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Beginning of the End

- April 12, 2006 - - -

I will confess to being a bit melancholy on the ferry from Ko Phi Phi to Ko Lanta. It was slowly beginning to sink in that my trip was nearly over, the money nearly gone and coming home no longer felt so far in the future.

After leaving Leah and Kate at the resort I returned to the isthmus to find Thai New Year, or Sonkron as it's called, in full swing. I had planned to spend a quiet day writing and relaxing, but things took a different turn. It wasn't long before I was completely soaked (one of the traditions of Sonkron is to throw water) and covered in white paste. I stopped in for a drink and next thing I knew it was late at night and I was due to catch a ferry the next morning.

I wasn't expecting much from Ko Lanta; I was using it mainly as a jumping off point for some of the islands to the south. Regrettably Lanta was as touristy and underwhelming as I expected. The majority of the big resorts are clustered at the north end of the island so naturally I headed south toward the marine park and stayed at the southern most bungalow operation I could find. The next thing south from where I stayed was the national part headquarters and the lighthouse at the southern terminus of the island.

I spent the first day on the beach under overcast skies wondering just what it was that I was missing. The sunset was spectacular, probably the most spectacular I've seen in all my travels and yet it failed to move me.

My overwhelming memory of Lanta is the smell of garbage. Trash piles at the side of the road, beside guesthouse, restaurants, dive shops, ferry docks, everywhere you turn there's another pile of trash. The way I figured it the best bet would be to rent a Honda Dream and try to move faster than the piling trash. For the most part all the development on Ko Lanta is along the western shore and it's heaviest at the north end of the island.

The next day I rented a motorbike and drove down every single length of road on the island. It turned out that the eastern shore is largely undeveloped at least in the tourist sense. There is a very pleasant Muslim fishing village toward the southern end of eastern side. The local children were still celebrating Sonkron and stood by the side of the road chucking buckets of ice water on passing cars and motorbikes which was refreshing enough that I would slow down for a bit of dunk each time a passed.

The next day I got on a ferry bound for islands to the south. I hopped off at the first stop, Ko Hai, about 20 km south of Ko Lanta. Ko Hai is small and most people visit it only as a snorkeling stop on island hopping day trips. Nevertheless there are two resorts and one small collection of bungalows around a restaurant. For once Lonely Planet was right about something, the bungalows, while pleasant enough, are staffed by Thais so grumpy and unfriendly as to ruin the experience (which is exactly what it said in the guide). Still I spent three nights on Ko Hai. A short walk from the bungalow area and there was a half a mile of deserted white sand beaches. I was finally able to catch up on some writing and reading and generally unwind.

But after three days I was sick of the staff and sick of the annoying Swedish girls cluttering the main beach. I hopped on a four island tour boat that passed by in the morning headed for Ko Kradan. Though I only paid for the boat ride, the crew of the boat were kind enough to lone me a snorkel mask each time we stopped. I snorkeled on the backside of Ko Hai and swam through the spectacular Emerald cave to the hidden valley beyond it. For eighty meters you swim in complete blackness and emerge out the other side to a valley that's about two hundred meters in diameter with cliff walls at least that high. Unfortunately, because it's such a small and dramatically high enclosure it's nearly impossible to photograph.

Eventually we all clamored back on the boat and the captain made a short detour to drop me off on Ko Kradan.

- - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/beginning-end.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/beginning-end.html deleted file mode 100644 index b7f6ba3..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/beginning-end.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,271 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Beginning Of The End - by Scott Gilbertson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Beginning of the End

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Koh Hai, Thailand

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- April 12, 2006 - -

After leaving Leah and Kate at the resort I returned to the isthmus to find Thai New Year, or Sonkron as it’s called, in full swing. I had planned to spend a quiet day writing and relaxing, but things took a different turn. It wasn’t long before I was completely soaked (one of the traditions of Sonkron is to throw water) and covered in white paste. I stopped in for a drink and next thing I knew it was late at night and I was due to catch a ferry the next morning.

I wasn’t expecting much from Ko Lanta; I was using it mainly as a jumping off point for some of the islands to the south. Regrettably Lanta was as touristy and underwhelming as I expected. The majority of the big resorts are clustered at the north end of the island so naturally I headed south toward the marine park and stayed at the southern most bungalow operation I could find. The next thing south from where I stayed was the national part headquarters and the lighthouse at the southern terminus of the island.

Lands End, Ko Lanta, Thailand

I spent the first day on the beach under overcast skies wondering just what it was that I was missing. The sunset was spectacular, probably the most spectacular I’ve seen in all my travels and yet it failed to move me.

My overwhelming memory of Lanta is the smell of garbage. Trash piles at the side of the road, beside guesthouse, restaurants, dive shops, ferry docks, everywhere you turn there’s another pile of trash. The way I figured it the best bet would be to rent a Honda Dream and try to move faster than the piling trash. For the most part all the development on Ko Lanta is along the western shore and it’s heaviest at the north end of the island.

The next day I got on a ferry bound for islands to the south. I hopped off at the first stop, Ko Hai, about 20 km south of Ko Lanta. Ko Hai is small and most people visit Sunset, Ko Hai, Thailand it only as a snorkeling stop on island hopping day trips. Nevertheless there are two resorts and one small collection of bungalows around a restaurant. For once Lonely Planet was right about something, the bungalows, while pleasant enough, are staffed by Thais so grumpy and unfriendly as to ruin the experience (which is exactly what it said in the guide). Still I spent three nights on Ko Hai. A short walk from the bungalow area and there was a half a mile of deserted white sand beaches. I was finally able to catch up on some writing and reading and generally unwind.

But after three days I was sick of the staff and sick of the annoying Swedish girls cluttering the main beach. I hopped on a four island tour boat that passed by in the morning headed for Ko Kradan. Though I only paid for the boat ride, the crew of the boat were kind enough to lone me a snorkel mask each time we stopped. I snorkeled on the backside of Ko Hai and swam through the spectacular Emerald cave to the hidden valley beyond it. Outside Emerald Cave, Ko Muk, Thailand For eighty meters you swim in complete blackness and emerge out the other side to a valley that’s about two hundred meters in diameter with cliff walls at least that high. Unfortunately, because it’s such a small and dramatically high enclosure it’s nearly impossible to photograph.

Eventually we all clamored back on the boat and the captain made a short detour to drop me off on Ko Kradan.

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- - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/beginning-end.txt b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/beginning-end.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 67bf310..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/beginning-end.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,38 +0,0 @@ -Beginning of the End -==================== - - by Scott Gilbertson - - Wednesday, 12 April 2006 - -I will confess to being a bit melancholy on the ferry from Ko Phi Phi to Ko Lanta. It was slowly beginning to sink in that my trip was nearly over, the money nearly gone and coming home no longer felt so far in the future. - -After leaving Leah and Kate at the resort I returned to the isthmus to find Thai New Year, or Sonkron as it's called, in full swing. I had planned to spend a quiet day writing and relaxing, but things took a different turn. It wasn't long before I was completely soaked (one of the traditions of Sonkron is to throw water) and covered in white paste. I stopped in for a drink and next thing I knew it was late at night and I was due to catch a ferry the next morning. - -I wasn't expecting much from Ko Lanta; I was using it mainly as a jumping off point for some of the islands to the south. Regrettably Lanta was as touristy and underwhelming as I expected. The majority of the big resorts are clustered at the north end of the island so naturally I headed south toward the marine park and stayed at the southern most bungalow operation I could find. The next thing south from where I stayed was the national part headquarters and the lighthouse at the southern terminus of the island. - - Lands End, Ko Lanta, Thailand

- - -I spent the first day on the beach under overcast skies wondering just what it was that I was missing. The sunset was spectacular, probably the most spectacular I've seen in all my travels and yet it failed to move me. - -

- - -My overwhelming memory of Lanta is the smell of garbage. Trash piles at the side of the road, beside guesthouse, restaurants, dive shops, ferry docks, everywhere you turn there's another pile of trash. The way I figured it the best bet would be to rent a Honda Dream and try to move faster than the piling trash. For the most part all the development on Ko Lanta is along the western shore and it's heaviest at the north end of the island. - -The next day I rented a motorbike and drove down every single length of road on the island. It turned out that the eastern shore is largely undeveloped at least in the tourist sense. There is a very pleasant Muslim fishing village toward the southern end of eastern side. The local children were still celebrating Sonkron and stood by the side of the road chucking buckets of ice water on passing cars and motorbikes which was refreshing enough that I would slow down for a bit of dunk each time a passed. - -The next day I got on a ferry bound for islands to the south. I hopped off at the first stop, Ko Hai, about 20 km south of Ko Lanta. Ko Hai is small and most people visit Sunset, Ko Hai, Thailand

it only as a snorkeling stop on island hopping day trips. Nevertheless there are two resorts and one small collection of bungalows around a restaurant. For once Lonely Planet was right about something, the bungalows, while pleasant enough, are staffed by Thais so grumpy and unfriendly as to ruin the experience (which is exactly what it said in the guide). Still I spent three nights on Ko Hai. A short walk from the bungalow area and there was a half a mile of deserted white sand beaches. I was finally able to catch up on some writing and reading and generally unwind. - -But after three days I was sick of the staff and sick of the annoying Swedish girls cluttering the main beach. I hopped on a four island tour boat that passed by in the morning headed for Ko Kradan. Though I only paid for the boat ride, the crew of the boat were kind enough to lone me a snorkel mask each time we stopped. I snorkeled on the backside of Ko Hai and swam through the spectacular Emerald cave to the hidden valley beyond it. Outside Emerald Cave, Ko Muk, Thailand

