Halfway through the Don Det notes... more or less

It is with a not so weary body, a mind on caffeine and the ears full of Fake Problems that I open once again my schoolbook of Don Det scribblings to share with you bits of what was easily the best 3 months of my life.

I'm happy to have been able to share it with dozens of amazing people, characters and party members that collaborated to this, my first adventure as a solo nomad human.

For those of you that were not there, these lines spew forth from the past, out of my mind and onto paper, later copied onto a virtual surface available everywhere in the world...

"Everything's amazing right now, and nobody's happy" - Louis C.K.

Well, I'm happy.

Enough attempted poetry for now, here's an entry!

(If my writing style seems to have changed it's because I've been watching a tonne of videos from these guys over the last few days, I think they're the best thing to happen to Youtube).

Peritos!

Last night Sandy gave birth to 8 little furry blind creatures. It's the first time in my life that I get to witness a dog's pregnancy and the aftermath. I won't get to watch them grow into adulthood but I should be fortunate enough to play with them for a month or two, long enough to imprint my face, smell and voice on them.

Smiley face.

That was the end of it originally. Peritos means puppies in spanish, yes I picked it up from the argentina  chickas.

I didn't witness the puppies exiting the dog's vulva live and although I'm naturally curious I'm not sure I needed to see it just yet in my life.

Turns out there's a lot more to taking care of puppies than I first thought and since we're not even sure Sandy was over one year old (talk about teenage pregnancy! You slut (her 3rd nickname)) I was overly protective of her. She didn't leave their side for the first few days so we'd go into Arron's bungalow where she had done her business (right under his bed) and leave leftovers and water easily reachable for her.

We'd get woken up by sounds of the puppies yelping and it took me a few days to realise that - since they were blind and could barely move - this was their way to let their mother know where they were.

The pups became very popular very quickly (especially with female travellers and clients) and once their eyes opened and they started walking around and pooping we moved them to larger quarters. That meant that now any Don Det resident had easy access to them. That meant that sometimes I'd be walking around and see whatshisname driving around on his motorbike with 3 puppies in the front basket.

At the same time a dog smaller than Sandy, probably 6 months old, decided that One More Bar was his new home and decided to take up residency. There was a breed of dogs - or at least a family branch - on this island that looked like nothing I've ever seen. They had barely any hair, were pink and scruffy and fugly as hell.

Some backpackers were saying they were the result of mating between a dog and a pig.
Some backpackers are idiots.

Anyways. This unfortunate little guy was probably the last survivor of the most recent batch of little gremlins the poor mother birthed and was now looking for a new home.

That's right, in Laos, the dog adopts YOU. Sandy wasn't even Ken's in fact, she just kinda showed up one day and started being the awesomest dog ever.

After a few days of the little bugger disgusting/gathering pity from the clients I started to evict him a few times a night. People (mostly female travellers/clients) would go aaaaaaawwww and look at me with sad faces making me feel like an asshole as I was literally kicking him out of the restaurant, until they'd see Sandy full of motherhood and protective bad-assness show up and kick the living crap out of the little dood.

So, in retrospect, I did it for his own good.

He's probably living on the beach now with all the ugly discarded dogs of the island, being hated by the indigenous population but accepted by the invaders, the falang, the weird pale and tall people that show affection to animals and don't see them just as nuisance, food, or tools.

Paï

Yesterday morning I woke up from a good relaxing night and found an internet coffee shop to skype with a few friends from home.

I then set out for Paï where the gang already is.

A mini-bus took us through the curviest roads I've witnessed yet, and I kept wondering how the hell they achieved this feat and how long it must have taken them.

After 2 hours of sickening frantic driving through jungle, the trees diminished enough on my left to unveal a scenery of mountain tops and orange sunset.

A military check-up and 2 more hours and I was in Paï, hanging out with the crew. We ate some Phad Thaï and proceeded to get hammered at Yellow Sun, a cool little bar.

We then went back to the house we were renting and chilled out on the balcony, drinking rum n coke and watching the meteor shower.

This morning I woke up and had the shakes from a Changover. We all went for breakfast and had a good laugh, then all got out on our scooters. I set off on my own for about 20 minutes for a dip in a freezing pond at the foot of a small waterfall.

I then went back to our group of friends who were at a Piranha fishing farm. We spent a good 2 hours there, drinking beer, casting lines, hanging out and relaxing. We're still here at the moment, the owners are heavily-tattooed australians who figured out a righ way to live.

There's 2 Thaï kids playing around and 4 puppies sucking on a bitch's swollen teets, while the male tries to eat the fish bait from unsuspecting fishermen.

Ben's the only one who caught something, a common silver barb, he estimates the weigh at 1kg.

I almost crashed driving there because a fucking chicken crissed the road at the worst possible moment. I hit the brakes and hurt my toe a little bit since I was only wearing slippers, but the main danger was averted.

Some dogs started barking at me and I tried to explain to them that I just saved that chicken's life, but I think they only spoke Thaï and Bark.

Tonigh will probably be spent lounging around drinking local rum... The night should be quiet, there's a regga festival going on but we decided not to go.