Back in September of 2005 I came to Thailand to volunteer for a couple of weeks after responding to an ad I found in the midst of a search for direction on Craigslist. As most of you know on Craigslist you are much more likely to find an S&M three-way than the meaning of life, but the two weeks volunteering ended up turning into six months... septic holes were dug, houses were built, beer was drunk, lasting friendships were made, and it turned out to be one of the seminal experiences of my life.
The houses by the pier on Koh Kho Khao
I'm not going to go into detail about that (there are quite a few posts on this site from that time period if you're interested) other than to say that last weekend Rich and I made a return to Khao Lak: Rich for the first time since he left in February 2006. I had already returned once back in September of 2009 which probably explains why I didn't have as emotional a response now as I did then. The Khao Lak area had always catered to tourists but when we first arrived in 2005 it was still in the midst of rebuilding and recovery from the tsunami. I saw many changes in the six months that I was there as businesses re-opened but I definitely wasn't prepared to see anything like a strip mall or a McDonald's when I returned in 2009. Of course I knew it had to change if the local tourist economy was going to pick up where it left off before the disaster, but in your mind you still have the idea of the place as it was, frozen in time or preserved under glass. I was not surprised when we arrived last week to see a Khao Lak that is only superficially recognizable from the one in 2005. There have been so many new stores and businesses opened up on top of each other that you have to search out the names that were once familiar to you... they are no longer obviously sticking out on the main street but crowded around by overlapping signage and building. The Fisherman bar occupies about 1/3 of the space it used to and you'd be likely to miss it from the street unless you specifically were seeking it out. On the other hand, some of the more successful businesses like Jai's or Khao Lak Seafood have built second and even third stories on top of their buildings or further additions going back up the hill. And of course there are those places that no longer exist, unfortunately, like Nom's or Father & Son. Sorry Max, I guess we'll never know if they still serve the frostiest beer in town. Oh, and the Tsunami Volunteer Center building is now a guesthouse.
On the ferry to Koh Kho Khao
We drove north to Koh Kho Khao and rode the ferry across to see how our houses are holding up and I'm happy to say that all the houses look lived-in and cared for. Many of the houses have even been expanded on the ground floor either to create additional living space or, in a couple of cases, shops and restaurants operating out of the house. At first glance there seemed to be fewer houses on the beach than I remembered but it was probably just my memory playing tricks on me. The pier on the island has definitely been developed but being low season it's hard to tell if they get any significant amount of tourism. From there we drove back south to Bang Sak to take a look at some of the houses we worked on in that town and then to see the playground that had been inaugurated in late 2005. Where Khao Lak has moved forward it seems like Bang Sak has receded. Rich and I both swore that you used to be able to see the beach from the main road but this is now an impossibility... the vegetation has grown so much that any view has been obstructed. That's why we had such a hard time finding the playground, and when we did, well, I think you'll have to look at the pictures. Basically it looks like the playground hasn't been used since the night we inaugurated it 7 years ago. The whole thing has been overrun by plants and grass. There used to be a few nice restaurants on the beach but now they look all but abandoned. Here are some comparison pictures of how things looked in 2005 and how they look today:
The main road in Khao Lak:
2005
Today... doesn't capture all the stores
The internal row of houses on Koh Kho Khao:
Then
Now
Bang Sak Playground:
Inauguration in 2005
Today
We stopped in Khao Lak on the way back for a beer at Fisherman Bar because, well because we had to. Gai the bartender recognized Rich from the volunteer days and we talked for a bit as well as we could about how business was going. He said that a lot more tourists were coming to town, which is good, but a lot more bars had opened up, which is bad, so basically it's a wash for him. He had to start serving food in order to attract more customers and, from what it looked like to us, take on a farang partner. On the plus side, Gai seemed calm and friendly which is a nice change from those of us who remember those episodes from back in the day where he'd suddenly go nuts and kick everyone out of the bar.
Rich and I have talked about it a bit since. I think he was glad to go but a bit surprised at the extent of the development, as well as disappointed at the state of the jungle in Bang Sak. We're both proud of the work that we did and really happy to see that the houses are still solid and lived in. For me, as I mentioned I think I'd had my emotional reaction when I was there a few years ago. The visit made me reflective more than anything else. It's been 7 years! How has my life changed since then? Am I a better person? Do I have a clearer sense of direction? Why am I asking you?