For eighty meters you swim in complete blackness and emerge out the other side to a valley that's about two hundred meters in diameter with cliff walls at least that high. Unfortunately, because it's such a small and dramatically high enclosure it's nearly impossible to photograph. - -Eventually we all clamored back on the boat and the captain made a short detour to drop me off on Ko Kradan. diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/bird-paradise.amp b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/bird-paradise.amp deleted file mode 100644 index d47b894..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/bird-paradise.amp +++ /dev/null @@ -1,215 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Bird of Paradise - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bird of Paradise

- April 22, 2006 - - -

I hitched a ride with a snorkel tour boat one morning to escape Ko Hai. After a day spent snorkeling various coves and islands the boat stopped for lunch on the windward side of Ko Kradan or what should have been the windward side, but at the particular moment, with an offshore wind blowing in from the east, was the calmest part of the island. The ferry dropped me off at a deserted beach and the captain pointed to what looked like just jungle and said that if I followed that path I'd get to the other side of the island.

Ominous black clouds had been moving westward all day and were nearly overhead by the time I jumped off the boat. The captain wasted no time in pulling away. I was hardly to the tree line with my bag before the boat disappear around the corner of the cove. I sat down on the sand and smoke a cigarette. Worst case scenario I get a little wet is some warm tropical rain. Sitting there I felt for a fleeting second like maybe I understood a little bit of what Tom Neale must have felt that first say when the boat dropped him off on Suvarov. But the the rain came so I quickly gathered up my things and headed inland.

The path the captain mentioned actually did exist when I got close enough to the tree line to see it. In the end wasn't that long either. I emerged out of the jungle into a small clearing with a restaurant and a few bungalows. So much for Suvarov, though this little collection of huts would turn out to be about as close as it's safe to wish for these days. For me anyway.

The Paradise Lost Resort was not listed in any guidebook I'd ever read. And it was owned by an American. That was enough to put me on edge. After chatting with said American for a bit I decided to check out my options. Pig headed man that I am I continued on to the other side of the island in search of where I had intended to stay. Just about the time I reached the eastern beach the rain decided to get more serious. I took shelter under a few of pine trees that lined the back of the beach and met Zoë, who had been out on the beach and also taken shelter from the storm. We chatted for a while and she recommended that I turn around and stay at Paradise Lost rather than continue up the beach to the other resort which she described as "more of a refugee camp."

So it was that I came to meet, Tony, Zoë's husband, and Inda, their three-year-old daughter, as well as that american I had chatted with before, Wally Sanger, the man who runs Paradise Lost, along with his partner Nok.

Up until I arrived on Ko Kradan I had been, were I too be honest, not too fond of Thailand. Despite its reputation as the land of smiles, I hadn't found the Thais to be nearly as friendly or welcoming as the Cambodians and Lao. I also generally found the travelers in Thailand to be a rather cold and often downright rude bunch. As a result I spent the month of January alone and ever since the girls left I'd hardly talked to anyone. But on Ko Kradan I discovered a slice of Thailand the way it's often describe by wistful hippies who first came here twenty years ago.

Nok and the rest of the Thais working at Paradise Lost were the nicest people I met in Thailand and Wally was by far the most laid back farang I've come across. I ended up staying on Ko Kradan for the remainder of my time in the south.

Wally arrived on Ko Kradan six years ago having spent the twenty years before that sailing all over the South Pacific. How exactly he came to start a guesthouse operation I never did hear, but it was quite an operation. Nok was an excellent cook and had an especially tasty (and spicy) massaman curry which is a southern Thai specialty, but Wally also offered a full range of barbeque options from massive steaks to pork chops and chicken. And as I discovered one night, when you order the grilled chicken dinner you in fact get a grilled chicken, as in the whole damn chicken, which works out well for the six or seven dogs that live at Paradise Lost (all purebred Thai ridgebacks and probably the best cared for and most spoiled dogs in all of Southeast Asia). One of the dogs, Tang, took a liking to me (or else he just liked company on the beach, who knows) and would follow me down the beach everyday, though he usually took off once I disappeared on the reef.

The reef off the southern end of Ko Kradan was the best snorkeling I found in the Islands provided you made it out during high tide, as it could be tough to navigate at low tide. For the entire week I was there I spent nearly every morning on the reef swimming amongst the Moorish Idols, Parrot Fish, Trigger Fish, Cleaner Wrasses and Butterfly Fish as well as the ever present Sergeant Majors and Barracuda.

-Image copyright Cristen Andrews, Flickr. -

Ko Kradan was barely touched by the tsunami so the reef was as it had always been. According to Wally there were a breeding pair of turtles somewhere out there, but regrettably I never came across them. So long as I got out there before noon when the day trip boats began to arrive, I had the reef to myself like some sort of private underwater playground.

Afternoons were my favorite time on the island, after the day tripping long tails from nearby Ko Muk departed for home and the four island tour boats from Ko Lanta moved on to the next island, a peaceful silence and almost total stillness settled over the beaches of Ko Kradan. Often a westerly breeze would kick up around two providing a welcome relief from the midday heat and the tide would retreat to the point that when I went back out on the reef the coral fairly scrapped my nose as I floated about, listening to the sound of Parrot Fish munching on bits of lumpy coral or the broken antlers of staghorn coral already half eaten and partly covered in sand.

I got in the habit of not using fins when I snorkeled so I tended to just drift with the currents moving rather slowly over great fields of coral, reddish brown staghorn with white tips and countless fish hiding in the numerous tangled shadows, including schools of smaller iridescent blue fish with yellow tails, fish whose bodies seemed to me the brightest and most intense blue I've ever seen. Other times I'd do a bit of swimming to follow one of the massive Parrot Fish who's front fins flapped not unlike the wings of their arboreal namesake. These huge riots of pastel hues, pinks and greens and blues and yellows often seemed, when viewed at very close range, to be so finely detailed and the colors so smoothly flowing in gradients of pastel that would have made any circa 1986 interior designer proud, that it was impossible to distinguish scales and after a while they seem to have been perhaps airbrushed or created by some Photoshop whiz. Moorish Idols too, which most often swim in pairs, have such fine scales that even up close with the water magnifying everything it's still impossible to make out the scales.

Whenever I was on the reef a school of juvenile parrotfish, small wrasses and Sergeant Majors would follow behind me nipping at my knees and ankles hoping for a bit a bread which they are accustomed to getting from the tour boats. Despite the fact that I never had any food they persisted from one end of the reef to the other. Once I stopped to adjust my mask and stood on a large lump of coral. While I was fiddling with the mask I could feel, but not see, something nipping at a cut on my left foot. I put the mask back on and peered down to discover that I had stopped at a cleaner wrasse's station and though no doubt slightly confused by my foot, the fish was nevertheless gamely doing what it did best. I waited until the fish seemed satisfied with his work and then I swam off following a parrotfish so large it had a sucker fish attached to its gills.

Sometimes I swam out past the reef, where the bottom turned sandy and dropped off rather quickly making it impossible to see, in hopes of finding the turtles or perhaps a black tipped reef shark (which are perfectly harmless for the most part), but neither ever showed their faces. Eventually I would give up and move back toward the reef which by then would be very shallow indeed and only passable by carefully swimming through the sandy gullies between the fields of coral, an experience somewhat like I imagine it would feel to fly low and fast through the canyon country of eastern Utah and northern Arizona.

- -Image by Vincent Wang Yean-Perng, Flickr. -

Closer into shore where the coral began to drop off, great fields of giant black sea urchins lay swaying in the currents and small waves in such a way that the spines looked like little fingers feeling about in the murky water, and at the center of each a great yellow and blue "eye" stared back up at you. Where the coral stopped and rocks began to be half covered in sand, the water visibility dropped and the fish became fewer limited to delicately colored yellow and blue striped fish with bodies and eyes that resembled squirrel fish and a few tiny Gobi fish that darted skittishly about as I floated over them. The reefs around Ko Kradan are known for their abundance of rock fish which sit here in the shallows, heavily camouflaged and difficult to see as they remain still, perched on their front flippers, as if patiently waiting for the fins to evolve into arms so that they can leave the sea behind once and for all.

Everyday around six I would take the trail back to the beach where I was originally dropped off and watch the sunset from the lookout on the bluff.

Eventually Tony, Zoë and Inda left for Malaysia and for two days it was just Wally and I. But then a few yachty friends of Wally's sailed in and I met, Brian, Dawn and CT, the crew of a fifty-two foot yacht sailing under the name Ten Large. While they slept on the boat, the three of them came ashore during the day and always ate dinner at Paradise Lost. Another yacht whose name I've forgotten, also with a crew of three, came ashore for two days. And eventually an Australian named Peter escaped the other resort (refugee camp was a rather apt description I discovered when I finally made it down that way) to stay at Paradise Lost.

