And there was us thinking it would be a few palm leaf huts by a sleepy seashore.
Having said which, it’s pretty quiet till the evenings. Presumably all the young folk are off scuba diving and that, or sleeping off last night’s excess. And in truth there’s really not a whole lot to do during the day, apart from take your pick of beautiful beaches, all lapped by the old blood-warm aquamarine, studded with coral, teeming with fish – just like the ones you see in the classier kind of aquarium, in brilliant colours and amazing variety. Which works for us.
One of the best things is that it’s so small that you really can walk from anywhere to anywhere, with very little to contend with other than fellow travellers and the odd tuk-tuk. (And they really are pretty odd tuk-tuks: not at all like the ones of old, with the rider at the front and a passenger cabin at the back. These are a completely different beast, sort of sidecar-stylie, used for goods as much as passengers. How they stay in one piece on these pitted tracks is a mystery to me.)
But it’s in the evenings that the place comes to life, with bright lights and fire chuckers and live music all along the front, and the main drag, Walking Street, abuzz, lined with eateries and bars, travel agencies and mini-marts, clothes shops and souvenir shops and weed emporia, where the bud is lined up in jars, with prices by the gram. Though strange to tell, apart from the odd whiff – and I’m talking one or two whiffs a night – we’ve encountered no evidence of actual consumption. In fact in the couple of days we’ve been here, I think I’ve seen only one spliff, and no gibbering hippies or indeed anyone under the influence. In fact, given the easy availability of intoxicants, the universal sobriety is striking.
Maybe everyone’s high on life!