Getting friendly with Pon
Everything else has been holding steady, except the weather. Looks like I lucked out my first few sunny weeks in Phuket because the last 10 days have been almost nonstop rain. Rich and Cari went to Koh Phi Phi for a few days which they said was nice but full of drunk English people. We've made friends with a lot of the people who work at the resort since that's typically what happens when you're rained in, and by friends I mean they keep inviting us over to hang out with them and drink shots and try to have a coherent conversation. Lao Kao is the brand of choice, which is a clear, cheap rice alcohol that tastes about as you imagine it would. The main instigator is Pon, the 40-year-old grandmother who runs the kitchen who also has a half-French 4 year-old daughter from a deadbeat dad. She's not shy about sharing information. Every night like clockwork at 8 pm she's sitting around a table (along with Om the receptionist and Joy the largely toothless ladyboy) downing booze. All the men, on the other hand, are inside the little minimart drinking shots of whiskey and we haven't really figured out why they all hang out separately. Then there's my neighbor Paco, the unemployed Spanish tattoo artist whose girlfriend back home sells his stuff on eBay in order for him to have spending money and who has befriended the rat living in his room. The training is going pretty well... I've had a couple of trainers tell me that I should fight, like a real fight for money. I told them that I like beer and I don't like to run. Maybe if I had another month here... I'd probably end up hurting myself.
Last weekend I talked Rich and Cari into coming to see a movie with me in First Class, which is the fancy part of the movie theater in Phuket Town. It costs $20 but when you walk in through the doors there's a lounge for first-class ticketholders only where they lay out a buffet spread of finger foods and bring out drinks for the guests. Since we were the only three people in the first class lounge that day, Rich and I ate 4 mini-burgers each, along with crab salad, pasta and a few pieces of cake. Then when the movie starts they come out and bring you to your assigned seat, which happens to be a recliner with a blanket, and they then bring you a bowl of popcorn and a drink of your choice. All this pampering may seem incongruous with the film choice of "Expendables 2" but trust me... it works. The next day we went to Mui's house and cooked him a Mexican dinner (fish tacos, salsa, guacamole, chips and ceviche), which was surprisingly easy to organize except for the tortillas, which as you may imagine are not easy to find in Thailand. My experiment with Thai corn flour went somewhat poorly and is dissolving somewhere in Mui's backyard. Oh, and in case you were wondering what the weather's been like over the last couple of weeks, take a look:
This is my last week in Phuket and I find myself becoming surprisingly wistful over the thought of leaving. I didn't start off thinking I'd become attached but I've had a great experience here. From the excellent training, to the bungalow on the beach, to the cryptic wisdom of Mui, and to good times with Rich and Cari, it's turned out to be a pretty special experience. I'm going to miss it when I leave, though the signal that it's time to go may have been the other night when I got a knock at my door at 11 o'clock and it was Pon the cook. It was a sort of drunk dial except in person. Then she said a few things really fast and I only understood "drink", "ladyboy" and "sleeping" so I said "Yes, sleeping" and then she left. So yeah, it's probably time to move on.
Here are the pictures. Picasa broke them up into two albums for some reason...
I know it's been a few weeks since my last post but I figured I should write something to let people know that I'm not dead. Other than that I don't have a whole lot of interesting stories or amusing anecdotes or picturesque landscapes to share with you because I've been living in Phuket going to the beach and training and that's about it. I feel as though I may have come off as a little too critical in my last write-up so let me state for the record that I love Thailand. At the end of this trip I will have spent approximately 10 months of my life here and that is not by accident or coincidence. I've had some of the best experiences of my life and met some of my closest friends here. That doesn't mean I have to be crazy about the sex tourism here but that's part of the experience since as Pop said... everything is ok. I was talking to Mui the other day and he was telling how open the culture is about sexuality, that it's fine if you're gay or transgender or a ladyboy, in fact you'll see ladyboys working behind the counter at a Dairy Queen in Bangkok or a KFC here in Phuket. Gay teachers, doctors, whatever... not a problem. He told me there's even a "pink channel" on tv dedicated to gay programming. For those of you that know Mui this was thankfully not one of those moments where he was speaking in riddles; what he was saying is pretty straightforward. And I don't want to sound cynical about the possibility of romance, people do find love here. There are many Thai-farang families around who seem to be perfectly happy. I even know a few happy couples myself. If you respect and embrace the culture and you find somebody that's right for you, Thailand can be a pretty groovy place to settle down.
