By Lucy

I did not sleep well Sunday night. It’s funny how there’s patterns amongst unconnected travelers. Everyone, it seemed, was getting up before 6. Early flight somewhere?

I finally peeled myself out of bed at 6:30. I wasn’t getting back to sleep, and I had to be at the hotel for 8:30 anyway.

I took a Grab there. I was too tired to walk. My period is in absentia again. This is getting catastrophic, K.O.ing me for an entire week every month.

Michelle was slightly late, so I chatted with whoever was in the lobby. Cherrie offered me a breakfast – her roommate hadn’t eaten one – but I wasn’t hungry.

Eventually Michelle was ready. Apparently she thought I was staying at the hotel as well, which was too bad, because we were only going to the jetty across the road from the hostel, so I could have waited and walked. Oh well.

There was a bunch of people at the jetty. I had assumed she was taking a small team out to the island to work on it. I was wrong; this was a full photo shoot with members of the government and everything. I was wearing my doo-wop dress, which always has the side effect of making me look more official than I am, for better or for worse. With a lightbulb, I dug my nametag out of my bag and stuck it on my chest.

We hopped on the boat; me first, since I’m brave.

It took maybe 5 minutes to boat across to the island that I can see from the hostel, Gaya. The plastic waste is immediate and obvious.

We got there around 9:30 and Michelle started her presentation at 10, after the second boat arrived and when everyone was arranged in chairs under a canopy. I was one of two white people; the other white man wore a shirt for a resort brand and didn’t attempt to speak to me, so I assume he’s a wealthy donor wanting to build a resort here. I debated going over and trying to hustle him, but decided against it.

There’s lots of newspaper photographers here. I’m gonna be in the paper again. That’s twice in one week.

One of Michelle’s team passed out from the sun and the heat. Fortunately, she was standing next to someone who caught her. She was carried into the shade of the canopy and they poured water on her and fanned her until she came to, for a bit of excitement.

Michelle made everyone “play a game” of volley ball on the new volley ball court. Playing volley ball on a cement court seems like a dumb idea, right?

A couple of the government guys came over and shook my hand. They seemed to be trying to feel out if I was a big kahuna, because once I admitted I was just hanging out with Michelle, they lost interest.

Eventually the men had done all the photographs and hand shaking that they wanted, and they hopped back on the boat and left.

Me and Michelle went to the shed the plastic shredding machine was in to take a look at it. Apparently it’s vibrating itself to pieces, which doesn’t surprise me. We had a similar problem at the factory, the sewing machines shaking the screws loose. I took some pictures to send to Hanuman and Margaret once I got back to land.

We got back around 11:30, and I was exhausted. I stopped at the market and bought some mango for lunch because I didn’t think I could eat anything else. I ate it quickly in the common room, then went and laid down for a couple of hours.

For an early dinner, I went back to Pizza Hut and had another small pizza. Then I got a Grab back to the hotel.

Fiona and David were just heading out as I got there. We hugged and said goodbye.

Anthea was sitting with two other women, so I grabbed a seat next to them. After about 10 minutes, a staff member came over and offered me a menu. When I declined, she asked me to leave, citing “the lobby isn’t for visiting”.

I mean, isn’t that exactly what the lobby is for? They just clued in that I never buy anything and I’m not staying here, is what the real problem is. But I won’t win by arguing. I stood and threw my bag over my shoulder. Now what?

“Lucy, where are you going? Come help!” Anthea commanded.

One of the ladies she had been sitting with had had a catastrophic nosebleed. They relocated her to a couch so she could lay down, as she was bleeding enough to soak through a hand towel. I stood there awkwardly holding her bags. Eventually they called paramedics, who wiped the inside of her nose with one of those witch hazel pads, which did the trick.

There was 5 or 6 of us now. Someone ordered coffee for the table and I was handed the nose-bleed lady’s sandwich, which she now didn’t want to finish.

Anthea took off for a meeting and we sat around chatting for a bit. Around 5, I stood to go back to the hostel. I’m not accomplishing anything and I feel like a mooch.

As I headed towards the doors, I ran into Cherrie.

“Hey, can I ask you about Fiona?” I asked.

She smiled tightly, “Depends, what about her?”

