know that’s all you really want. Because you are hoping I do more stupid drunk shit. I’ve been called a lot of names, but unreliable is not one of them. So let’s get to it. I had actually considered skipping the pool party because I felt like shit – but Carly used her magical smelling salts to rouse Nicole and I into rage mode. By smelling salts I obviously mean warm vodka. Because you know I don’t go to a party sober – even a day party. People don’t invite me to parties for stimulating sober conversation. They invite me to parties to turn that shit up. And I hate to disappoint. So shots to the face were had and we wandered down to the bar in town for the pool party. When we arrived things were awkwardly mellow for the amount of people that were pissing in the same pool. That only means one thing in Thailand – time to hit the fucking buckets! I’m not really sure at which point that party took a turn, but we took a hard left to crazy town real quick. I think it was around the time Matti and Kita showed up. Nothing turns up a pool party like some lesbians! This shit got more ratchet than a Vegas pool party. Because in Vegas, people are somewhat concerned with trying to flex their muscles, look cute and keep their mascara on in the water to really let loose. At yacht week, if you have mascara on at the day 6 pool party, you have probably been riding the basic bitch bench all week. This group has been groping each other like horny preteens all week. We literally have nothing to hide anymore. Shit, a few days ago I was face down in the sand dancing like a mummy, so let’s get crazy. People started splashing like lunatics and tossing each other around the pool. We eagerly chugged our buckets that were now filled with piss water in addition to vodka and we liked it. Our crew was doing the yacht week wrist flick all damn day. The DJ was on point. Not that I would really know the difference since I listen to country music, but that’s what Carly said. At one point there were boobs flying around (I won’t name names…cough…Kita…cough, cough) and I was on some dude’s shoulders chicken fighting some girl. Okay let’s be honest, I was on some dude’s shoulders making out with a girl on another dude’s shoulders. When I say it got weird, I’m not lying. It was at that exact point that Kim and Brandon walked in and just started laughing their assess of. If only I could have seen us through their amazed eyes. They were so proud of us crazy kids.

I’d like to say I hit on some boys, but no one was hitting on anyone at that shit show. Okay, I lied AGAIN. I definitely hit on the hot Aussie skipper for the fucking fourth night in a row. That basically makes this guy my longest relationship in quite a while. At this point its just funny because I think he is genuinely terrified of me. I don’t think it helps that I follow him around saying “I’ll find you!” in the creepy wedding crasher’s voice. I cannot be the first girl that has followed that boy around a pool. He is just too damn hot. And those arms! Oh yeah, I definitely relapsed and bit some arms in that pool. I’m trying really hard to overcome this hot man arm-biting disease, but yacht week is not making it easy. Step 1 is admitting you have a problem. I think we can all agree I have conquered that one. It’s step 2 where I get stuck – believing in a power greater than yourself, blah blah blah. Is there a secular version of the program I can get on? For now, the only powers higher than myself are Australian accents and biceps. Preferably in tandem.

I’d like to take this opportunity to quote the yacht week “Arrival Info” packet (yes I actually read it, I’m a neurotic freak, get over it). Under packing tips, they say “Follow the Three C’s of TYW Fashion: Cool, Casual, Classy.” Under the Yacht Week Ethos there is an entire section entitled “Stay Classy”. There are literally multiple references to the word “classy” in this thing. You’ve all read the blog up to this point. Have I painted a picture of class for you all? Aren’t we just the picture of nautical sophistication? Don’t we just ooze elegance? After our super classy pool party we were all knocking on the black-out door, so I’ll tell you what I can remember. Leaving the pool? Nope. The Legend aggressively attacking a food cart in the street on the way home? A little. In case anyone wondered what hotel we were staying in, we left a trail of pad thai all the way there. Carly, Nicole, The Legend, another skipper and I all went back to our one tiny little room with 2 twin beds to pass out. Spacial reasoning was obviously not our strong suit at this point. Although, if I know the drunk trio that is Rory, Carly and Nicole…and I think I do…the original plan was probably to drink more and then go back out. Instead we drunkenly wrestled around the room laughing hysterically and then feel asleep. I think I might have showered. I can’t be sure. Carly spent a while slurring at everyone to get our lame asses up and go back out. But we had all given up. A wild, drunk pool party on New Years day is all the win I need. It can only go downhill from there. Call it a win and go to bed. Is this maturity rearing it’s ugly little head? Doubtful.

Apparently sometime later that night, drunk asa Carly got up and wandered through the streets of town shit faced and shoe-less looking for the yacht week party. God I wish someone took a picture of her crazy drunk ass dropping it like its hot in the middle of the street. Carly, Nicole, The Legend and I all randomly woke up at 2:30am and started recounting the events of the party and laughing our asses off. Then we passed back out. If this is day one of 2016, what in god’s name does the rest of the year have in store for me? Another yacht week perhaps….

January 6, 2016 4

Yacht Week Days 4 and 5 – Buckets and Bad Decisions

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

I woke up with a slight hangover and the sun beating down on my face from my coffin. Oh, I mean my cabin. Freudian slip. Have you ever slept on a boat? It’s literally like living in a tiny, hot little box of sand, salt water and beer. Everything you own is wet and smells. You look at a bag of ice as if they were bags of giant diamonds – the most beautiful thing you have ever beheld. There is nothing luxurious about this. I’m not sailing around with Beyonce drinking champagne out here. Yacht Week is the epitome of making due with whatever you have, like warm vodka to the face. Couple this with the fact that yacht week totally fucked us and gave us a super shitty boat instead of the one we actually booked, with shit breaking every damn day, and you have a recipe for alcoholism. I came out of hibernation to find that we were already en route to the emerald caves. We hopped off the boat and swam through a pitch black cave wondering what the point was. Then we saw the light. The cave opens up into a beautiful little hidden beach. We quickly took some pics and high tailed it out of there to avoid the throngs of Russian and Chinese tourists that were on our tail. After that, we were headed back to Koh Lanta South, which was to be the destination of tonight’s shit show.

Opening to the hidden beach

Caves and floaties

We had to do a food run, so a few of us went into town and hit the store. It was a glorified mini mart. It’s no wonder I have to hit the bottle every night. The only way I can choke down a bologna and cheese sandwich or another cup of ramen is if I’m hammered. But then again, I’m spending the week in a bathing suit, so more booze and less food is definitely for the best. After the trip to the store, the crew headed to the beach for some beers and chill time. I, however, was in desperate need of a little Rory alone time. The majority of my life consists of alone time, so when I don’t get it for weeks at a time I become a cranky ass bitch. So I stayed on the boat and watched season 2 of breaking bad on the net of my catamaran. Out of a whole week, I got about 3 hours of sober alone time. That sounds healthy. But enough of that boring crap.

Tonight was the actual glow party. Luckily we were warmed up from our first round of glow last night. My only real goal tonight was to be able to string together a coherent sentence and stay on my feet. But don’t you worry, because I did far more than that. That’s right my friends, get ready for some stories. First, we arrived at the party and set off some lanterns. You guys know what I’m talking about – you light lanterns and send them off into the sky and it represents something profound and beautiful, like setting your soul free, or unburdening yourself of the stresses of your life, blah blah blah. Unless you do it on yacht week, in which case it’s just drunk people playing with fire and lanterns crashing everywhere. But we gave it a shot. All in all, the lantern thing was overrated.

We hit the buckets and things started to get going. The moronic, yet beautiful Adonis came by to chat with us for a while. And then he asked me to go for a walk with him down the beach. For those of you that don’t know, and didn’t read my New Zealand blog, “go for a walk” is code for “let’s go make out”. So now I have quite the conundrum. The devil on my shoulder is saying, go get your cardio on girl! When are you ever going to have another opportunity to make out with a ten? It’s not like you’re getting any younger. And father time seems hell bent on getting his way. Get it while you’re tan enough to look skinny! The angel on my other shoulder was saying, Rory, he is dumb as shit and not worth your time. Have some self respect. Just kidding – I don’t have an angel. Just two little devils. So walked we did. He talked while I silently prayed he would stop. We made out on some pool chairs at a resort down the beach where he made really aggressive sounds that were super gross. This guy gets more weird by the second. Every time I started to wonder what I was doing there, I just thought to myself “do it for the blog”. You’re welcome. We headed back to the party and parted ways. A Jewish guy with a serious case of halitosis hit on me. I prefer to be the token Jew in all fun situations such as yacht week, so I was not happy about his presence. The Legend went right back to work and found me a smoking hot Australian skipper. I gave it the old college try, but got nowhere. Don’t worry, I don’t give up that easily. Nothing too crazy happened. I would have killed someone for some North End chili cheese tater tots, but instead I went to bed big spooning a bag of chips.

