East Railah cliffs

k box 

Railah, Red Sticky Rice, and Thai Rastafarians

The bus ride down from Bangkok was incredibly uncomfortable, but I was exhausted and so glad to sit down with some air conditioning and dry out my sweat-soaked shirt! I fell asleep almost right away, but woke up freezing in the middle of the night, my lower back feeling as if it were about to burst, and my knees aching (I think it was because the seat was too long for my legs). There was this tinny pop music – a really hunky Thai singer with hair in his face, lamenting about unrequited love by the looks of the video – that played late night and was switched on at sunrise when the bus attendants served us super sweet coffee.

It rained all through the night but cleared up just as we got to Krabi…People started getting off the bus in remote areas, where we’d see a couple of worn down open shops crammed with goods, small temples, or a long driveway leading to houses. One house was really post-modern, shaped like a quarter-circle with a roof that curved from the ground up, and painted blue on the front side with nothing but a door. It hid behind a cluster of trees against a vast open field.

I remember my trekking guide, Chai, explaining to me how the children in the villages prefer mountain to city life. And who could blame them? The countryside in Thailand is so beautiful! I can see how time would be experienced so differently here, and the kids would have the opportunity to develop a sense of sense in the context of such space and with a closer relationship to nature.

I sometimes think that the city kid grows up with such an inflated sense of self, because the individual is given so much (perceived) control in the world. The transactional – if you pay for it, you can get it – is all around them; transportation is so much more efficient and catered to individual mobility; a lot of activities and work can continue irrespective of weather – not like a self-sufficient farmer whose work schedule is shaped by season, weather - because they’re not as reliant on nature in their daily lives. Or, at least, they don’t realize they are.

The countryside – something I wouldn’t know much about, but I can say something about growing up with lots of space around me. West Vancouver is a suburb, but not quite a cookie-cutter neighbourhood – due in part to the affluence of most its residents. There are parts of it where individual properties are quite spaced out from each other, divided by a wall full of evergreen trees, a huge mossy rock that builders decided to leave be, or a winding driveway. As I got older, things I wanted to do became farther away, and I experienced some of the frustrations I imagine a country kid would, with the commute.

But the nice thing about it was I could be selective about how much time I spent inside (the city), and then extract myself and hide out, become entranced by the space around me, the lack of street noise, the distant cries of the train passing by. Few people would come over, because I lived in the sticks!!! So it was a nice way to carve out a semi-sacred space for me and my thoughts, when family didn’t interfere. We all sort of liked to have our own space, I think. Doug Coupland has theorized about how the Canadian identity has been shaped by the vast space of our country, and I think – well, certainly in the West – it’s true: the contemplative cowboy of the West creates his own sense of time and space, his own solitude and introversion. I’ve heard people describe Vancouver as ‘boxed in from all sides: the ocean to the West, Rockies to the East, extreme winters up North, and the States down south – some people live and die without ever leaving Vancouver!’ What a terrifying thought for me. I am also reminded of anthropologist David Harvey’s study of Time and Space in modernity and postmodernity, a fascinating read that really made me think, in my senior year at UBC, about how these seemingly neutral categories can have so much influence on reality.

* * * * *

Back from the tangential though: On the longboat ride – which I felt I was practically harassed by the local men to get a longboat ticket from them and was wary of being overcharged – I met a couple of girls from Norway who had been studying in Australia and were traveling in Asia before heading home. Veronica was tall, a brunette, and extremely thin, with a sort of gaunt, beautiful Uma Thurman look. Her best friend, Nini, was an athletic blond, golden from the Thailand sun, and totally natural. I think they had been best friends for over 10 years, and it was awesome how they could travel together, they knew each other’s personal rhythms, respected each other’s space and private time. I told them how I envied them: so many times on this trip I caught myself thinking what a wonderful time I was having, but how great it would also be to share some of these moments with someone else.

Railah Beach was gorgeous from first glance – the sun was out, and as we rounded the corner on the longboat, there were these huge, precise, cliffs, green water, blue sky… At that moment I totally knew what people meant when they said Thailand was paradise. The boat stopped at knee-level water, and we plunked ourselves right into the warm beach water to get to shore.

Once I arrived and settled in at the Viewpoint Resort (250 BAHT/ $7.50 CDN a night) on East Railah, and had a cat nap, I ventured over to Pranang Beach. A whole cluster of those adorably mischevious monkeys were peering at me curiously from a fence of a nearby deluxe resort. Good thing they didn’t grab my bag! I had relaxed in the sun for about 15 minutes and went for a nice swim, when I noticed these dark clouds creeping in from the South. Within 5 minutes it had begun to rain and all the travelers were either packing up to go for an afternoon shag – so many couples on these beaches! – or chill under the huge cliffs, eating pineapple or roasted corn, until the storm subsided. The sand turned dense but in this dusty sort of way. Later on I went to West Railah, which is much more of a resort side than a backpacker’s side. The sunset reminded me of when I was a teenager at Tunstil Bay on Bowen Island, watching people turn into silhouettes as the sky burned into a bright pink.

