Thursday 21 September 2017

#30 Thailand part 9 - The heights of hedonism and feeling crabby in Krabi

It's funny how the universe provides us exactly what we need when we need it. Literally as I was finishing off my last blog and wondering what I was doing with my life, in walked yet another important stone in this pathway.

I'll call her temporary but meaningful friend (T.B.M.F) for short. She had the same vibe as the Mumbai friends I'd met in Pushkar at Holi and it turned out that she had travelled around India for three months and spent time at some of the same places Super Chill Mumbai Guy had. She was teaching English as well but was almost finished and about to head back to England.

We had a lot in common and spent the afternoon chilling down by the river drinking Leo beer chatting about everything. Somehow the conversation kept coming back to India. She made me realise how much I missed India and wanted to go back.

Just chatting with her helped everything become clear. There was no point visiting Cambodia and Laos if my heart wasn't really in it.

She also convinced me the best way to see Chiang Rai was by scooter so the next day I braved up and hired one. I'm so glad I did because it meant I got out of the town and could explore on my own terms without any guide telling me where to go and what to do.

First I visited a waterfall about an hour away which was beautiful and very peaceful. It was blissful to walk in the jungle on my own and reconnect with nature. There's really nothing like it. Afterwards I felt better than I had done since I left Phibun.

I also visited the famous white temple which was touristy but enjoyable nonetheless. I felt so free having the scooter and decided to keep it for the next day as well.

That evening T.B.M.F and I went to a cat cafe. It was bizarre.The cats seemed very serene but also very haughty. They knew everyone there was desperate for their attention, and being cats, they milked that for all it was worth. There was even a very sad looking one wearing a sweater which pretty much summed up the vibe of the place. It wasn't a natural environment for a cat and I regretted supporting such an establishment but my cat cravings were too much.

Later T.B.M.F and I went to the mall just for something to do. We wandered around but couldn't find anything particularly interesting so got some steamed buns and made our way home on the scooter as the rain stung our faces.

We spent the rest of the evening chatting about life and watching a TED talk. The next morning T.B.M.F had to head back to her village so we said our farewells. As I left her parting words were 'Go to India!'

Later that day I booked my tickets to Phuket and set in motion some plans to go to India in mid October. Every time I think of it I feel a little pang of excitement in my stomach so I know it must be the right decision.

The decision to go to Phuket was mainly to see the famous Maya Bay. This was the beach in the Leonardo DiCaprio film called 'The Beach.' I had been warned that it was incredibly touristy so I figured I would go in and out as fast as I could. It wasn't a very practical thing to do, location wise, but I knew if I didn't satisfy my curiosity I would regret it.

I also visited an interesting contemporary art gallery called The Black House on the scooter and then chilled in my dorm for the rest of the afternoon.

The next day I flew to Phuket. When I arrived I had a feeling I had made a mistake. It was very built up and the people seemed very fed up with tourists even though it was still low season. I took a gamble and bought a bus ticket to a part of the island called Patong. I had done zero research before I landed but when I arrived in Patong it was confirmed that this was not what I was looking for.

The streets were filled with sweaty sunburnt men in wife beaters holding beers and talking loudly in mostly Australian accents. There were sleezy looking massage parlours everywhere you looked and bars pumping loud obnoxious music into the streets.

I asked one man where a cheap quietish place to stay could be found. He gave me a weird look and replied "You want somewhere quiet?! Then don't stay anywhere around here." The way he said it made it clear I was very much in the wrong place. This was no place for sleeping. This was a place to leave your morals at the door and have fun at the expense of everything else.

I found a cheap hostel just off the main strip and chatted to two nice Australian girls who had just finished high school and were on their O.E. I was starving after a day of travel with no meal breaks so I headed down the road in search for food. Everything was really expensive and mostly western style resturants.

After a bite to eat I wanted to sit on the beach and soak in the sea air whilst reading a book. Even that wasn't as relaxing as I hoped. There were strange men who seemed to be either drunk or high wandering along the beach and women trying to sell package deals and rip off sunglasses. I stayed on the beach until dark appreciating the sound of the ocean after being landlocked for over four months. For an island dweller that's a long time to be away from the ocean!

