"At our resident restaurant of the week, 9pm and stranded by torrential rain brought by the nightly tropical storm. Our days here have consisted of nothing but reading and beaching bumming, and when trying to avoid expensive island food (I will not be mocked by unthinking travelers who delight at Thailand's currency to their favor, as I live here and earn about 150 dollars a month) I subsist on ramen noodles and scoops out of my peanut butter jar. Trish, Kate and I are staying in a small hot bungalow atop a cozy hill. It gets humid everyday inside so we avoid it at all costs. Vacationing as a thrifty backpacker strips life bare to its essentials-- gives the traveler a refreshing, if not an interesting perspective on what one can live without. Because we are spending 180 baht a night (6USD), we get the most basic amenities-- a bed, running water, sheets, a fan-- really, a roof over our heads.
Relaxing has been the primary motif of our stay, and our daily main attraction has been watching the equatorial sun set over the bathwater Andaman sea. Khlong Dao beach stretches for two kilometers and its sand can only be aptly be described as "beach blonde" (I know.. Lonely Planet forgery..). It's gorgeous out here. Maybe Keats could only be the one that can manage a description with justice. I do like, despite my nagging need for busier activities, how beach bumming has spearheaded our travels down the South of Thailand. Since arriving in Koh Lanta, the only legitimate activity we've managed so far is briefly kayaking around Talabeng island (a cluster of soaring cliffs, blessed with a few golden beaches), a cursory spelunking inside its caves (one cavernous as a cathedral) and visiting Bubu island, where I got stung by some barbaric sea-animal."
My writing stops here- my dedication to my writing journal has obviously been erratic and inconsistent. My time in Koh Lanta has definitely been marked by the memories of incredible sunsets; fiery oranges, flamingo pinks and indigos fill the sky. Taking pictures isn't quite suffice enough to really capture the experience; at the end it seems somewhat contrived. You really have to be there, breathing in the ocean air, standing while the waves lick at your feet, gazing at the limitless sky, to really know what a sunset is like.
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