Today I rode to the coastal city of Narathiwat. Although Strava blessed me with more than 1000 meters of climbing over the 95 km I believe that was wrong, as it was a gentle ride.  The first half of the ride was through Yala Province which in my opinion has to be the most beautiful province in Thailand.  I haven’t been to every province yet, but I’ve been to 71 of 77, and Yala is the most beautiful of all of those. But there are some issues here.

I used to read a lot of journals for both cycling and at times even backpack people’s journals, and always about South East Asia.  A lot of the journals would take place in Cambodia.  And every one would have a section where the person visits 'the killing fields' or that school where they killed lots of people. And there would be a section about the suffering and not forgetting the past or some such bullshit, and then they’d go down to the beach and drink buckets and get wasted 'dude'.  I bring this up at this juncture, as here in Southern Thailand there’s a war going on now.  Not a full blown war, but for example two rangers were ambushed in Tak Bai last week, the same city that I enjoyed a hotdog from 7-Eleven today, I just read that a police man was killed by insurgents today over in Sungai Padi, about 15 km from where I am now. But as the bicycle tourist this effects me 0%.  It slightly more than an abstract as you do see the army every day, but you see them as you ride by.  How is Cambodia related to the South of Thailand? Well, if you read a journal and they talk about 'the red zone' or any word that makes it sound like an adventure in danger land here, that person is full of shit, and trying to milk this place for all it’s worth.

My first visit here in the Deep South was maybe 13 years ago, and since then I’ve riden my bike through here probably 15 times, and now things feel more optimistic than ever.  There’s a Mr Donut in Narathiwat.  Holy shit, Mr. Donut! All sorts of nice coffee shops, and dessert shops.  And yet there are zero tourists.  I’ve yet to see a white person since I left Hat Yai a week ago.  But this is the year 2018.  I have this prediction, I think I told Frank about it, that some day things will quiet down, and I’ll revisit Yala or Narathiwat, and there will be a street, like a miniature Khao San Road (the backpacker ghetto in Bangkok), and there will be a bar called 'The Car Bomb' or 'Ambush', and the kids will be drinking buckets and telling tales of how they saw an APC out on the highway.  Now is the time to be here, but don’t tell the backpacker kids.  It’s nothing special or scary to be here, but they don’t know that.  In Apocalypse Now, in the scene with Lt. Colonel Bill Kilgore after his napalm speech he says 'some day this wars going to end' looks sad, and walks away.  I kind of understand that, because it’s really special down here right now, not in a dangerous way, but in this way that people just never see us tourists,  which is a good thing as we haven’t had a chance to annoy them to the point of dislike.

I get to Narathiwat and eat my first dinner.  Then I go to the 7-Eleven and buy a speghetti to supplement my first meal.  I call this double tapping.  When I worked in Deportations we would have firearms qualifications quarterly.  We would do practice of two shots to center mass, one shot to the head. This is called a double tap.  Now I use the word for two meals in a row, or two shits in the morning.  After the 7-Eleven I went to Mr Donut.  I really wanted a chocolate old fashioned but they don’t have those, so I got a couple of others.  I start talking to a guy that saw his opportunity to finally speak to a tourist.  I explained to him how in America the donut is our favorite food, and how we eat donuts every day.  He told me that he and his friends were going to the beach to eat donuts.  I knew he was going to invite me to go with them but I’m so tired from the ride, I just want to sleep. I told him Americans never eat donuts on the beach, that when we go to the beach we take all our clothes off, and smoke lots of dope. My plan worked and I precluded his invite to the beach. I returned to my hotel ate my speghetti and donuts while looking at passing ships in the river.

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