I watched people wander along in their groups taking selfies and swinging their selfie sticks around to get the perfect angle. Later I went for a longer walk along the streets. I bought an ice cream from a street vendor and ate it sitting by myself on the dark beach again. I felt very disconnected like I had just arrived on an alien planet.

Eventually I ended up at a mall in the same family as the one we had in Ubon and decided to go in just for some sense of normality. I noticed the movie IT was playing in English at 9.40pm and thought why the heck not. I'd been dying to see it and there didn't seem to be anything else I wanted to do in Patong.

So I took myself off to the movies and it was the best decision I had made all day! It was one of the most enjoyable horror films I'd seen in a very long time and made me feel slightly more connected to people back home since all my friends had been talking about it.

Halfway through the film at a non - scary point a woman screamed and yelled "there's a rat in here!" Sure enough there was a big ol' rat running around the theatre. That set the scene perfectly for the film is shot mostly in sewers. It was a wonderful addition to the whole experience.

When IT finished an Australian couple and I got lost trying to find our way out of the mall after hours. By the time we made it out it had started to pour with rain. I had apparently walked further than I realised and it took me a good 40 minutes in torrential rain to get back to my hostel. Even though by this stage it was 12.40 in the morning there were still plenty of people around and tuk tuk drivers trying to tempt me into getting a ride. I stubbornly refused and squelched on past every single one of them much to their disbelief.

I finally made it back to the hostel completely saturated and wide awake to find everyone else fast asleep in the dorm. I had to quietly wring out my dress and hang it up dry before stealthily hopping into bed.

The following morning I had arranged to get a ferry to Koh Phi Phi Island where the beach from the film The Beach is located. That was really the main reason for coming after all and since I wasn't a fan of Patong I figured there was no point staying any longer than I had to.

I was filled with hope when I first stepped foot on Ko Phi Phi. For one there was no traffic and the beaches seemed nice and swimmable. However, the longer I stayed, the more that old alienated feeling began to creep over me. It was the same as Patong. People came here for two things, to get drunk and to forget their worries.

I found a dark, cheap little dorm and dropped my bags, before heading to the beach. There didn't seem to be much shade available but I found a tiny little tree and managed to fold myself into the smallest patch of shade known to man. It was quite comical really but I was desperate to avoid getting sunburnt.

I had fully intended on reading but the human activity was much more interesting. There was couple arguing as they walked along the beach.
I over-heard the man say to the woman "I wish you wouldn't bring this up now. I can't change that and we are supposed to be having a nice holiday."

It made me so curious about what he had done and very glad to not have to deal with those kinds of squabbles. It's better to be alone than with the wrong person after all.

It also seemed to sum up the whole vibe of the island. It looked very beautiful on the surface but the cracks were starting to show. The water was polluted, the beaches over crowded and even climbing up to the viewpoint cost money!

I climbed up anyway and found a semi-quiet spot to watch the sunset. It wasn't long before I was joined by, it must have been at least 70, other people and a couple sitting next to me who kept shouting "go pro! Take a photo!" instead of asking someone to take their picture. A person above me decided to let off their drone and it buzzed around like an oversized, very irritating, blow fly.

I perservered, gritting my teeth, and becoming more and more depressed with every selfie click I heard.

I did wonder if perhaps everyone was thinking the same thing though.

It's like we all knew we'd ruined it. The paradise that was once The Beach and everything it stood for has now become exactly what the community in the movie feared would happen. The bitter, bitter irony.

The man in the TED talk I watched with TBMF said the sickness of the west is because we've lost our connection with spirituality. I don't think he meant literally a god or a spirit but that calmness that comes with really knowing yourself. We as a society don't know ourselves or how to find happiness.

Koh Phi Phi is a hedonistic paradise. I'm usually all for hedonism as long as it doesn't negatively impact others or the environment but it seemed on this island it was fun over everything else. I've never felt more alienated and out of place than I did in Patong and Phi Phi.

Again I decided to just get in and get out. I booked a boat trip that would take me to see Maya Bay and then a ferry off the island to Krabi a few hours later. I didn't want to stay a minute longer than I had too.