That wraps up today’s blog. But just for fun, I’m going to leave you with a list of “The five most asinine things to come out of Adonis’ mouth” to illustrate his pure idiocy:

1. His job is to “create experiences”. What does that mean, you ask? NOTHING. He set up a beach yoga session and acted like he was the first person to ever put those two things together.
2. His best friend is Richard Branson and they bought a mountain together. Let me explain why this is such total bullshit – he is free loading on the crew boat with no bed to sleep in. Does that sound to you like the life of someone who hob nobs with Richard fucking Branson? That’s like going from partying on a P. Diddy’s yacht to getting ruffied at the Hermosa Beach Sharkeez.
3. He owns Cheetah print stretchy pants that FOUR of his friends made for him and mailed to him. Individually. What a coincidence.
4. He once “created an experience” for Nike in which he threw a 400 person dinner and no one spoke the entire time because the ambiance he created was so magical. Dude, if no one spoke at dinner with you it’s because they can’t bear to have a conversation with your stupid ass.
5. Carly pointed out at cut on his leg and asked if it hurt. He replied, “You think I’m going to complain about this cut when men used to fight wolves?” He thinks his ancestors are wolves. I guess that’s the confusion that happens when you have yet to evolve from the ape. But a beautiful ape, I must say.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Today we woke up and Carly and I got drunk. She has learned of my intense FOMO (fear of missing out) and is fully exploiting the fact that I never say no. Nothing like a 9am vodka soda to forget about the poor decisions you made the night before. Today we trekked on to Koh Phi Phi. The seas were super rough. By the time we arrived we looked like we had been raped and pillaged by a bunch of pirates. But hey, it’s NYE!

A couple of the gals did a vodka run to the town. We have been guzzling vodka faster than a Russian at breakfast on this boat. We had a little pre party on the boat and headed into town for dinner before the NYE party. Don’t worry – Carly and I packed a water bottle of vodka. You didn’t expect us to get through an entire meal without warm vodka to the face, did you? Dinner was another pizza-fest. Somehow every celebratory dinner on this trip has been a pizza-fest. Coincidence that they have both been with Kim Ortloff? Methinks not. Pizza and wine are her two main food groups, after all.

The NYE party was at a place called “No Where Bar”. It overlooked the main beach oh Koh Phi Phi. Although, on new years eve, that beach looks more like the D-day beaches of Normandy. Fireshows, fireworks, and way too many fucking people. At one point in the night a fucking beach bar literally caught on fire and burned down. It just burned while all the drunk ass holes danced around it like they were praying for rain.

Let’s get back to the yacht week NYE party. You know it’s not a yacht week party until our boat shows up without having gotten the correct theme memo. Earlier in the day some of the yacht week “employees” came to our boat and told us that tonight there was no theme, just wear whatever. We said that we had heard tonight was the white party, and were then specifically told not to wear white, as that party was later in the week. We show up at the party and it looks like a damn KKK rally. The actual chick that stood on our boat and said “don’t wear white”- I’ll give you one fucking guess what color she was in. Do not fuck with an ex-sorority girl when it comes to themes. I dressed up as a slutty pocahontas for half of college. I take this shit seriously. So we said Phuk it – at this point we are used to paving our own theme roads. We danced around and drank – you guessed it – vodka. The bar was way too small for our group of maniacs and annoyingly packed. I hit on the hot Aussie skipper again. You have to at least give me points for effort on this one. What can I say, vodka makes me an over acheiver. I didn’t bite his arm – so I’m making headway on the creepy front there. They didn’t do a countdown, which I found odd. I had no NYE kiss. Nothing new there. I went home with about half the boat while the others went down to the burning beach and raged on. Brandon set off his Thai-bought fireworks off the back of the boat. Norco in da house, yo!

Later the next day I would be informed that my skipper spent part of the night at the emergency room with Adonis. Why, you ask? Because some crazy Thai mother fucker BIT HIS EAR OFF. Straight up Mike Tyson’d the shit out of him. He was literally searching the beach for a peace of his ear. Now, I know this is a horrible thing. And I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone (ok, maybe some people). But isn’t it some kind of weird poetic justice that this guy, who makes me want to bite my ear off whenever he speaks, get’s his ear bit off? Fuck, I’m soooo going to hell. Needless to say, we didn’t see much of Adonis after that. But let’s all thank him, as he has served the blog well.

Tomorrow is pool party day. I don’t even know where I’m going to come up with the words to describe that magical shit show…

January 5, 2016 1

Yacht Week Days 2 and 3 -The floating frat party rolls on

Monday, December 28, 2015

Once again I’m behind on the blog. It’s 10am and Carly and I are hitting the vodka. Because, Yacht Week. Forgive me if these are brief, but I can only write what I remember. We woke up and set sail for Railay. On the way we stopped in Phrang Nha Bay. I think. I’m actually not sure. It’s a bunch of limestone karsts that jet out of the ocean and you take your dinghy through a little opening to reveal a beautiful lagoon. At least it was beautiful, until Yacht Week rolled in and desecrated it faster than you can say “nautical frat party”. We basically raped that lagoon with floaties and beer cans. We all parted in the lagoon for a while, so luckily for you I have some new characters to introduce you to. Adonis was there in all his sexy brain dead glory. I’ve had more stimulated conversation with a tree trunk. I’m pretty sure he thinks he is being profound, but he just sounds like a complete prick at all times. He is living proof that you really can’t have it all. If he was smart, that just wouldn’t be fair to the rest of us. Don’t worry – there is waaaaaaay more on this character to come. There is one American chick who looks like an entire football team just ran a train on her at all times. We are pretty sure she actually had sexual intercourse in the middle of the lagoon party. Like, in the middle of throngs of people. In her defense I’m pretty sure she thought she was on Mars. We watched for a while because when the train wreck of 2015 goes down, you just can’t look away. I can only assume she is on drugs. For her sake, I hope she was. Because there isn’t enough vodka in the world to drink yourself into that decision. There is a super nice black guy who basically just roams around passing out booze at all times. Which explains why I think he is super nice. We met some nice Italian boys who offered to come to our boat and cook us pasta naked. Honestly, I’m mostly excited about the pasta, but if you want to take your clothes off I’m not going to put up a fight. I had the Legend roam around to find me boys. Turns out that he can drive a boat and wingman. That boy is becoming more valuable by the second.

Our day party location

Taking the dinghy to the lagoon

Chillin in the Party

Let’s talk about the general yacht week clientele this week. out of 23 boats, there are 18 American boats. So basically, I’ve spent thousands of dollars to go to a floating frat party full of ass holes. All Americans are ass holes. Myself included. We are all loud, obnoxious, and completely full of ourselves. The girls alone are just horrendous. Thank god I’m blonde now, because I’m in the middle of a Regina George contest on water. American girls are the worst. They are bitchy and territorial. They never brush their hair, which is a new trend that I just can’t get behind. But above all else, they are fake as fuck. They will smile to your face and sharpen their knives behind your back. If I don’t like you, trust me when I tell you that you will know it. Because this face hides absolutely nothing. My mother always used to tell me “you may be a bitch, but just remember that I’m a bigger one”. What did your mom do, teach you to bake cookies and treat others the way you want to be treated? If so, consider yourself basic as fuck. So my plan is to avoid the girls and keep my inner bitch at bay. I’ll give you a little spoiler alert for tomorrow: I get to clothes line one of those American skanks in a yacht week sanctioned Olympic games. The only saving grace here is that the age population of this group seems to skew a little higher than other yacht week routes I’ve been on. But don’t let that fool you into thinking we will be more mature and better decision makers. Oh no, quite the contrary. There is nothing more dangerous than a big group of drunkards with disposable incomes who refuse to grow up and are trying to re-live their glory days. It’s basically over 200 Rory’s roaming around the Thai seas with millions of dollars in boating equipment being used as floating bars.

