My secondary reviewer decided to go to Cambodia.

So after she left I just hung on in Bangkok working on projects  in an empty hostel that smelled like paint fumes for a while.  During this period I was feeling kind of low, but I was passing a guy every day who really inspired me.

He was a motorbike taxi driver, but he had rigged up a hammock on a really busy street and was able to sleep there.  At night, other motor bike taxi drivers would show up and bring him beers from the 7-11 that was like ten feet away.  Then they would get drunk. He was not injured in any way, he just didn’t like to get up. I never saw him approach anyone about driving them anywhere.

Something else unrelated I saw in Bangkok.  I was in the mall and I passed this old man having coffee and talking to another old man, all the sudden his lower teeth ad gums and and lip slipped forward and it looked to me like he had dislocated his jaw. But then he popped it back in and I realized he had dentures on the bottom and he just had the habit of popping them in and out while his friend talked.  Wow.  That is an unattractive habit.  One of the few I don’t have (yet). How do you keep talking to someone who is doing that and not take it as a sign that they are not interested in what you’re saying?

Eventually I took the train down to Kuala Lumpur.  You can power-walk faster than the train. It also seems to break suddenly a lot, and when that happened a couple of metal panels would fall down from the ceiling by the bathroom.  I think it’s really an ideal means of travel for people who have babies or are arthritic and can’t sit for long periods of time and/or are transporting bags of limes (but it would also be ideal for those people with babies and arthritic legs and/or transporting bags of limes not to mind being hit in the head with metal panels that fall down from the ceiling when the train breaks.)

I slept most of the way, but there was this man with  a baby on a bunk below and across from me who had a stuffed bunny that was larger than his baby and he was encouraging the baby to spar with the bunny for a good deal of the trip.  No one was watching me watch them so I didn’t have to pretend this was cute, I could just watch it for the sake of the fight. The baby kind of looked like a full sized muay thai fighter because he was wearing a gold chain and little shinny shorts and he was making noises with the punches he landed. He was also probably the same weight as most of the professional fighters. The bunny had no defensive skills, no counter attack, and no abs. In fact, he was just bouncing around with his paunch and floppy ears and taking a beating. It was not a fair match. They sent a stuffed bunny to do a man’s job.

After two days I got to Kuala Lumpur where I checked into a dorm bed that costs $5 a night.  I might be over paying. The place is filled with lovable and forgettable fuck-ups. I’ve been here for about two weeks and I don’t know when I’ll get it together to leave.

I’ve finished visiting the 30 hotels except for the one that was assigned to me but is actually in Norway,  and now I’m trying to write reviews of the ones I visited as if I have strong opinions on luxury hotels I have never and will never stay in.  It is going slower than I had hoped.