I asked my questions. I figured Cherrie is understanding while also being honest. She won’t just say Fiona is right or wrong. We chatted for about an hour and I felt like I’d actually accomplished something other than sit around. We exchanged numbers and I went back to the hostel.

Ah! Rest!

Because I am a dork, I sent a picture of my hand making a heart to Vlad. He sent back his.

Vlad gets me.

I felt dreadful in the morning. I’m running a fever. I officially have a cold.

Well, I wasn’t planning on doing anything today anyway. F*ck it.

I did clean off my bed and asked the staff to change my sheets.

I sat around watching Youtube for most of the day. I grabbed out the sewing kit and started fixing up the bean bag chairs because the stitching on them hurt my soul. One of the employees sat down with me and wanted to be taught how to make the stitches nice like I was, so that was my good deed for the day.

A hunky blonde man sat down to chat with me about tattoos and sewing. He had a bunch of tattoos and long blonde hair in a topknot on his head, and a thick accent I later found out was Finnish. A surfing, beach bum Finn? How novel. I debated grabbing his number and decided against it when he revealed he was 45.

Hmm….

Mmm, what? Oh, something something, female empowerment. I’m not distracted by muscles!

Despite my Buddhist “this to shall pass” attitude, one thing has been annoying me more and more, and that’s my dad. Ever since he told me to get lost about my newspaper article, I’ve been debating cutting him off. Why do I even bother? The more I accomplish, the less we have in common. Like Freddie Mercury, I’d debate telling people my parents were dead if I thought I could get away with it.

Because we don’t all get the fairytale ending.

I watched Princess Mononoke recently. I find it amusing that not only is the woman on the cover not called Princess Mononoke, she’s not even the main character!

I find it interesting in a way I think most white people would miss. Like, the main character, Ashitaka, is an Emishi. The Emishi are the people who were living in Japan before the “Japanese” got there… yes, the most recent migration in not the OG. What you think of as Japanese are ethnically Korean, and that’s why Jigo and Lady Eboshi are Buddhist and outsiders. The Emishi have lived on the land for 40’000 years and practice a more ancient version of Shinto, and true to the movie, they were forced off their land by the newbies. To this day, they mostly live on Hokkaido.

There’s a lot of back and forth about Legend of Zelda copying Mononoke and vice versa, but I think people forget that those are all common tropes and characters in Japanese myth (And that they came out at the same time so there’s no way they changed anything) It does sort of imply that Hyrule is somewhere in Hokkaido, though….

One thing I did recognize instantly is the Kodama. They’re Kokiri! Mischievous forest spirits!

One theme of Majora’s Mask people never get is the whole “you can’t go home again”. Link is utterly ruined after the end of Ocarina of Time. He’s lived through a whole war, but he gets sent back to his 7 year old body, so everyone just sees a child instead of a world-weary warrior. He literally can’t go home: the Great Deku Tree tells him that only Kokiri get sprites and live in the Deku Town, and he was only allowed to live there to save the world. Now that’s complete, Navi leaves him and he can’t find his way through the woods. He’s left wandering the world in a despondent state, possibly wishing for death, because he’s not allowed back into his childhood home, and he has nowhere else to go…

In my opinion, anyway.

The guys at the market where I buy dinner have started addressing me as “sister”.

It occurs to me that one of them might be trans. I have a well-earned reputation for not realizing someone isn’t cisgendered, because I take everyone as they are and I don’t care. You’re a trans femme who’s struggling to pass? You’re a dude who just felt like wearing eyeliner and lipstick today? Tell me your name and your pronouns, I don’t care. This person looks AMAB, but they might just be unfortunately masc looking. Or a drag queen. I only really noticed because they were wearing bright red lipstick, and it stuck out because Malaysia isn’t like Thailand where ladyboys are part of the scenery. They’re very conservative here.

I throw the swag from the conference on the table and it disappears quickly.

I ate the chocolate the Mongolian ladies gave me. It’s really good, no palm oil at all. The little tin is cute too, it looks like a yurt; I should throw it away, but I can’t bring myself to.