Day 2 fun

Day 2 fun

After our little lagoon party we made our way to Railay Beach It was a long trip on rough seas. I made spaghetti for everyone, but I kept my clothes on. I’m pretty sure my crew appreciated that. If there is anything worse than hiking in a bikini, it’s cooking in one. We then drank a bunch of vodka and went to our party. For those of you that haven’t experienced yacht week, your only responsibility is to get drunk and show up where they tell you. And since I’m the new and improved “go with the flow” Rory, that works for me. So we danced around at the party for a while. I sent the Legend out to find me boys. I know, I sound way too boy crazy for a 30 year old woman. But you forget that I am 25 on yacht week. And if you can’t be boy crazy on yacht week, when can you be? Typically the only boys in my life are my dog and whatever horrendous online dating loser I make the mistake of meeting up with. Scanning the crowd at the party, I naturally migrated to the tallest boy I could find. A sweet, dumb Aussie who’s name I can’t remember and really don’t care to. When you are you 6’4 and I’m drunk you are an automatic 8. Hell, when you are 6’4 and I’m sober you’re an 8. With my night one boyfriend in hand we partied the night away. Why does no one serve tater tots as drunk food in Thailand?

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Think Rory, think. What did we do on Tuesday? Today we headed to Koh Lanta for drinking and the Yacht Week Olympics. It was another long sail day. I tried not to get too shit faced on the boat in the hopes of showing up for the games. Now, I was picturing more of a beer olympics, with games like “who can chug a bottle of vodka the fastest”. You know, things I’m actually good at. These were actual games. Yacht Week, stop over achieving and underdelivering. Why do you even try? First we had a relay race where you run in snorkel gear. While drunk. As if running isn’t hard enough for me as it is. Then we had skipper sand castle contest where everyone buries their skip. Crews were molding their skippers into mermaids and turtles and shit. We made the Legend into a sandy little lady boy. Then we played volleyball. Drunk. So that went about as well as can be imagined. We then played flip cup. AND WE LOST. As the reigning queens of flip cup at the Poop Deck, Kim and I were disappointed. Flip cup was really our best shot at win. In our defense, we were anchors and it never even made it to us. Oh and we were flipping screw drivers instead of beer. Because, Yacht Week. And then there was the capture the flag game. Excellent idea Yacht Week. Let’s take a bunch of crazy drunk ass holes and allow them to wrestle in the sand for flags. I may not have a lot going on in terms of athletic ability, but I am one scrappy little bitch. Do not come for me. Let me back up a little so you can understand the situation. Night 1 of yacht week some American chick with unbrushed hair hopped in our van cab with us. When she told me she lived in West Hollywood I replied “I’m sorry”. It was completely genuine sympathy. She was more offended than the Pope would be after reading my blog. I am a firm believer that if you live in LA and you aren’t within 10 minutes of a beach, you are a fucking moron. LA fucking sucks. The traffic is horrible, no one has a real job, the men are all Lost Boys praying someone will swipe right on a Tuesday night. The only redeeming qualities are the beach and the weather. Yet you want to live in a congested beach-less cluster fuck of self proclaimed film makers, models and actors who’s only weekly goals include learning the Monday night specials at their only actual paying job? If so, then I’m sorry, but I must question your decision making skills and mental capacity. So imagine my luck when our capture the flag opponents included the WeHo slut. Just for the record, she came for me. Not the other way around. I don’t start shit, I just end it. My flag was already pulled, but she didn’t need to know that. I rammed her harder than a West Hollywood gay bar on a Saturday night. Sorry I’m not sorry.

Snorkel relay

Hydrating during the games

After the Special Drunk Olympics we had dinner and then headed back to our boat for pre-drinking before the party. And pre-drink I did. I drank my little heart out. I drank way too much. Back in college, I used to make tally marks on my arm to keep track of how many shots I took. Then when I hit ten, I would know I was good to go. Yes, ten shots. I’m aware its fucking gross. But I was a vodka beast back in my day. Anyone who knew me from 2003 to about 2012 could attest to the fact that I spent a better part of a decade perfecting the perfectly chilled vodka shot. Looking back, that time may have been better spent wearing makeup and finding a husband. But hey, vodka has been a constant a reliable companion throughout the years. Chicks before Dicks and Booze before Boos. Perhaps that can be the title of my memoire.

We thought tonight was the glow party, because that is what the yacht week app said. But the app is fucked up because yacht week can’t be bothered to keep their days straight. So basically, we dressed up in full neon and body paint for an intimate glow party for nine. Everyone looked at us like we were morons, but we gave zero fucks about it. I went to the party, fell all over myself like a college freshman who just tapped her first keg, and made a complete ass of myself. At one point I was just dancing on my knees. Because I couldn’t stand up without falling. Douang yelled at me “get up slut!”. It was the single greatest quote of the trip. The Legend took me back to the boat before I gave us even more of a bad name. I would like to tell you what the rest of us did, but I don’t have the slightest crew.

Drunk as hell at the not-a-glow-party glow party

Carly and Nicole it glowing bucket glory

January 4, 2016 1

Yacht Week Day 1 – When Legends are Met

Sunday, December 27, 2015

We lazed the morning away trying to forget the atrocities of last night and find a way to unsee the things we saw. Or in my case, blog about them for posterity. Around noon we hopped in our transfer to the marina to check in to our boat. Upon our arrival we were directed to where to put our shit, given wrist bands and some info about the check-in process. A lot has changed since a my last yacht week four years ago where no one knew what the fuck was going on and they just told you to get drunk and stop asking questions. Yet in true yacht week fashion, we soon got drunk and stopped asking questions. Now the way it works is you check-in and then have about 5 hours to lay around, do your food shopping and wait for you boat to be ready. So we settled in to the little cafe at the marina with a few towers of Chang beer.

An that is where I saw him. The Yacht Week man of my dreams. The future father of my unborn and unwanted children. The hottest man I have ever seen in my life. Yes, my old neighbor who I had originally given that title has finally been dethroned. This guy was a cross between David Beckam and that smoking hot soccer player who is Shakira’s baby daddy. But taller. Yes I’m serious. I couldn’t dream this guy up even if I went all inception on you. But more on him later tonight….

We met our skipper, Neil, who will henceforth be known as The Legend. In order for you guys to appreciate my love for Neil, I have to first explain to you my previous yacht week skipper experiences. I can sum it pretty easily: they were useless ass-clowns. Year one I had “Zoran the Moran” who was completely retarded and would drink himself blind every night then pass out face down on our boat in his undies. In the morning, we would watch all the other boats sail away while were were still trying to rouse our good-for-nothing skipper by beating the shit out of him. Year two we had Kevin. Oh, Kevin. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse that Zoran, I get stuck with some over-the-hill self proclaimed player who fucks anything that moves…and then fights with his girlfriend who was on another boat when she heard about his philandering ways. You could contract herpes just from looking at him sideways. He also told me I was a bitch. As if it was the first time I’ve heard that. I am aware I’m a bitch. I just wish he was aware he was piece of shit. But third try is a charm. Neil actually knows how to drive a boat, which helps. He even went to the day 1 skipper meeting. I almost cried when he went, because I’ve never actually had a skipper attend the mandatory skipper meeting. Oh, and he ain’t too bad to look at either. Hands off ladies, he has a girlfriend. That’s fine, because I have bigger fish to fry…in the form of my mystery man from the cafe. Also, it’s never a good idea to shit where you eat. Do you want to wake up next to someone and then have to look at him all day while he drives your boat? The name of the game is keeping your options open. This is yacht week, not a match.com mixer. Thats amateur hour.

Shopping time. Yacht week day 1 shopping is not for the faint of heart. It is going into battle in a Thai Costco. So I chose my army wisely. Brandon, for his level-headedness and the heavy lifting, and Carly…mainly just to entertain me while I stressed out about how much vodka to buy. And so off we went in a taxi to rape and pillage the Thai Tesco Lotus. It looked like a scene out of Braveheart. Come to think of it, a machete would have come in handy. It was a sweaty mess. A cluster fuck of language barrier hell. Shopping is bad enough on it’s own, but then add to that trying to buy enough shit for 8 drunkards for a week on a boat while trying to read Thai labels. My favorite item was the canned tuna in mayonnaise. Disgusting, yet efficient. After 27,000 baht and having my spirit run over by the Tesco truck, we made it back to the boat. And it was time to get drunk.

