Is It Sound or Is It Noise?
“Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation.”
James Thurber, American cartoonist, journalist, author, playwright
***
Noise pollution is everywhere and is only getting worse. Humans have become so accustomed to life’s daily cacophonies in today’s society, quiet and solitude is on the verge of extinction. I still notice the excessive noise though, a curse to my ears and scrambled nerves. In today’s world, those yearning silence must hunt for it like a wild animal.
Noise can be defined as the non-harmonious or discordant group of sounds. Noise disturbs and discombobulates the senses like a hammer to the head. As I have grown older, my love for peace and quiet has increased. Tranquility is elusive. Radios blare,
I scoured the internet, carefully researching where I could find the last bastion of peace in Thailand and came up with Koh Phayam. Situated off the coast of Ranong province, the island looked to be the peaceful getaway I so desperately needed. I needed a place to settle my thoughts and to regroup. A place free of man-made sounds. 
The sky is blue and free of clouds. Waves lap the shoreline, softly, as if to avoid disrupting my sleep. Birds chirp to start the day and the whisper of the wind gently flows through the air. There is no noise today. Slowly, ever so slowly, I emerge from the darkness of sleep and enter the world of the living. It is an exceptional day, one I rarely experience. When Mother Nature awakens me, I awake well rested and mellow. 
Then it happens and I am jolted from my small, comfortable bed in the bungalow fifty feet from the water’s edge. This is no nightmare; this is reality. This is the land of noise, made by humans for humans. Humans are inconsiderate of the earth’s other inhabitants, rarely contemplating the effects their actions have upon them. 
Off in the distance, a circular saw whines, softly at first, then growing in ferocity. I am awake now, an unwilling participant. I am neither a deep sleeper nor a person who sleeps easily, but once awakened, I am unable to return to dreamland. It is
I put on my headphones, turned on the soothing sounds of the ocean, and slept for the duration of the journey.
When I awoke, we were pulling in to the terminal. A diminutive old man stood waiting by the bus door.
“Sir, you go to pier? Go to island?” he said. “Eighty baht.” 
Six men and one woman jumped into the back of his pick-up truck. A short time later, we were sitting in the dark in front of the pier. 
The boat was scheduled to depart at 8AM and it was only 5 AM, so there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Several others began trickling in until the first shophouse opened and a woman walked out.
“You want coffee? Something to eat?” she asked. There were approximately 15 people scattered around the front of her shop.
“I’ll take some coffee,” I said. “Do you have an American breakfast?
“Yes, no problem.” 
The merchant next door pulled up on a motorcycle, unlocked the padlock and began turning on the lights inside the small room. 
“Where you going?” she said, shouting to anyone willing to listen.
A dozen backpackers stepped forward, crowding the woman.
“Koh Phayam.”
My spirits sank immediately. If all these people were going, it might be less peaceful than I expected. Turned out my hunch was right.
I ate my overpriced, poor excuse of an American breakfast and sipped my equally overpriced, instant coffee. 
“Where are you going,” asked Klaus, a sixty-something German who had been walking in circles for