Paradise Problems - Gripes of the Week

This is in no way meant to be taken seriously, we just want to have a laugh with you because, well even in paradise we all have problems right?!

Koh Phangan had around one hundred days of no rain recently (in some areas) and this caused us a little bit of stress.

We’re not complaining at all as we have chosen to live and spend time in this tropical heat but it did get a bit silly, especially when you go to cool off in the sea and that is just as hot!!

Ha-ha so we were wondering when the rain would come back, to water our plants, feed the flowers and the coconut trees and cool down the panting dogs (and us!) and then along comes cyclone Roanu to drench us in its waters and sweep up the loose contents of the island up into the sky!

So now we are getting the opposite, rain and more rain with a bit of added wind and thunder and lightning. This is great, you stand outside and cool off in the shower thankful that the island’s vegetation will flourish yet again but then it continues…

You’re stuck, stuck in your house or stuck outside somewhere random that you don’t need or want to be.

Christopher Thomas and Bry0 are trying to paint a big mural at night time and get drenched and start to panic that the paint will run, but it doesn’t - ‘thank Buddha’. Your house gets a bit flooded and you weren’t prepared for it so everything gets wet but then the sun rears its beautiful big yellow head and everything is fine again, literally in one second.

So with this weather brings other ‘gripes’, power cuts, ah yes the dreaded shut down.

This can’t be helped sometimes, branches fall on cables or the wind blows some important piece of kit somewhere and the power is off for a few hours, everything is peaceful though, no radios on in the distance, no pumping tunes, no internet, NO INTERNET?!!

Yes well what do you do if you work online or if you’re skyping your long lost mother’s cousin??!! This is important business!

The answer is to just relax, chill, go talk to someone for a change…

I don’t think us lot here at Phanganist HQ have spoken so much to each other in months. Okay so this is elaborating but it is nice to be faced with the reality of no power sometimes, you are forced to use your brain and imagination.

But no power means no fans or air con right? Yes it does, sure this can be an uncomfortable thing to deal with, you’re so used to sitting in Nira’s Home Bakery, nursing one coffee as long as you can and scrolling through facebook just to keep cool in the lunchtime heat, then to be dealt the cards of an authentic Thai climate can send you overboard, you forgot that it can get so hot here!

With these gripes have to come positives, go in the sea or find a pool to cool off in, swim around and chat to your mates because at the end of the day everyone is in the same boat as you. Unless they have power or internet at their house, but then you can just go round and use theirs if you’re that desperate.

So yeah, we all may have not got as much work done or done the things we planned because of the rain this week but don’t let it dampen (get it?) your spirits Phanganists!

This is how Koh Phangan used to be, and we should respect that we sometimes need to be reminded by ‘her up there’ how lucky we really are to have our luxuries available here now. You don't know what you have got till its gone!

Try to pretend you have no internet one day when you actually do, put down your tablet, turn off the wifi and get yourselves out there and hug a coconut tree! But maybe take a mac, just incase it rains...