I'd done a few of these boat snorkel trips before so I knew what to expect. The lady who sold me the boat ticket also warned me that it cost an extra 400 baht to even get off the boat at Maya Bay.

It would be fine if this was meant as a detterent to keep the beach cleaner and less crowded but it didn't seem to work. It just meant only rich people could drop their litter in the national park.

The rest of the people on our boat didn't get off either. We all sat in mildly annoyed silence for about an hour as we turned slowly green from the rocking of the boat. This was definitely the darkest timeline.

I stuck my head out the side of the boat and tried to imagine what the beach would be like with no people. Sometimes I just about succeeded but it was never long before I was snapped out of it by some rich people's carefree happy squeals from the beach or the roar of a motor as a new boatful of tourists arrived.

I watched a number of women parade themselves in bikinis whilst their husband's or boyfriends followed along trying to capture the perfect instagram shot. The pictures probably looked amazing when they cropped out all the other people but I knew the ugly truth behind them.

I felt bad for feeling so negative about the whole thing. I was at supposedly one of the most beautiful beaches in world and all my thoughts were so bitter and unhealthy. Perhaps the problem was with me. Everyone else seemed to be having a great time. But couldn't they see what was happening?

We visited yet another monkey bay before Maya Bay. There must be 1000's called that across SE Asia. The lack of originality in the naming even started to annoy me. I'm sure it had a Thai name but the locals obviously thought the tourists didn't want or need to know it.

The driver brought us so close to the trees several of the monkeys leapt into the boat. The driver threw the biggest male one a bottle of orange cordial. He opened it with no problem as if he had done it 1000 times before (and I'm sure he had). When he was done he tossed the bottle aside and went looking for more food like a spoilt child. One little monkey found a bag of rubbish under a seat and proceeded to rip it open. When a lady went to stop it, it screeched angrily, and she gave up for fear of being bitten. The monkey then decided there was nothing good to eat anyway and tossed the bag into the ocean. Thankfully the driver had the sense to climb down and retrieve the rubbish.

It was difficult to enjoy the encounter when everything inside me was screaming "this should not be happening!" The monkeys were chewing on plastic, drinking sugary drinks and plastic bags, polystyrene and bottles bobbed along beside us in the clear, turquoise waters.

I wondered if anyone else was having as much trouble enjoying themselves as I was. Perhaps we were all secretly shocked but because we were all feeling lucky to be on holiday and out of our little offices we didn't want to complain out loud for fear of sounding ungrateful.

Weirdly this rubbish affected me on a deeper level than anything I've seen before including severe poverty. In India I felt like people were genuinely happy you were visiting the country but here I got the feeling the local people of Ko Phi Phi only tolerated the tourists because they relied on them for an income but they weren't blind to the impact it was having on their home and community.

Ko Phi Phi wasn't real Thailand. It's a strange global village where people come to be as vulgar and carefree as they want and then leave the locals to clean up the mess.

I was so tired from all the snorkelling and the sun I slept most of the ferry ride to Krabi. I woke up when we arrived feeling quite confused because time seemed to fly.

My ferry ticket included a bus ride to Krabi town and by this stage this was the perfect place for me. I was already very much in crabby town. However it was quite refreshing to be somewhere that felt like the same Thailand I had been living in for the last four months.

I hadn't booked anywhere to stay again and was wandering along the street when I saw a hostel advertising cheap rooms. They were even screening Season 7 of Game of Thrones. I was sold immediately! I got a room to myself for the price of a dorm which was bliss after several days of dorms.

I spent the next day in my room writing, doing laundry and booking my bus ticket to Koh Phangan which Super Chill Mumbai Guy reccomended.

I realised I was probably feeling so alienated because I hadn't had any meaningful human interaction for several days. Most of the interaction I had had involved some kind of monetary transaction. The majority of people I had spoken to were wanting to sell me something and I'm sure this was the reason for my crabbyness. Somehow deep down these interactions are not fulfilling and I'm convinced this is part of the reason capitalism can make us so unhappy.

