Still here

My first two days in Paradise beach were spent in a bamboo hut, with a sand floor and a straw mat on top. This was fine to begin with, but on the 3rd night, it rained, and so, I got wet.

At first, the rain just drenched my sheets and mosquito net - yet half of the hut was still dry. Thus, I moved the matt over to the other side of the hut, and went to sleep. Hours later, it rained again, this time drenching the whole of the hut.. And so, I opened up my umbrella, balanced it above my head, and as I drifted off to sleep, I vowed that I would for sure change rooms the next day.

The next day, I switched to a concrete cell, with a solid metal roof. However, after 2 days of sleeping on a hard-as-hell floor, within earshot of a very romantic couple next door, I decided that a slim chance of rain was better than a sure chance of backache...

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Nudity is not something that everyone embraces equally on Paradise beach. For some reason, it seems to be that the more male, or crazy you are, the more likely you are to run around stark naked.

Sophie probably fell into the second category. Or, to be more exact, given her habit for running laughing into the sea naked at sunset, it was pretty obvious that she was not from the former.

In any case, Sophie offered to pass her shack on to me.. The key selling point, being that she had been hoarding the matresses of people as they left, and had amassed a stockpile of 6. And thus, I now find myself with a beach-front shack, with more than enough mattresses, and just the sound of the tide to sing me to sleep.

I'm making some progress on my books, frisbee seems to happen at least once a day, and I'm actually stimulating my brain through regular chess matches, which I am now starting to win, on occasion.

Sure enough, the vast majority of the people on the beach could at best, be described as "free spirits" - and so while I do tire of the same old conversations of, "Where are you from, where are you going, where have you been. What is it like in your country, etc". With the hippies here, I'm also tiring of hearing poor bob marley covers played around a campfire, and people talking about enlightenment, shiva, and other things they've found on holiday...

However, even with that, I still love it here. It's just so amazingly relaxing, and a few of the people i've met have proved to be great.

One girl who is staying near me - her head is firmly in the clouds, and so I have to take everything she says with a steady dose of salt. She told me the most romantic thing the other day, which I want to write here..

She carries a notebook with her, wrapped in felt. Every time she meets someone from a new country, she asks them to write down the phrase "I love you" in their own language into her book. The purpose, she told me, is so that on her wedding night - she can speak "I love you" in hundreds of ways to her lover.

How romantic, eh?

I think i'll be here for at least another 2-3 weeks... I think.

My bills are all paid, and so I don't really need to use the internet again for at least another 2 weeks. So don't expect too much contact.

If I don't come back (to gokarn, for email) before the 25th... Happy xmas.