Feet problems (Koh Samui, Thailand)

Painful Pedicure

So I got the pedicure I had intended on the other day. It was my first ever professional pedicure, other than the one that Jenny gave me a long time ago (which could be considered prof, but doesn't count cause it was free and from a friend). I thought I'd get one because many people do it in the Philippines on a regular basis and seem to enjoy it.

I should learn a lesson from it though. The esthetician at first asked for 150 Thai Baht for her services (this is before the actual pedicure) and I bargained her down to only 100 Baht. I sat down and put on my earphones thinking that I was going to being enjoying a nice pedicure with a long soak in hot water and a foot scrub to follow (the way Jenny did her's). No, I was wrong. After about 10 minutes, 2 tracks later and harsh jabbing and cutting away at my toes the lady was 'finish'.

Now, 2 days later my big toes still hurts. Every now and then I can see some blood peeping out of the cut that she 'accidently' made! I've put antiseptic on it a couple of times because I'm scared it might get frickin' infected!

Next time I won't bargain. Maybe there just won't be a next time.


Stained

And now, only an hour ago I was walking along the beach, a nice stroll as I listened to my discman and the waves crash to my left. Since I didn't recieve a foot scrub by that damn lady, I walked barefoot, hoping the coarse sand may do me some good. Anyway, after I had put my white flip-flops back on and started to walk around the town, do a bit of browsing. This one shop requires you to remove your footwear before entering, as with a lot of buddhist places, so I take my slippers off and see that my sandals are stained black in a few different spots. I look at my feet and I see this yucky gunk all over them! It has the consistency of gum or oil or something. I think that I may have stepped in squid ink or something. I snuck into a washroom and tried to rinse it off, I even used soap and my fingernails to try and remove it. No luck. Damn it, I was actually going to go for a foot massage, but now I'm too embarassed to walk in with black stained feet.


Azan from Oman

I've met many interesting people throughout my travels. Just thought I'd tell you about Azan. He's now the second person I've met from Oman, a wealthy country in the Middle East with a population of only 3 million. Both of them are quite interesting.

Anyway, Azan has been travelling for the last 2 years mostly through the Middle East taking proffestional photographs. There's a popular author that wrote 22 novels a long time ago and most of them are about his travels through different countries. So Azan has been approached by a magazine company to go and re-trace the steps of the author and take photos of his writings for one particular novel.

He's now completed it and is just on a month holiday in Thailand, without his camera. Well actually his 3 cameras, 2 tripods, 6 different lenses and countless rolls of film. He enjoyed the journey that he was sent on, however he said that patience was strongly needed. To try and find certain people, to sit their and wait for them to do the exact pose that's described in the book, to find certain places and objects, its really quite unimaginable.