Wally operates mostly on word of mouth, and, in cases like mine, dumb luck. But because he isn't listed in very many guidebooks, the other resort is able to waylay travelers in Trang with package deals paid for in advance. They simply meet the trains arriving from Bangkok and book an all-inclusive package, boat transfer, lodging, etc. and ask for the money up front. Eventually most of these folks find Paradise Lost and end up eating here, but because they've already paid for the lodging they're stuck down at the refugee camp.

It's too bad because Wally has a great place with friendly people, excellent food and nice bungalows. If you happen to be headed to Ko Kradan or any of the south Thai islands I encourage you to stop by. Wally has a website with contact info [update: the sites is gone], but beware that there is no internet on Ko Kradan and the cell phone reception isn't great so you may have to call a few times to get a decent connection. I just showed up and got a room, but it's worth calling ahead, especially in the high season since there aren't too many bungalows available (though Wally is building more every year).

I spent the evening eating barbecue and chatting with CT, Dawn and Brian about our various travels and some of their sailing adventures (they recently became mini celebrities in the yachty world when they were boarded by pirates while passing through Malaysia). One day I took a break from snorkeling and made a return trip to emerald cave with the crew of the other yacht. It was a nice change and this time we had the cave to ourselves for quite some time.

But like all things that begin, my time on Ko Kradan had to end. I didn't want to leave, but I had a plane flight to London that couldn't be missed. So after ten brilliant days on Ko Kradan we all caught a long tail for shore as Ten Large needed to clear customs and Wally needed supplies for the island. After spending the day running errands with everyone, they dropped me off at the train station and I headed back up to Bangkok.

- - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/bird-paradise.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/bird-paradise.html deleted file mode 100644 index a749ace..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/bird-paradise.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,434 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Bird Of Paradise - by Scott Gilbertson - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Koh Kradan, Thailand

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- April 22, 2006 - -

Me on the beach at Ko Kradan Thailand

The path the captain mentioned actually did exist when I got close enough to the tree line to see it. In the end wasn’t that long either. I emerged out of the jungle into a small clearing with a restaurant and a few bungalows. So much for Suvarov, though this little collection of huts would turn out to be about as close as it’s safe to wish for these days. For me anyway.

The Paradise Lost Resort was not listed in any guidebook I’d ever read. And it was owned by an American. That was enough to put me on edge. After chatting with said American for a bit I decided to check out my options. Pig headed man that I am I continued on to the other side of the island in search of where I had intended to stay. Just about the time I reached the eastern beach the rain decided to get more serious. I took shelter under a few of pine trees that lined the back of the beach and met Zoë, who had been out on the beach and also taken shelter from the storm. We chatted for a while and she recommended that I turn around and stay at Paradise Lost rather than continue up the beach to the other resort which she described as “more of a refugee camp.”

So it was that I came to meet, Tony, Zoë’s husband, and Inda, their three-year-old daughter, as well as that american I had chatted with before, Wally Sanger, the man who runs Paradise Lost, along with his partner Nok.

Up until I arrived on Ko Kradan I had been, were I too be honest, not too fond of Thailand. Despite its reputation as the land of smiles, I hadn’t found the Thais to be nearly as friendly or welcoming as the Cambodians and Lao. I also generally found the travelers in Thailand to be a rather cold and often downright rude bunch. As a result I spent the month of January alone and ever since the girls left I’d hardly talked to anyone. But on Ko Kradan I discovered a slice of Thailand the way it’s often describe by wistful hippies who first came here twenty years ago.

Me on the beach at Ko Kradan Thailand

Nok and the rest of the Thais working at Paradise Lost were the nicest people I met in Thailand and Wally was by far the most laid back farang I’ve come across. I ended up staying on Ko Kradan for the remainder of my time in the south.

Wally arrived on Ko Kradan six years ago having spent the twenty years before that sailing all over the South Pacific. How exactly he came to start a guesthouse operation I never did hear, but it was quite an operation. Nok was an excellent cook and had an especially tasty (and spicy) massaman curry which is a southern Thai specialty, but Wally also offered a full range of barbeque options from massive steaks to pork chops and chicken. And as I discovered one night, when you order the grilled chicken dinner you in fact get a grilled chicken, as in the whole damn chicken, which works out well for the six or seven dogs that live at Paradise Lost (all purebred Thai ridgebacks and probably the best cared for and most spoiled dogs in all of Southeast Asia). Me and Tang, Ko Kradan, Thailand One of the dogs, Tang, took a liking to me (or else he just liked company on the beach, who knows) and would follow me down the beach everyday, though he usually took off once I disappeared on the reef.

Reef, Ko Kradan, Thailand, copyright Cristen Andrews, Flickr - Image copyright Cristen Andrews, Flickr. -

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I got in the habit of not using fins when I snorkeled so I tended to just drift with the currents moving rather slowly over great fields of coral, reddish brown staghorn with white tips and countless fish hiding in the numerous tangled shadows, including schools of smaller iridescent blue fish with yellow tails, fish whose bodies seemed to me the brightest and most intense blue I’ve ever seen. Other times I’d do a bit of swimming to follow one of the massive Parrot Fish who’s front fins flapped not unlike the wings of their arboreal namesake. These huge riots of pastel hues, pinks and greens and blues and yellows often seemed, when viewed at very close range, to be so finely detailed and the colors so smoothly flowing in gradients of pastel that would have made any circa 1986 interior designer proud, that it was impossible to distinguish scales and after a while they seem to have been perhaps airbrushed or created by some Photoshop whiz. Moorish Idols too, which most often swim in pairs, have such fine scales that even up close with the water magnifying everything it’s still impossible to make out the scales.

Whenever I was on the reef a school of juvenile parrotfish, small wrasses and Sergeant Majors would follow behind me nipping at my knees and ankles hoping for a bit a bread which they are accustomed to getting from the tour boats. Despite the fact that I never had any food they persisted from one end of the reef to the other. Once I stopped to adjust my mask and stood on a large lump of coral. While I was fiddling with the mask I could feel, but not see, something nipping at a cut on my left foot. I put the mask back on and peered down to discover that I had stopped at a cleaner wrasse’s station and though no doubt slightly confused by my foot, the fish was nevertheless gamely doing what it did best. I waited until the fish seemed satisfied with his work and then I swam off following a parrotfish so large it had a sucker fish attached to its gills.

- Sergeant Majors, Thailand, image by Vincent Wang Yean-Perng Flickr - Image by Vincent Wang Yean-Perng, Flickr. -

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Closer into shore where the coral began to drop off, great fields of giant black sea urchins lay swaying in the currents and small waves in such a way that the spines looked like little fingers feeling about in the murky water, and at the center of each a great yellow and blue “eye” stared back up at you. Where the coral stopped and rocks began to be half covered in sand, the water visibility dropped and the fish became fewer limited to delicately colored yellow and blue striped fish with bodies and eyes that resembled squirrel fish and a few tiny Gobi fish that darted skittishly about as I floated over them. The reefs around Ko Kradan are known for their abundance of rock fish which sit here in the shallows, heavily camouflaged and difficult to see as they remain still, perched on their front flippers, as if patiently waiting for the fins to evolve into arms so that they can leave the sea behind once and for all.

Everyday around six I would take the trail back to the beach where I was originally dropped off and watch the sunset from the lookout on the bluff.

Sunset from Ko Kradan's sunset beach

Eventually Tony, Zoë and Inda left for Malaysia and for two days it was just Wally and I. But then a few yachty friends of Wally’s sailed in and I met, Brian, Dawn and CT, the crew of a fifty-two foot yacht sailing under the name Ten Large. While they slept on the boat, the three of them came ashore during the day and always ate dinner at Paradise Lost. Another yacht whose name I’ve forgotten, also with a crew of three, came ashore for two days. And eventually an Australian named Peter escaped the other resort (refugee camp was a rather apt description I discovered when I finally made it down that way) to stay at Paradise Lost.

Wally operates mostly on word of mouth, and, in cases like mine, dumb luck. But because he isn’t listed in very many guidebooks, the other resort is able to waylay travelers in Trang with package deals paid for in advance. They simply meet the trains arriving from Bangkok and book an all-inclusive package, boat transfer, lodging, etc. and ask for the money up front. Eventually most of these folks find Paradise Lost and end up eating here, but because they’ve already paid for the lodging they’re stuck down at the refugee camp.

It’s too bad because Wally has a great place with friendly people, excellent food and nice bungalows. If you happen to be headed to Ko Kradan or any of the south Thai islands I encourage you to stop by. Wally has a website with contact info [update: the sites is gone], but beware that there is no internet on Ko Kradan and the cell phone reception isn’t great so you may have to call a few times to get a decent connection. I just showed up and got a room, but it’s worth calling ahead, especially in the high season since there aren’t too many bungalows available (though Wally is building more every year).