By chance, I noticed a free French Immersion course offered online by the University of Ottawa, and signed up. The Prime Minister has to be fluent in French, after all, and the Quebecois will never accept my Acadian name if I don’t speak it at a higher level than conversationally.

Wednesday was catastrophic.

I slept terribly, suffering from the cold. I was running a fever and had body aches. My nose wouldn’t stop running.

I watched Belle in the morning. It’s a cute little anime movie, with music by the guy who usually does Hideo Kojima games. It’s juggling a lot of themes – what if Beauty and the Beast was on the world wide web? And a theme of bullying vs empathy? Also anonymity. And child abuse!

What is with the Japanese and floating whales? The whole “biometrics” thing is, I hope, a poor translation, because it clearly has nothing to do with your actual ‘biometrics’ and seems to be more a manifestation of your mental and emotional strength.

I was also intrigued that her face paint seems to match the Majora’s.

I talked to the Finn a bit over breakfast. I don’t know why everyone notices my breakfast of toast with peanut butter and green tea and tells me it’s “healthy”. I mean, it is, but… like… do I just have a health nut vibe or something? Anyway, he mentions the hostel is fully booked because there is a marathon in KK on Friday. He finally notices my Sisu tattoo, which made me wince because I was prepared for him to tell me it was wrong to have, but he liked it and then he recommended I look up some Finnish movie called “Rare Exports”.

Him and a Chinese tourist started talking, and when I accidentally admitted I’ll probably never go to China, the Chinese man was devastated. I mean, I’d love to, don’t get me wrong. Culture, food, sights. But I don’t want to travel anywhere that requires me to keep my mouth shut and download a VPN, and I also suspect they’ll be unhappy with me for the Taiwan stamp I’m about to have in my passport.

I started debating asking him for his number again, but we got distracted and he checked out and left without us running into each other again.

After lunch, I went on a bit of a walk. I found a place with stickers and postcards, and bought some.

When I got back, I was tired, so I laid down in my bunk and opened Insta.

It devastated me.

Back when I was on chemo, I found this Youtuber who did sewing tutorials. She wasn’t “good”, but her projects were small and simple, which appealed when I couldn’t sit up for very long.

Of course, I never really follow Youtubers, so it took me a while to figure out that she had stopped uploading because she had developed a chronic illness. She tried to pivot to burlesque wheelchair-bound dancing around the time of the pandemic. Her posts on Insta became less and less frequent.

Wednesday’s post was; she was going into palliative care. She’s contracted MRSA or C Diff and it was killing her. By the time this post goes live, she might even be dead.

I don’t know why, but it destroyed me. I spent an hour crying in my bunk.

And of course it was the lonely hour, when all the night owls in Canada have gone to bed and the early birds aren’t up yet.

I could reach out to Vlad.

I could.

Gah! I hate this!

I found a subReddit and poured out my heart about the heartbreak in December and finalized found the kind of closure I needed to start trusting again.

Vlad reminds me of an AI, in some ways, because his stoic Russian brain is inexperienced in offering validation and can only do it blandly. Despite having similar personalities, we have very different lived experiences. Sometimes I hesitate to tell him things because I know he won’t understand, in the same way an AI can only offer blanket platitudes and anecdotes. But I also find having to explain comforting, in the way only I can. Having to search for smaller or more accurate words forces me to pause and really consider how I feel, instead of just relying on similar experiences to fill in the blanks.

Eventually, the day ends, and Vlad reminds me that it’s passed my usual bedtime. Silly.

The next day is slow. My period finally arrives, although the cold has run its course, my ribs hurt from all the sneezing. This whole week has been a wash. I wanted to spend every day swimming, but there’s no real swimming beaches in KK. I could and meant to go snorkeling on the islands, but it occurs to me that I can do it again and cheaper in the Philippines. Guess I’ll just hang out in the AC.

I’ve been making great progress on my French lessons, actually, doing half an hour to an hour every day.

I walked to the mall before lunch. I had to look for the things that I might need to fix the plastic machine. I did not find them, but it didn’t matter because the crew figured out a work-around. I couldn’t find the post office that allegedly exists in the mall. I did pass a bin sale on panties and decided to buy some, because some of mine are looking decidedly threadbare from being washed so often. I’m a Malaysian large, which is a shot to the ol’ self confidence.

