The Final Stretch in Paradise

The final posting from my recent trip to Thailand

At the conclusion of the last travelog, I left the Khao Sok National Park and made my way to the Gulf of Thailand and a string of islands off the Eastern Coast. After the rapid traveling pace established during the first 11 days of the journey, my arrival on the island of Ko Pha Ngan heralded the commencement of an intensive relaxation phase. This island, infamous for hosting raging "full moon" parties and generally serving as a world-renowned backpacker destination spot, has been on my travel agenda for many years. Finally, I would find out whether the actual place was worth the hype, and whether the company of other backpackers would seem like an imposition or a welcome relief.

(the story continues on the next page....)

Upon disembarking from the ferry at the Thong Sala ferry pier, I am captured by one of the Thai women who storm the dock clutching signs imprinted with the word “taxi”. She forcefully grabs my arm and walks me directly to a waiting pickup truck with a roof and seats mounted on the bed. Within minutes, our truck rolls towards the city of Haad Rin carrying myself, a few locals, and a Finnish family consisting of a couple in their 30s (Sammy and Lisa) and their gorgeous fair-skinned blond-haired 5-year old daughter named Hrronnia (or something like that) who receives stares and smiles from every Thai within visual range.

En route to our destination, Sammy explains that they have just left the city of Phuket after barely escaped being killed by the tsunami. Sammy and Hrronnia were playing on the beach, watching the first two waves gently swamp the coastline when another Finnish man ran up to them and screamed, in Finnish, for them to immediately “get the fuck out of here.” Sammy grabbed Hrronnia, jumped into a nearby truck, and rode it for about a kilometer. Less than a minute later, the giant tsunami wave struck that beach killing hundreds, if not thousands, and destroying every structure within 500-600 meters of the coastline. Sammy and Hrronnia escaped the wave, found Lisa (who was studying at a diving school away from the danger zone), and then realized that their bungalow had been flattened and all their possessions were gone. They stayed in Phuket for another week helping the owners of their bungalow to begin the process of cleaning up and volunteered at the hospital translating for other Finnish travelers receiving medical treatment, many of whom were suffering from shock and needed to be reassured in their own language that the medicine was safe. After a week of assisting, they headed to Ko Pha Ngan for some quiet vacation time before returning to Phuket to provide help and tourist money to the local economy. In retelling this fantastic story, Sammy seems calm and detached. Lisa is a bit more agitated but both agree that they feel lucky to be alive.

The Finns and I discover that we have the same destination in mind – the beach of Haad Thian which can only be accessed either by hiking for 60-90 minutes on an arduous jungle path or by boat. After the taxi ride dumps us in Haad Rin, we jump in a narrow, wooden longtail boat and ride for 30 minutes to the East and North around several points of land before sliding onto the beach of Haad Thian. It takes some diligent searching, but I ultimately find an available bungalow perched at the top of a ridge separating Haad Thian and the neighboring beach of Why Nam. It is at sufficient elevation to remain safe from any tsunami wave, a fact that seems relevant given the recent tragedy. For 200 Baht ($5) per night, I get a small wooden structure with an attached cement bathroom sporting a Western-style toilet (as compared with the squatting version common in Asia), a bed with mosquito netting, electric lights that work when electricity is provided (several hours each evening), and several large windows that face onto a porch. I later discover that fellow inhabitants of this bungalow include a very large frog who feels at home in the bathroom, a number of yellow gekko lizards stuck to various walls and ceilings, and some exotic spiders with eyes that emit a reflective yellow glow under a flashlight.

From the porch, I can look out onto the ocean and feel cool breezes on my skin at almost any hour. I put down my bag, immediately take a cold shower, and realize that this moment marks my arrival in paradise. Over the next week, and beyond, I succumb to the seductive power of these alluring beaches. At the end of Haad Thian is "the Sanctuary", a retreat and wellness spa offering bungalows, a vegetarian restaurant, massages, an herbal sauna, body treatments, yoga, meditation, and a special area for cleansing and colonics. A few other restaurants and bars are situated around these beaches consisting of traditional open wooden structures offering a mixture of Western and Thai food, thatched roofs (but no walls), small tables ringed by either chairs or throw pillows, and ambient electronic music. Most bungalows get electricity for a number of evening hours, but there are frequent disruptions of these micro-grids, particularly during rainstorms, and few places remain powered after midnight. At times, the electric current surges and lights get extremely bright or, as happened one evening in my bungalow, burn out completely.

The crowd in this place is primarily Europeans in their 20s, 30s and 40s with some families along with single travelers looking for tranquility, escape, and a far more mellow scene than can be found in island towns that cater to raging 20-year olds looking for endless all-night rave parties. These are the more progressive, seasoned and interesting travelers. I feel at home almost instantly.

