Give Me Cipro or Give Me Death

There are worse places to spend a day being sick

I woke up this morning and I was deathly ill. I felt absolutely miserable. I got up and headed over to the girls' hostel to let them know that I couldn't make the boat tour we had planned. Then I went back to my hostel for a bit, grabbed my stuff, and brought it back to the girls' hostel because that's where I'm staying tonight.

Before I left for my trip to Asia, I saw about 6,000 doctors who gave me a million shots and lots of travel advice. I also got some Ciprofloxacin (aka Cipro), a hardcore antibiotic, for "just in case you're in the middle of nowhere and finding medical care is as common as riding a unicorn that shoots rainbows out of its... hooves." Well... turns out that "just in case" is right now. I've gotten sick plenty of times on this trip, but I only have so much Cipro and I wanted to save it for when I realllly needed it. But I'm going on a meditation retreat in a few days, and I can't, can't be sick for it. So I popped my first Cipro and waited for it to do it's thing. I spent the rest of the day hanging out at the hostel. Which was actually amazing because the bungalow is RIGHT ON the beach. I'm literally lounging here looking out onto the water. I also met some awesome Australians also hanging out for the day with me in the bungalow.

So it's mid-afternoon. I'm basically asleep. And I get woken up by a random girl I've never seen before:
Random Girl: Richard? [with a thick German accent]
Me: [in a sleepy stupor not having heard what she said] ...what?
RG: Are you Richard?
Me: No, I'm Rishan.
RG: Oh... are you going on a meditation retreat tomorrow?
Me: ...Yea [...totally confused]
RG: Oh cool, me too. Do you want to go together?
Me: ...Yea, sure, sounds good. Wait... what? Who are you?

So it turns out this girl was staying in my old hostel and had been talking to LI (the mysterious Norwegian girl with whom I came to Koh Phi Phi) who mentioned to her that I was going to a retreat tomorrow. It sounded to her like the same one she was planning on going to, so LI told her how to find me. But even still... I'm shocked she was actually able to do it. Props to her. We chatted for a few minutes, I was still in a tired/deathly ill state, but together we managed to figure out how to get off the island tomorrow and start our journey toward the monastery. I'm actually really glad she did because I had been putting off the logistics of the whole thing and honestly, I might not have even gotten it together enough to make it out tomorrow, which meant that I might have missed my retreat.

I spent the rest of the day at the hostel not doing much of anything. The other girls came back from the boat tour and said they had an awesome time. It still would have been a huge mistake for me to go; I made the right choice. I was going to go out with them later that night, but I was still feeling miserable, so I called it an early night at 8:30pm. There was music blaring outside but it didn't matter to me at all. It just felt great to be in a bed.

CONTINUE ON to Koh Phi Phi Part 3: Goodbye, Koh Phi Phi!