With 100 other sun-burnt westerners, we landed on Koh Pna Ngan like the Exodus. We followed the unpaved road and the crowd to Hat Rin. As it turns out it's a pretty small beach, though it doesn't seem that way with a 40kg pack.

As you learn travelling, spelling is flexible concept. We found what we thought was the hotel where my new companion, Alex, had reservations. I found pole to lean against while she went in to work things out. I couldn't help but notice the cafe across the way was playing the movie the Beach. I was shocked to find people - amidst paradise- watching it. As though they were waiting for their next instructions.

Alex came out horrified. She said they had thrown a couple of mats on the floor of a storage room and were asking $8 a night to stay in absolute filth. In the search for accommodation, we passed more bars playing the Beach and more people watching it. Everything was booked out.

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish." - Ovid

Thailand is full of secrets, warm fuzzy happy ones. Finding your own osasis isn't hard.

Geting lost and finding your way are two sides of the same coin, you can't have one with out the other.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

We caught a boat taxi around midnight to the party. We found manic energy and joyish abandonment. Multi-colored laser lights bounced off the hills surrounding the beach. The glow must have been visible from space. Everyone was drinking Buckets of Joy: narcotic levels of red-bull and vodka.

As causalities covered the beach, people just danced around them.

5 am and the place was still pounding alonging.

10 am no sign of slowing down.

4 pm the next day people start to crawl home.

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.

- H. L. Mencken