Despite the negative feelings the last few days have evoked I believe that every experience, good or bad, serves a purpose and this experience will serve as motivation to be a tidier kiwi and to make cleaner, greener choices in the future. It would be truely awful if the paradise in our own back yard turned into the same kind of tacky tourist trap.



On the surface Koh Phi Phi looks like paradise but it's when you look a little closer the cracks begin to appear.

The White Temple, Chiang Rai

Another example of how pictures really don't speak 1000 words. Just down the beach a bar is blasting obnoxious music and sweaty, drunk men stumble around in the sun. Relaxing!









Friday 15 September 2017

#29 Thailand part 8: A series of hellos and goodbyes.

I recently crossed paths with a man who told me that travel is the real world and working and living in one place is not.

I tend to think travelling is a magical inbetween time that stays with a person through the mundaneity of real life as a reminder that it doesn't always have to be that way. There is an escape if you are lucky enough to be born with the right passport.

I once thought it would be fun to travel long-term. Every time you got a bit bored you could move on and experience that rush of waking up in a city or town you know very little about. However, having met and said goodbye to a string of different people already in only seven short months, I'm not sure it really is a fulfilling way of living. I think it would be naive to want to travel alone forever.

Sure it can be amazing. You meet all kinds of people that you would never cross paths with if you stayed at home but equally each friendship is brief and hurried.

The relationships travellers form rarely have the chance to become deeper or meaningful but equally the tempoary nature of them makes them more intense. Each encounter is one stone in the pavement that makes up the whole path.

Even in the last week since I left Phibun Mangsahan I have already met and farewelled a number of people. In saying that - the ones I'm about to tell you about must have made enough of an impression on me to want to immortalise them in this blog.

Saying goodbye to LS was rough after seeing each other almost every day for four months. But we were lucky to have formed a friendship that meant enough for it to be painful to say goodbye to.

I took a night bus from Phibun Mangsahan to Bangkok which takes around 11-13 hours. I sincerely hope the more night busses you take the more character building it is because I really can't see any other advantages.

The seats were so uncomfortable and a woman nearby kept letting out the most astonished sneezes as if she couldn't quite believe her body would do that to her. I had to suppress my giggles and I missed having someone to laugh with. I knew LS would have found it funny too.

When we finally arrived in Bangkok the driver kindly delivered me as close to my hostel as he could. As soon as I arrived I was no longer tired and decided to head into the city to have a look around. It wasn't long before I had been engulfed in a sea of black clothed dedicated royalists visiting the grand palace. (Thai people wear black out of respect for the former king who died almost a year ago). It was quite a spectacle.

I managed to get swept along by a few Japanese tour groups to see where they were going. It turned out there was a tourist entry gate but to get into the actual palace cost 500 baht. I decided I wasn't that desperate so made my way back out again trying not to get my eyes poked out by a sea of sun umbrellas. It was only 10am and I'd already sweated through my shirt.

Next I visited the reclining buddah which I'd heard a lot about. It was impressively enormous. Somehow I then ended up walking to a pier and catching a boat across the river to see another temple. By this stage I was starting to get a little delirious from the heat and the lack of sleep so I'm not sure how much I really took in. All I remember was that the buddah in this temple was also very big and there was a big ugly car park in front of it. It was much older and more run down than any others I'd seen and truthfully I had  no idea why I was there or what the significance of this particular temple was.

I decided I'd had enough sight seeing for one day so I caught a taxi back to the hostel and slept until dinner time. Sadly the hostel was not in a very good area and the only food place within walking distance was 7/11. So I filled up on a very sad ham and cheese toasty and went to bed again.

The next morning I packed up and went in search of a more central hostel. I took a taxi to Khao San road and walked until I found the quieter back streets. This time I knew the price range of dorm I could expect and wouldn't settle for anything over 160 baht. Eventually I found a very modest looking hostel named, very originally, Place Inn. They offered dorms for 150 baht per night ($6).

When I was shown to the dorm I was already sweating profusely and had to change another shirt. It was only 10am again. I would have to spend half my budget on laundry at this rate.

I could hear someone snoring softly as I put my bag away and soon a shirtless man who had a striking resemblance to the laughing buddah appeared sitting by the window. He looked at me in surprise before taking himself off to the bathroom.

