Beautiful

James Blunt is the sound of summer in Thailand. His “Beautiful” blasts in open-air markets, hotel lobbies and thatched-roof bars. Fortunately, I like the song. The summer I traveled in Russia, Ace of Base was all the rage. I still can’t think of the Hermitage without hearing all that she wants is another bay-be. I thought it was a kooky Russian thing until I returned to the States and heard the nauseating number on campus.

Thursday night we drank Prosecco and munched on strips of roasted coconut at Breezes, the hotel bar. The house band opened with Blunt’s hit. Then they asked for requests from the crowd, which was the three of us, two Swiss ladies and a honeymoon-ish couple.

It’s monsoon season in Thailand, which means cheaper hotel rates, beach chairs aplenty and hovering waiters in half-empty restaurants. It’s supposed to mean daily downpours, but we've been lucky. It barely rained in the five days we spent on the beach. The umbrellas and ponchos we packed went untouched.

We chose a particularly quiet island for our beach vacation. Koh Chang, unlike Phuket or Koh Samui, is largely undeveloped. There’s no Starbucks or Burger King. The only harbinger of commercialization is Seven-Eleven, which dots the road that rings the island. Gasoline is sold in glass bottles, lemonade-stand style.


Koh Chang is where Thais go to unwind. I first heard about it from my Thai masseuses in Los Angeles. The bellhop at our hotel in Bangkok looked astonished when I told him where we were headed. “Gooooood,” he said, bobbing his head in approval. We never met or heard another American there. Italians and Swiss, yes. A middle-aged couple from Melbourne now residing in New Delhi. A father and daughter from Austria now living in Tokyo. I didn't know how to respond when they asked where I'm from or where I live.

At first we were shy about making requests. We asked the band to play David Gray, whose music we’d heard over dinner. (Three albums competed for our attention throughout the meal, a hazard of dining in shoulder-to-shoulder stick houses.) David Gray wasn’t in their repertoire, and Coldplay was still in rehearsal. Tina Turner, though, they had down. “Simply the Best” brought the Swiss ladies to the dance floor. They twirled and gyrated unselfconsciously. They sat down when Tina gave way to U2, and we requested “I Will Survive” to see them dance again.

At poolside happy hour Friday, we spread the word about Breezes and its jukebox of a band. A British dad said he'd bring his two teenage daughters. A newlywed pair -- he of Ireland and she of Scotland -- promised to come, too.

For dinner we hopped in the back of a truck and rode to the southern tip of Koh Chang. The steep and twisty road, the huts strung with Christmas lights and the hum of the rainforest made the trip feel like a Disneyland attraction. We feasted on prawns and blue crabs on a dark pier, alone in the eatery save for waitstaff and two friendly cats. Then we returned to our resort and Breezes.

Our new friends were there already. The band greeted us from stage. The newlyweds asked for Eric Clapton and got “Wonderful Tonight,” which made everyone go "awwwww" and the groom blush. The Brits dedicated “Leaving on a Jet Plane” to us. Around midnight, when the singers ran out of requests, they launched into “Beautiful.”