Boat to Ao Thang Nai Pan Noi

I am going to abandon grammar altogether. I hope no one minds.


I got up at 1, showered, checked out. Boat to Ao Thang Nai Pan Noi at one. Had a watermelon shake, which was ... fan-fakking-tabulous!

On the boat, I put on my MP3 player (for the first time since arriving). I listened to the Valley Girl Soundtrack (still superior 25 years later), Beck "I Think I'm in Love," Belle & Sebastian "Song for Sunshine" (which I am totally in love with), Doug Martsch "Gone," "Sea of Love" from the Juno Soundtrack (I think it's Cat Power), and a bunch of The Boy Least Likely To tracks (really fun stuff!!!).

While coasting along the, mostly, deserted eastern shore of Koh Phag Nan, I was reminded of the long holiday trips that my family made when I was a boy.

We would spend all day in an '85 Plymouth Caravan (or was it an '88??) It was white and had a woodgrain stripe along both sides (one of which was later removed by my brother trying to beat a closing apartment gate - but that's another story). on these trips we would spend hours crossing barren flatlands in New Mexico. It was always of interest to me that the homes we passed, homes seemingly removed from all semblance of civilization, everyone of them, had a satellite dish.

While passing along the eastern edge of Koh Phag Nan I saw the same thing. A house on stilts in the middle of jungle had a massive, what the Irish would call "fuck-off" in terms of size (a charming compound adjective that is dear to me), satellite dish. It was a "fuck-off" satellite dish.

After arriving at the beach, as quiet and secluded as promised, I went to book a bungalow and it took 10 minutes for someone to come over to the desk I stood at although they had seen me and didn't appear to be doing much.

Life is just slower here.

Or, according to Belle & Sebastian.... "Life is as soft as lace."