I initially plan to stay only 5 days before heading to the nearby island of Ko Tao. But Haad Thian emits a powerful gravitational force that causes days to blend into each other and makes it difficult to contemplate leaving. The effect is hypnotic and turns ambitious adventure backpackers into blissed out slackers who pass time reading, staring at the waves pounding the sand, meandering aimlessly, swimming, and ordering up another round of mango shakes and spring rolls. Men sport sarongs and bare chests, women are topless on the beach, and everyone says hello when passing each other on the crisscrossing dirt paths. This is a place where people deeply unwind and get stuck for quite awhile. Having visited many beaches and bungalows in different parts of the globe, I immediately recognize this scene as special and rare. By the time I finally leave, I have spent a total of 10 nights in this oasis.

Almost immediately upon arrival, I begin making friends with a large number of other travelers from all other the world. The crowd includes many British, Irish, Dutch, Germans, other Northern Europeans, Australians, and a few Americans. It is an community of alternative and new age types who are friendly and open, and most have come here to retreat, relax and heal. I meet Aleric (a construction worker and party organizer in London who claims to be a British diplomat’s son and serves as an important social networking force on the beach), Stephanie (a Swiss fitness instructor in search of quiet healing time and some English language tips), Florien (an Austrian masseuse with sparkling energy who came to take an intensive course in Aryuvedic Yoga massage and allows me to listen to audio recordings of his improvised meditative chanting), Henry and Hellena (an American/Lithuanian fire performance couple here for six months as a break between circus arts performance tours in Australia), Rob (an accomplished and mesmerizing British fire and circus performer on a multi-year tour of the globe), Joan (a 23-year old Irish fire spinner with infectious exuberance who has been on the road since the age of 18), Mara (a Dutch woman who says she can’t come visit the US so long as George Bush is President), and Kat (a New Zealand fire spinner, juggler, and free-spirited veteran backpacker making her way around the world on an extended trip).

In addition, my friend Rachel from San Francisco meets me at the Sanctuary within an hour of my arrival. She is on an year-long round-the-world journey and needed a place to hang out while waiting for her boyfriend to fly into Singapore. We had arranged to connect at this place and her appearance right on cue confirms that the cosmic energy is properly aligning in my favor. A few days later, my friend Jack (originally from Berkeley but now living in Shanghai, China) shows up to join the crew. Towards the end of the trip, Deb and Thomas (from San Francisco) make their way to this beach and complete the California posse.

Once connected to this community, each walk down the beach involves many conversations with increasingly familiar faces. Days of hiking, swimming, and lazing about seamlessly turn into nights filled with eating, dancing, drinking, and, of course, fire dancing. Discussions focus on traveling, spirituality, cultural differences, and relationships. Few people talk about their jobs, and when I respond to such questions and explain my career others seem genuinely surprised. From the reactions, I surmise that lawyers aren’t supposed to come to places like this or to engage in silly pursuits like fire spinning, a performance art I’ve been learning for a few months – check out these photos to see me in action prior to this trip.

Within a day of arrival, I locate two groups of fire spinners and begin organizing practice and performance sessions. After taking lessons in San Francisco for the past months, I am ready to learn from others and swap techniques. On the advice of Henry, I take a boat trip back to Haad Rin and acquire 20 liters of kerosene (the fuel of choice for spinning fire) to be shared with the others and lug it back to our beach. Local bars host our sessions and we spend hours twirling fire, admiring impressive feats of skill, talking about equipment, telling stories, and watching instant videos of our dancing captured by digital cameras. One day I take a lesson from Rob. Although he discourages me from taking fire spinning lessons as a general matter, he is happy to offer me (for a fee) a private class that proves very helpful. I also meet his current girlfriend Joan, a wanderer who does not see herself ever settling down in one place for any length of time. Although I am tempted to exclaim that, based on my experience, her antipathy towards living a more conventional life is likely to change with age, I bite my tongue and accept her inspirational youthful idealism. And she is an excellent fire spinner from whom I am able to learn some new moves. I practice my spinning techniques throughout these 10 days, making new friends along the way, teaching novices some basics, and focusing on developing new skills and comfort with this discipline. My fingers become blistered from intensive repetitions. One night I burn myself for the first time thanks to some borrowed fire ropes with no handles. The experience serves as my unofficial initiation into the fire performance community.