This mall is amazing. There’s so many layers, it just keeps going up and up and up. There’s a Bob’s Chicken on every floor.

Back to the all-you-can-eat for the last time. Mostly because I’m running out of cash. Catch 22; it’s cheaper to eat street food, but it costs 25 ringgit to take out any amount, which is 5 whole meals at the street food market! I’ll just order food from somewhere I can pay with a card.

As I picked away at my mountain of food, the owner came over and slid a frosty glass across the table. When I looked up at him, perplexed and no doubt looking a little frightened, he smiled. “It’s hot out. Have a cold drink.”

Then he left and I didn’t seem him again for the rest of the day. Or, indeed, ever again, because I never went back (only because I was out of cash).

I viewed the glass with suspicion. What are the odds this will magically appear on my bill?

Still… maybe I should accept it.

I sipped it. It was unsweetened green tea.

Oh, that’s common enough as a free drink.

Oh.

Maybe he meant it.

When I went to pay, no charge appeared for the drink.

Oh.

I felt tears start to well up in my eyes. It doesn’t help that I’m emotionally fragile from yesterday. I’ve gone from feeling 100% alone to realizing that even the random buffet owner cares about me.

It rains in the afternoon, which happens every day for the rest of my stay in Malaysia. A staff member laments that summer is over.

My new bunkmate is a German woman whom I hoped I could hang out with a bit. I’ve got this gift coupon for Starbucks burning a hole in my pocket, but everyone just stays here overnight and heads out. No one visits KK, they just stop here on the way to Mount Kinabalu or Sandakan. Unfortunately, a smooth-talking Aussie swooped her away, so I was left by myself again. She was even going to stay longer in KK, but he talked her out of it. Rats!

Actually, tell a lie, there was one man around my age who stayed at the hostel for roughly the same time. But we never really got to chatting in any meaningful way. He always seemed to be on a mission and he wasn’t staying in my dorm.

I went out and just grabbed a mango for dinner. I had rice left from the day before and I wasn’t feeling very hungry.

The Germany woman and the Aussie man came back around 5. He was clearly half in the bag and trying to chat her up, including telling her she’ll be a great cougar one day, which was especially hilarious when she then didn’t know what that meant! He suggested turning on the PS4 and cracking a beer.

“I have a Switch.” I said, knowing the PS4 only plays FIFA games.

“You do? Sweet, fire that thing up! Want a beer?”

Not really, especially since it was a Tiger. I’d avoided trying Asian beer before now because I suspected and was correct that it’s not good, but I accepted this one just to be sociable. I couldn’t even force myself to drink half of it and dumped most of it down the sink when he wasn’t looking.

When we all trade where we are from, she says that Thunder Bay sounds familiar. She spoke too soon, because then she realizes that she read the name in a smutty book and she doesn’t want to tell us that. When I look up the book, it’s not even my Thunder Bay, it’s just a made-up New England town.

They brought some Malaysian snacks from the night market, so we spent the evening eating the snacks and playing Mario Kart. A random Chinese tourist joined as well. At one point, Aussie-man ducked out to grab more beer and came back with Sapporo, which is at least decent.

Around 11, I called it and packed up. Unlike FF, I’m not leaving the Switch lying around all night to grow legs.

I slept fitfully and woke up with a headache. God, Tiger is vile. I didn’t even finish a can and I’m hungover?

Whatever. Had breakfast. Put on sunscreen and then noticed it clouding over. The Chinese woman came to sit and chat with me for a bit, her name is Jane. The Aussie and the Kraut were heading for the airport and bus stop, respectively.

My destination for the day was Kiosaan Cultural Village, how the Malay people lived before the English arrived and demanded they stopped getting tattoos and cutting each other’s heads off and generally being interesting.

Inside the air conditioned booth where you buy tickets was two other customers. I later found out one was a local Malay woman, who moved to Kuala Lumpur for work, and her Columbian friend. After all three of us bought tickets, the clerk searched around nervously for a minute before realizing all her co-workers had taken off, and telling us she would be our guide.

I will say, it was a unique, magical experience that could not be repeated. Since both the guide and the local woman were Penampang aboriginal, they knew a fair bit about the culture, and me and the Columbian woman talked about the aboriginal people we had locally (well, I talked about the west coast tribes, since they have a lot in common with ancient Asian people).

