My first week of my four-month “vacation” I got to go on vacation. My parents and our family friends, The Petersons, came to Thailand a week before me and whisked me off to southern Thailand upon my arrival. Our vacation location: Krabi, Thailand—better known as Paradise.
Our villa overlooked a spectacular view: a turquoise sea framed by arching palms and studded with enormous islands of rocks, or Kos. After a few boat ride tours we soon found that many of these islands had beaches that normally we only read about. Soft, white sand leading up to clear, warm seawater. These are the same beaches that were used for the appropriately titled movie “The Beach” and one of the James Bond movies. Every aspect of these islands screamed paradise.
The wildlife in paradise was equally unreal. I watched geckos scale the walls of our villa while eating breakfast. On an intimate boat ride we watched monkeys picking nits off one another in a cove. At a Buddhist temple, or wat, my mom watched a handful of monkeys climb on tables and steal visitors’ food and purses. It is not uncommon here to see cows or goats grazing on the side of the road every couple hundred feet. While on a larger boat tour I literally dove into one of my fears (not so quietly if you ask the others on the boat) and snorkeled in the Andaman Sea. I saw schools of colorful fish swimming amongst giant coral. The animals were unlike anything I had ever seen.
The weather was paradise-esque as well. The sun shone brightly every single day. The breeze from the sea cooled me down slightly while I lounged in the sun trying to manipulate my bright white skin that just came from a cold Minnesota winter. It stayed nice and hot all-day and cooled down at just the right time when we needed to go to bed. It’s warmth like that that makes me wonder how on earth I can withstand Minnesota winters. Paradise never has snow days.
There are also many little things that I, and possibly only I, attribute to paradise. For example, we all know my deep love for wearing dresses every day that I possibly can. Here, I can get all the $7 dresses that I could ever dream of. The airplane seats on Thai Airways are pink, yellow and purple. You can get phone service in the middle of a jungle. The 3-dollar meals taste more delicious than any 10 dollar one you can get in Chicago or the Twin Cities. There are smiles and giggles everywhere, especially accompanying every misunderstanding. A visit to some hot springs and a mineral lake gave us an opportunity to talk about chemical compositions and reactions, something I’ve missed for the past 7 months. The pineapple in paradise is the most delicious pineapple you could ever taste. Finally, something that paradise has that I have never found anywhere else is Bonofee.
Bonofee is an ice cream flavor that we discovered in a Haagen-Dazs in the village of Ao Nang. Thus far in Thailand I have found very bizarre flavored junk food. For example, our Lays potato chip flavors are Seaweed, Spicy Seafood and Soft Shelled Crab. When we entered Haagen-Dazs, a slice of back home, I was not greeted with Triple Chocolate Cookie Supreme, but with Green Tea and Bonofee flavors. After a question of what Bonofee is and a sampling of it, I fell in love. It is a very light banana ice cream with swirls of toffee so creamy that they taste like the most delicious caramel swirls you have ever tasted. I, a girl who doesn’t like ice cream a whole lot, came back for seconds. It was paradise at its frozen finest.
Throughout the seven days we spent in Krabi it was hard to overlook the great paradox that is paradise. Across the street from every beautiful view were run-down shacks made of corrugated aluminum. Behind every $7 sundress is a family that depends on that $7—250 baht—to eat. After taking a picture with a monkey you notice the sedatives it is given by its keeper. While on boat tours we saw islands riddled with remains of fishing boats from the devastating tsunami that occurred in 2004, the day after Christmas, on the paradisaical beaches that we tanned on. There were so many contradictory sights in Krabi that it made me think about what I would give up in my very comfortable life in order to live in paradise.
After many thoughts whirling in my head during that week I found out one of the best things about paradise. There are moments when you can stop over-thinking, take a breath, soak in the sun, and eat a scoop of Bonofee ice cream.
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