The riddle of the Swedes

OK, so they won't kill me if I don't answer three questions, but I have wondered why there are so very many Swedes on the island of Ko Lanta.

I'm fairly well-traveled, and I have never visited a place with so many Swedish people. Probably 75% of the travellers staying at our bungalows are Swedish, every excursion we've been on has been more than half Swedes, and the cooking class I took had seven Swedes, one Aussie and two Germans, and one of the owners is Swedish.

Now, if there's a good beach to be found, you can bet you'll find Germans there. I remember being in a tiny village in southern Turkey asking where the best beach was. They told us to drive an hour down a pot-holed, rough dirt road for an hour and we'd find what we were looking for. At the end of all that, sure enough, there were two cars with German plates.

But Swedes?! I'm sure they love a good beach like the rest of us from cooler climes. Well, mystery solved; I found out there are three Swedish schools on Ko Lanta, and direct flights to Krabi in southern Thailand from Copenhagen. So families can come and the kids go to school while the parents get a bit of a vacation.

For now, I'll say "hej da!"