But like all things that begin, my time on Ko Kradan had to end. I didn’t want to leave, but I had a plane flight to London that couldn’t be missed. So after ten brilliant days on Ko Kradan we all caught a long tail for shore as Ten Large needed to clear customs and Wally needed supplies for the island. After spending the day running errands with everyone, they dropped me off at the train station and I headed back up to Bangkok.

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- Lee - March 23, 2010 at 8:26 p.m. -

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Read this with real interest. I stayed at Ko Kradan for 3 days pre Tsunami and cursed the place as i left. Infact this is the reason that i read your piece as i was checking to see if the place had been devestated by the Tsunami. We stayed there in Sept 2004 so off season. One place to eat and a bunch of huts on the edge of a jungle. The guy running the place didnt give a shit about either his guests or the place itself. Dont remember him being American .. thought he was Thai. He would drink a bottle of water and throw the bottle in the sea. There was no food on the island except chicken and rice. My wife was 4 months pregnant and constantly hungry and he did not give a monkies. We had a Rat the size of a small Dog living in the roof of our hut , and he still refused to move us despite there being only one other person staying there. We visited 13 different islands in Trang and Krabi and this was the worst by some distance. Aslo there were about seven dogs running about .On the second day they all attacked one dog and that dog was running around the island in obvious distress with its eye hanging out in the blazing sunshine. My wife were woken at 4 in the morning with the dog scratching at our door screaming in pain , its ripped out eye being almost eaten by insects. The owner did not give a shit.

Is there more than one place to stay on the island as reading your piece its difficult to believe that this can be the same place

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- luxagraf - March 24, 2010 at 8:29 p.m. -

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@lee-

That sounds awful.

To answer your question, yes, there are two places on Ko Kradan, and yes the other one is run by a Thai. I never actually encountered him, but I’ve heard several stories that sound just like yours.

Wally’s place was down a beach and bit and back in the interior of the island (about a five minute walk from the beach. no water front views, but nice). That said, last I heard Wally had to go up to Phuket for medical reasons, so I can’t say for sure what the situation is on Ko Kradan these days.

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- - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/bird-paradise.txt b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/bird-paradise.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 24aa7f2..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/bird-paradise.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,80 +0,0 @@ -Bird of Paradise -================ - - by Scott Gilbertson - - Saturday, 22 April 2006 - -I hitched a ride with a snorkel tour boat one morning to [escape Ko Hai](https://live.luxagraf.net/jrnl/2006/04/beginning-end). After a day spent snorkeling various coves and islands the boat stopped for lunch on the windward side of Ko Kradan or what should have been the windward side, but at the particular moment, with an offshore wind blowing in from the east, was the calmest part of the island. The ferry dropped me off at a deserted beach and the captain pointed to what looked like just jungle and said that if I followed that path I'd get to the other side of the island. - - Me on the beach at Ko Kradan Thailand

- -Ominous black clouds had been moving westward all day and were nearly overhead by the time I jumped off the boat. The captain wasted no time in pulling away. I was hardly to the tree line with my bag before the boat disappear around the corner of the cove. I sat down on the sand and smoke a cigarette. Worst case scenario I get a little wet is some warm tropical rain. Sitting there I felt for a fleeting second like maybe I understood a little bit of what Tom Neale must have felt that first say when the boat dropped him off on Suvarov. But the the rain came so I quickly gathered up my things and headed inland. - -The path the captain mentioned actually did exist when I got close enough to the tree line to see it. In the end wasn't that long either. I emerged out of the jungle into a small clearing with a restaurant and a few bungalows. So much for Suvarov, though this little collection of huts would turn out to be about as close as it's safe to wish for these days. For me anyway. - -The Paradise Lost Resort was not listed in any guidebook I'd ever read. And it was owned by an American. That was enough to put me on edge. After chatting with said American for a bit I decided to check out my options. Pig headed man that I am I continued on to the other side of the island in search of where I had intended to stay. Just about the time I reached the eastern beach the rain decided to get more serious. I took shelter under a few of pine trees that lined the back of the beach and met Zoë, who had been out on the beach and also taken shelter from the storm. We chatted for a while and she recommended that I turn around and stay at Paradise Lost rather than continue up the beach to the other resort which she described as "more of a refugee camp." - -So it was that I came to meet, Tony, Zoë's husband, and Inda, their three-year-old daughter, as well as that american I had chatted with before, Wally Sanger, the man who runs Paradise Lost, along with his partner Nok. - -Up until I arrived on Ko Kradan I had been, were I too be honest, not too fond of Thailand. Despite its reputation as the land of smiles, I hadn't found the Thais to be nearly as friendly or welcoming as the Cambodians and Lao. I also generally found the travelers in Thailand to be a rather cold and often downright rude bunch. As a result I spent the month of January alone and ever since the girls left I'd hardly talked to anyone. But on Ko Kradan I discovered a slice of Thailand the way it's often describe by wistful hippies who first came here twenty years ago. - - Me on the beach at Ko Kradan Thailand

- -Nok and the rest of the Thais working at Paradise Lost were the nicest people I met in Thailand and Wally was by far the most laid back farang I've come across. I ended up staying on Ko Kradan for the remainder of my time in the south. - -Wally arrived on Ko Kradan six years ago having spent the twenty years before that sailing all over the South Pacific. How exactly he came to start a guesthouse operation I never did hear, but it was quite an operation. Nok was an excellent cook and had an especially tasty (and spicy) massaman curry which is a southern Thai specialty, but Wally also offered a full range of barbeque options from massive steaks to pork chops and chicken. And as I discovered one night, when you order the grilled chicken dinner you in fact get a grilled chicken, as in the whole damn chicken, which works out well for the six or seven dogs that live at Paradise Lost (all purebred Thai ridgebacks and probably the best cared for and most spoiled dogs in all of Southeast Asia). Me and Tang, Ko Kradan, Thailand

One of the dogs, Tang, took a liking to me (or else he just liked company on the beach, who knows) and would follow me down the beach everyday, though he usually took off once I disappeared on the reef. - -The reef off the southern end of Ko Kradan was the best snorkeling I found in the Islands provided you made it out during high tide, as it could be tough to navigate at low tide. For the entire week I was there I spent nearly every morning on the reef swimming amongst the Moorish Idols, Parrot Fish, Trigger Fish, Cleaner Wrasses and Butterfly Fish as well as the ever present Sergeant Majors and Barracuda. - -

Reef, Ko Kradan, Thailand, copyright Cristen Andrews, Flickr - Image copyright Cristen Andrews, Flickr. -

- -Ko Kradan was barely touched by the tsunami so the reef was as it had always been. According to Wally there were a breeding pair of turtles somewhere out there, but regrettably I never came across them. So long as I got out there before noon when the day trip boats began to arrive, I had the reef to myself like some sort of private underwater playground. - -Afternoons were my favorite time on the island, after the day tripping long tails from nearby Ko Muk departed for home and the four island tour boats from Ko Lanta moved on to the next island, a peaceful silence and almost total stillness settled over the beaches of Ko Kradan. Often a westerly breeze would kick up around two providing a welcome relief from the midday heat and the tide would retreat to the point that when I went back out on the reef the coral fairly scrapped my nose as I floated about, listening to the sound of Parrot Fish munching on bits of lumpy coral or the broken antlers of staghorn coral already half eaten and partly covered in sand. - -I got in the habit of not using fins when I snorkeled so I tended to just drift with the currents moving rather slowly over great fields of coral, reddish brown staghorn with white tips and countless fish hiding in the numerous tangled shadows, including schools of smaller iridescent blue fish with yellow tails, fish whose bodies seemed to me the brightest and most intense blue I've ever seen. Other times I'd do a bit of swimming to follow one of the massive Parrot Fish who's front fins flapped not unlike the wings of their arboreal namesake. These huge riots of pastel hues, pinks and greens and blues and yellows often seemed, when viewed at very close range, to be so finely detailed and the colors so smoothly flowing in gradients of pastel that would have made any circa 1986 interior designer proud, that it was impossible to distinguish scales and after a while they seem to have been perhaps airbrushed or created by some Photoshop whiz. Moorish Idols too, which most often swim in pairs, have such fine scales that even up close with the water magnifying everything it's still impossible to make out the scales. - -Whenever I was on the reef a school of juvenile parrotfish, small wrasses and Sergeant Majors would follow behind me nipping at my knees and ankles hoping for a bit a bread which they are accustomed to getting from the tour boats. Despite the fact that I never had any food they persisted from one end of the reef to the other. Once I stopped to adjust my mask and stood on a large lump of coral. While I was fiddling with the mask I could feel, but not see, something nipping at a cut on my left foot. I put the mask back on and peered down to discover that I had stopped at a cleaner wrasse's station and though no doubt slightly confused by my foot, the fish was nevertheless gamely doing what it did best. I waited until the fish seemed satisfied with his work and then I swam off following a parrotfish so large it had a sucker fish attached to its gills. - -Sometimes I swam out past the reef, where the bottom turned sandy and dropped off rather quickly making it impossible to see, in hopes of finding the turtles or perhaps a black tipped reef shark (which are perfectly harmless for the most part), but neither ever showed their faces. Eventually I would give up and move back toward the reef which by then would be very shallow indeed and only passable by carefully swimming through the sandy gullies between the fields of coral, an experience somewhat like I imagine it would feel to fly low and fast through the canyon country of eastern Utah and northern Arizona. - -

