well, I see where he is coming from

taken from our boat off Krabi, yep...$10-15 a night is a beautiful thing.


The author of "Sex Lives of Cannibals" (which I finished reading today, and, pervs, has nothing to do with anything the title suggests) was describing his return to the U.S. after living on an atoll on the equatorial Pacific. He was describing how hard it was to grocery shop, drive, and do anything normal. Granted, he was in the states for 20-some-odd years before his two short years spent on this island, but nonetheless, a simple life is very easy to adapt to. In one situation, he was standing in the grocery store for an hour trying to figure out which of the 32 bottles of maple syrup he should purchase. This reminded me of coming home from the almost-two-weeks I had spent in Thailand. "You weren't even there two whole weeks- why was it so hard to readjust?" people asked me. Well, let me give you a list of ten things that ten days of simplicity changed.

1. The toilet flusher thingy- it took me a week to remember that I didn't have to scoop water into the toilet to make it flush. I could use the handle.
2. I could not walk into a restaurant across from my home, barefoot, and order rice with a fried egg for breakfast.
3. Dried peas, my daily snack, nowhere to be found. Not even cuddle-fish flavored.
4. Aloe plants, where were they?
5. My hair was unacceptably half dreadded and chopped from all angles. I needed a proper haircut. I waited a few days.
6. My shower and toilet were no longer in the same room and I could not tackle two things at once- what an inconvenience.
7. I did not have to bow to people after greeting them or talking to them anymore.
8. I stopped asking God to keep us safe from disease and intestinal bugs before every meal.
9. I no longer craved Coca Cola.
10. I had to stop smiling every time I passed a sewer. It didn't seem right.

I could understand the author's confusion and frustration. You should go read that book, or, borrow it from me. Also, I really think people should stop glamorizing island life. It takes a special person to eat lunch on a floor with the smell of sewage wafting by and wondering if you're going to die from this meal or survive until dinner. Meanwhile, that special person has to figure out what to do with their time without resorting to glue sniffing like many 3rd world islanders do. Unless you're spending big money on Hawaii or Fiji, you're probably going to get a little culture shocked in Thai islands and any other Asian/Pacific island. We did :D