Island Life

I sat at the train station in Phetchaburi for four hours as my train was delayed.
I watched stray dogs snap at flys and rats seek out their lunch while I painted motorbikes parked out front.
 On my train ticket it said *Please no animals or stinky foods in air conditioned coaches. Good thing I didn't have a ticket for an AC coach, wouldn't want things to get boring!
By the time I left there were 3 or 4 people looking at my ticket, pointing at the incoming train and chatting, giving me valuable advice no doubt! One man showed me his ID, another woman pulled a necklace out of her bag to show me, bragging that she only paid 500 bhats. I felt like I was leaving home, waving out the window to my advice givers as we pulled out of the station.

 Here they have all kinds of food wrapped in banana leaves. I like to buy them cause I never quite know what they will be filled with. A delicious, cheap surprise! The first one I had was filled with sweet rice, shrimp, mushrooms and peanuts. Then one with with tapioca and bean paste. A woman selling banana goody bundles on the train had filled them with rice noodles, pork, cilantro and sweet chilly sauce.

 Out the big open windows, we rumbled by rice fields and cows tethered to the side of the road. Mountains looked like they fell, kerplunk, onto the flat landscapes. Huge Buddha statues stand just off the tracks and I catch my first glimpse of the ocean.
I got into Chumphon at 9pm, life seemed quiet without dull roar of the train. I had dinner at a shack across the street, it was so spicy I cried.

 It was a 20 min taxi ride to the midnight ferry, he had a C grade American scifi movie dubbed in thai playing, it kept skipping, he would pull over, take it out and put it back in again. The ferry to Ko Tao had rooms of bunk beds, with high AC and dim lights.

 We arrived at 5 in the morning, dazed and just woken up I stumbled off the deck and onto the back on a flat bed truck taxi. He dropped me off in front of a 7/11. I sat outside drinking cold milk tea, watching the last few partyers stumble in to buy cigarettes or cheap snacks.

The town itself looked like it hopped straight out of a 1970s surf flick. The thais spoke English and most of the people were European. I've almost forgotten I'm in Thailand. I mean, I had beans, eggs, sausage and toast for breakfast!
I sat outside 7/11 until the sun came up, I was walking around looking for a room when a truck pulled up beside me and out popped a scruffy, shirtless brit, over tanned with a log scar running down his chest.
He ran a resort on the other side of the island, as I tossed my bag in the back, he rambled on about how racist North Carolina is and how much I would love his place!
First of all... There were a lot of stairs...like a buunch. The place was lovely, right on the sea, legit. But it had a non well oiled machine feel, and as the guide showed me to my room, a beautiful sitting room, a balcony, four poster bed, then down a tiny cement staircase, to my room in the hostel. Well the hostel lives under the grandeur. The ceiling was maybe 5' with tree roots poking in through the walls. All the beds, build into the walls, had pink mosquito nets giving the setting a fairy princess dungeon feel.
I've bumped my head more times in the last 2 days than I have in my whole life! When I squeezed in to take a shower a spider the size of my fist, burst out from behind the toilet, we had quite a dance!

That being said it is right on the most stunning stretch on ocean. I spent the whole day snorkeling, soaked up wicked rays and climbed so many stairs.
Totally earned that beach side beer at the end of the night.
In Phutchaburi, I'd come back to my room at night the man who ran the "resort", the man who made me cappuccinos in the morning, would have fallen sleeping in his chair watching the news.
I couldn't help but to see a little window into his life. I imagined how he spent his days muling around the lobby, ironing the sheets and falling asleep watching the news. It made me wonder what are we here for? How many people will never climb the ladder, or work towards the western image of success? The definition of a good life is such a personally painted picture. It made me wonder what is my definition? If I take away the imposed expectations what am I left with?