Thailand: the music

The music heard in Thailand was so bad, it was good. A few memorable ones:

* At White Sand Bungalows at Ao Thong Nai Pan Yai and countless other places, we first recognized this song with a cheesy 90's Euro pop pedigree and the chorus "Take me to your heart, take me to your soul-oh-oh." I am positive that I heard 4 distinctly different covers of the same cheesy song at various other spots in Thailand.

* Thai country music, contrary to what one might expect, is not in the so bad it's good category. I can't think of another genre of music, besides Hawaian ukulele and banjo, that speaks "coconuts, hammick, and smooth white sand in your crotch" to me. I asked some of the Thai crewmen on the dive boat for the name of the singer on the radio, and they wrote down the name (in Thai, regrettably not in Roman alphabets) for me so that I might find the album. Every CD vendor shook their heads and tried to supress a laugh when I asked about the CD. One hip-looking clerk with a brow piercing and horn-rimmed glasses at a CD store near Silpakorn University told me that the singer was (not in her original words) a really, really old country singer mostly listened to by really, really old Thai hicks, and that they didn't have it in stock. At least the paper didn't say kick me in Thai

* The apex of musical irony: as we boarded the express catamaran from Ko Tao to Ko Pha Ngan, Simona picked up on the background music: Dido's White Flag, which featured the line: "Well I will go down with this ship." I was disappointed to find that they weren't playing Titanic for the on board movie (they played Master and Commander).