The plan was to hop in a van cab and head over to a beach club for dinner and drinking the night away. So naturally, we polished off two bottles of vodka before we left. While we were pre-partying, I noticed a beautiful shirtless man toweling off on the boat behind us. My jaw dropped. There may have been some drool. It was him. We shall call him Adonis. Because that man’s body has definitely been chiseled by the gods. I immediately knew my mission for the night. Hey, a gal has to have goals. What exactly is my goal, you ask? To make out with him on a sweaty dance floor? Please, give me a little more credit than that. My goal is to find a way to procure and preserve his semen for future procreation. Forgive my bluntness. But our babies would be so fucking hot. Hot and tan. And if I have to care for a screaming child, he or she better at least be nice to look at. It would also save me a lot of time in life if I don’t have to re-apply sunscreen to pasty little white children at the beach all day. Mission: Adonis. It’s actually more a Mission: Impossible, but I think it’s better to go into this one with unrealistic expectations and misguided self esteem. Let’s go to work.

There was a queue for the cabs. Sounds like a problem for basic bitches. Loud and obnoxious we may be, but basic we are not. So Legend Skipper to the rescue. He straight bitched slapped all the other boats of people when he swiftly jumped the line and piled us all in the cab. The other boats looked on in confusion and we drove away faster than you can say “later losers!”. I know it’s beating a dead horse at this point, but I still feel the need to reiterate that I am in skipper heaven. We arrived at the beach club, ordered a bottle of vodka and some forgettable food, and then we got to work. Adonis walked in, and I immediately sent The Legend (our skipper, keep up) to put in a good word for me. As if this guy couldn’t get more useful, I had Adonis literally at my table talking to me in about ten minutes. Perhaps I should change The Legend’s name to My Pimp Daddy, because he led that poor Adonis over to me like a pig to slaughter. And this is where my dreams were crushed. Not because he didn’t like me (although he probably didn’t), or wasn’t as hot as I thought (he was). But because he opened his mouth. Why? Why god why do the pretty ones ever open their mouths? If you are a ten, shut the fuck up and smile. That is literally your only job. Trust me, I can do enough talking for the both of us. When we asked him what he did for a living he went into a long story that I didn’t really hear because I was too busy watching him talk. I gather that it’s basically marketing. But he claims that he “creates experiences”. I almost said something like “I have an idea of an experience we can create tonight”, but I refrained because that’s just low hanging fruit. I’m still considering the sperm hunt though, because I can beat a personality into my kids eventually. What I can’t do is give them that perfectly chiseled jaw line. It’s all about compromises, people.

So the rest of the night ensued as you would imagine. Getting drunk, meeting people, talking too much. I met a super hot Aussie, but he lost interest quickly. Don’t worry, I have a week. And soon I’ll loose my voice and be unable to talk, which makes me far more attractive. Oh, there was a frat boy UCLA there who remembered me. Shocker, I know. If I had a nickel for every frat boy that remembers my crazy drunk ass, I could buy this rented boat and sail around the world for the rest of my days. We headed home in a cab and passed out on our boat. I didn’t pillage the kitchen, so we’ll call this one a win.

I don’t have any pictures from today. Come to think of it, you probably won’t be getting a ton of pictures from yacht week in general. There are a few reasons for this. (1) I have to get off the boat to get wifi and I’m lazy, (2) we are generally having way to much fun to be bothered with pictures, and (3) we don’t want much photographic evidence. That’s fine with me, because bathing suit pictures aren’t exactly my strong suit. Bikini selfies are for bitches who work out and eat salads. I watch the Kardashians and eat taco bell.

January 3, 2016 4

Ping Pong Patong

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Today we woke up in Khao Sok and went canoeing, which basically consisted of lounging in a kayak like a fat ass while a Thai dude paddles you down the river and points out monkeys and snakes. A poor man’s Pocahontas, if you will. We came upon a family of Monkeys as we were kayaking along with an adorable baby. As we approach, daddy monkey decided to show us who is boss and began humping poor, unassuming mom. She didn’t seem to mind. I got the sense that happens a lot.

After our little canoe trip we hopped in our private van transfer to Patong. And this is where shit gets weird. Patong is basically Thailand’s version of Tijuana and Vegas mixed together to form a hedonistic town of boozing, whoring, and gambling. Hide yo kids, hide yo wife. I have’t decided if that makes it awesome or absolutely disgusting. We drove around in circles for about 45 minutes while our lost driver tried to find our hotel, at which point we said fuck it and got out and walked the two blocks that were left. Kim and I were instantly overwhelmed and in need of a drink by the cluster fuck chaos of Patong. We checked in and high tailed it down to the main drag for to drink our anxieties away. We drank our little hearts out. I immediately started hitting the buckets. You could get a bucket of vodka w/ a mixer for 169 THB, which is about $4.50. So keep ’em coming. While our anxiety was to blame for our early start, our plans for later that night fueled our boozing persistence. That’s right, ladies and gentleman, we were going to one of the famous Ping Pong Pussy shows!! The things I do for you all in the name of journalism!

We met a nice Aussie couple at the bar who decided to join us for the evening. These poor fools did not know what they were in for. About and hour later, Carly and Nicole showed up to rescue me from fifth wheeling. Don’t worry – I’m used to being an odd number wheel. Mainly because no one ever gives the single girl a fucking plus one for weddings. Not that I could find a date anyway. But I digress. Shortly thereafter Mattison and Nakita arrive from LA. So we are now rolling 9 deep down Bangla Road with buckets in hand, in search of a ping pong tout willing to make the best deal. Let’s back up and first give you all some background. The ping pong pussy show is basically a show that is put on in a Thai strip club where the women perform unspeakable acts with their vaginas while tourists look on in fear, shock and awe. Sounds gross, right? It is. But it’s also fucking awesome. The way it works is that you get entrance to the strip club for free and just have to buy your drinks during the show. Because they know you’ll need a a damn IV of straight vodka to get through it. In true Rory fashion, I haggled with the men outside for the price of our drinks during the show. I figured if there is anyone who is used to cheap fuckers who don’t want to pay full price, it’s strippers and their pimps. And then, magic happened….

Now, I know I said the acts they perform are unspeakable, but I’m obviously going to speak about them for you. I highly suggest you sit down to read this. And maybe grab a beer. Or a barf bag. But whatever you do, keep reading. Let’s see how many different ways I can think of to say “vagina”.
1. They ease you into it. Act 1 just comes on stage and pulls some ribbon out of her hoo-ha. A lot of ribbon. Like enough to hang yourself with, which is probably what these women should be doing given their chosen profession. They even let volunteers pull some out. Thank god I’m not very charitable.
2. After more ladies pull a few more long strands of harmless material out of their baby makers, as well as a few ping pong balls, they are finally warmed up. Bring on the cigarettes. Giant cigarettes. They look more like firecrackers. And sure enough, one of our talented labia ladysmiths smokes a few. WITH HER VAJAY JAY. Literally, inhaling and exhaling. Blows smoke everywhere. Can vaginas get emphysema? The inside of that lady’s poon is definitely lined with tar.
3. And then, its time for cake! Don’t worry, I didn’t actually put anything from this establishment in my mouth. But Brandon did get on stage where they lay him down and put a birthday cake on his stomach, complete with candles. Then what I can only assume to be the birthday girl comes around with a long tube in her see-you-next-tuesday and blows them out. No mouth required.
4. Then they brought out the big cunts. I mean guns. This narsty beezy literally pulled a string of fucking razor blades out of her dump truck. And just to be sure there was no funny business, she took a straw and sliced it up for us so we knew they were the real deal. Her tag team whore then pulled out a string of needles. How do you even learn how to do something like that? What is the training, getting fingered by Edward Sissorhands?
5. Oh dear, I hate to inform you that we haven’t even gotten to the weird part yet. I know, its tough, but stick with me. What could they possibly pull out of their sideways vaginas next? Well I’ll give you a hint…they were breathing.
a. Turtles. Little baby turtles. One hoodrat walked on stage with a sly smile like she was hiding something. Then she popped a squat over a glass of water and out popped two baby turles from her cooter. Someone please call PETA, because it gets worse.
b. A hamster. I about shit myself when this one one popped out of her dirty dick box. I literally ran to the other side of the room screaming. I just….I can’t. Let’s move on.
c. A fucking bird flies out of her twat. I would rather be caught in a swarm of locust then stuck in that woman’s ping pong receptacle.
6. I saved the best for last. All hail the Pussy Sniper. First they hand out a bunch of balloons, which you hold over your head. Then, the Pussy Sniper comes along with a loaded dart shooter in her slit and pops the balloons with darts that she shoots of out her black hole. She got every single one. Too bad pussy sniping isn’t an olympic event. It’s probably best these women don’t have dreams anyway.

