appetizers and thai tattoos

When we were in Ko Jum this past week, we were delighted to find out that there was a recent influx of gigantic insects at night time.  These things are almost 3 inches long, they have feet that have tiny barbs that make them stick on you like velcro, and they're attracted to light like most bugs.  The thing with these ones is that they have somehow managed to survive their evolutionary fault - after bumping in to a light (or sometimes not bumping in to anything at all) they tend to go plunging to the ground, Kamikaze style.  Sometimes they live to repeat the same patter a thousand more times, sometimes the impact crushes them.  What makes dinner time on Ko Jum exciting is that they often make these Kamikaze dives into people - like Josh's ear or Marika's dinner plate - so a good deal of dinner is watching these bugs to try to estimate if they're going to crash in to you.  It's a double edged sword though, because if you're looking up at them, they might fly in your face.

These savory treats are fried up in oil and salt by the locals for a late night snack, and we were told by Od (the bartender where we stayed) that we needed to try them before we left.  Sure enough, he showed up the next night with a bowl full of them, ready for consumption.  First, before cooking them, you pull off the legs and the shield-like wings.  Next, you break off the head (or you can eat it - it just makes it a little more appetizing for non-locals to not have the head on there).  Finally, you count to three, ignore the fact that you just saw that the bug has a little tuft of hair, and throw the thing in your mouth and chew like hell.  As Josh so eloquently described, it had the consistenc of soggy bread, and you have to chew for a good 2 minutes to actually break it down.  Even after all that chewing I still swallowed the thing nearly intact.  We didn't even have anything to wash it down with, and we were all on an empty stomach - two things I don't recommend.

One thing we've done a lot of in the last few days is renting motorbikes to get around the towns or islands we've been visiting (bicycles were the main mode of transport in the north, but we haven't seen as many down here).   It's a great way to cover a ton of land and you get a good breeze going to help you forget about the stifling heat for a bit.  I know this is gross, but i'm putting up a picture of the Thai tattoo on my leg that I got from my motorbike's exhaust.  It's kind of funny because there's an unburned part in the center where the exhaust pipe opens. Lesson learned, i'll be more careful.