I’ve Aged 10 Years!!

 

Let me explain……

Our first stop in Thailand brought us to the lovely island of Koh Lanta.  The rainy season had come early here, and we were lucky enough to have the island mostly to ourselves.  There was the odd couple with children and young 20-something backpackers, but all around the island was a chill spot.  Hmmm, maybe my first thought of Thailand would be incorrect.  The people were SUPER friendly, the beaches and surf were picturesque and we settled happily into island life.  Where were the garbage-filled party beaches that Thailand was famed for?  The evenings ended early and they were generally peaceful- except for the odd frog orchestra :) 

After Dan and I finished our Advanced Open Water diving course, we decided to move on and see what other delights could be found here in Thailand.  Then we arrived in Koh Phi Phi, and all my previous reservations about Thailand greeted me in full force.  We were bombarded by the trade show that is the island of Phi Phi.  Booze buckets were everywhere, garbage and over- browned bodies littered the otherwise beautiful beaches and it was all I could do not to turn around and run.  The island lacked any romance, there was no hidden culture or vibe- it was just stall after stall, row upon row everywhere.  Rows of tanned, fit bodies, rows of beer, rows of useless tourist crap and no matter where I looked it made me sad, this once beautiful place was now a slave to money; it was a stop off for kids to come, have their time away from school or the stresses of parents.  Can you think of a better way to entice the confused?  Sex, booze, bright colours and the endless consumption of all things that are bad.   I had to leave and Dan was kind enough to understand my loathing of the place, so thankfully we were able to book a night ferry out the next day.

After a long trip of buses, after buses and ferries after ferries, we made it to the quirky island of Koh Tao.  Yes- I was back in my element.  We signed ourselves up for some more dives and proceeded to go to a local hotspot for westerners to fill up on the pizza and shakes.  Things where looking up.  Yes, the crowd was still young, but the island managed to hang on to some of its finer points.  The beach was dirty, but it was manageable.  The island was larger, so the younger crowd congregated at one corner- this I could deal with.  My plan; we would just stay away from this part of town and I would live in my happy life- where I am still young, fresh and have my whole life ahead of me :)  That was until Dan and I started eavesdropping on a table of guys behind us.  When you travel for long periods of time, you often find yourselves speculating and guessing where other travellers are from.  While we were listening for key giveaways – an accent,mannerism or mention of a particular sports team, we couldn’t help but be intrigued with the way their conversation was going.  We listened, embarrassed for their rudeness and youth as they reminisced about their plane ride over to Thailand.  With far too many F-bombs for the middle of the afternoon they proceeded to roar and rave about their mistreatment of the flight attendants and staff as they stammered, drunkenly through their long flight.  Lovely.  I was blessing my stars that these are the classy folks that represent my country, when they went on to discuss the age of two of their fellow travellers.  All but two of them were born in the late 80’s- the other two where born in ‘82 and ‘79- tragic.  They proceeded to gasp in awe at the ‘ old guys’ age- they were shocked!  ‘If we were as old as you, we would look like old men’, was what they concluded.  WOW!  Really??  Where am I exactly?  Am I in an alternate universe, where the twenty something makes the world go round?  Where entire islands of people rely on them to come and get drunk, eat expensive western food and buy heaps of ‘I heart Thailand’ souvenirs?    Well, maybe I am a little sensitive.  The pretty, fit girls are slightly threatening to me and I am reminded every day that I am getting older, that I can’t get away with acting like a total tool and wake up in the morning feeling that I had “like, a sweet night!”

Reminder.  I don’t want to be their age anymore.  I don’t want to be still learning who I am and what I want.  I am perfectly happy being older- in fact, you couldn’t pay me enough to relive my late teens and early twenties.  So I guess I need to take a breather and see the positive side of it all, past being knee deep in 19 year olds, listening to them puke in the stall next to me and saying the word ‘like’ 4 times in every sentence, I am getting an in your face reminder to be happy for the phase that I am living right now.  So, yeah, stay positive.  Only one more day of island time, then up to the big city of Bangkok.  One more day :)