The first couple of exhibits were bamboo houses… you know, like the hut I just spent a month living in? This was the least interesting part of the tour for me, because I knew it already. The first house also had a wooden “drum” and a bead game set up, but the guide was too nervous to explain them to us (she later admitted that she just started as a student).

The second house was labelled as being from Kota Belud, which excited me, until I realized I couldn’t recognize any of it. Everything in here – the traditional costume, the rituals with rice wine, the female shamans – is anathema to Islam. If it existed, it wasn’t anywhere I could see in modern Kota Belud.

In this house, they also had little basket for how you would carry your baby when you’re working in the fields.

The next exhibit was some sexy stuff. They had the rice wine samples – I prefer Lihing to the other two – Sago grubs, a delicacy eaten raw or cooked over a fire (the staff member put one on my hand so it could crawl around, which made the Columbian lady shriek and run away), and a fire starting exhibit. I’d buy some Lihing if I wasn’t getting on a plane in a couple of days.

Unfortunately, a group of schoolkids showed up just in time for the fire starter show, but it was still interesting. They showed up how to start a fire with bamboo and coconut husks. I talked with the guides about how we use flint in Canada to start a fire. We were given the chance to try starting a fire ourselves, and I got the closest to actually igniting the tinder, but my arm cramped when I paused to check and I couldn’t be bothered to push through it.

A lot of this is reminding me of the tour of Northern Vietnam. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? I mentioned that to the guide and to my surprise she agreed, pointing out that they are ethnically Chinese.

Now that the screaming schoolchildren had moved on, we went to the next stop, another house. This one was all gussied up for marriage, with the ‘couch’ for the newlyweds, the carved family totem, and the ladder to the attic so you can protect your daughters’ virtue from would-be thieves. There was also a display about the local snus, a mix of tobacco, areca and betel that seems like a good way to make sure you’ve lost all your teeth by age 20.

It’s kind of funny how all the old stuff is coming back into vogue. Tattoos, carving, snus.

The guide explained that there’s only 4 shamans left for this tribe, because the younger generation doesn’t want to learn how to do it, which is a shame. If they threw up an ad for interning to be a Borneon shaman, they’d be the new hotness for 20-something white girls. It’ll probably come back into style for the next generation, and by then it’ll be too late.

After this was music instruments. They have a local instrument called the sompoton, which is like an ocarina, and a variety of copper drums. Bamboo idiophones. I find all of this very interesting because it’s accessible. I can teach anyone how to make an idiophone out of a wooden rod, or to hammer on a copper drum.

They invite us to join in the performance. They give us the simple drumbeat, which is fair enough. The guide keeps the time with her hand, but I don’t need it.

She also teaches us how to do the traditional dance. We were pretty friendly at this point, just joking around and having fun!

Next to a group of men setting up a scaffold – the end of the month is the harvest festival – there’s a slingshot range set up. I’ve never really used a slingshot, unless you count video games. I picked up the slingshot, swung it around my head a couple of times jokingly, then fired a shot that was intended to be a practice shot.

Except I hit a bottle dead on and knocked it off the shelf. Even the men setting up the scaffold stopped and looked at me.

Alrighty then…

Once I put the slingshot down, I showed the guide a picture of an atlatl and we talked about that for a bit, before anyone could ask me how much practice I’ve had!

The last house is a longhouse, which is cool. The guide explains that women and girls got the apartments, which contained a bed and the cooker for each, and the men and boys above the age of seven slept in the hallway.

In the middle of the village is a bridge, exactly the same as the one I was crossing to get to Kota Belud from Ismail’s place. I laughed – this is a tourist attraction? I crossed it gamely. One of the men who had been in the drum performance was dressed up in traditional garb on the other side and posed for a photo.

The last exhibit was super cool… they have a trampoline!

No really, that’s a bamboo trampoline! We used it, can confirm. I missed taking a photo or video of us jumping on it, though.

