The night before the full moon party I came down with a high fever. I stumbled home though the half hour walk and sweated thought the night taking small handfuls of IB Profin and large gulps of water. My roommate didn’t come home till the next morning. He walked in and I asked him to walk down to the lounge of the property to get some Tylenol and water because I had run out of both. He said “Ok” and walked out and didn’t return to the room in 2 hours. Finally I felt well enough to walk down myself. He was sitting there playing on the internet. I told him that we are no longer traveling together because he didn’t have the common sense to even do the bare minimum to look after his fellow traveler.
I’m better off all alone than this a selfish self centered ass. He responded to my common sense comment with “Well the lobby isn’t that far. Why is it such a big deal?” I told him “Exactly, its not a big deal for someone who isn’t sick. Why didn’t you do it?” He responded with “What do you want me to be your mommy and take you temperature?”
Ahhha! Just the statement that I would expect from a person like him, who can’t quite comprehend that we are a long way away from our mommies, and yes, that’s exactly what travelers do for each other. Only the night before a girl at our bungalow kicked a rock and was limping back. I rushed up to my room and grabbed the Purell and help her clean out the cut. As I ran off, Ronnie shouted “leave here.” Because he didn’t want to wait an extra 20 minutes to hit the town.
I got the sense that Ronnie was a douche bag from first day I met him, but when he crossed me directly, I cut him out like cancer.
I ended up hanging out the lounge for the next 8 hours and meeting an eclectic bunch of travelers. They were almost traveling alone and ranged from New Zealand to New England. Most of them were sporting “Thai tattoos” which are scars or scabs from injuries in Thailand. 3 of the people in the group had been quad biking a few days before and ended up tumbling down hills. They would have been really screwed if a few German guys hadn’t gone completely out of their way to get help.
And of course, this group understands the value and purpose in looking out for each other. They scrounged together and found me some various Aspirins and Tylenols form their bags.
So tonight I will be missing the full moon party. My eclectic group of loner travelers still painted me with body paint in honor of me missing it. This is the type of people that you go traveling to meet. Real quality, big hearts.