So, as some know, I headed out into the big world on a one-way ticket in January. I spent about 6 months in Asia, and have absolutely no idea why I ever came back. And; I got some tattoos! Not as many as I expected, as I kept walking into tattoo shops with HORRIBLE standards of hygine, fake photos (hey peter, apparently you got tattooed on islands in Thailand AND indonesia!), and it became my walking joke to walk into shops and say “Hey, that tattoo was done by *name famous artist* why is it on your wall? ” And at one point I saw one of my own tattoos on a window… Now that was a fun conversation.

Anyways. I did get 3, and here they are! Not perfect, not done by famous artist, but after a few months of being a backpacking hippie, who even cares anymore? 😉 (I do…)

Got this done in Bangkok, by Kai at Kai Tattoo on Rambrutti road. Now, Bangkok confused me. I heard and read about several very talented artist before coming there, but when I walked into a shop I was met with reality; They had 5-15 people tattooing there, 90% only for a few weeks at the time. Some were talented, but it was very hard to see photos of their work, meet them, talk to them etc before being asked for a 1-200$ deposit. Some wanted completely ridiculous prices (more than I paid with Carlos Torres) for fairly simple tattoos, without getting to meet or talk to the artist before hand. Was at one point quoted 1200$ for what was expected to be a 3-4hr mandala by a guy I had never heard off, met, or seen work by….
I ended up going to a guy my cousin has great work from, paid about 1/5th of what the thieves wanted, and love what I ended up with 🙂 Super creative and active guy, a few sketches but the whole thing was free handed. I asked for a flower, and ended up with half my leg done. Whole thing done in 4,5 hrs. Not 100% done, as the pain when we reached the back of my knee was too damn much, and despite giving me heavy pain killers, I could not cope. I’ll be going back to Bangkok anyways, and for now and ever on, this is my guy in Bangkok. Half my leg was done in 4,5 hrs. Lining took 30mins.

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So… I got malaria. In a no-malaria zone. Which ended up with mozzies = party police, because it stopped me from partying or being active for a few days, a logical idea in a…. uh, not quite-there stage. Got it done sober though! So I had to get a tattoo of it, obviously. Same guy as the next one.

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And then I got this much better tattoo, from Alan Gog at Chill Tattoo, in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. I basically told him “I want a dotwork butterfly. A cool one” And two hours later; I got this. One my least painful tattoos so far, and I utterly love it. It is NOT as crooked as it looks in the photo, I’ll try to upload a better photo later 🙂 It was drawn up to match the movements of my knee and leg, so it works quite wonderfully. Now sort of hooked on dotwork and blackwork!
Funny part; During the tattoo I was involved in fooling the cambodian police for bribe payouts.
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Hope you guys enjoy the tattoos and the stories, I know they’re not perfect or done by world class artist, but I still love them 🙂