Standing on this coast and looking at the one across the way I was estimating distances and my swimming speed, trying to visualize that scene in the Beach. Speaking of which, the movie was filmed on a nearby island named Ko Phi Phi (to which I didn't go). If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend it. I'm sure I'm not the only person to say that it was in no small measure an inspiration for my traveling, and indeed very accurately captures a key sentiment shared by the entire "backpacker" community. The sentiment is rather hard to summarize, and can be described in several ways depending on your cynicism. However, I'll put it like this:
Travelers "ruin" their destinations because what they seek in theory is differs from what they want in practice. Thus, the "unspoiled" beaches of the world are quickly being replaced by strings of bars and resorts, because people that theoretically go to these beaches to "get away" actually would prefer to have a drink and sleep in a nice bed. Thus, t...
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