It was pouring the next morning but cleared up in the afternoon. I went rock climbing on the very cliffs I was gawking at. All these Thai Rastafarians work for these extreme sports-tourist companies; my teacher Ip was very cool and encouraging, the second best climber on Railah, some Aussies told me. I did four climbs, never done it before – and loved it! I enjoy the strategy of choosing where to put your foot/hand next, the way the intense focus melts everything else away, and the manner in which one has to put more weight on the legs than the arms (even though it seemed at first that I should be pulling up with my arms!). From the last and highest climb I did, that ended up in this little cave, I could see West Railah from East Railah – it was so beautiful and I forgot about all the people and their faint voices below. I snacked on red sticky rice and coconut milk that was stuffed inside a bamboo stalk and cooked over a fire– total staying power – and then went for a swim.

At night I decided to venture out to the "Last Bar" and have some beers. Met a couple guys - one Canadian, one British - who were boasting about these pills they were taking to 'postpone the number 2 until they got home'. POSTPONE?!?! As someone who has been nicknamed fibrequeen and who knows that when nature calls, thou shalt not ignore it, I was thoroughly repulsed!! They weren't going home until next week! And they both ate like bears! Talk about being full of shit - literally! *shudder*

My climbing guide, Ip, proceeded to smoke a joint as big as my middle finger, and then went flailing around the dance floor with a dog as his partner. It ended up looking like some sort of demonic dance, what with all the black lighting and Ip's hair tossing around while the dog circled around him. I decided after a while that the scene was a bit too male for me and went back to my room to chill.

orchids

tuk tuk madness!

Bangkok Bus Adventure

It has been remarked by one of my close friends that my entries so far seem very somewhat hyperactive and non-stop… I won’t lie – my travels were pretty jam-packed up until around Mid-November, in Beijing. We all saw how infrequently I posted blog entries after Shanghai! Being a travel over-achiever means, well… no rest for the wicked.

I’m the kind of person who is quite sensitive to my surrounding environment. Yet while being sensitive, and therefore adaptable to my new surroundings can certainly be a plus, it’s certainly not a plus in hectic Bangkok…

Navigating through Bangkok meant a constant sensory assault from both extremes – noisy, polluted, fast paced and humid, with tuk-tuk drivers harassing you, late night AND early morning honking just below my hostel, the grinding noise of continuous urban development. Contrast this with glimpses of the dark purples of firm orchids, a quiet monk in a shaded corner of the Chao Phraya River boat, or the scents and sights of freshly cut pineapple, garlic and fish paste from a nearby eatery, or fish-shaped waffles hot off the pan… Try straddling that with the polarities of excessive consumerism and a Buddhist society … and then you can understand how difficult it can be to find balance in Bangkok.

The main reason I stopped in Bangkok was to visit my friend Scott, who has been living and working there since 2001. He picked me up from the airport and we headed down to Khao San Road – backpacker’s hangout – for drinks and catching up. While the venue was nice – a restaurant set back from the street with an almost Spanish aesthetic – mustard colored clay walls arching into doorways, tiled roofs – the vibe I got from Khao San was, immediately: too much. Too many touristy clichés of Bangkok hanging on racks, weaved in the corn-braided hair of sun-kissed Australians and Europeans, Israelis, carrying tell-tale triangular shaped axe pillows wrapped in newspaper, or browsing books full of pirated cds and dvds.

I notice now that I’m observing all of this with a certain disdain, that somehow I wanted – and still want - to believe my experience would be somehow different from this way of seeing and experiencing Bangkok, or Thailand for that matter. I want my travels to be more than just mere tourism, backpacking… more than the clichés. But what is it about tourism that I am so repelled by? Granted a packaged experience (including that in a lonely planet publication) does become a generic act; the word in my North American usage tends to have negative connotations, to imply that the person touring is just skimming the surface, only taking in a selective picture of the places they visit, being a voyeur, spectating and masquerading but not interacting, taking but not giving… (Or, to quote 'Fight Club': "Marla, you big fake... you big tourist... this is the one real thing in my life, and you're wrecking it"). There were times when I relished the fact that I was a tourist, blatantly seeking directions, acting like I didn’t speak English when another aggressive person tried to push a product, or a service at me… With the market economies of Asian countries accelerating and expanding at such a pace, with the opportunity of making money presenting itself with every tourist, it’s really difficult to escape how transaction-based my interactions with locals often are.

