Si Chang was the most ruvid seaside time I remember: I rented a bicycle, but I had to negotiate 20% plus grades; the seawater was warm, but murky (there is a picture of what seems like a big cloaca discharging right on the beach) and overrun with stinging fleas (especially painful on the lips, nose and groin); the position of my room was enchanting, but everything else about the room wasn’t and the people, though not hostile, a far way from friendly; they did mind their own business while not hemanating unapproachability, which is appreciated. I spent a week in heathy loneliness except for flea bites in the water and at the internet café` (there was no connection anywhere else on the island), which is almost what I aimed for. The island has very little nature and none of the lushious kind that spells “international tourism please come by”; the main resort is downwind from the open air garbage dump/incinerator that serves the entire island. Locals come from Bangkok for the day, mainly to visits the grounds of a royal palace built at the end of the XVIII century; soon the ruler lost interest, ordered the palace (made of teak) taken apart and reassembled in Bangkok. Si Chang career as a budding Capri was instantly over, especially because it lacks the natural beauty. Now it is essentially one of the poles of the enormous floating harbor of Si Racha, a natural bay that used to be the main Thai shipping terminal before Bangkok’s was dragged and became pliable to deep water vessels. Lots of fishing boats, of the kind that serve fishmarkets; on the island, fish is always fresh. On my way off the island, I discovered a small but frantic Chinatown crawling around the mountain side Chinese temple, but it was too late to explore it and I don’t know that it alone would ever draw me back.