I counted 14 words for vagina. Oh, and did I mention we were in the front row? Sorry – no pics allowed at the show. Trust me, it’s for the best.

After the show a stripper with braces came on the stage. I think we can all agree that braces on adults is never acceptable. If your parents didn’t have the heart to fix your teeth, you unfortunately need to just develop an unhealthy habit of blaming them for your shitty lot in life and move the fuck on. No one takes you seriously with that metal in your mouth. Sorry. So we moved on to one of the million bars down the street where we made the mistake of ringing the bell. When you ring the bell it means you have to pay 1000 THB and you get 30 shots of sugary shit. The good news is that translates into about $30. And I’ve spent $30 on far less. The bad news is you have to take the hangover inducing shots from hell. I’ve enjoyed shots with roofies more than these. We proceeded to dance the night away. Carly danced on a few bars. Kim made silly faces and bowed out early. I proceeded to sweat my ass off and repel every man I came into contact with. You’re typical drunken night in Thailand. And then I got a giant shwarma on my way home and drunkenly watched breaking bad in bed. I’ll obviously have to re-watch that episode.

30 Shots!

Dancing in one of the crazy bars

The shit show that is bangla road

January 2, 2016 2

A Change of Pace in Khao Sok

Wednesday, December 23, 2014

I about a week behind on the blog. I’m currently sitting on a boat nursing a hangover from night one of yacht week. But I’m going to work through the haziness and try to think back. I’ll make today a quick one in an effort to get to the good stuff. Today was a travel day. We left the land of the ladyboys and flew to Surat Thani airport. Air Asia is definitely no Bangkok Airways. Tiny seats in tacky black and red vinyl. It looked like a flying checkerboard. From the airport it was a two hour transfer by van (private, obviously) to the magical land of Khao Sok National Park. Upon check in at our hotel, located in the main “town”, Kim spotted a bottle of wine on display. Before they could tell us our room number she was hitting the red. At least she’s consistent. The hotel manager is an adorable, young Spanish guy. We asked if there was anywhere to get a drink at night and he informed us that the “Rasta Bar” is basically the only game in town. Kim and Brandon got massages while Carly, Nicole and I got another bottle. We went to dinner in town which was completely forgettable and then we headed to the Rasta Bar. We met some Spaniards. They were 4’s. But if you have an accent and you are in the middle of nowhere I’m going to give you an extra point. Being a five will buy you a salsa dance, as long as you are leading. Nicole spoke to them in flawless Spanish. Or “Mexican Spanish” as they called it. I spit some Mexican Spanglish at them until I realized my 10th grade Spangish knowledge now consists of the words “cerveza” and “bano”…and usually in that order. We called it a night.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Today we were headed out to Cheowan lake in Khao Sok for our Chirstmas Eve night in floating raft houses. This lake is man made, after being dammed a while back. We drove about an hour to the dock where we were quickly introduced to our guide, Sam, and hustled into our boat. The beauty of traveling in a big group is that all your tours are usually private. I almost cried when I saw the throngs of tourists at the pier, but our boat left with just the five of us in our santa hats, Sam and our driver. The lake was stunning. Emerald green water with giant limestone karts majestically jetting out everywhere. We passed a few of the floating raft houses, which basically look like Boo Radley’s version of a lake house. These things were big pieces of shit. But don’t worry. Rory booked the deluxe package. So our rafthouses were sleek and modern, complete with flat screen tv’s and a kayak tied to each deck. It was pure heaven. Jealousy inducing pictures included below.

View of the raft houses from the high dive

Our longtail boat

Our rafthouse

After lunch, Sam was taking us on a hike to a cave. We set out blissfully ignorant and unprepared for what was about to happen. We hiked about an hour through the jungle, crossing through rivers with Sam leading the way barefoot. He is literally Mogli from the jungle book. Those feet were gnarly. I was sweating my ass off, per usual. Once we got to the cave we realized we would basically be swimming through it, so I took off my clothes and we went in our bathing suits. We climbed up waterfalls, saw more bats then I care to remember, swam through water, all in a cave. When we came out on the other side, we had another hour and a half hike, but no clothes. Have you ever seen a chubby gal hike in a bathing suit? It’s awful. There are just certain movements that you should not do in a bathing suit, which includes everything from bending down in any way to jumping over logs. I could barely stand the sight of it myself, but I cringed every time we passed a group of poor unassuming tourists. To add insult to injury, lunch was not sitting well and I was in constant fear of sharting in my bikini with each step. I literally squeezed my ass cheeks together for about two hours. You know that shit would never go down if I was Girl #1. No, no, no. Girl #1 would probably stopped for a sports illustrated photo shoot during the hike. I screamed if anyone got near me with a camera for fear of my sweaty and uncomfortable clenched face being captured for all eternity.

After the hike, we went back to our floating houses where we lounged around floating in inner tubes and enjoying the most amazingly unorthodox Christmas Eve ever.

Christmas Eve boat ride

Me at the cave

Friday, December 25, 2015

Merry Christmas losers! While you woke up and greedily opened presents like a fucking five year old, I was up at dawn kayaing around the lake watching the sun rise. After breakfast we packed and said goodbye to our lovely raft houses. We did a hike to a dry cave with tons of bats, along with a few pythons. It was basically straight uphill and the straight back down. But at least my jiggly bits were covered this time. And I didn’t shit myself, so that’s something. On the way back down I was so terrified that one of the park rangers literally held my hand for about half an hour to help my uncoordinated ass down the mountain. It was pathetic. But I’m used to appearing pathetic on hikes. It’s kind of my thing. Remember when I had to hold back tears as I hiked through Mordor in New Zealand?

Canoe

Morning Kayak

We were taken back to the dock and transfered back to our hotel where we lounged by the pool until our massages. Carly, Nicole and I had a trio massage. Our masseuses were chit chatting and giggling louder than bitches in the nail salon. I don’t chit chat all fucking day while I’m at work, so why do they get to? Oh wait, does Gchat count? In that case, we’ll call it even. After massages I was desperate for a pedicure. Two weeks of backpacking reeks havoc on a gal’s feet. Our hotel arranged to have the ladies from the only nail salon in town come to our rooms and give some of us a mani/pedi. We then found the only pizza place in town and had PIZZA FEST 2015. I’m going to end this now because I have to go get drunk.

January 1, 2016 1

Save an Elephant, Ride a Motorbike

Part 1: Monday, December 21, 2015

Today we saved some elephants. Okay not really. But we did spend the day at the Elephant Nature Park outside of Chiang Mai, which rescues injured and abused elephants and provides them with a safe and loving home to live out the rest of their days. No more working 9-5 carrying fat ass tourists through a jungle on their backs for these elephants. And thank god, because they have definitely suffered enough, as I will attempt to illustrate here.

We were picked up at 8:30am for our ride out to ENP. Bee, our adorable guide for the day, was in the car to greet us. She gave us some background and showed us a video about what they do at ENP. Basically, the place funds itself by allowing tourists to pay and come stay for a week at a time, or longer, and work as volunteers. They make the elephant food, shovel giant piles of elephant shit, etc. But they also do day tours for fly-by tourists such as myself. And all the money goes to keep the lights on and rescue and feed more elephants. Oh, and did I mentioned they rescue dogs as well? Can you imagine anything better than dogs and elephants frolicking through the Thai countryside together? And the anticipation builds…

We arrived just in time to feed “Grandma”, the 90 year-old elephant. She is fed alone because she is on a special diet that only allows her to eat soft foods. Elephants get six sets of teeth throughout their life, and after that last set falls out they are basically fucked and walk into the jungle alone to die. But not Grandma. That bitch is still alive and kickin’ because she has tourists to peel watermelons and make rice balls for her. Then we went for a walk around the park to meet some of the various elephants and hear their stories. Many of the elephants have foot injuries from stepping on land mines. People use them for logging in illegal areas that are protected by land mines, because making an elephant drag logs through a jungle is much more stealth than using loud machines. Ass holes. A few of them just have stumps where one of their feet used to be. Some of the elephants are blind, in one eye or both. One elephant we met was blind in both eyes after her owner got mad at her and stabbed her in the eyes. Fucking prick. The elephants were very sweet and good natured, some even lean into you to nuzzle as you give them a scratch. We also saw a few babies, protected fiercely by their mother, or their adopted mother.

