Every Cloud...

Wednesday 2nd December 2009, 5pm, Haad Rin Beach - Koh Phangan

I woke up this morning to discover that I had lost my debit card. Apparently, Grace, tucked into your strapless bikini top is not such a safe storage facility as first thought. In addition, getting drunk on Thai rum mixed with a variety of Red Bull not dissimilar to liquid amphetamine then dancing on the beach all night is not as tight a security measure as hoped. Who knew?

I woke up from 2 hours or so of sandy, tangled sleep on afore-mentioned beach only when the tide came in and soaked my bare, flip-flop missing feet, then later on I stumbled clumsily into town to complete the obligatory bank-phoning responsibilities. I wasn't overly concerned as I have another debit card/a different bank account/online access to transfer funds - sensible contingency plans that were painstakingly laid in place over the past couple of weeks; cancel one card, use other, simple. Or at least it would have been had the ATM not swiftly swallowed my contingency plan. This is more problematic.

Back home this kind of mishap would make me angry, upset, and panicked. Over here it would figure that these emotions might be heightened, given that travelling indefinitely can be difficult without access to funds. In my pre-travelling fears this is the kind of situation I imagined with horror. Lo and behold however, I couldn't care less. I won't bore you with the description of my new contingency plan - it did however involve credit cards, a useful Nationwide employee, half an hour on the internet and helpful Thai bank staff. But before this course of action was set upon I couldn't quite muster the expected sense of rising dread, I barely flinched, I was uncharacteristically unfazed and I knew everything would be OK. Because here, everything is OK, everything feels like an adventure, and I know this might be tempting fate to say it, but I feel as though there are very few things that could happen here which would truly unsettle or distress me. They must be lacing the air with sedatives.

Another frequently re-occuring concern of mine before coming away was 'what will I do if my backpack is stolen from a dormitory?!!' Those of you who know about my shopping habits and wardrobe volume might want to sit yourselves down for this next statement, but... it's only things. Things that don't initiate or inspire or sustain my happiness, things that are replaceable, and things which have never saved me from misery before.

I'm not a sap and I'm not naive, I don't have a tendancy to over-sentimentalise or an inclination towards optimism. It's just that here it's the whole cloud, and not just the lining, that seems silver.