Don't let the bed bugs bite!

Well, who said it's easy to get to paradise? After an afternoon of travel that culminated in a freaky late night taxi (being the back of a pickup truck) ride over island mountains that I expect if one looked over the cliffs there would be a quite a large pile of rusted out cars and bleached bones, and a night in a small room scratching the bugs off - I found it. Haad Yao, Koh Pha-ngan. There is a perfect little bungalow "resort" with amazing people. It turns out they were full (there's some stupid debacherous full-moon party that has the island crammed with people) but I got a cozy little place in the attic with a fan for about $2. There's a wonderful middle-aged hippie from England up there as well. We spent the evening swapping tales with a Dutchman, a Swede, a German, and an ex-pat from the U.S.
It's interesting how other people view the United States. Frankly, they are pretty negative towards most things, particurally George Bush. I think it shows how biased the international media is in how they report things. I may have changed a few minds about the average American though. One could say that we get a bad rap only because being on top makes everyone want to pull you down, but that's exactly the attitude that makes everyone not like us.
I think I'm on to the jungles of Malaysia in a day or two...