I was soundly unsuccessful today in my attempt to have the rules explicitly broken by requesting an extension on my Indonesian visa. I didn’t really expect them to break the rules for me, but for some reason my sister did. She manages to get away with absolutely everything, I only manage to get away with most everything. I still have a lot to learn from her.

My flight departs at 4:50pm tomorrow out of Denpasar, the capitol of Bali, and I’m headed back to Bangkok. After that, all bets are off. I don’t even know what country I’ll spend the next week in. My plan is still to meet my friends in northern Thailand (Pai, to be exact; near the Burmese border) at the beginning of the third week of this month, but I’m free to do what I want until then. I have more options than Balinese rupies, but here are the ones I’m seriously considering:

1. Go to the islands and beaches in southern Thailand. The downside to this is that I’ll definitely run into hordes of tourists, it might be expensive, and it almost definitely won’t be adventurous unless I really get off the tourist trail, which could be difficult to find since I don’t have an entire month right now to explore this area like I know I will in the near future. The upside is the most beautiful beaches in the world.

2. Spend two weeks in northern Thailand. Start in Chiang Mai, the major city in the north, and just wander around to smaller cities. I’ve been teaching myself Thai the last week, so I’ll get a headstart, since the northern region has its own slight dialect which is different from Bangkok Thai. This option would support a lot of relaxing since I won’t have much moving to do for a month or so, until I go back to China.

3. Leave from Bangkok for Angkor Wat, Cambodia. My mother recommended this to me. Apparently Angkor Wat is close enough that it can be reached by bus/train and doesn’t necessitate a plane flight, which is a plus. I know virtually nothing about Cambodia; this is another plus. This is the most exotic and adventurous option, but will require the most legwork.

The reason why I didn’t enter Indonesia with a 30-day visa like I was supposed to is because of my father getting me the wrong one, mistakenly thinking that we’d only be here for 7 days. It’s actually been 10 days, and we’ll both have to pay $60 in visa overstay fees at our departure. I didn’t expect him to, but he was generous enough to offer me a roundtrip flight to and from Singapore so I can get sorted with a new 30-day visa and spend the time here that I had planned, but I won’t do that.

I have no concrete plans, and I decided a long time ago that if I was going to do this, I would let the wind take me where it does. Today was a great example of that force in action and tomorrow I’ll be in Bangkok. I’ll wait for a sign to hit me on what to do next.

The computer at the internet place that I’m at is logged into the local network as a username called Jah. The tiny Windows XP user icon is a black and white shot of Bob Marley. Sweet.