Invading Teeny Boppers
Kicking about Sairee Beach on Koh Tao waiting for our taxi to be take us to the harbour. As happened last month, and I get the strong impression occurs at the same time through all of the summer months, the island has been near invaded with maruading ‘Ra’s.’
Allow me to explain.
A Ra is generally a gap year student, having just completed their A-levels. In boys they will have foppish, Hugh Grant of the mid 90’s hair, and in girls they will be dressed in a similar way to celebrities at festivals, undeniably expensive clothes, but entirely inapropriate for the situations they find themselves in. They are invariably from Surrey or Winchester. This by itself is not an issue, of course not, but what is somewhat disheartening is when you do engage one of them in conversation and they look you squarely in the eye and explain to you, hand on heart, how profoundly Animal Farm, Handmaiden’s Tale, or Brave New World has effected them (it’s always one of these three books,) or worse, when they complain that ‘Daddy won’t pay for me to be out here for 4 months, only three, even though I didn’t get the pony for christmas that I soooo wanted.’
The infestation of the Ra’s is so deep, that you could start at one end of the beach and, from a birds-eye view, write your name in dot-to-dot, using each Ra as a dot, and have the exact same conversation with each and every one of them. In fact, I would bet the use of my legs on it. Even if your name was Mattheus Constantinou.
This makes me glad that I’m leaving Koh Tao today. It is not right to feel old at 23.
Tags: Koh Tao, Ra, Thailand, Travel
mikeloken
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