Elephant

Elephant selfie!

A rescued dog, chillinE

I have ridden an elephant before. In Bali, at a zoo. Because my guide took us to the wrong place. And it sucked. It wasn’t fun at all. I don’t even like riding horses because I feel bad for them. But looking back, I can only wonder how those elephants were being treated once visiting hours were over. How many hours of back-breaking work they are subjected to on a daily basis all so that some fat ass tourists with money, such as myself, could get a selfie on their backs? And so, I have come up with a list of some reasons that you should consider avoiding this and instead researching a more responsible form of elephant tourism such as ENP, should you ever find yourself in a part of the world where elephant-riding is big business:
1. You are fat. Should the elephants really have to suffer for your poor life choices? or,
2. You are skinny. In which case your life already rocks, so maybe just take a selfie in a bathing suit and post it on Instagram so I can dislike you more. And then eat a fucking cheeseburger.
3. You can’t even see their cute faces when you ride them! Where is the fun in that? When you pet a dog, do you just want to see the back of his head? No, you want to rub that adorable little schnoz.
4. Feeding them is way more fun than riding them. And far more enjoyable for the elephant. Because those fuckers can eat.
5. Elephants are typically poked by their mahouts with what is essentially a spear to get them to submissively trot around with you on their backs. Do you want to ride something that has to literally be abused to hang out with you? Have some self respect.

A few more interesting facts about these lovable giants. (1) The babies are raised by their mothers until they are 4-6 year-old, at which point the boys leave their mothers and bounce to do their own thing. So we can safely assume these elephants are not Jewish. (2) The girls tend to stay together in little packs. And those packs do not like to socialize with the other packs. It’s kind of like the cafeteria in high school, where everyone sits with the same group of people. And no, you can’t sit with us. (3) Each elephant at ENP has a dedicated “mahout”, who takes care of that particular elephant all day, everyday, except on his days off of course. The elephants at ENP are not assigned a Mahout, but they instead they choose who they want. You do not chose the force, the force chooses you.

One of the elephant clicks

A couple of asses…

After visiting with a bunch of the elephants, it was time for lunch. Lunch was absolutely amazing. There was a separate buffet for the volunteers, as they eat earlier. Our buffet was about 10 minutes away from being ready, but the guides let us know that if we were starving, we could eat from the volunteers’ food. Obviously this was given as an option just to be polite, as what kind of self-important ass hole would take them up on that? Once again, you have underestimated the egotistical and idiotic nature of about 90% of the humans in this world. Because you know there were a few douche bags who ate the volunteers’ food. As our group looked on in judgmental derision.

After lunch we “bathed” the elephants. Which is code for “throwing buckets of water onto them and coming nowhere near getting them clean”. But they just walk out of the water and throw a pile of dirt on their backs anyway. We watched as the elephants then stampeded into the water on their own and rolled around happily. We met some of the boy elephants who they keep in a separate area because they are cheeky bastards who like to throw dirt at tourists and impregnate the girl elephants. Typical. And all too soon, it was time to head back to the city, our hearts a little heavier from what we had experienced today.

Elephants playing in the water

Bathing the elephants

We spent the evening drinking wine and sangria at our friendly neighborhood beer garden. The food cart vendors are literally starting to recognize us. We are regulars. Everyone turned in early tonight.

Part 2: Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Today Steph and Katie left us to fly home to spend Christmas with their families. They obviously did not take my blog post on the reasons you should travel over Christmas seriously. So I bid them adieu that morning and headed off with the rest of our crew for our next adventure. And what an adventure it was….

Today we did a motorbike tour. Don’t worry, I am fully aware of the fact that I have no business on a motorbike considering I can barely drive my Mazda. I was driven. Kim had heard about this tour from a friend of her’s who claimed it was the absolute highlight of her entire trip to Thailand. That’s high praise, because getting drunk on boats is fucking hard to beat in my book. My first response to Kim when she mentioned that they were doing this motorbike tour was “hell no”. My reasons being;
(1) I’m the shittiest driver in the world. Mercury insurance actually dropped me from my mom’s policy at one point because I’m too much of a liability. Mercury. That’s like Walmart refusing to serve you because you are too white trash. I then had to go on my Dad’s car insurance because no one would insure me on my own. What a loser.
(2) I hate driving. I spent 7 years commuting an hour each way to work. I feel like I’ve paid my driving dues. I have road rage. My commute now is about 20 minutes and I flip people off about 4 times a week, on average. If I never had to drive again, it would be too soon. Add my intense desire for a driver to the list of reasons why I need a sugar daddy.
(3) I don’t know how to drive anything with two wheels. I once ate shit pedaling the half mile home from the Hermosa pier on my strand cruiser. Granted, I was highly intoxicated. I can only imagine the kind of damage I would do on a fucking motorbike.
(4) Have you seen how they drive in Asia? I don’t want to be racist here, but think about how Asians drive at home. Then multiply that by EVERYONE ON THE ROAD. Let’s then couple that with items 1-3 above and we have a recipe for disaster.

Enter option #2: have a Thai dude half my size drive me around while I sit on the back. Still not all that appealing, I know. But everyone else in the group was doing it, so basically, I jumped off the bridge because it’s what all the hippies were doing. I suffer from severe and chronic FOMO. For those of you that don’t know (do you live under a rock?) FOMO stands for “fear of missing out”. Basically, I am always worried that if I opt out of something it will end up being the best thing ever and everyone will talk nonstop about how great it was and I will be the ass hole who didn’t go. Have you have seen me turn down a party? A trip to the bar? A trip anywhere? Nope. Because I pretty much always says yes. My FOMO is so bad that my dog actually has it too. I shit you not. We call it “Beau Beau FOMO”. So apparently it’s contagious.

We were picked up at 8:30am. Both devils on my shoulders were saying “bitch, turn back now”. But I didn’t listen. We show up at the tour office and Kim and Nicole were instantly berated with questions about how much experience they have driving bikes. The guides looked very nervous for them. Carly and I started to get a little scared. So Kim and Nicole took a few bikes out for a test drive down the street. They came back terrified and we knew right away we would need a few more Thai guys as drivers. So that this point, out of all five of us, Brandon is the only one actually driving. Then they tell us that we will be riding on the motorbikes two hours out to the area where the “tour” actually starts. And then two hours home. Woof. This basically sounds like the day from hell to me, but travel Rory is trying to go with the flow.

I have included below excerpts from the actual tour description online, followed by what actually happened. Keep in mind that we (foolishly) opted to substitute motorbiking instead of trekking. Because those were the only two options.

As advertised: “Drive on a countryside road to Mae Wang district, stop for a short time to get supplies and lunch. Continue driving for 30 minutes to the waterfall where we will play in the waterfall and then start trekking.”

What actually happened: Fear for you life as you swerve through the streets of Chiang Mai. Stop at a market where your guides will get lunch while you buy the market out of beer in an effort to calm yourself for the rest of the trip. Continue driving to somewhat unimpressive waterfall and watch some people cliff jump.

As advertised: “We will trek for about two and a half hours to a real Karen hilltribe family who live in the middle of the jungle without any luxury. We will share our lunch with them and you can learn about how they live on the mountain.”

What actually happened: We will take a motorbike off-roading through the jungle, at which point one of your bikes will have a flat tire. You will then sit on the side of a country road while the guides go get a new tire and fix it. You will enjoy a delicious lunch by the picturesque side of the road where everyone will eat with their hands after fixing said tire. You will finally make it, albeit a little late, to a Karen hilltribe village. No one will offer you any explanation for what you are doing there or any information about their way of life. You will wander around aimlessly while some children beg you for money in exchange for some string braided together. You will buy some shit from them because of your white-man guilt. You will then find a family of malnourished hiltribe dogs who you will feed with your leftovers. You will feel bad for feeding the dogs instead of the people, and will make a hasty exit.

The gang off roading

Kim, fixing a tire

Holy shit

As advertised: After enjoying your time with them we will trek for another 3 hours along the river where you will see many waterfalls and we will stop at some of them for a swim.

What actually happened: After fleeing the uncomfortable hilltribe situation you will motorbike through extremely dangerous terrain that your motorbikes were not built to drive on. You will still try to hold on with one hand and catch the action on your go pro. We will then stop at a river for a swim. We will see some water cascading about five feet and call it a waterfall.