Mui and I got to talking a little bit about how Thailand is so accommodating to farang and he summed it up pretty succinctly: "Life here for farang is easy." Whether you're super-rich or on a tight budget you'll find something for you. Then I admitted to him that sometimes when I reflect on the fact that the only reason I can stay here for a month at a bungalow on the beach is that it costs $10 a night it seems slightly unfair, like I'm taking advantage of economic inequality, and I wondered if Thai people were ever resentful of that. I know Mui can't speak for every Thai person but he said he doesn't think so. It's a two-way transaction since tourism fuels such a large part of the country's economy. I got into the same conversation with Yok, the guy who runs a restaurant a couple of miles away from my bungalow. He lived in London for 10 years before moving back to Phuket to be with his family. He said Europe is too expensive so of course people like coming to Thailand, and with the European economy in the tank they've seen way more Russian and Chinese tourists coming in the last 4 or 5 years. Yeah, no shit. Most of the signs for businesses are in Thai, English, and Cyrillic letters and when you sit down at a restaurant you're as likely to hear Russian as English at the next table over. That's definitely a big change from the last time I was here.
Mui's right though, life is easy. I've settled into a pretty sweet groove. I train, I go to the beach, I read, and every once in a while go out with some of the crew from the gym. I've given myself a goal to try every Thai restaurant and street food stand in a 3-mile radius... so far I think I've hit about 15 different places and have maintained the diarrhea average below 10%. And of course it's the little things that get me hooked on Thailand... many people are aware of my affinity (perhaps obsession) for papaya salad, larb, Birdy, coconut yogurt and Herbal Salt toothpaste. Not all together. I also just enjoy saying larb. Larb. The one main drawback of semi-living in Thailand is, of course, Thai pop music... which rivals only Italian pop music in terms of horrific mind-numbing banality. You also get treated to cover versions of 80s soft-rock classics such as this timeless number...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e157Ner90
Anyhow, the muay thai training is fantastic. The classes are two hours each, twice a day at 7 AM and 5 PM. After warmups there are five rounds of bag work then 5 rounds either sparring or working 1-on-1 with a trainer. Then there are three rounds of either grappling, technique work, kick drills, or my favorite: Learning the Wai Khru which is the ceremonial dance that each Muay Thai fighter performs in the ring before his fight. Sometimes the sparring sessions are done with the trainers, you know, guys who have had like 300 pro fights. They'll let you get a couple of jabs in and then throw some crazy flying knee at you then laugh. I'm learning a ton but it's completely kicking my ass. I'm not sure when exactly it happened but I'm now at the point when I start to wonder if age is a factor. When you're 25 and you're sore you're just sore. When you're 39 you ask yourself if you're sore because you got your ass kicked or because you're old. Stupid aging. Some of these guys I'm sparring against are 19. I'm leaning against the ropes between rounds in a pool of my own sweat and these jerks are bouncing around like kangaroos on meth. So... you know... fuck them. Maybe sometimes they accidentally get a knee in the ribs. Accidentally.
Anyway, I didn't use to think about age much but for some reason it's come up quite a few times since I quit my job a few months ago. Maybe it's the traveling around and meeting new people so it comes up more often, or maybe it's some overarching philosophical turning point in life, or maybe I just have too much free time. It's most likely something inbetween. I've been trying to figure out exactly when it is that you turn the corner physically into "old" and I think it's when you start making sounds when you stand up or sit down. Something like a like a grunt or "Ooof" or "Mrgh" some kind of sound that signals it's a strain to get up out of a chair. You know what I'm talking about.
Anyhow, Rich and Cari showed up a few days ago so I'm no longer abstaining from beer. I still haven't had coffee in a few weeks which is not making the 7 AM classes any easier. Other than that... life is good. No pictures to share this time but I'll send an update after we take a trip to Khao Lak.
