Ao Nang.
Day one:
Rolled out of bed at 10am with a mild hangover. Nothing terminal. Had a superb breakfast of fresh orange juice, toast, fried rice, and coffee over looking the emerald green ocean. My heart went out to the sophisticated Germans who sat stiff and upright, at the opposite table. I was aware of their awareness. I breathed deeply the sea air. I was hungry. Have they never seen a man eating aggressively before? Does this not happen in the Munich beers halls? Anyway, eating like a man who just located his desert mirage, I soldiered on; appetite dangerously out of control on a beachfront table. Gluttonously, I filled my plate for the third time and strolled triumphantly past their beady stares, feeling like a medieval king covered in banqueting grease. Anyway, spotty teenagers can eat like a pig, and so can street drinkers for that matter, so why can't I? I hold my hands up; guilty as charged officer: I am a food lover, not a fighter - Bite me.
With breakfast hundred per cent swallowed, fifty per cent chewed, and zero per cent digested, it was prime time for a dip in the crystal clear pool.
At this point, the reader may be pondering why one would swim in a pool when twenty metres away is the wondrous Andaman Sea? The answer can be expressed in one simple word - monsoon.
The tidal surges at this time of year are as unstable as an alcoholic on a tightrope. One minute you are playing in a rubber ring, the next screaming at dots on the horizon.
Scores of well fed, sun burnt, white folk, lose their lives every year on these sun kissed shores. Their belligerent defiance of local advice costs them dear; sucked out as easily as a message in a bottle. The crystal clear waters hold dark secrets at this time of year; secret fables, not worth pursuing, and secret games, not worth playing. Beware
Mike
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