A Miracle for Breakfast

...Every day, in the sun, 
 at breakfast time I sit on my balcony
with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee.

- Elizabeth Bishop, "A Miracle for Breakfast"

So Mr. Muscato and I have relocated, after these last few hectic days, to a serene little resort down the coast from Bangkok.  Here we fully plan to do absolutely nothing at all to the very best of our abilities (and, when it comes to sloth, believe me, they are considerable) for the rest of our alas-too-short time in Thailand.  Which we've decided we like a very great deal indeed.

Our drive down was fascinating, as the landscape en route was such a remarkable gaullifmaufry of oddities ("Thailand, Land of Contrasts" - travelogue writing 101, I know - but it's so true!).  As the city receded, through the predictable mix of car dealers, factories, suburbs, shopping centers, it was replaced by a jumble of old and new heedlessly thrown together - rice fields, roadside places selling shrines and garden statuary and wooden furniture, petrol stations with old ladies peddling crafts and fruit outside the minimarkets, huge flyovers that swooped off toward what looked like country roads, and eventually the little seaside resort in which we find ourselves.  It's not one of the large, flashy, or notorious ones, but our hotel is on the beach and has what looks like an extremely promising spa, so we're happy as the proverbial clams.

Now the sun is up, the coffee is cooling here next to me, and I'm hearing rumblings from the next room that mean that Mr. Muscato is up and about.  Time to find that Miracle Miss Bishop talks about...