They have a bell hung from the ceiling and the goal is to launch yourself high enough to tap it, which I did, impressing Mr Tribal. The other woman had to have it lowered, and the Columbian didn’t even bother trying. The guide said back in the old days, a headhunter would go out and kill an enemy, bring back the head and hang it above the trampoline, and if you couldn’t jump high enough to touch the head, you couldn’t be married. Women had to demonstrate that they could start a fire with the bamboo (guess I’m marriable in Malaysia).

Then we tried the dart gun. I did not have the luck with this one that I had with the slingshot, although it didn’t help that my head is two sizes too big for the little bamboo hat and it fell off.

And then we were done! Which sucked.

The Malay woman air-dropped me the photos and videos she had been taking throughout the tour, which lasted around 90 minutes, and then her and her friend went for lunch and I called a Grab to take me back to the hostel.

I ordered a pizza for lunch. The twilight hour, everyone has checked out, no one has checked in yet. Just me and the staff.

Maybe it was silly, but I really wanted to use the Starbucks coupon to buy a drink for someone.

Oh! I know! The lady at the front desk who gave me papaya!

I went down and across and in the office. “What kind of coffee do you like?”

“What?” She stared at me blankly. “I don’t drink coffee.”

I showed her the coupon, it’s faster. “What kind of drink do you want, then?”

“Oh, gosh!” She blushed. “I like chocolate. But I’ll drink whatever you bring me!”

“Ok!”

I run down to the Starbucks across the way. They have a new Coco Brownie drink, sounds good. I get the Fiji apple tea. I hop impatiently from foot to foot as fat raindrops start to splat against the window.

Jogged back to the hostel. She almost looks like she didn’t believe me as I hand her the drink.

“Oh! Pictures, pictures!” She wrangles another staff member into taking photos. Then she thanks me profusely and gave me a keychain.

My turn to blush. I mean, it’s just a 10 ringgit drink!

Later on in the day, I get the attached email.

Friday night was nice. I was braced for drunken tomfoolery, but everyone was tuckered out or not much for partying, and the common room was empty by 9.

You know, when I was a little kid, I used to give other kids my lunch. My parents got mad at me. “We can’t feed everyone, you know, you need to eat too,” etc etc. It didn’t stop me from giving my lunch away, it just stopped me from telling them. I had food at home and I knew I wouldn’t go hungry, but those kids didn’t have a lunch.

One of the great struggles in life is being kind when you’ve been hurt. Sometimes, when someone takes advantage of my kindness, it’s tempting to shut myself off. But for every one person who’s been rude or greedy, there’s been 10 who were super grateful or paid it forward. Ismail letting Vlad stay. Vlad helping me. The Soroptimists who bought me lunch. The man from the lunch place giving me a free drink. For 2 dollars and ten minutes of time, I made someone’s day.

I was thinking earlier this week, who am I when my first instinct isn’t to reach for a bottle? That’s one of the things alcoholics struggle with the most; a sense of identity.

Who am I when I’m no longer the scrawny girl who didn’t want to go home after school because she knew a beating was waiting for her?

The girl who sat alone at lunch because she was bullied and had no friends?

When I’m not the littlest cancer patient?

Who

am

I

…..

….

..

Anthea and Bruce have offered me the chance to step out of who I am, into who I’m going to be, but it’s terrifying. It’s not just an identity crisis; it’s several delayed identity milestones, crashing down upon me all at once, because my parents and world events denied me the opportunity to find out when it would have occured naturally.

But they are here now, and I’ll face them.

I am kind.

I am strong.

I am a leader.

I am a survivor.

And I am one in a million.

---

Anyway, back to our regular programing.

When I ordered the usual rice with egg for dinner, I got a second one as well. I am getting tired of it, though. It’s hard to imagine getting sick of fried chicken, my usual way to spice things up, but it’s getting stale as well.

Jane hops on my lap as I sit in the common room, “I got invited to a hotel room tonight! Let’s go!”

I have so many questions and none of them need answering. “No thanks, but you go have fun. Tell me about it in the morning!”

I’ve started getting up at 4 or 5 to prepare for my red-eye flight on Tuesday. Saturday was mostly boring, with only a little bit of excitement in the evening. A bunch of bogans showed up. I don’t understand people who travel in groups of 4 and don’t book a private room or a 4 bed dorm together. Instead, they were very loud in the main dorm. At one point in the evening, I went to get ready for bed and noticed they had put up decorations for someone’s birthday. Oh, joy… what are the odds they’ll come back late and be noisy?

