My last night on the islands, I wasn’t feeling too hot.

I felt feverish, I looked like a burn victim and my sores were not getting better, especially constantly in contact with the intense heat.

I walked to a local pharmacy and was given some pathetic pills which did nothing.

We left Star Huts and backpacked further up the beach, even closer the bars and restaurants and vomit-blanketed beaches.

The room was pretty ghetto. It wasn’t air-conditioned and had one lonely, weak fan to cool the surprisingly large room down.

The room was never cool. My sores were getting worse.

I spent the evening bored and lonely and depressed, laying in my bed with the protection of the sleep sheet I had purchased at REI to wrap around yourself to protect from bug bites and crabs.

While Lee and Clare were out partying, I sat there thinking.

With all the death and destruction that lay around me and the not so subtle signs of my both my face and wallet taking a beating, I knew I had to go.

I had to go home now.

The next morning, I went to the pseudo lobby of our little complex of hotel rooms and tried to call my mother.

I could not get through and the front desk lady boy (I’m 100% certain she was a transvestite) spoke zero English.

I sat down at the several dingy, ancient computers and sent a few emails, including one to see if I could get any kind of refund for the expensive round the world airline ticket I had purchased.

No luck.

I couldn’t even use it for a flight home.

I didn’t even care at this point.

I was gonna wing it.

I had to get the hell out of here now. Before things got worse.

My dream vacation, the trip of a lifetime had completely crumbled to bits.

I told Lee and Clare, who were shocked, and hugged them goodbye.

Then I helped them kill a cockroach in our sickly green bathroom.

I packed up my crap with my head held low and left.

I took the ferry to the Koh Samui Airport. All the flights that day were full.

Of course they were.

The lady stared at my seeping sores as I purchased a standby ticket to Bangkok.

I tried to keep them hidden as I pulled my baseball cap on as tight as I could.

I sat on the cement outside the ticket counter for hours, watching everyone else come and go.

And get a peak at the American freakshow with the pizza face.

About four hours later I was able to get on a flight.

The tiny ass plane was so hot, I felt my sores begin to seep again. They did this in the heat, which Thailand has aplenty.

The air vents blowing on me were like the hot, fetid breath of an old man, angry at me for something.

When I reached Bangkok, I remembered my mother told me there was a hotel actually in the airport.

Yes!

Finally something coming easy to me.

But first, I needed to buy a plane ticket home.

I headed to the ticket counter at China Airlines.

When I saw their smiling faces, I knew something was wrong…