Chocolate, O Chocolate / How Tasty is Your Flavor

Thank you all for the happy birthday wishes! We're having a little trouble with internet today, so I probably won't be able to send you individual emails for a little bit. We're on Ko Samet, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. It's a little less developed than some of the islands around here, which was why we picked it, but the downside is that power is sometimes intermittent. Specifically, power became intermittent during dinner yesterday, all the restaurants shut down, and my excruciatingly difficult decision between birthday brownie cake, banana fritters and ice cream, or a sundae suddently became an excruciatingly difficult Buddhist exercise in ending suffering by ending my desire for dessert. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the eight-fold path, and there were no gurus standing around the beach to help me, so I ended the night a little cranky from lack of chocolate.

We're pretty glad to be out of Bangkok - it's so polluted and noisy. It's a very vibrant city, but it also made me a little nostalgic for mandatory emissions limits. We took the bus to a town called Ban Phe and the ferry from there to Ko Samet. We're staying in an incredible secluded little bungalow a few feet from the ocean. It's wonderful to fall asleep at night (under the mosquito net of course) listening to the waves. The beaches north of us are a little more crowded with restaurants and bars, catering to us tourists (one of which has some of the most amazing drinks I've ever had). To get up to the other beaches, we walk up a steep hill, on natural dirt steps terraced by tree roots. Then down a rocky stream bed to Tup Tim, the next beach up from us. Follow a path down to the beach, negiotiate some muddy bits, then up to the bungalows and restaurants again. Follow the dirt road to Ao Phai, carefully edging around huge mud puddles that take up the whole road and looking out for motorbikes and pickup trucks. The road narrows and winds between assorted restaurants and bars. Take a seat at a bamboo table on the beach. At this point you might notice the absurd number of dogs lying around the beach; Bill has noticed that they seem to hang out in packs, each with their own territory. Most of them hang out around the restaurants at Ao Phai, curling up under tables or wandering from table to table looking for hand-outs. Others play on the beach or take naps on my beach towel. The Thais seem to know them by name. We met a big fluffy poodleish dog last night who is named after an ugly fruit. They are well-fed, but they are not spayed and neutered, so you start to remember those word problems from junior high math. You know, you have 2 dogs, and they have four puppies, each of whom has four puppies, and so on. Given an average gestational period of x months and a y% mortality rate, how many dogs will be living on Ko Samet in 5 years?

I'm writing this in a little internet cafe/bookshop owned by an intense British woman who has been engaging us in conversation about travel, Southerners, world perspectives on Americans, the recent story about the government monitoring bank accounts, conspiracy theories about 9-1-1, etc. Fun. But I should get going - I'm burning up baht at the rate of 2 a minute, much pricier than in Bangkok since here they have to use satellite. Send our power supply good thoughts - I'm hoping for a sundae tonight. :)