Bah, Smokers!

I have struggled with this post, not even sure I need to write it, but here goes anyway.

I tend to lean towards the cynical and the sarcastic, which, I understand can be off-putting to some people. So, since I have a natural desire to be liked, I try to tone them down. Keep in mind the following is “toned down”.

Waiting for the ferry.

I did not enjoy what I saw of the Kos (Samui and Phangan), they are over-run by 20-somethings who are simply too sexy for their own good; they seem superficial and vacuous AND they smoke. Call me an old fogey but when people travelled in my day (can not believe I just wrote that!) they did it to find themselves and to expand their horizons. Sure they partied and abused every substance they could get their hands on but they had that underlying premise that kept them, for the most part, on the right road.

It probably didn’t help that I had just come down from the Elephant Nature Park where the young people volunteering there were so different from most of the ones I encountered in the south. Sure they partied but the next day they worked their asses off for those elephants! The Ko Klan seemed to only be interested in travelling in herds of like folk, in the endless search of the next what-ever moon party that could be found, migrating from island to island, cluttering the decks of the ferries with their tanned bodies and mindless party re-hash. I am certain there were young people of substance in there somewhere, surely? But the superficial, as usual, are just so loud and take up so much space they block out the sun. Who are these people?

On board.

Needless to say I did not find happiness down there. Now to be fair the only real-time I ran into the pack was on the ferries. Unfortunately I was just on so many of the darn things, trapped for hours on end with nowhere to get away from them. At my beach there were some but there was a variety of backgrounds and ages so the effect was diluted, though 8 out of 10 people smoked, which sucked. If they weren’t smoking, they were hacking up a lung. Jeez. Now a large proportion of the tourists in the Kos are from Europe, which I think may contribute a lot to the smoking situation as well as why more Thais don’t speak English. The poor people are faced with so many languages, how the hell could they just pick one?

Before you chastise me for whatever reason, and I’m sure all your reasons will be valid, I know what I’m saying is judgmental and so draped  in sweeping generalizations it would be reasonable to dismiss me as a cranky old codger (or is it “codgette”?) the thing is that this blog is about my reactions, feelings, experiences – right or wrong. I sat with is for a few days, thinking that I might just have been tired from a rough down and back. But I still feel almost as strongly as I did sitting on the last ferry to Surat Thani for almost 4 hours.

Nothing tragic, just annoying and disillusioning. So, moving on.