My favourite thing about being on holiday is watching the sun set. Until today I have missed this special treat. On day one it was pissing down with rain (thankfully no more monsoon type weather as yet, very sunny today and I have the burns to prove it), and day two I managed to sleep the afternoon and evening away. So today was the first time I could experience it.
My swanky beach side room faces out towards the sun rise, which I have so far been awake to see both days, so to see the sun set I had to climb up the hill to the look-out and bar on the other side of island. Tellingly this is also the route that signs advise me to take in case of a tsunami. The island got badly hit on the Boxing Day tsunami. This morning I overheard an American man who lives in Thailand telling some strangers that he had lost about 40 friends that day, but he said it in a slightly show-offy way that made me feel a bit sick. The fact that the tally was approximate only added to the nausea. Suffice to say that if animals start acting oddly and the sea disappears I will be running up those stairs as quickly as possible. The fact that thereÂ’s a bar up there serving beer and satay might convince me to do the running even if the animals are behaving normally and the tide is a little sluggish.
Aside from the warning signs there is no real indication of the tsunami, although apparently the main town on the island is still recovering.
I had had a lazy day lying in hammocks, drinking beer, eating ice cream and reading “The Extra Man” by Jonathan Ames (delighted to realise I hadn’t actually read one of his books, his novels aren’t as funny as his short stories, but still highly enjoyable – and getting through a book a day, which is all I can ask of a great holiday). I am loving keeping myself to myself, making no effort to talk to anyone else at all. Partly because I am in need of solitude, partly because I wouldn’t want to impose myself on anyone else and partly because most people are idiots and I don’t want to risk having to be friends with them.
But sitting eating satay, drinking beer and watching the sun slowly descend over the green ocean was about as perfect as things can get. A path of gold light led directly from the sun to me as if inviting me to try to walk across and hop aboard the solar systemÂ’s star, before it ducked down to the other side of the world, but as this would have meant negotiating a sheer cliff and then rivalling JesusÂ’s ability to perambulate on liquid and trumping IcarusÂ’s attempts to get close to the sun. I decided just to watch. I hadnÂ’t had that much beer. Maybe tomorrow.
For a moment it struck me as significant and eerie that the carpet of light should point directly towards me, but then I reasoned that that must be true for any observer, which was lucky as otherwise I might have acted on my insane walking on water and hitching a ride on the sun plan. I still donÂ’t understand why only a shaft of light falls on the sea like that, rather than lighting up the whole surface, but I am sure thereÂ’s a good scientific explanation. Either that or I am a kind of God. Luckily I have learned nothing from Dawkins.
Behind me some Thai men were playing an impressive game crossing volleyball with football, kicking and heading a small hollow ball made from twigs across a net. The smell of Satay cooking filled the air. As the sun went down a strange chorus of insects clicking started up. It was all enormously enjoyable. ItÂ’s good to have structure to your day and something that has to be achieved, especially if all that you have to do is watch the sun set. The world is ace.
ThereÂ’s a part of me that thinks that maybe I should do something a little more adventurous and maybe in a day or so I will be bored and ready for a trip to some other islands or to go shopping, but for the moment I am very content to be doing as little as possible.
My sleep patterns are still a little disturbed and once back from the sunset bar, I lay on my bed and fell asleep. But it was at least 8pm tonight, so hopefully tomorrow I will manage to stay up for dinner. Though it is sort of cool to be having these early starts and waking and sleeping with the sun.