- Sergeant Majors, Thailand, image by Vincent Wang Yean-Perng Flickr - Image by Vincent Wang Yean-Perng, Flickr. -

- -Closer into shore where the coral began to drop off, great fields of giant black sea urchins lay swaying in the currents and small waves in such a way that the spines looked like little fingers feeling about in the murky water, and at the center of each a great yellow and blue "eye" stared back up at you. Where the coral stopped and rocks began to be half covered in sand, the water visibility dropped and the fish became fewer limited to delicately colored yellow and blue striped fish with bodies and eyes that resembled squirrel fish and a few tiny Gobi fish that darted skittishly about as I floated over them. The reefs around Ko Kradan are known for their abundance of rock fish which sit here in the shallows, heavily camouflaged and difficult to see as they remain still, perched on their front flippers, as if patiently waiting for the fins to evolve into arms so that they can leave the sea behind once and for all. - -

I never wanted to get out of the water, but inevitably some reminder of my terrestrial origins would come back, thirst, hunger or perhaps just exhaustion, and I would head back to Paradise Lost for a late lunch. - -Everyday around six I would take the trail back to the beach where I was originally dropped off and watch the sunset from the lookout on the bluff. - - Sunset from Ko Kradan's sunset beach

- - -Eventually Tony, Zoë and Inda left for Malaysia and for two days it was just Wally and I. But then a few yachty friends of Wally's sailed in and I met, Brian, Dawn and CT, the crew of a fifty-two foot yacht sailing under the name Ten Large. While they slept on the boat, the three of them came ashore during the day and always ate dinner at Paradise Lost. Another yacht whose name I've forgotten, also with a crew of three, came ashore for two days. And eventually an Australian named Peter escaped the other resort (refugee camp was a rather apt description I discovered when I finally made it down that way) to stay at Paradise Lost. - -Wally operates mostly on word of mouth, and, in cases like mine, dumb luck. But because he isn't listed in very many guidebooks, the other resort is able to waylay travelers in Trang with package deals paid for in advance. They simply meet the trains arriving from Bangkok and book an all-inclusive package, boat transfer, lodging, etc. and ask for the money up front. Eventually most of these folks find Paradise Lost and end up eating here, but because they've already paid for the lodging they're stuck down at the refugee camp. - -It's too bad because Wally has a great place with friendly people, excellent food and nice bungalows. If you happen to be headed to Ko Kradan or any of the south Thai islands I encourage you to stop by. Wally has a website with contact info [update: the sites is gone], but beware that there is no internet on Ko Kradan and the cell phone reception isn't great so you may have to call a few times to get a decent connection. I just showed up and got a room, but it's worth calling ahead, especially in the high season since there aren't too many bungalows available (though Wally is building more every year). - -I spent the evening eating barbecue and chatting with CT, Dawn and Brian about our various travels and some of their sailing adventures (they recently became mini celebrities in the yachty world when they were boarded by pirates while passing through Malaysia). One day I took a break from snorkeling and made a return trip to emerald cave with the crew of the other yacht. It was a nice change and this time we had the cave to ourselves for quite some time. - -But like all things that begin, my time on Ko Kradan had to end. I didn't want to leave, but I had a plane flight to London that couldn't be missed. So after ten brilliant days on Ko Kradan we all caught a long tail for shore as Ten Large needed to clear customs and Wally needed supplies for the island. After spending the day running errands with everyone, they dropped me off at the train station and I headed back up to Bangkok. diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/going-down-south.amp b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/going-down-south.amp deleted file mode 100644 index 49ef50c..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/going-down-south.amp +++ /dev/null @@ -1,199 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - -Going Down South - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Going Down South

- April 11, 2006 - - -

Matt and I spent one day by ourselves in Sinoukville and though we never spoke of it I thought it was pretty appropriate that when we went back to the beach shack with the good food they were closed. When we tried to spend the afternoon in the sun, it poured. But then I write, so a bit of drama is never a bad thing.

We had a good time anyway. And the next morning we headed back across the border into Thailand. Strange to think that I had gone to Laos for the sole purpose of renewing my Thai visa and here I was, three months later, finally returning to Thailand. If I've learned anything it's the truth of Woody Allen's phrase, "if you want to make god laugh, have a plan." - -By a strange act of god (who must have been having himself a laugh at the time), both Matt and I were headed back to Bangkok to meet up with friends from home. But before that we made an honest effort at tracking down Ofir. I had kept up with Ofir via email ever since he left Laos, and, though I hadn't heard from him in a few days. I knew he should be in Bangkok at the same time as Matt and I. I also knew that he was flying out the next day to return home to Israel. I compulsively checked my email throughout the evening but never heard anything. Matt and I hatched a plan that must have split god's sides with laughter; we decided to set out into Bangkok in some vain hope of running into Ofir. A city of seven million, how hard could it be?

Our best hope was the Khao San Rd. I don't believe I devoted any time to the Khao San Rd in my previous Bangkok posts which is largely because I avoided it like the plague. Khao San is everything I don't like about traveling, thousands and thousands of western tourists behaving badly. But, taking a tip from our experiences with heat, we thought why not? Why not embrace the cheesy touristy aspect of it? And we also thought Ofir, having his last night in Bangkok might think the same thing. So we hit the Khao San in full swing. As it turned out, Ofir had more taste than we did and was nowhere near the Khao San Rd on his last night in Bangkok, but we had fun nevertheless. We ate a bit of street food and parked ourselves in the cheesiest, most tourist saturated bar and watched the parade of humanity that is Khao San.

And then we gave up. The next day we both had errands to run, I need a plane ticket to London among other things and so Matt and I split up for the day, which was a bit strange since all the time he and Debi and I traveled together we always stuck together. But the strangest part is, and this goes to show you the fallacy of plans, about six hours later Matt and I ran into each other at the central pier. Yes, in a city of seven million, I ran into the one person I knew. This is why planning never works. Things happen or they don't and there's nothing you can do about it.

Traveling for as long as I have, one tends to lose track of time. It's been months since I could have told you with any confidence what day of the week it was or what day of the month, once I even got the month wrong. It just isn't something worth keeping track of; time exists to measure days that in reality aren't worth measuring. When I was managing a restaurant I could have told you not just day and date, but probably the hour and often right down to the minute because this is how we manage to do the things we have to do. It's been nearly a year since I've had to do anything.

It should then have been no surprise when the phone rang a day earlier than I expected and familiar voice sank slowly into my still sleep-fogged brain. Oh crap. My friends aren't coming tomorrow, they're here today. Whoops. I said a hurried goodbye to Matt (yes that was always how it was going to end wasn't it? Cheers mate), and slipped into the next chapter as it were.

Leah and Kate were staying at the Westin Sukhumvit which was shall we say a bit nicer than my lodgings. It was something akin to culture shock to step into the immaculateness of the Westin after spending the last six months in sleeping quarters where the old saying "don't let the bed bugs bite" isn't an antiquated joke, it's genuine advice. Not that I mind high class resorts nor look down my nose at them, so long as we all understand that high class resorts are for vacations; they don't qualify as traveling. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Change and adaptability are what got humanity this far and who am I to buck evolutionary trends? So I spent a minute in the lobby before I went up to their room, adjusting myself, adapting. It sounds stupid, but it does take you a minute to orient yourself in five star surroundings after so long in well, whatever.

After adjusting myself to the idea of air conditioning and polished marble floors and cushioned chairs I hopped in the elevator (elevator, damn I forgot about those) thinking this was probably good since I would be back in the west in less than a month and I needed to get used to these things again. I have for some time been dreading returning to the west with all its stodgy formalities and laws and cleanliness. I don't necessarily have a problem with the west, though I do feel a greater sense of freedom in S.E Asia than I ever have in America, I've just forgot what these things are like. My plan is to head from Bangkok to London and then, after visiting a friend I met in India, continuing on to Budapest where I will meet up with my parents and travel central Europe for a month before returning to the States. When the elevator opened into the large luxuriously padded carpet of the Westin's seventh floor hallway, I realized that I was not mentally prepared to return. I've actually come to rather like dodgy food and grungy guesthouses.

The girls were surprisingly bright-eyed and animated for people that should have been jet lagged and half asleep. My own grogginess was still wearing off, but we set off straight away since Bangkok is pretty warm by midday and the temples have little in the way of shade. Leah and Kate had only one day in Bangkok and wanted to see some temples and other touristy sights. I was planning to take them to Wat Phra Krew and Wat Pho via public transport since that way you get to see the river as well. We hopped on the sky train, caught the river taxi and walked for a bit around Wat Phra Krew. After about an hour it was too hot to think. Bangkok averages in the high 90s this time of year and humidity is around 80. If you look it up on Weatherunderground it has that, "feel like…" index which typically is about 116 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know how they calculate it, but it sounds about right. It's hotter than it ever gets in say Athens, GA in the summer, but not as hot as Seam Reap. It's bearable if you're used to it, but coming out of air conditioning into that kind of heat and humidity will quickly drain you.