Six days into my stay, Jack and I plan to leave for the Island of Ko Tao to pursue scuba diving adventures. We manage to catch a boat to the town of Haad Rin but, due to our slow pace (a.k.a. “Island time”), miss the last ferry of the day to Ko Tao. It throws our plans for a bit of a loop, but a banana milkshake, a plate of pad thai and some curry helps us to regain perspective and settle on an alternative strategy. We decide to stay on Ko Pha Ngan for the remaining days but arrange to go out on two separate scuba diving trips. That night, we stay in Haad Rin in a bungalow located on at the edge of the beach on a large rock with incredible views of the whole area. This beach hosts the “full moon parties” that are the stuff of legend in backpacker circles. Jack and I walk around surveying a landscape of clubs fronting on the beach, each blaring out dance music that merges with techno or electronic beats from the next establishment into a discordant thumping sonic mess wafting out in all directions. Travelers in their early 20s stumble around carrying “buckets” containing a mixture of coca-cola, thai whiskey or rum, and red bull – a recipe for becoming simultaneously wasted and wired. Instead of joining this drunken brigade, we get foot massages, decide that one night here is enough, and make plans to return to Haad Thian the next day.

Our diving trip the next day confirms that some higher power intends to prevent us from making the journey to Ko Tao. We dive at an exposed rock formation in-between the two islands, battered by large swells, and find near-zero visibility once down under the surface. It is like being in an underwater sandstorm, and I lose all sense of direction and bearing fairly quickly. Pressing my mask close to the coral at a depth of 10 meters, I catch glimpses of anemones and schools of colorful fish, but the experience is frustrating. The weather this time of year strongly favors diving conditions on the other coast of Thailand, the one hit by the tsunami, while this side is typically plagued with poor conditions until the spring. Jack and I agree that more diving would be pointless.

On the boat, the supervising dive master tells us his tale of barely escaping the tsunami while working at his dive shop in the city of Krabi. He went outside once the first waves hit, then saw the big wave on the horizon and was urged to run inland, which he did as fast as he could. In the end, only his feet were wet. He explains that swirling debris (wood, concrete, metal) made the rushing waters extremely dangerous and led to many injuries and deaths. I sit in stunned silence listening to this recounting from a man who faced the killer wave and successfully ran away. Another traveler on the boat tells of a guy who ran down a hotel hallway in Phuket banging on doors to wake his companions and urging them to flee but failed to rouse one friend who was then killed when the wave hit.

Although we feel insulated from danger on Ko Pha Ngan, one evening brings home the impermanence of existence and the fact that tragedy lurks everywhere. An older man named Paul who recently moved to Haad Thian to retire falls off a treacherous path into a ravine and dies. The travelers hold a wake for him, which involves a drumming contingent, a fire, some random chanting and dancing. People sit in a circle, one point of which is a small altar consisting of a flower wreath, a photo of Paul, and some memorabilia. Jack makes maracas by filling empty water bottles with small rocks from the beach, and we both shake them to complement the other drums driving the core beats. I never met Paul, and neither had many of the people at the wake, but the event is solemn and spiritual. I feel that we are also mourning the deaths of those travelers who were swept away by the tragedy on the other coast. A similar group of travelers were probably beating drums on the beaches of Ko Phi Phi the night before the wave flattened their bungalows and stole their lives. In realizing the fragility of existence, I am deeply humbled and can only stare out at the sea in silent contemplation.

In a development that only heightens this sensation, Aleric bursts into the circle and dramatically announces that a Thai man was just bitten by a cobra (of which there are many on the island) and had been rushed off to Haad Rin for emergency medical treatment. We are all warned to watch carefully when walking the paths to avoid any accidental run-ins, and search parties are dispatched to try and locate the offending snake. It is never found. Later that evening, I am traversing the paths back to my bungalow with a few others, all of us scanning the ground with our flashlights looking for cobras, when one person mentions that 10% of all injuries in Thailand are caused by falling coconuts. We turn our attention away from the snake survey, raise our heads, and observe that we are surrounded by towering coconut palms, any one of which could drop a lethal projectile onto our heads at any moment. For awhile, I feel very vulnerable but decide that certain risks are beyond my control and just let go of the fear.

But these risks are worth the rewards. Throughout my stay, I visit the spa for multiple massages, a facial, an aloe/cucumber body wrap, and an herbal sauna. My primary masseuse, Wandee, has strong hands and a deft touch that takes me to the edge of pain and pleasure. I drink honey/ginger/lemon tea on a bamboo deck before and after these treatments. Jack and I take yoga classes from Sabrina, an American who grew up close to Boston (Easton and Waltham), and work on twisting ourselves into various shapes including the cobra pose (which now takes on new meaning). I go hiking through the jungle one day by myself, marvel at the views, sing out loud, and feel very free. These experiences leave me tempted to cast aside attachments to home, cut the cord, and just melt into this landscape. I ponder this possibility for awhile, but then remember that my life at home is fulfilling and meaningful. Fantasies of fleeing into the global traveling ether quickly give way to an alternative vision of the future -- experiencing the best of both worlds by relishing life at home and remaining committed to taking extended trips on a regular basis. So I begin to contemplate my next journey to an exotic destination. India beckons. As does South America.

