Why do the tropical countries allow this?
Back home in Britain there'd be much ado.
Let me explain my bizarre situation.
I won't be surprised if it's happened to you.

I got to Tavoy where a small cabin cruiser
was meant to be leaving at quarter to eight
for an overnight trip down the coast to Mergui.
I'd got the right day and was not running late.

Now, as it turned out, there was no cabin cruiser.
It left with the ebb tide around about noon.
The only alternatives left were as follows:
on foot, by canoe or by hot-air balloon.

To hoof the one hundred and twenty odd miles
through the swamps north of Palaw with rucksack and guide
would have slain the best part of a week I don't have,
and by hot-air balloon, well, it's never been tried.

So I'm here in this damp and small chiseled canoe
off the coast of a country most tourists avoid.
The man whose canoe this was wouldn't take cash
so my shoes are now his and I'm bloody annoyed!

Only in tropical lands would this happen.
back home in Britain, there'd be an uproar.
Some do-gooding organisation would grumble.
The powers-that-be would have me to ignore!