* * * * *

I felt like I needed a buzz to match the pace of Bangkok and take in the city in full. The days went on forever it seemed – and the stifling humidity didn’t help. Everything is for sale – the pirated and the ‘real’ are sold side by side in markets and shopping malls, self-contained stalls - selling everything from fresh fruit to iced coffees to coconut ice cream sandwiches - pop up everywhere. Things are convenient, tourist-friendly – too tourist friendly? – and everything natural flourishes in this climate despite the constant contruction and develoment everywhere you look. The first night, I stayed at Big John’s, this hostel owned by a greasy-haired Australian who was as beefy as the meat pies he made. Nice guy – his hair sort of became this on-going mystery joke with Scott (he would email me: ‘has Big John washed his hair yet?? Is it wet or… just greasy?’) I decided on the first day that it would be a good idea to go south, find a spot of paradise, and unwind.

During the day I made it my mission to find at least one art space I had read about, called the ‘about studio: about café’. The map and directions looked pretty straight forward – I figured I could take the skytrain and then just walk up from the stop. Nu-uh. One thing I’ve learned from this trip is never trust the map. Never to scale and often outdated, maps are guidelines at best and, if you think about it, explorers preceded the map, so why get tied to it? Another thing I’ve learned is that it’s much better not to plan, which prior to this trip was unheard of for me! More about that in later entries. And previous entries ;) It may be a theme because it took me awhile to fully relinquish my control of time and the event. In Bangkok though, I wanted to at least find something valuable in this sea of sensory assault.

After giving in to the fact that I would not find this place by walking, I stopped in for some directions at a local store. The girls looked at me like I was crazy, that I was going to walk to this place, and they kindly wrote out the address in Thai (such pretty botanical script!) and hailed me a taxi. The gallery had an exhibition of Japanese artist On Kawara’s work, and was aptly titled ‘consciousness. meditation. watcher on the hills.’ (I thought this theme, and the minimalism of the art itself, fit well with the aesthetics of the gallery.) Very briefly, this influential artist is known for his deep contemplation of the human consciousness, the idea of time and an existential desire to mark his place in human history. I identified very much with his work, One Million Years – Past and One Million Years - Future, a set of 12, heavy, leather bound volumes each, encased in class and apparently containing each date written out. The piece just completely puts in perspective the length of human history – and the individual, which make up less than a few pages, and maybe a couple lines, respectively. This realization of our miniscule existence, however, initiates a sort of relief, a feeling of personal freedom – the pressure we place on ourselves, in our own daily lives, to accomplish, produce, create, suddenly seems foolish in the grand scheme of things.

I lost track of time in their library – the café section was very retro, with olive upholstered chairs from the seventies, teak coffee tables, and the white gloss of painted brick walls. Upstairs there was an entirely white room, empty except for a stack of books lined along the wall, and a couple of chairs. Just seeing all of these interesting topics triggered in me another urge to go back to school, or at the very least, to dive into the sort of intense learning that school has given me the structure to do. After being glued to a Jean-Michel Basquiat book for about an hour, I realized that it was 5:30!! If I wanted to catch a bus going South, I needed to be at the South Bus Terminal in an hour! (or so I thought: this may be another misnomer of the tourist information I had looked up earlier on the Internet)

I hailed a cab and told the cab driver ‘Pai Sai Tai’ (South Bus Terminal). These words may have been a threat for all I knew – each driver of the three cabs I hailed all shook their heads vigorously, pointed at their wristwatches, or the radio clock, and then kicked me out. By the third time I was pretty frustrated to the point of raising my voice, telling the driver ‘I’m paying you for this!’ and not really understanding why it was such a big deal. I slammed the door after the driver began raising his voice at me, and was shameless enough to flip him the bird! Probably not a good idea, because he followed me for the next block shaking his fist at me, even though he had picked up new customers (going far shorter distances, I suppose). I just thought it was my bad luck. But I was determined.

So I went back to the art gallery, took the advice of the girls there to walk down to Chinatown and catch a bus! I had no idea what to look for, which street was which, stepping around sidewalk tables filled with steaming noodles, the clatter of the wok and spoons against bowls, random spitting, don’t forget the oppressive heat and traffic! Finally I was able to get some information from the hotel about which bus to catch, flagged down the aforementioned bus, paid 5 baht (the equivalent of about 15 cents!) to a lady with a metal, hexagonal change shaker, who was simultaneously yelling out stop names and frantically motioning for others to board the already jam-packed bus, while the driver, clad in a white SARS-style mask, navigated through traffic like it was a full-contact sport. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic.

What an adventure! In retrospect, quite amusing. But when I was on the bus, it was incredibly unnerving – I had no idea how long it would take to get there, if I would even catch the last bus to Krabi, what I would do if I didn’t. But it was out of my control at that point. I arrived at the station, and struck up a conversation with a guy who was also going to the station – he pointed out the right window for me to buy my ticket at, and thankfully, I made it in time for the last bus with some time to kill, so I went to get some sustenance for the 12 hour bus ride I had ahead of me...

on kawara: million years

about:library