Koh Tao/Koh Phang Nhang

Ended up in Koh Tao island just for a night before leaving for Koh Phang Nhang - I should have stayed longer in Koh Tao but I wasn't planning to dive and the place seemed a bit crowded.

Koh Samui had nice beaches but the island was a little too built-up for my tastes. Plus, there weren't many options at night if you are not into the rented Thai girlfriend/go-go bar scene - (which isn't my cup of tea). You see a lot of white men walking around with their Thai girls picked from the gogo bars. Ironically, the imagery on the surface isn't much different than home - where the white guys are all over asian girls like white on rice. I wonder how many of these guys would have a chance if there was no monetary transaction involved. There were few Thai tourists to be seen, which for me is always a bad sign.

Koh Phang Nang is a bit more rustic - and less developed - though I haven't seen Hat Rin yet, where the notorious full moon beach party is to be held in 2 days. I'm sharing a bungalow near Tong Salat port with an Isreali I met in Koh Tao - who couldn't stop singing the praises of Koh Phang Nhang. Today, I took a motorbike tour with a Japanese girl I'd met at the guest house next door, and we checked out beaches and waterfalls on the western side of the island.

Got some good reading done since all there is to do is to lie on the beach, or swim. Finished Francois Bizot's "The Gate" which is a memoir by the only european to survive captivity by the Khmer Rouge. Incredibly gripping account of his intellectual duels under captivity with "Douch", the man who was to run the S-21 death camp, and then the harrowing experience of trying to coordinate the safety of the international community seeking shelter in the French Embassy during the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge.

There's an interesting quote from the book about the American involvement in Cambodia during the advent of the Khmer Rouge that has some truth for American involvement in Vietnam or Iraq:

"When the Americans arrived in Cambodia, I saw them as allies in my impossible quest. But their irresponsibility, their colossal tactlessness, their inexcuseable naivety, event their cynicism, frequently aroused more fury and outrage in me than did the lies of the Communists."

A similiar theme is reflected interesting enough in Graham Greene's "The Quiet American". Apart from the entertainment value of a good yarn, I found the novel to harbor reductive, caricatured notions of the "Orient" and is problemmatic, in its portrayal of Phuong another voiceless, exotic plaything for the white man.