Others
1. “For the first few days it was strange to encounter so many animals – especially bugs, spiders, ants, and lizards. Then we got used to them, and they didn’t bother us anymore. All the same, I was still a bit nervous about the mosquitos – a friend of ours picked up a roundworm infection from a mosquito bite last year, and it took him a month to get back on his feet.
If the windows in the bungalow don’t close properly, seal the gap with a towel to prevent anything coming in at night. When it comes to ants, there are at least ten varieties: little ants, fast ants, red ants, giant ants, two-part ants… we had time to observe them and gave them these names. 😊
Once, hundreds of bees suddenly appeared on the flowers of the palm tree directly in front of our terrace. These don’t bother you, but a couple of 5-inch killer hornets also appeared. When they did, we retreated to the safety of our bungalow at lightning speed.
In the morning there were so many animal noises it was as though we had woken up in the middle of a concert – or perhaps a zoo. You could set your watch by the time you first heard some of these animals. Whenever hundreds of ‘dunnos’ started singing, we always knew it was six thirty in the evening.
One day I was lying in the hammock when, all at once, a snarling monkey appeared beside me. I was so surprised I hardly knew how to act. I’m sure he didn’t want to hurt me, but I still knew I’d feel a whole lot safer behind the door of the bungalow. 😊
What I loved most were the palm trees, the flowers, and the fact that everything is so green. Sometimes it was nice just to lie back, think of nothing, and enjoy the sight of the sea and the palm trees. 😊 At first, we didn’t pay much attention to where we were sitting, but after seeing a coconut thump down right next to a sunbather (lucky man) we started paying attention to that, too.”
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2. “Every six months or so, some idiot thinks it will be a good idea to sell drugs on Ko Phan Ngan since there are a lot of parties and a lot of people, but the drugs are more expensive and of lower quality than those sold in Europe. These efforts are always short-lived and end badly. First, they take all the dealer’s money, then he’s imprisoned for between five and twenty years, and finally, he’s barred from entering Thailand again for a further ten years! It’s something that the Thai people and their justice system have zero tolerance for. Don’t think of trying anything of the sort, since, after 20 years in Thailand, I’ve still never heard of anyone succeeding in that game.
Psychotropic substances that grow naturally in nature (weed, mushrooms, leaves, nuts, etc.) are more tolerated, and cannabinoids were legalized for medical use in November of 2018. It’s rumored that it will be fully legalized within a year! It’s already being grown on a large scale so that the situation won’t be the same as in Canada – there will be a large supply available on the day of decriminalization.” (o.a., 2019)