We decided to give up on the temples and head back to the hotel. The girls went up to the rooftop pool and I set out to buy a plane ticket to London and on to Budapest. After walking around in the heat for two hours and realizing that there is some sort of price fixing travel agent mafia in Bangkok, I gave up and went to the pool myself. After a few hours in the sun and a bit of snooze on the couch, we set out for dinner at Sciorocco. I hadn't been up to the towers before, but the view was roughly the same as the Baiyoke Sky hotel—stunning. Unfortunately, a few minutes after we were seated, it started to pour. Everyone scattered for cover and the restaurant struggled gamely to accommodate everyone that had been outside, inside. Curiously the only additional seating they seemed to have was a room two floors up which was half set for a wedding reception the next day.

We tried to make ourselves comfortable but it was a bit peculiar, particularly the ceiling which looked like the inside of a massive telescope, white hexagonal tiles with metal bracings and exposed pipeworks, across which various colors of neon lights in cheesy floral patterns performed highly unnatural sweeping motions. For a minute I felt like I was at some really bad laser lights show back in Los Angeles. After sitting there for a few minutes in fits of laughter, half expecting Pink Floyd to come erupting out of some hidden speaker system, we decided that it just wasn't going to work. Normally I wouldn't complain about it, I even liked the campy aspect in some ways, but the girls were only going to have one fancy dinner in Bangkok and they understandably didn't want it to resemble a wedding reception at the Hollywood bowl. After speaking to the hostess, we decided to head down a few floors where there was an Italian restaurant. Not very Thai to be sure, but damn it was good.

The next day the girls left for Phuket. I spent another day in Bangkok, finally bought my ticket to London and on to Budapest, and then caught an overnight bus to Krabia which is about half way down the peninsula of Thailand. The plan was to meet up with Kate and Leah again on Ko Phi Phi. On the bus ride down I met a very nice woman from Sweden and spent the day walking around Krabie with her and while I liked Krabie, I couldn't see any reason to stay. I caught the last ferry of the day out to Ko Phi Phi.

The truly strange thing is, aside from a gap in the otherwise omnipresent palm trees and a tsunami memorial, you'd never know the area was almost completely destroyed just over a year ago. Nearly everything has already been rebuilt and life seems to have returned to normal on the island. And for Phi Phi normal means tons of tourists and resorts catering to western cravings—burgers, Swedish meatballs and the ubiquitous traveler favorite, banana pancakes. The problem with Phi Phi is that in spite of its tourism and crowds it is a truly stunning island, one you ought not to miss if you ever find yourself in the area, just be aware of what you're getting into.

I spent the first night on the isthmus at a small guesthouse slightly inland from the beach and then the next morning I chartered a long tail around the island to the resort on the eastern shore where the girls were staying. After spending most of the day crashing the resort, Leah and Kate finally showed up and I felt a bit more legitimate. The Phi Phi Island Resort where the girls stayed is nestled on the leeward shore of the island with a lovely private beach that slopes ever so slowly into the sea and about two hundred meters out gives way to a beautiful reef. I rented a snorkel and mask and spent the afternoon on the reef with Leah. Generally when people talk of Thailand's islands they talk of the scuba diving, but the snorkeling is also first rate. The water clarity is generally better than anywhere else I've been though evening storms did stir things up a bit while we were there. The best thing about the resort is that it provides an escape from the crowds concentrated around the isthmus. For the better part of the afternoon Leah and I had the reef to ourselves save for the occasional long tail passing off in the distance.

That evening after dinner we booked a boat trip to go around Phi Phi Leh with several stops for snorkeling and swimming. By nine the next morning we were onboard a large powerboat headed for Phi Phi Leh. As we came around the southern tip of Phi Phi Don where the island juts westward toward the isthmus I realized just how lucky we were to be in the relative isolation of the resort. Anchored just off the main harbor was a massive cruise ship which must have deposited several thousand additional people in the isthmus area.

Luckily we breezed right by the isthmus and cruise ship booth bound for the reef on the east side of Phi Phi Leh. The underwater scenery was spectacular, loads of fish, not as much coral as some places I've been, but I don't know if that was from the tsunami or just the way the reefs are in Thailand. After snorkeling for an hour or so we hoped back on the boat and headed into a very narrow shallow bay surrounded on all sides by steep limestone cliffs. Though there was no reef below it was nevertheless amazingly beautiful. We anchored for half and hour and took turns jumping off the upper decks of the boat into the perfect, bathwater warm, cyan-colored bay.

After swimming for a while in the bay we began to circle around the island to the west. Our next stop was a sheltered lagoon which holds the only real beach of Phi Phi Leh. We stopped for lunch and bit of swimming and sunbathing.

I've never personally seen it, but supposedly the movie The Beach was filmed there. After lunch we continued around the backside of Phi Phi Leh which consisted mainly of imposing sheer cliffs that rise straight out of the sea. After rounding the northern point of the Island which conveys just how narrow Phi Phi Leh actually is, we headed back to the resort. As Phi Phi Leh shrunk in the distance I watched my fellow backpackers zoom by on speedboats packed together like sardines under the meager shade on cheap canvas canopies. Silly backpackers.

That evening we watched the clouds glow pink and orange and bright red with the fading light of a sunset we couldn't directly see and I taught the girls how to play shithead, which I proceeded to lose at. Rather badly. The results of which shall not be mentioned here. The next day I headed back to join my fellow silly backpackers on the isthmus (luckily the cruise ship had moved on by then). It was really nice to spend time with Kate and Leah, you meet many people when you're traveling but it's not often that you get to see people from home. Thank you girls for letting me crash your vacation and I hope you had as much fun as I did. I only wish we had more time. Oh and for those who were wondering… I charged the whole thing to the Underhill's credit card. You want the number?

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- April 11, 2006 - -

We had a good time anyway. And the next morning we headed back across the border into Thailand. Strange to think that I had gone to Laos for the sole purpose of renewing my Thai visa and here I was, three months later, finally returning to Thailand. If I’ve learned anything it’s the truth of Woody Allen’s phrase, “if you want to make god laugh, have a plan.” - -By a strange act of god (who must have been having himself a laugh at the time), both Matt and I were headed back to Bangkok to meet up with friends from home. But before that we made an honest effort at tracking down Ofir. I had kept up with Ofir via email ever since he left Laos, and, though I hadn’t heard from him in a few days. I knew he should be in Bangkok at the same time as Matt and I. I also knew that he was flying out the next day to return home to Israel. I compulsively checked my email throughout the evening but never heard anything. Matt and I hatched a plan that must have split god’s sides with laughter; we decided to set out into Bangkok in some vain hope of running into Ofir. A city of seven million, how hard could it be?

Our best hope was the Khao San Rd. I don’t believe I devoted any time to the Khao San Rd in my previous Bangkok posts which is largely because I avoided it like the plague. Khao San is everything I don’t like about traveling, thousands and thousands of western tourists behaving badly. But, taking a tip from our experiences with heat, we thought why not? Why not embrace the cheesy touristy aspect of it? And we also thought Ofir, having his last night in Bangkok might think the same thing. So we hit the Khao San in full swing. As it turned out, Ofir had more taste than we did and was nowhere near the Khao San Rd on his last night in Bangkok, but we had fun nevertheless. We ate a bit of street food and parked ourselves in the cheesiest, most tourist saturated bar and watched the parade of humanity that is Khao San.

Traveling for as long as I have, one tends to lose track of time. It’s been months since I could have told you with any confidence what day of the week it was or what day of the month, once I even got the month wrong. It just isn’t something worth keeping track of; time exists to measure days that in reality aren’t worth measuring. When I was managing a restaurant I could have told you not just day and date, but probably the hour and often right down to the minute because this is how we manage to do the things we have to do. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve had to do anything.

It should then have been no surprise when the phone rang a day earlier than I expected and familiar voice sank slowly into my still sleep-fogged brain. Oh crap. My friends aren’t coming tomorrow, they’re here today. Whoops. I said a hurried goodbye to Matt (yes that was always how it was going to end wasn’t it? Cheers mate), and slipped into the next chapter as it were.

Leah and Kate were staying at the Westin Sukhumvit which was shall we say a bit nicer than my lodgings. It was something akin to culture shock to step into the immaculateness of the Westin after spending the last six months in sleeping quarters where the old saying “don’t let the bed bugs bite” isn’t an antiquated joke, it’s genuine advice. Not that I mind high class resorts nor look down my nose at them, so long as we all understand that high class resorts are for vacations; they don’t qualify as traveling. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Change and adaptability are what got humanity this far and who am I to buck evolutionary trends? So I spent a minute in the lobby before I went up to their room, adjusting myself, adapting. It sounds stupid, but it does take you a minute to orient yourself in five star surroundings after so long in well, whatever.