I then went in search for a taxi to take me to the floating markets which had been on my bucket list. The markets are about an hour and a half out of Bangkok and I managed to get a good deal on a taxi ride all the way there and back. Unfortunately I didn't realise they have a policy that means you cannot share a boat when you get there.

At first I didn't believe the taxi driver when he told me this. It just didn't seem right. However when we got there the woman selling the tickets insisted I had to pay for a whole boat for myself which was more than $80 NZD. She could see I was very close to asking the driver to take me back to Bangkok because I felt a little tricked into parting with an unexpectedly large sum of cash so she gave me a slight discount for a shorter ride and I decided I may as well just pay since we had come all this way.

After that little shock I was in a bad mood and didn't feel like buying anything else at the markets. So the poor boat driver had to drive me around as I shook my head at all the vendors trying to entice me in. It would have been nice to support the local economy but I really didn't need/want/have room in my bag for any souvenirs.

At one stage I got a glimpse of an enormous python that was being kept in a bag and taken out for photo opportunities and an adorable bush baby who was also being used for the same reason but both would have involved pushy people wanting me to pay to have a closer look. I kept a very neutral face as we slid past in the boat even though I was dying to see them.

So, having blown my budget for about a weeks worth of food and accomodation on my second day in Bangkok, I retreated with my tail between my legs and ate a very cheap meal of Pad Thai before retiring to the hostel to lick my wounds.

When I returned, Mr Laughing Buddah man was up and about, and came to sit on the bed across from me for a chat. He was interested in New Zealand and our politics and he told me he had been arrested twice for being involved with demonstrations against the government when he was younger. He struck me as a rarity in Thailand. He was most definitely an independent thinker which isn't something that is encouraged here from what I've seen so far. Some of my students couldn't even tell me their favourite colour because they were afraid it would be different to their classmates.

Mr Laughing Buddah had studied at two different universities and told me his father had given him the name Peetha which meant intelligence because he was afraid his son would grow up stupid. Mr Laughing Buddah man was a delight to chat with and we exchanged email addresses and he invited me to visit him in his home town if I was ever passing through.

I never did get a straight answer out of him about why he was staying in a very cheap dorm on Khao San Road at the age of 75. If I didn't have a hand drawn map in my Lonely Planet and a photo of the Thai words he told me to say to monkeys ("Ling, long" which supposedly means "Monkey, come down") I would wonder if I had imagined him.

The next day I wanted to see some modern art galleries but, as luck would have it, it was a Monday and many were closed. There was one open called the Jim Thompson house. I had never heard of this man before but I was intrigued when I read that one day he dissapeared without a trace when walking in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. They searched for his body for 10 years and found nothing. His house was beautifully preserved and contained many interesting pieces of art that he collected throughout his time in SE Asia.

After that short excursion I made my way back to my hostel and waited until it was time to catch a sleeper train to Chiang Mai.

It's safe to say I'm now a definite sleeper train convert. The beds are so comfortable and you are gently rocked to sleep by the train as it sways along the track. To make things even better you wake up in a brand new place and we were greeted by lush fields of rice and the misty mountains that surround Chiang Mai.

I hadn't booked anywhere to stay this time either because I figured it was so touristy it wouldn't take long to find a nice place. Luck was on my side that day and I wandered past a nice little backpackers with ridiculously cheap dorms. I was just setting down my bags when a friendly American girl struck up conversation and we spent the rest of the day together wandering around the temples and chilling in the park. We even got a fish foot spa which tickled almost unbearably!

That evening we met up with her Spanish friend who she had met at a mindfulness camp a few weeks earlier. They were both very passionate about meditation and invited me to join them for a talking circle that evening.

This involved each participant listing the highlight of their day and then answering one question designed to help travellers connect on a deeper level than the usual "where are you from, where are you going" conversation.

The Spanish man and I then had dinner together where the conversation was equally intense. Afterwards the American girl and I went to a Jazz bar for a while and then came home for an early night.

The next morning over breakfast the Spanish man told me about his interest in astrology and proceeded to make me an astrology chart. It did present me with some things that I hadn't considered problems before and left me with lots of things to think about.

