Travels: Thailand/India 1997

Travel Letter #1

Beach life, Koh Phanghan

Koh Phanghan, March 12th, 1997

Here I am, on the small island of Koh Phangan in Southern Thailand. This message is going to several people at the same time. Some of you do not understand Norwegian. Therefore, my Norwegian friends, you must apologize for me writing in English. I am connected to Internet through a small office that have set up an Internet-connection for the tourists here, which are arriving in thousands. We pay for one hour connection, so I have to be quick and short.

We have been on a small beach on the Northern part of the island called "Bottle Beach". This is a beautiful stretch of white sand with coconut palms behind. There are something like 50 small bungalows along the beach, for 2 persons each. The huts are quite basic, made of plank and straw. Two restaurants provide delicious, cheap food. All in all, we paid only 170 Nkr for each day - covering all the costs for two persons! We have taken it really easy, which is not diffcult with more than 30 degrees Celcius! Coming straight from the Norwegian winter, it was quite a test of patience to build up enough sun tan to be able to stay out in the sun for more than 10 min. When have bathed in the turqois, clear water, laying in the hammock, reading fiction and getting acquinted with people from all over the world.

But this place is a bit different than expected. There's a lot of young people here, some only teenagers, and they are of course looking for party, drugs and R&R. We have the feeling almost of beeing in Greece on Interrail 10 years ago sometimes! Some beaches are just full of dope, acid music and videobars beyond any of our tolerance! But the beach we stayed has no road connection - you have to go there by boat. Therefore is it also very calm and quiet, no noisy motorbikes and no load discos. Simply paradise!

Now is the time to move on! We have got enough sun and sea for a while. Tomorrow we will go to a Buddhist meditation retreat for 10 days and learn Vipassana meditation. I have done this before, but for Anne Anita it is the first time. We are naturally quite excited. It will be good to nourish the mind after nourishing the body! When this course is completed, we will head back to Bangkok for Easter celebration. At the beginning of April we will leave Thailand to go east or west, but more about that later. For now, I just wish you all the very best, hoping you might only have half as nice time as we are having!