The boys crossed this on the bikes!

In action

As advertised: The trekking will end at another Karen hilltribe village and we will drive from there back to the city.

What actually happened: There is no other hilltribe village. You will be grateful for that. We will then drive two and a half hour on the motorbike back to the city. It will hurt. Your ass will never be the same again. You will cry of happiness when you see the finish line.

The name of the tour company was “Something Different Tours”. And they definitely lived up to their name, that is for sure. In all honesty, we had no business being on that tour. It was our own damn fault. But hey, you can’t win ’em all. We at dinner and went to bed. It’s a few days later and my ass still hurts. The physical wounds will heal. The psychological ones will take a bit longer. I’m sure I will soon look back on today and laugh my ass off about that time I road a motorbike through the Thailand backwoods for 8 hours. But for now, you laughing your ass off at our expense will have to do.

December 25, 2015 0

Luck be a Ladyboy Tonight

Sunday, December 22, 2015

I woke up Monday morning with no voice. That is code for “I got drunk and screamed a lot” Sunday night. “Screamed a lot” is code for “I took shots and yelled WHOOOOOO SHOTS!’. A lot. But I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual. Here is a teaser pic:

Let’s start with zip lining. The crew and I were picked up around 9am and driven about an hour outside of the city for some zip lining. We arrived to a big group of people waiting around to zip. I was cringing on the inside, because a large group of people zip lining at one time can only mean one thing – extreme inefficiency. And it only gets worse if you have a wimp in your group who cries at every platform. Luckily, all of these people were doing “package A”, which is about 4 hours of zip lining. I can’t do anything for four hours save for laying in bed watching TV and eating Panda Express while nursing a hangover. So we opted for the 2 hours course. There was only one couple doing the short course with us. They were, of course, (1) late and (2) Chinese selfie-taking fiends. Homegirl was taking selfies while they were trying to harness her up. The guides hated her immediately. I love when other people hate the same people I do. It just makes me feel validated in my bitchiness.

So off we went on the zip lining course. It was nothing too exciting – none of the zip lines were crazy long. Just some good old harmless fun. I got some good videos on the go pro and some group selfies. You are probably wondering what is the difference between my selfie stick and Chinese tourist lady’s selfie stick, right? Well let me enlighten you. (1) Mine has a go pro at the end of it, which makes me instantly more cool and far superior than her and that cheap Samsung phone selfie stick. (2) Extreme narcism. This chick made her husband pay extra to have a professional photographer zip line with them so they would have pictures throughout the course. And she STILL used her selfie stick the entire time. Just in case the photog didn’t get enough shots of her making kissy faces at the camera. I however, use my go pro for the good of the group, and am essentially the group photographer. Sure I get a few selfies, but that’s just because if I didn’t you wouldn’t even know I was there. And (3) The sheer volume. If I had to guess, I’d say that girl walked away with about 300 shots on her phones, plus another 200 from her professional photographer. All of herself. Oh, and did I mention her husband had a go pro that we was also using to take pictures of her? I had about 100 of the entire group and I thought that was overdone. I get stressed out when my DVR gets over 30% full. I hate useless pictures and delete the crappy ones every night. Is there anything better than wifi-enabled cameras?

Me and my Monkey

Group zip selfie

Steph coming in hot!

Happy Ending

Kim coming in hot!

Ziping selfie!

Jorgie Ziping

Kim and I on the Platform

After our zip lining tour we had a shitty lunch at the “restaurant” and were taken back to the hotel, where we met up with Carly and Nicole. That’s right, new blog participants! Let’s do some quick introductions:

Carly
Likes: Eating like a rabbit, working out a lot, ensuring she gets her daily dose of fiber while traveling, becoming the definition of “turnt up” at Yacht Week.
Dislikes: Beer (what the fuck?), meat (more of these fucking hippies – where do I even find them?), carbs.
Favorite travel memory: She said she has “too many”. That’s code for not having traveling with Rory yet. Because I will ensure that at some point you almost die and then look upon the memory fondly once the scars have healed.

Nicole
Likes: Breaking shit – because she is literally the clumsiest bitch I have ever met – and this is coming from the girl who rolls her ankles getting out of bed. International sign language including, but not limited to, “peace signs” and the “shaka”, which I was just informed is what the “hang lose” hand gesture is called. She also loves to curse. So we’ll get along great.
Dislikes: Walking straight, places that require you to speak in low voices (from what I can tell).
Favorite travel memory: Arriving in Rio for the world cup to find herself checking into a 16-bed hostel dorm room with 15 boys. I’ll let everyone infer why that was her favorite….just kidding. I think.

Okay, so now we are rolling 7-deep in Chiang Mai. Finally, a posse large enough to rival the Chinese tour groups! It was Sunday night, so we all headed out to the famous Chiang Mai Sunday Night Market. From here on out, it will be known as the “infamous” Sunday Night Market, because that shit was absolutely insane. I’ve seen ants march up a hill with more tact that the people in this market. It was like Disneyland Main Street on crack. We skirted the perimeter and sampled some street food. I decided once and for all that street food is just not for me. We took a peek inside the gates to the old city and our anxiety levels skyrocketed. It was a mass of people converging on to one street – and all walking in one direction. I would have rather thrown myself into the running of the bulls at Pamplona. I half expected some creepy guy in a derby hat to whisper in my ear “people go in, but they never come out”. So we turned around and made a bee line back to our neighborhood. Which is where we stumbled into the liar of the ladboys…

This place was very similar to Yellow Bar from the other night. Just instead of gap year drunkards it was filled with ladyboys and old white guys who got picked on in high school and never got enough attention from real girls. It was a long row small bars, filled with trannies, and a big Muay Thai boxing ring at the end. Ladyboy Lane, complete with a surprise at the end, in true ladyboy fashion. We could not believe our luck. After perusing the options, we settled upon the “Marina Ladyboy Bar”. No Marina, but Ladyboys in spades. One out of two ain’t bad. We ordered a round of beers. At this point it was about 7pm and the Muay Thai fight didn’t start until 11pm. Kim, Katie, Steph and Carly decided ladyboys were not their thing and headed home, leaving myself, Brandon and Nicole to our bizarre bar crawl of questionable gender. And this is where the real fun begins.

We decided to try out another bar down the Lane and settled into some bar stools. It was like the Special Olympics of people watching. It took about 4 minutes for us to decide that we needed shots if we had any chance of making it out of Ladyboy Lane alive. We taught the bartender how to put the booze in a shaker so it’s chilled, and before we knew it, we had a group of new ladyboy friends. The way these bars work is that about 10 ladyboys work at each one, and the unloved white men come in and buy themselves a beer and then a round of shots for all the ladyboys. And then they all dance around him. And he finds this appealing. These white dudes obviously went through the “big D”…and I don’t mean Dallas. They are broken, shattered men looking for love in all the wrong places. One woman, who I think was actually a real woman, was about 40 years old and dancing around on anyone who would have her and some people who wouldn’t. She was obviously on some kind of drugs trying to turn a trick to satisfy her next hit of god knows what. Perhaps a hallucinogen that made her think she was Beyonce. I took it upon myself to teach the women and ladyboys at the bar how to “drop it like it’s hot”. It’s a lesson I teach often. You may remember the time I gave the entire Stray Bus a lesson in Raglan. Big mistake. Because once I revealed myself to be the Mr. Miagi of “getting low”, the old crazy trick proceeded to attempt to grind on me and feel me up. It got so bad that we had to leave the bar. We sought refuge back at good old Marina ladyboy bar. And this is where shit really gets weird. No, we are not at weird yet.

Oh, the Marina Ladyboy Bar sans the Marina. How we have missed you. Apparently if you sit at the actual bar, you can watch the fight without buying a ticket – what a deal! So we posted up at the bar, and the beers and shots started flowing. The next few hours consisted of us getting to know our new ladyboy friends a little too well. The HLIC (head ladyboy in charge) was a large (wo)man with huge fake tits and sky-high platform hooker heels. She looked like Lady Marmalade meets Jaba the Hut. Her voice sounded like Kermit the Fong with emphysema. She was awesome. We started buying rounds of shots for our Ladyboys and basically everything was uphill from there. The HLIC kept giving us a great deal – “you buy us 5, I buy you 3”. We were the Ladyboy Jameson fairy god mothers of that Muay Thai fight. Apparently shots make these ladies crazy, because Jaba the Hut kept pulling down her shirt to shake her giant fake boobs at everyone. Even when we begged her to stop. You would turn around and TITTIES IN YO FACE!. It’s hard to look at first, but you get used to it after a while. Kind of like an uncircumcised penis. I took it too far again, didn’t I?