After adjusting myself to the idea of air conditioning and polished marble floors and cushioned chairs I hopped in the elevator (elevator, damn I forgot about those) thinking this was probably good since I would be back in the west in less than a month and I needed to get used to these things again. I have for some time been dreading returning to the west with all its stodgy formalities and laws and cleanliness. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the west, though I do feel a greater sense of freedom in S.E Asia than I ever have in America, I’ve just forgot what these things are like. My plan is to head from Bangkok to London and then, after visiting a friend I met in India, continuing on to Budapest where I will meet up with my parents and travel central Europe for a month before returning to the States. When the elevator opened into the large luxuriously padded carpet of the Westin’s seventh floor hallway, I realized that I was not mentally prepared to return. I’ve actually come to rather like dodgy food and grungy guesthouses.

River Taxi, Bangkok, Thailand It’s hotter than it ever gets in say Athens, GA in the summer, but not as hot as Seam Reap. It’s bearable if you’re used to it, but coming out of air conditioning into that kind of heat and humidity will quickly drain you.

We decided to give up on the temples and head back to the hotel. The girls went up to the rooftop pool and I set out to buy a plane ticket to London and on to Budapest. After walking around in the heat for two hours and realizing that there is some sort of price fixing travel agent mafia in Bangkok, I gave up and went to the pool myself. After a few hours in the sun and a bit of snooze on the couch, we set out for dinner at Sciorocco. I hadn’t been up to the towers before, but the view was roughly the same as the Baiyoke Sky hotel—stunning. Unfortunately, a few minutes after we were seated, it started to pour. Everyone scattered for cover and the restaurant struggled gamely to accommodate everyone that had been outside, inside. Curiously the only additional seating they seemed to have was a room two floors up which was half set for a wedding reception the next day.

We tried to make ourselves comfortable but it was a bit peculiar, particularly the ceiling which looked like the inside of a massive telescope, white hexagonal tiles with metal bracings and exposed pipeworks, across which various colors of neon lights in cheesy floral patterns performed highly unnatural sweeping motions. For a minute I felt like I was at some really bad laser lights show back in Los Angeles. After sitting there for a few minutes in fits of laughter, half expecting Pink Floyd to come erupting out of some hidden speaker system, we decided that it just wasn’t going to work. Normally I wouldn’t complain about it, I even liked the campy aspect in some ways, but the girls were only going to have one fancy dinner in Bangkok and they understandably didn’t want it to resemble a wedding reception at the Hollywood bowl. After speaking to the hostess, we decided to head down a few floors where there was an Italian restaurant. Not very Thai to be sure, but damn it was good.

The next day the girls left for Phuket. I spent another day in Bangkok, finally bought my ticket to London and on to Budapest, and then caught an overnight bus to Krabia which is about half way down the peninsula of Thailand. The plan was to meet up with Kate and Leah again on Ko Phi Phi. On the bus ride down I met a very nice woman from Sweden and spent the day walking around Krabie with her and while I liked Krabie, I couldn’t see any reason to stay. I caught the last ferry of the day out to Ko Phi Phi.

Phi Phi Don from longtail, Ko Phi Phi, Thailand Koh Phi Phi is small island just south of Phuket, about an hour by ferry, and west of Krabie, about forty minutes by ferry. Actually Koh Phi Phi is two islands, Ko Phi Phi Don which is developed and Ko Phi Phi Leh which is not. Phi Phi Don is a long skinny island which at one point narrows to an isthmus less than a hundred meters across. On both sides of the sandy isthmus are towering limestone cliffs and to the west there is nothing but Andaman Sea. As a result, outside of Phuket, Koh Phi Phi Don was probably hit the hardest by last year’s tsunami. The initial wave actually broke over the island at the isthmus, wiping out the entire area and killing over 1737 people.

The truly strange thing is, aside from a gap in the otherwise omnipresent palm trees and a tsunami memorial, you’d never know the area was almost completely destroyed just over a year ago. Nearly everything has already been rebuilt and life seems to have returned to normal on the island. And for Phi Phi normal means tons of tourists and resorts catering to western cravings—burgers, Swedish meatballs and the ubiquitous traveler favorite, banana pancakes. The problem with Phi Phi is that in spite of its tourism and crowds it is a truly stunning island, one you ought not to miss if you ever find yourself in the area, just be aware of what you’re getting into.

I spent the first night on the isthmus at a small guesthouse slightly inland from the beach and then the next morning I chartered a long tail around the island to the resort on the eastern shore where the girls were staying. After spending most of the day crashing the resort, Leah and Kate finally showed up and I felt a bit more legitimate. The Phi Phi Island Resort where the girls stayed is on the leeward shore of the island with a lovely private beach that slopes ever so slowly into the sea and about two hundred meters out gives way to a beautiful reef. I rented a snorkel and mask and spent the afternoon on the reef with Leah. Generally when people talk of Thailand’s islands they talk of the scuba diving, but the snorkeling is also first rate. The water clarity is generally better than anywhere else I’ve been though evening storms did stir things up a bit while we were there. The best thing about the resort is that it provides an escape from the crowds concentrated around the isthmus. For the better part of the afternoon Leah and I had the reef to ourselves save for the occasional long tail passing off in the distance.

Cruise Ship, Phi Phi Don, Thailand That evening after dinner we booked a boat trip to go around Phi Phi Leh with several stops for snorkeling and swimming. By nine the next morning we were onboard a large powerboat headed for Phi Phi Leh. As we came around the southern tip of Phi Phi Don where the island juts westward toward the isthmus I realized just how lucky we were to be in the relative isolation of the resort. Anchored just off the main harbor was a massive cruise ship which must have deposited several thousand additional people in the isthmus area.

Cliffs Phi Phi Leh, Thailand Though there was no reef below it was nevertheless amazingly beautiful. We anchored for half and hour and took turns jumping off the upper decks of the boat into the perfect, bathwater warm, cyan-colored bay.

I’ve never personally seen it, but supposedly the movie The Beach was filmed there. After lunch we continued around the backside of Phi Phi Leh which consisted mainly of imposing sheer cliffs that rise straight out of the sea. After rounding the northern point of the Island which conveys just how narrow Phi Phi Leh actually is, we headed back to the resort. As Phi Phi Leh shrunk in the distance I watched my fellow backpackers zoom by on speedboats packed together like sardines under the meager shade on cheap canvas canopies. Silly backpackers.

That evening we watched the clouds glow pink and orange and bright red with the fading light of a sunset we couldn’t directly see and I taught the girls how to play shithead, which Leah and Kate on the Boat, Ko Phi Phi Leh, Thailand I proceeded to lose at. Rather badly. The results of which shall not be mentioned here. The next day I headed back to join my fellow silly backpackers on the isthmus (luckily the cruise ship had moved on by then). It was really nice to spend time with Kate and Leah, you meet many people when you’re traveling but it’s not often that you get to see people from home. Thank you girls for letting me crash your vacation and I hope you had as much fun as I did. I only wish we had more time. Oh and for those who were wondering… I charged the whole thing to the Underhill’s credit card. You want the number?

