So we're currently in Surat Thani in south-central Thailand, a non-tourist friendly town with few English speaking people. We're staying here tonight before heading to Chaiya early tomorrow to register for the meditation retreat. We'll have a few hours to kick around the town before we have to be back to sign away 10 days to eating mushy barley, sleeping on concrete slabs with wooden pillows, being eaten by fire ants, and not talking about it (or anything else for that matter). This also means that well be missing the full moon party on Kho Phangan on April 2nd - oh well - I'm sure meditating with fire ants will be fun. So this is it until April 10th or so - if we make it through. Apparently there's a 60-70% drop out rate within the first 3 days. We'll see.