When they left the hostel for their next destination I rented a push bike and decided to cycle to a waterfall they had visited on scooters the day before. The Spanish man told me it wasn't really a place one could cycle to as it was too far. Something in me wanted him to be wrong. I didn't want the things he told me regarding the astrology chart to be true either. So in a weird way that was the driving factor behind wanting to prove him wrong. So I did. At the expense of my body I might add. I cycled 23 kilometres there and 23 kilometres back on a rickety old push bike with no gears. I hadn't done any excercise for the past four months and several times I didn't think I would make it but a mixture of determination, stubbornness and curiosity prevailed.

The waterfall was in a national park and was made up of 10 levels. Even though my legs were dead when I arrived I still wanted to climb all the way to the top and I was surprised that my body let me. It really made me realise that the mind is the strongest muscle. It didn't matter that I was pushing my body harder than it wanted. My brain decided where it wanted to go and the legs had no choice but to follow.

I returned to the hostel that evening tired but very pleased I made it home in one piece.

Another American girl was staying in the dorm along with another older Spanish man. The second American girl had just finished a stint working in a refugee camp in France and was waiting until she could find a new camp to go to. She had some awful stories that almost brought tears to my eyes. She'd seen the best and worst of humanity in the one place. People that, out of desperation, had lost all sense of compassion whilst others gave everything they had for a chance at a better life for their families.

The next morning I took my time in deciding what to do. It's taking a while to realise that I don't have a schedule I need to stick to this time. The freedom is almost unsettling. I decided to catch a bus to Chiang Rai and see what all the fuss was about. It was surprisingly easy and I was on a bus by midday for the three hour long journey. Again I hadn't booked any where to stay and I decided I didn't want to take a tuk tuk either. I stubbornly refused all the drivers offers and headed off towards where I thought the main tourist strip would be.

I found a reasonably priced room and chilled there for a bit until my stomach was growling and I needed to find some dinner. After I found a place to eat I bumped into a Dutch man who had been on the same bus as me and we ended up going to the night bazaar together.

It turned out that he had some very interesting ideas about global politics and I soon discovered that he didn't agree with anything I said and I had a sneaky suspicion it was because I was younger than him and female. I did what I usually do in these situations and just played along for fun.

He gave me a whole history lesson and told me there's no point in voting because everyone in power is actually part of either the Freemasons or the illuminati even Jacinda Ardern! At this point I had to ask how that was possible since she was a woman and the Freemasons are only for men. He relpied that there are many different strands of these groups and they are all as bad as each other. It was a very interesting conversation and I learnt more about middle aged men and their feelings of superiority over young females than he will ever know. He also seemed to think he had the whole world figured out and was letting me in on a big secret.

I don't know if he realised that I was subtly taking the mickey by asking lots of questions disguised as childlike fascination. It's my favorite game to play with older men who have large egos.

The next morning I stayed in bed as long as possible. I was having trouble deciding exactly what to do next. It's all very well having no plans if you have a vague idea about where you want to go and people to discuss it with but when you are on your own it's sometimes difficult to decide on doing anything! I moved to a cheaper dorm and visited the Hilltribe museum to try to learn more about these mysterious people. It was very interesting and made me glad I didn't go on any treks in Chiang Mai to see the villages as tourism has almost ruined their culture. Some tribes are actually imported by businessmen for tourism from Myanmar. They are essentially human zoos and I decided I don't feel comfortable supporting that.

I spent the rest of the day laying on my bed in an empty dorm room trying to figure out a rough plan of action.

Sometimes I'm so grateful to have been born into a culture that encourages free thinking but on days like these I do wish I had someone to tell me what to do.

So the first week of being an unemployed, homeless traveller again passed by with string of brief but intense encounters. There were wise men and men who thought they were wise, a fair few kilometres travelled, a bruised behind and the excitement and trepidation that comes with a completely open schedule. Who knows what the next chapter will bring.




The famous reclining buddah, Bangkok.

Wat's that you say? Another wat? 

Mr Laughing Buddahs Thai notes for me - Place Inn, Bangkok.

Mae Sa waterfall, Chiang Mai.

Clock tower, Chiang Rai.