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- - - - - - - diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/going-down-south.txt b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/going-down-south.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f7c2d59..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/going-down-south.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,48 +0,0 @@ -Going Down South -================ - - by Scott Gilbertson - - Tuesday, 11 April 2006 - -Matt and I spent one day by ourselves in Sinoukville and though we never spoke of it I thought it was pretty appropriate that when we went back to the beach shack with the good food they were closed. When we tried to spend the afternoon in the sun, it poured. But then I write, so a bit of drama is never a bad thing. - -We had a good time anyway. And the next morning we headed back across the border into Thailand. Strange to think that I had gone to Laos for the sole purpose of renewing my Thai visa and here I was, three months later, finally returning to Thailand. If I've learned anything it's the truth of Woody Allen's phrase, "if you want to make god laugh, have a plan." - -By a strange act of god (who must have been having himself a laugh at the time), both Matt and I were headed back to Bangkok to meet up with friends from home. But before that we made an honest effort at tracking down Ofir. I had kept up with Ofir via email ever since he left Laos, and, though I hadn't heard from him in a few days. I knew he should be in Bangkok at the same time as Matt and I. I also knew that he was flying out the next day to return home to Israel. I compulsively checked my email throughout the evening but never heard anything. Matt and I hatched a plan that must have split god's sides with laughter; we decided to set out into Bangkok in some vain hope of running into Ofir. A city of seven million, how hard could it be? - -Our best hope was the Khao San Rd. I don't believe I devoted any time to the Khao San Rd in my previous Bangkok posts which is largely because I avoided it like the plague. Khao San is everything I don't like about traveling, thousands and thousands of western tourists behaving badly. But, taking a tip from our experiences with heat, we thought why not? Why not embrace the cheesy touristy aspect of it? And we also thought Ofir, having his last night in Bangkok might think the same thing. So we hit the Khao San in full swing. As it turned out, Ofir had more taste than we did and was nowhere near the Khao San Rd on his last night in Bangkok, but we had fun nevertheless. We ate a bit of street food and parked ourselves in the cheesiest, most tourist saturated bar and watched the parade of humanity that is Khao San. - -And then we gave up. The next day we both had errands to run, I need a plane ticket to London among other things and so Matt and I split up for the day, which was a bit strange since all the time he and Debi and I traveled together we always stuck together. But the strangest part is, and this goes to show you the fallacy of plans, about six hours later Matt and I ran into each other at the central pier. Yes, in a city of seven million, I ran into the one person I knew. This is why planning never works. Things happen or they don't and there's nothing you can do about it. - -Traveling for as long as I have, one tends to lose track of time. It's been months since I could have told you with any confidence what day of the week it was or what day of the month, once I even got the month wrong. It just isn't something worth keeping track of; time exists to measure days that in reality aren't worth measuring. When I was managing a restaurant I could have told you not just day and date, but probably the hour and often right down to the minute because this is how we manage to do the things we have to do. It's been nearly a year since I've had to do anything. - -It should then have been no surprise when the phone rang a day earlier than I expected and familiar voice sank slowly into my still sleep-fogged brain. Oh crap. My friends aren't coming tomorrow, they're here today. Whoops. I said a hurried goodbye to Matt (yes that was always how it was going to end wasn't it? Cheers mate), and slipped into the next chapter as it were. - -Leah and Kate were staying at the Westin Sukhumvit which was shall we say a bit nicer than my lodgings. It was something akin to culture shock to step into the immaculateness of the Westin after spending the last six months in sleeping quarters where the old saying "don't let the bed bugs bite" isn't an antiquated joke, it's genuine advice. Not that I mind high class resorts nor look down my nose at them, so long as we all understand that high class resorts are for vacations; they don't qualify as traveling. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Change and adaptability are what got humanity this far and who am I to buck evolutionary trends? So I spent a minute in the lobby before I went up to their room, adjusting myself, adapting. It sounds stupid, but it does take you a minute to orient yourself in five star surroundings after so long in well, whatever. - -After adjusting myself to the idea of air conditioning and polished marble floors and cushioned chairs I hopped in the elevator (elevator, damn I forgot about those) thinking this was probably good since I would be back in the west in less than a month and I needed to get used to these things again. I have for some time been dreading returning to the west with all its stodgy formalities and laws and cleanliness. I don't necessarily have a problem with the west, though I do feel a greater sense of freedom in S.E Asia than I ever have in America, I've just forgot what these things are like. My plan is to head from Bangkok to London and then, after visiting a friend I met in India, continuing on to Budapest where I will meet up with my parents and travel central Europe for a month before returning to the States. When the elevator opened into the large luxuriously padded carpet of the Westin's seventh floor hallway, I realized that I was not mentally prepared to return. I've actually come to rather like dodgy food and grungy guesthouses. - - River Taxi, Bangkok, Thailand

It's hotter than it ever gets in say Athens, GA in the summer, but not as hot as Seam Reap. It's bearable if you're used to it, but coming out of air conditioning into that kind of heat and humidity will quickly drain you. - -We decided to give up on the temples and head back to the hotel. The girls went up to the rooftop pool and I set out to buy a plane ticket to London and on to Budapest. After walking around in the heat for two hours and realizing that there is some sort of price fixing travel agent mafia in Bangkok, I gave up and went to the pool myself. After a few hours in the sun and a bit of snooze on the couch, we set out for dinner at Sciorocco. I hadn't been up to the towers before, but the view was roughly the same as the Baiyoke Sky hotel—stunning. Unfortunately, a few minutes after we were seated, it started to pour. Everyone scattered for cover and the restaurant struggled gamely to accommodate everyone that had been outside, inside. Curiously the only additional seating they seemed to have was a room two floors up which was half set for a wedding reception the next day. - -We tried to make ourselves comfortable but it was a bit peculiar, particularly the ceiling which looked like the inside of a massive telescope, white hexagonal tiles with metal bracings and exposed pipeworks, across which various colors of neon lights in cheesy floral patterns performed highly unnatural sweeping motions. For a minute I felt like I was at some really bad laser lights show back in Los Angeles. After sitting there for a few minutes in fits of laughter, half expecting Pink Floyd to come erupting out of some hidden speaker system, we decided that it just wasn't going to work. Normally I wouldn't complain about it, I even liked the campy aspect in some ways, but the girls were only going to have one fancy dinner in Bangkok and they understandably didn't want it to resemble a wedding reception at the Hollywood bowl. After speaking to the hostess, we decided to head down a few floors where there was an Italian restaurant. Not very Thai to be sure, but damn it was good. - -The next day the girls left for Phuket. I spent another day in Bangkok, finally bought my ticket to London and on to Budapest, and then caught an overnight bus to Krabia which is about half way down the peninsula of Thailand. The plan was to meet up with Kate and Leah again on Ko Phi Phi. On the bus ride down I met a very nice woman from Sweden and spent the day walking around Krabie with her and while I liked Krabie, I couldn't see any reason to stay. I caught the last ferry of the day out to Ko Phi Phi. - - Phi Phi Don from longtail, Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

Phi Phi Don from longtail, Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

Koh Phi Phi is small island just south of Phuket, about an hour by ferry, and west of Krabie, about forty minutes by ferry. Actually Koh Phi Phi is two islands, Ko Phi Phi Don which is developed and Ko Phi Phi Leh which is not. Phi Phi Don is a long skinny island which at one point narrows to an isthmus less than a hundred meters across. On both sides of the sandy isthmus are towering limestone cliffs and to the west there is nothing but Andaman Sea. As a result, outside of Phuket, Koh Phi Phi Don was probably hit the hardest by last year's tsunami. The initial wave actually broke over the island at the isthmus, wiping out the entire area and killing over 1737 people. - -The truly strange thing is, aside from a gap in the otherwise omnipresent palm trees and a tsunami memorial, you'd never know the area was almost completely destroyed just over a year ago. Nearly everything has already been rebuilt and life seems to have returned to normal on the island. And for Phi Phi normal means tons of tourists and resorts catering to western cravings—burgers, Swedish meatballs and the ubiquitous traveler favorite, banana pancakes. The problem with Phi Phi is that in spite of its tourism and crowds it is a truly stunning island, one you ought not to miss if you ever find yourself in the area, just be aware of what you're getting into. - -I spent the first night on the isthmus at a small guesthouse slightly inland from the beach and then the next morning I chartered a long tail around the island to the resort on the eastern shore where the girls were staying. After spending most of the day crashing the resort, Leah and Kate finally showed up and I felt a bit more legitimate. The Phi Phi Island Resort where the girls stayed is on the leeward shore of the island with a lovely private beach that slopes ever so slowly into the sea and about two hundred meters out gives way to a beautiful reef. I rented a snorkel and mask and spent the afternoon on the reef with Leah. Generally when people talk of Thailand's islands they talk of the scuba diving, but the snorkeling is also first rate. The water clarity is generally better than anywhere else I've been though evening storms did stir things up a bit while we were there. The best thing about the resort is that it provides an escape from the crowds concentrated around the isthmus. For the better part of the afternoon Leah and I had the reef to ourselves save for the occasional long tail passing off in the distance. - - Cruise Ship, Phi Phi Don, Thailand

turquoise waters, Ko Phi Phi Leh, Thailand

Though there was no reef below it was nevertheless amazingly beautiful. We anchored for half and hour and took turns jumping off the upper decks of the boat into the perfect, bathwater warm, cyan-colored bay. - -After swimming for a while in the bay we began to circle around the island to the west. Our next stop was a sheltered lagoon which holds the only real beach of Phi Phi Leh. We stopped for lunch and bit of swimming and sunbathing. - -I've never personally seen it, but supposedly the movie The Beach was filmed there. After lunch we continued around the backside of Phi Phi Leh which consisted mainly of imposing sheer cliffs that rise straight out of the sea. After rounding the northern point of the Island which conveys just how narrow Phi Phi Leh actually is, we headed back to the resort. As Phi Phi Leh shrunk in the distance I watched my fellow backpackers zoom by on speedboats packed together like sardines under the meager shade on cheap canvas canopies. Silly backpackers. - -That evening we watched the clouds glow pink and orange and bright red with the fading light of a sunset we couldn't directly see and I taught the girls how to play shithead, which Leah and Kate on the Boat, Ko Phi Phi Leh, Thailand

Leah and Kate on the Boat, Ko Phi Phi Leh, Thailand

I proceeded to lose at. Rather badly. The results of which shall not be mentioned here. The next day I headed back to join my fellow silly backpackers on the isthmus (luckily the cruise ship had moved on by then). It was really nice to spend time with Kate and Leah, you meet many people when you're traveling but it's not often that you get to see people from home. Thank you girls for letting me crash your vacation and I hope you had as much fun as I did. I only wish we had more time. Oh and for those who were wondering… I charged the whole thing to the Underhill's credit card. You want the number? diff --git a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/index.html b/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/index.html deleted file mode 100644 index 720ee4c..0000000 --- a/bak/oldluxpages/jrnlold/2006/04/index.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,110 +0,0 @@ - - - - - Luxagraf - Topografical Writings: Archive - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Archive: April 2006

Bird of Paradise - Apr 22, 2006 -
Beginning of the End - Apr 12, 2006 -
Going Down South - Apr 11, 2006 -

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