My last night on Haad Thian is memorable. Jack and I share a final dinner then head to the weekly party at “Guy’s Bar”, the sole club on the beach that hosts rave-like events. Everyone I’ve met throughout my stay shows up, we spin fire for hours, dance to techno and trance music, drink Thai whiskey, and both bond and say our farewells. I collect email addresses and stay up partying until 5am, at which point I retreat to the beach and sit in the sand for awhile, listening to the waves and looking up at the stars. I sleep in a hammock for a few hours before the time of departure arrives.

Jack and I meet on Why Nam beach for breakfast at 10:30am, but it quickly becomes apparent that our first order of business is to catch the next longtail boat to Haad Rin or risk missing our 2:30pm ferry from Haad Rin to the nearby island of Ko Samui, which would also cause us to miss our 5:00pm flight to Bangkok. The surf is ferocious and we begin to worry about whether the longtails will be able to approach the beach or if it may be too dangerous to make the trip. I begin to believe that the spirit of this beach will not let us leave and does not want the ferry to run, that it may not be possible to depart, that we are fated to remain in this place forever.

The first longtail takes only 6 passengers and I am stopped en route to the boat, backpack over my head to avoid the ocean spray, and told to turn back. We wait for another boat. Eventually, a second vessel is ready to accept passengers, but it is anchored some distance from the shore to avoid being smashed by the waves into the beach. My backpack is carried on the head of a Thai boat helper who treads carefully through chest-deep water. I pray for him not to be destabilized by the current and drop my bag. Luckily, he makes it and my bag is stowed away. Passengers board by making a run through the waves and leaping onto the ladder at the back of the boat. I make a quick dash and haul myself aboard. The lower half of my body is completely soaked. Once everyone is seated on long planks, the engine is fired up and we begin the journey. At this point, the captain informs everyone that the price for this trip has gone up (from $2.50 to close to $4.00) due to the dangerous conditions. One traveler begins to complain but the rest of us are too consumed with staying alive to raise serious objections. The surf is intensely hazardous with 6-10 foot swells that make the boat to pitch and tumble. One wave hitting us at the wrong angle could cause the vessel to capsize. Everyone is a bit nervous. I feel alive and focus on the rolling of the boat and the spray hitting my face and chest. The driver is cautious and skillful, allowing us to survive and make it to Haad Rin. Upon arriving at the dock, Jack leads a chorus of “hip, hip, hooray” to honor the boat driver and we all burst into applause. The Thais working on the boat are unaffected and seem confused by this display of acknowledgement.

From Haad Rin, Jack and I get on another ferry to Ko Samui, board a plane to Bangkok, and hang out in a desolate open air market near the airport eating greasy food and watching locals jump on motorcycle taxis bound for unknown destinations. Then we part ways, and I catch an 11pm flight to Tokyo. I sleep the entire ride and wake only when we touchdown. Once off the plane, I cruise through customs, change money and stash my bag at the airport. Intending to make the most of my 8+ hour layover, I take the next express train into Tokyo and end up 90 minutes later in the Shinjuku district. It is raining, cold, and windy, but I don’t care. This is my first time in Japan, and I am high on the fresh buzz that comes from being in a new country. I walk around for three hours trying to absorb the atmosphere and culture, and processing any interesting visual impressions. The area is clean, filled with modern shops, and covered with neon signs stacked vertically on practically every building. Uniformed salespeople stand in front of stores and, like cheerleaders, exhort passersby to examine their fine quality goods. I stop for sushi and manage to croak out one of the few Japanese words in my vocabulary – wasabi. Then I go for a bowl of noodle soup which, without me asking, is served with an omelet, rice and cold tea. Few people seem to notice me or respond to the fact that I am a foreigner. Practically noone I interact with speaks any English.

After 3 hours, I get on another train to the airport and make my flight with only minutes to spare. Ten hours later, I arrive in Los Angeles, dash to board another plane to Oakland, and then take the train back to my apartment. Once at home, I realize that it has been 41 hours since boarding the longtail boat on Why Nam beach.

Although my trip is over, I remain blanketed by a relaxed glow and feel somehow different. The experience leaves me a bit wiser, with more perspective on the things that matter, and in awe of the vastness of our planet. I vow to return to the road soon in search of new adventures but am content to focus on the next phase of life here in California for now. My travel addiction has been temporarily sated, but the cravings will soon return. After responding to emails, reading my mail, and digging out at work, I will begin to contemplate the timing and scope of my next voyage. There are so many countries and cultures I have yet to explore.

The next journey awaits.