I am having far more fun that it would appear based on my Facebook postings. Minor adversity has its humorous side and seems far more charitable than “I am on the beach, hope you poor bastards are enjoying driving through the slush to your cubicles.” Here’s your picture of the day. Would you?
If you took all the litter in Thailand and scattered it down a half kilometer of Bocas Town nobody would notice.
After my fish spa the woman dried off my feet with a towel that was still wet from the last person. Yechh.
I need to get a lot of exercise. Preferably some jungle trekking. A brisk walk in flip flops is suboptimal and hiking boots are too hot and give rise to many weird looks. Suitable shoes are readily available for a reasonable price, but damn, I am already carrying far too much stuff.
Despite my inadequate footwear I took a long walk, returned to my room, changed and headed for the beach, which is just a few minutes from the hotel. I doubt there isn’t a beach front town on this entire island that isn’t flooded with tourists. The beaches are lined with comfortable chaise lounges with umbrellas for miles, three deep. They are not isolated beaches in the jungle, but they sure aren’t packed like South Beach in Miami. An hour of swimming, several hours of reading, just chilling. What to do with my stuff? I was told to just leave it on my chair and that no one would disturb it.
I really intended to go SCUBA diving but, well, I think I have reported on that. I popped into a shop and inquired about a three day liveaboard but the woman knew nothing about it. I asked her if it was possible to get real coffee. She had no idea what I was talking about. Presently she stepped out back and showed me a bag of locally grown organic coffee, real frigging coffee. I offered her my undying devotion in exchange for a cup of coffee. Well, her English was good enough that she actually understood what I said and made me some anyway. She had the impression that Central America was a dark jungle that only produced sugar cane and cacao. I tried to bring up my photo albums, but nothing came up. “You probably have pictures of naked people and they are blocked?” Really? I don’t know what surprised me more, the assumption that my travel pictures were nothing but naked people or the fact that the number one tourist sex destination in the world would block such pictures. Two hours later I finally got around to booking my dive trip.
I bought some food, put the change in my pocket, took out my cell phone and walked down the street. Apparently I had had dropped some money in the process of taking out my cell phone, somebody picked it up and chased me down to return it.
Meanwhile, in the news:
Flooding in Phuket
Jonathan Allen LaFleur