“I don’t like it either.” One of the other guys said, “But what can we do except hope they are quiet?”

“Tear it down and throw it out.”

“That sounds sinister.”

Now we’re starting to understand each other.

They come back around 9:30, which is fine, but then they were so loud they exceeded the noise cancelling headphones. I gave them five minutes and then I yelled “Shut up!”

“It’s not even 10 o’clock.” One protested, but they were quieter after that, which is good because I was in a mood to start knocking heads together. There’s a common room or a whole mall lobby if you want to be drunk and loud. IDGAF if 10 is ‘technically’ quiet time, it’s called respect.

I also had to text Ismail and remind him to review me. He gave me a lovely review and now I have 3 five star reviews. 2 more and I can use Worldpackers for free, which is great because I’ll be too busy to travel.

Sunday morning, I escaped and walked down to the Gaya Street market. I have no money, it was just a destination to get me out and about. I did pass a table of hand carved shark teeth that were very tempting, but I have too much stuff with me already, and I imagine I can get those from anywhere.

I sort of dread going back to the hostel after. The bogan girls will be up and about by now. Will they hassle me? I go to the office – maybe I’ll hang out with the clerk for a bit – but she’s not there and I’m clearly not welcome on that side. One of the cleaners stares me down until I leave.

I go back to the common room. The girls head out quickly, thank goodness.

I’ve been holding off on booking my trip to North Luzon. I was debating going with this tour, but I was having a hard time sending him the deposit he wanted. I finally found an overnight bus that will get me pretty close on Thursday morning, which is perfect. Then I have all day to stand in line – they don’t have internet, so you can’t book appointments – and get my tattoo. Stay there overnight, and head to Bugaio in the morning. Spend the weekend hiking and head back to Manila for my flight.

The only problem; the flight I booked back to Manila was at 2PM. They’ve consolidated flights with the shortage, however, and now they’ve put me on a flight at 5PM, landing at 6:30. However, the bus leaves at 9. That’s cutting it a bit close for my liking. The other option is losing a whole day and night….

I booked it. You only live once and all that jazz.

I might as well start working at this hostel. I’ve started tidying up after the other guests, out of boredom and a perverse desire to always be busy.

In the evening, I pulled out the Switch and played Mario Kart with Jane. She eventually bailed to put on make-up and go drinking, but one of the other Chinese girls wanted to play Mario Party. Just the mini games, but we had fun!

I got up at 4. I had the option to either stay up for my 2AM flight or wake up early and nap, and I opted for napping. Did an hour of French lessons, walked down to the post office. Only one ringgit per postcard, how about that?

I had to walk to the second office to send my package. I mentioned it in passing, but another Canadian forgot her wallet at the hostel I met Vlad at, so I’ve been carting it around with me because basically every country has laws against sending credit cards in the mail. I presume for money laundering? What are you supposed to do if you forget your wallet, though? I guess it wouldn’t be a problem if I was headed back to Canada like a normal person… Anyway, I managed to talk the clerk in KK into sending the wallet, although she did charge me 30 Canadian for it. I sent an email with the tracking number to the girl’s email asking her to e-transfer me for it, and she has not replied, so there you go. Helping people is its own reward.

Around noon, I went down for a nap. I took a sleeping pill in the hopes of sleeping a little longer. Maybe it worked, but I did feel groggy for a bit.

When I went down for my last bit of street food, I tried to tell them I was leaving and that I’d miss them, but I’m not sure they understood. I guess they’ll get it when I don’t return.

As I gathered all my belongings to head out, I noticed one of the staff members had the bag they gave me at the conference. When I joke about it being mine, she offers it back, but I don’t want it; I have too much crap already and I don’t need another branded bag. She asked me a lot of questions about Soroptimists and searched them up on Instagram.

Funny that. Me going to conferences and staying in small local places probably does more for recruiting than the big posters by the fancy hotel! It really sells the image of Soroptimists as this accessible global-trotting organization, which is what they need!

Off to the airport; once more unto the breach.