Mai Pen Rai

I slept ok last night underneath my thin pink mosquito net...although I had to kill 2 mosquitos on the inside of the net first. And next time I travel like this, someone please remind me to bring my own sheets! Every place I've slept has only had one fitted sheet and a nasty blanket. This place didn't even have a blanket...slept with a towel instead, but it's so freakin hot here I really don't need a blanket anyway. It's funny how you start to get adjusted to a different standard of living while traveling...

For instance...in the city formerly known as Saigon, at the very beginning of our trip...we freaked out b/c there were these little tiny bugs that looked like ants crawling up the walls of the bathroom. Ok ok, we did see one or 2 on the bed which is what did it for us and we got our money back and switched hotel rooms. But now that I'm on the last leg of this trip I could not care less about those bugs...they're crawling all over my sink, up the walls of the last 3 bathrooms I've been in. I'm not bothered by it anymore...Hell I'm even tolerating frogs in my bathroom at this point! Perhaps I'm embracing the Thai's way of life that is evident all throughout this country? As the Thai saying goes: "Mai Pen Rai" meaning it's no matter, or it doesn't matter...etc

And surely it doesn't. Everything about this country is haphazard and kind of careless. Buildings seem to be half built here and there, it's like construction started and the people just got bored and deserted the project all together. Today after thoroughly burning myself in an even more tie-dyed fashion (so much for "evening" myself out), I decided to check out the downtown market. I took a tuk-tuk there and then worked my way back to my hotel...about 3-4 miles.

I just wandered in and out of shops (Still too expensive to buy anything here, especially when I know everything is going to be 1/3 of the price back in Bangkok). So I just "window-shopped" and was taking in my surroundings. While my original impression of Ko Lanta was that it was clean, I've discovered that's not really true. The main road just off the beach is pretty dirty with trash strewn about; definitely not as much as in Koh Phi Phi, but enough...

I was just walking along, looking around when I almost fell a frightening 10 feet into a pleasant elixer of Ko Lanta's sewage system...I caught my balance--and my breath--and looked up to see that all down the road were 5 X 5 foot square openings directly into the sewer! I looked to my right and there was a fancy looking Thai restaurant with an open air seating section about 1 foot away from this massive hole in the ground. Could this really be possible? There were at least 40 of these holes lining the sidewalks all the way back to my bungalow. They're huge! And if you fall in, it's a good 7-10 feet down into steamy, frothy, pure sewage. Did I mention the smell?? On the beach all you can smell is the salty sea air intermingling with the Thai dishes being cooked up at the various beachside grills...but on the streets it's a lovely concoction similar to that of Koh Phi Phi...dead fish and feces. It's difficult to cover up the smell of wide open sewer grates when it's 90+ degrees...

Anyway, I carefully watched my step the rest of the way back...a perfect example of a project left undone. Some shop owners threw pieces of cardboard or scraps of wood over the holes, bless them, but none were nearly big enough to cover them completely...

I'm just thanking God that I didn't fall in...

I had lunch at the beach today...the menu I was given was creatively held together with strips of banana leaves and seashells. "Thank you rery much" was written at the bottom of every single page. Then I noticed that everything that should have said "French" instead said "France". They apparently serve 'france fries' and 'france toast'. I thought about telling them of the mistakes, but decided against it...it's endearing :)

Despite the Mai Pen Rai attitude that penetrates this country, this particular island is very conservative...with a large proportion (~30%) being Muslim as opposed to the predominant Buddhism in other regions. It is illegal through most of Thailand to go topless on the beaches. Nevertheless, I've seen many women tourists here bearing all. Some are even letting their children run around naked as well. Aside from the fact that I personally consider it rude not to observe the specific cultural practices of the country you're traveling through...isn't it interesting that these people seem so oblivious to the law here?? I've seen "Broke Down Palace", I'm not about to do ANYthing illegal here...

I stopped in my hotel's reception earlier to ask for the tuk-tuk. The "lobby" is basically the porch of their house. No one was there so I peered in through their living room and saw the woman laying on the floor...at first I was worried about her, thinking she had fallen or something, but she must have sensed my presence and woke up...apparently taking a nap flat on the living room floor is a normal thing around here! She didn't even bother to get up...went on explaining where to get a tuk-tuk and how much it should cost, etc...all without even a thought of rising from her nap...mai pen rai.

I got back to my bungalow just in time to see the sun set. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was a perfect yellow, melting into a steaming orange ball of fire...it was really cool to see it dip, dip, dip, dip below the horizon until it was gone leaving only a trace of pinks and purples behind. Shortly thereafter I endured yet another cold shower which wasn't so comfortable with my fresh sunburn...

There's supposed to be a "dark side of the moon" party tonight...whatever that means. I'm excited that SOMEthing will be going on at night around here. Otherwise, I abandoned my book after reading 200 pages. I thought Jane Green was good but I kept waiting for this book to actually catch my attention which it never did...in the end I decided the final 200 pages just wasn't worth my time. Life is too short to persist through boring books. I picked up a new book called "Tatty", from the perspective of a little girl growing up in Ireland. It reminded me of "Angela's Ashes" right away and so far I'm breezing through it...

On to Phuket tomorrow, bright and early!