Henna anyone?

Sunday was a wash, but only weather wise. The thunderstorm that raged throughout the night was supplanted by a slow and steady rain for most of the day. We had originally planned on renting scooters and exploring the islands but the rain kind of nixed that idea. The torrential downpour also ruined any dreams we had of snorkeling. So Mike went to an internet café and worked on his online course. The rest of us floated in and out of Pen’s Bungalow throughout the day, an open air restaurant and bar that had rooms to rent and a tattoo parlor upstairs. A handsome blue-eyed Australian was often working and he was always amenable to our requests. We sat around, some of us read, some of us chatted with fellow travelers: the French law student and her English boyfriend or the couple from the Yukon. As I sipped on a coconut shake or snacked on some tempura vegetables, I furtively read the spines of other people’s books as they were cradled in their hands, hoping to glean some information about them (for those interested, the various titles included Globalization, Blink, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close).
Since I wasn’t in the mood for reading, I made my way over to the corner where the tattoo artist had some pictures of his work displayed along with related materials, sample designs and such. I had seen this guy around the place on Saturday but had not talked to him. He seemed to be a very eccentric fellow for a Thai man. He might have been all of five feet tall, somewhere near forty years old, tattoos all over his body, several piercings (both nipples, chin, tongue, and eyebrow; one ear had a short pencil through the earring hole and the other one had a spiral wooden ornament through it). His nails were painted black and he usually had something on his head, either a wrap of sorts or a funky hat. He looked like someone you could have an interesting conversation with.
I flipped through magazines and through photo albums. Daylin came over before long to take look, too. We were joined by the tattoo artist, Sam (pronounced sahm) who told Daylin that he could get a henna tattoo done. Henna would wash off in about three to four weeks, something that perhaps his mother would appreciate. Of course, Day was pretty taken by the idea. He picked out a nice dragon pattern and had Sam put it on his upper arm. It took about an hour. Sam sketched it on Daylin’s arm first with some kind of pen. It was a pretty detailed dragon and I was impressed with Sam’s detail. Once the sketch was complete, he mixed a powdered solution with some liquid to create the henna ink. With a small brush, he painted the ink on. I sat across from Daylin for a while and just watched. He looked like a young soldier who was getting his first tattoo, his shirt off, his chin tucked to his shoulder as he watched the picture emerge.
Once the dragon was done, Daylin had to sit for thirty minutes. As the henna dried, it started to flake. I could tell he wanted to pull it off right away, kind of like the way some kids just itch to pick at a scab. When it was all dry, Sunny helped him wash the flaky part away and revealed a pretty bad ass henna tattoo.
Courtney was so impressed, she got one too. She chose a nice flower pattern and had it painted on her left hand. Very elegant.