Mad dogs and Englishmen - and at least one Scot

If you’ve ever read my profile over on the left (go ahead and read it now if you need to...I’ll wait) you’ll know that I grew up in one of the damper areas of the already damp British Isles. Add that to the fact that for the last few years I lived there, I tended to take vacations out of season to go hitchhiking or cycling, and it’s fair to say me and the sun and me weren’t exactly on close terms. Although my face looked fairly healthy, the rest of me was, to use the Scots vernacular, a wee bit peely-wally.

Bangkok had been stifling hot, but cloudy and humid so despite having been in Thailand for over a week, I was still much the same putty-color I’d been upon leaving home. Not to worry though, here I was sitting on the cabin roof of a small boat threading its way among travel cliché pretty islands. A whole week before I had to be back in Bangkok for my flight to Australia and nothing to do but lie on the beach and work on my tan. Oh this was going to be great.

The boat ride was only two hours long, not nearly long enough, but as I had neglected to purchase water before leaving the mainland, and as it was rather toasty, I wasn’t too sorry when we finally arrived. I had no accommodations booked, but that was no problem. I just adopted the policy that stood me in good stead around the world and followed the prettiest girl on the bus. (She took off the next day, to join some friends further up the coast but no matter, she picked us out a breathtakingly beautiful beach hut complex.) Within minutes we were admiring the most beautiful beach you’ve ever seen outside a TV commercial.

“Go swim!” called the proprietor, “Unpack later.”

Sound advice that, and with cut-off jeans doing service for the forgotten-at-home swimsuit, I was soon wallowing in the crystal clear turquoise waters of the South China Sea. The water was hot. Not warm, hot. Too hot to be comfortable for more than a few minutes in fact, so before long I was back out again and lying on the beach. OK, here we go, time to start looking healthy. Sun, do your stuff.

Except, I’ve never been much of a beach sitter either (see above re: hitch-hiking and cycling) and it was some time further into my new backpacker lifestyle before I learned to unwind from always-on-the-go work habits. Sitting still wasn’t my thing. So, only a few more minutes passed before I was hopping up again and throwing a T-shirt over my shoulders, strolling down the beach on a mission of exploration. What a glorious life this is.

It wasn’t really until the following morning that I realized just how intense the Thai sun could be. I was burnt, but not only that, I was burnt in…interesting ways. You see on the boat, I’d been wearing a T-shirt, shorts, tennis shoes and socks. Yes, socks...I am British, you know. Then I’d spent around 3 hours walking along the beach with shorts on, and a T-shirt around my neck. Which meant that some bits of me were lobster red, others a glowing hot pink, while in certain areas I was still the same gray-white I’d been when I hopped on the plane at Heathrow.

This was not a good look for me.

I suppose on hindsight, what I should have done was stay in the shade for the next few days, until things settled down, and then invested in some good quality sun-block. But nooooooooooo, that would have been too sensible.

Instead I embarked on a project to try and even up the stripes by strategically placing towels, clothing and other strips of cloth over the parts of me already burnt in the hopes of allowing the rest to catch up and evening out the whole effect. By the following day I looked like the victim of some weird flagellation ritual, with angry red strips criss-crossing my arms, torso and legs. And pain? Oh dearie me, the pain.

I finally learned my lesson and established a routine of retiring to the bar during the peak hours of the sun, from where I sipped mineral water and watched the Germans, Italians and other, better prepared Brits turn themselves the color of tobacco.

We didn’t know much about skin cancer in those days, and looking back, I’ve had way more exposure to the sun than I’ll need for several lifetimes. I really was not at all used to the sun and staying out of it for that week was probably very smart.

Of course, the fun didn’t really start for a few days when all these red stripes began to peel. In case you’re thinking of trying this yourself, trust me...even pasty-white is more attractive than that look.