From Ao Nang

Ao Nang is your basic touristy beachfront paradise: a path along the surf wall abutting whitesand/broken shell beach with all the pre=punched touristicana, mainly imported from China. Nothing has a price unless it's on a menu or in 7-11, but even a set menu has some pretty significant wiggle room. And oh, the relief of an English base: it is assumed that anyon with white skin speaks English, and 95% of the proprietors who don't assault you with, “HelloHello! You come in for very nice ________” say, “Hello how can I help you?”

What's great is that with most, once they hear your attempts to learn Thai, they lighten up considerably and prices generally plummet. I'll explain that I live in NST and teach music, and there's an almost universal gesture at the elbow--”Motocy?”

“Yeah, with the Thailand Tattoo” I reply, and lift my shirt to show the really pretty scab. What's great is that most of them laugh and either show me their own or gesture with, “same same.”

I took a day to walk the strip, orient myself to the town, attempt swimming (large swaths of cracking scabs+murky saltwater=no bueno), and revel in anonymity.

It's one of the things you don't appreciate until you lose it—blending in, melting away, or at least not being the screaming singularity; maybe someone will remember the skinny farang with the bike scabs and blue backpack, but there are a lot of farangs passing through. Hopefully one of the smiling shop owners with whom I worked out a few Thai phrases will remember me fondly, but how wonderful to not be the one white fave, the one person in weird clothes, the one person with light hair, the person with the only non-academy-emblazoned backpack, the singular instance of an outside world intruding upon someplace or some group perfectly happy in its insularity.

One of my favorite bits of touristicana back home reads, “If you're lucky enough to live in the mountains, you're lucky enough!” It would never work in Thailand: the nearest equivalent would be, “If you're lucky enough to be born Thai, you know and believe it to the innermost depths of your soul without ever thinking to appreciate or question the validity of your absolute superiority.”

Like I said, it's nice to be in a tourist trap, with people from around the globe distracting locals and engaging each other in sometimes fascinating, sometimes asinine conversation. It's nice to fade into the background, disappear from notice, exist without scrutiny. And boy has it been eye-opening for me: he-who-grew-up-in-Touristica and has always maintained a slight distaste for the kitch finds himself reveling and, maybe, if I catch myself in an overly-honest moment, seeking it out.