Later, as night fell, I could hear the faint sound of avalanches on the distant mountains.

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One night, as I walked down a street in Chiang Mai, Thailand with a girlfriend to a bar we were meeting friends at, I became aware of the faint sound of footsteps behind me.

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At Elias, a completed Chevron operation, the only sound to disturb the replanted clover meadow is a faint whooshing as gas passes to an underground pipe network.

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For the most part, though, it follows orthodox, sound-money policies that would have made previous Fund missionaries faint with surprise and admiration.

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Settling into my four-poster bed, I'm lulled by the sound of the wind spiralling up off the sea, joined by the faint creak of a rocking chair and, just perhaps, the slightest click of a key turning in a lock.

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