Muay Thai Maddness

Jaba the Hut

Brandon and HLIC

The fight itself was pretty uneventful, especially the women’s matches. I’m all for equality, but there are some things men just do so much better. And beating the shit out of each other is definitely one of them. The chicks just dance around the ring trying to outsmart eachother. They overthink think it. Just punch a bitch! I’ve taken more drunken swings at girls on a Saturday night than these girls did in the ring. My favorite part was when they put four fighters in the ring and blindfolded them. They were swinging at eachother like pinatas on Cinco de Mayo. All in all, we considered the fight background noise. I think it’s pretty clear that they ladyboys were the main event.

I woke up to some pretty interesting pictures on my phone. But I’ve attempted to keep it PG-13 for the blog. Up next on the blog: elephants and motor bikes!

December 23, 2015 0

The Basics of Bargaining in Chiang Mai

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Today we were picked up at our hotel by a lovely man named Tuan who owns a beautiful cooking school outside of Chiang Mai. When looking into cooking classes, I was originally interested in a cooking school on a farm, but that one lasted all day. I like to cook, but an entire day of pretty much anything is overkill. The optimal amount of time for any activity while on vacation is 2 hours. I specify “on vacation” here, because back at home I’ve had boozy brunches that last longer than an entire day. So I hunted down a half day cooking class with a beautiful setting to rival that of the farm. Enter: Pantawan Cooking School. Upon pickup he also casually mentioned that there would be no other people in the cooking class, only us. Now that’s great for us, because there is nothing I love more than private activities. However, that also means there are no self absorbed dolts to talk shit about. We can’t have it all.

The first stop was a local market where Tuan showed us some regional delicacies and the ingredients we would be using during our class. There was a very unfortunate “meat room” in the market that looked like a place Jeffrey Dahmer would go to get off. Tuan pointed at a large bowl and we all turned to find about 40 live frogs blinking up at us. I thought Kim was gonna go all Free Willy on us and release them. Not exactly my kind of “meat market”.

The crew at the market

The local market

Kim buying stuff in the market

Upon our arrival at Pantawan we were instantly transported out of Chiang Mai and into a garden oasis with an amazing teak wood open-air structure that would be our kitchen for the next few hours. This place was awesome. Brandon found the garden and was in irrigation bliss (I told you they were hippies). Words don’t really do this place justice but you can see for yourself in the pics. The way the class worked is that you watched the chef do a demonstration of each course and then each person goes to their individual station and cooks each dish for themselves. This is useful because cooking for one is completely applicable to my life at home. It was like “Thai cooking for spinsters 101”. We made an amazing massaman curry, spring rolls, cashew nut chicken, and pad thai. And we did almost all of it in a wok. God I fucking love woks. They are just so much better than all other cooking vessels. They get crazy hot and cook food super fast, so they are basically god’s culinary gift of efficiency. And you all know about my passionate love for efficiency that borders on crazy. They also make you look like a bad ass chef. Or a Panda Express chef. Not that there is a difference in my book.

Wokin’ it up

Pantawan Cooking School

The demonstration

Our vegetarian hippies were catered to for each course – another reason those individual cooking stations come in handy. The highlight was when we made pad thai in the wok and learned to wrap the egg around the noodles in a little bundle and then flip it and slide it onto the plate. That’s the closest thing I’m gonna get to making a bundle of joy any time in the near future. Kim actually kicked ass at that part. Which shocked me, because when we lived together the extent of her culinary repertoire was baked potatoes and spaghetti. And I’m pretty sure she thought wine counted as an appetizer. And dessert. And still does. Once we finished our four dishes it was time to feast while overlooking the garden. Okay maybe I lied, eating was obviously the highlight.

After our cooking class we were taken back to the hotel. I dragged Steph and Katie to some tour shops to haggle down the price of a zipline tour for tomorrow. I’m still unhappy with the final price, but they kept letting me walk out when they wouldn’t go lower, so apparently my expectations were not realistic. Kim took a nap. Brandon took a walk and found his first ladyboy. It has been brought to my attention that I have not actually explained what a lady boy is. So for those of you that don’t know, a ladyboy is what they call transvestites in Thailand. They dress super slutty and some can be a bit aggressive…ly awesome. Some of them really do look like chicks. Some of them look like an asian Gary Busey in skanky women’s clothing. Oh, and a lot of them have tits. I’m not sure if they go all out and chop it off downstairs. I would imagine it varies. And don’t you worry, because I have one hell of a ladyboy story in the blog pipeline. The things I do for you people!

That night we all hit up the night bazaar. Which is basically a giant swap meet where everything is negotiable. And negotiate I did. I negotiated the shit out of that bazaar. I’m the girl who drives 40 minutes to the swap meet in Irvine because they sell my moisturizer for $10 cheaper than target and I can get my hair cut for $14. I love swap meets. And I love a good deal. But you wanna know who does not love a good deal? Kimberly fucking Ortloff. She tried to stifle my bargaining flow at every turn. Why, you ask? Because she is the poster child for bleeding hearts. And so she went on a mission to make sure every “adorable” Thai person in the place made a sale. To her. Anyone who told her she was their “first sale of the night” got an automatic purchase out of Kim out of pure sympathy. She was making it rain baht like crazy up in that market. And when I would try to negotiate on her behalf she would say “Rory! Jeeez. No no, that price is fine. I’ll take three. Make that four. Wrap it up. Brandon, pay the man”. Her rationale was that when everything costs a couple bucks, who really cares? Me, that’s who. I am a shiesty Jew who gains immense pleasure from haggling. My mother used to literally send me into places to practice negotiating as a child. It’s been ingrained in me from a very early age. It is a sport. And I am the MVP. Finally…MVP of something. Steph and Katie have traveled with me extensively and so they know the drill. If you find something you like, you tell me. Then I negotiate it for you. This way the girls get to shop, and I get to bargain and every wins.

For those of you who don’t know, there are some rules to haggling efficiently and respectfully. Let me enlighten you so that you don’t look like a fucking amateur:
1. Don’t be an ass hole. They know its a game. You know it’s a game. Have fun with it. Smile. Be good natured. Everyone should come out a winner. Especially you.
2. Decide what you want to pay before you start. Not going in with a price in mind is like going to a shooting range blindfolded. You need to know what general price people are charging for the same item. Do some reconnaissance. Ask around and see what people are charging for the same general item. Then cut it in half and that’s a good place to shoot for. If you are white they automatically double the price anyway.
3. Never take the first offer. Or the second. Maybe the third. It’s a chess game. Even Bobby Fisher needs a few moves.
4. If you are buying more than one, get a discount for it. Buying in bulk saves you money at Costco…why not when buying tank tops with elephants on them? Like when Steph, Katie and Kim bought ten fucking pairs of those ugly ass parachute pants at the bazaar. I was practically foaming at the mouth as they picked out pairs of pants because I knew that meant a better price.
5. Ask for the “pretty girl” discount. I know, it sounds ridiculous. I don’t use this one too much anymore. Because (1) it doesn’t really work in Asia where I am bigger than most men and (2) father time seems hell bent on taking this option away. But in Marrakech that shit worked like a charm in the souk. They don’t call me Fatima Couscous for nothin’.
6. WALK AWAY. At least take a few steps. If they don’t come after you, you know their floor. This is useful information for when you get to the next booth where they are selling the exact same shit.
7. If it is actually unique and you really want it, swallow your pride and just get it. I know, it’s tough. But you’ll kick yourself later. Trust me.

After a marathon shopping run, we hit up our favorite beer garden and settled in for an evening of live music, beers and food. Kim sniffed out the wine bar cart within about 12 seconds of entering. Katie and I pondered over the Mexican food cart but wimped out once again. Steph ate another big ass fish.

You do not want to miss tomorrow’s blog. Spoiler alert: ladyboys like WHOA. I leave you with a throwback to the “Headshots du Jour”:

Steph and her fish

Me in the Beer Garden

Jorgie Beer Garden

December 21, 2015 0