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In February of 2015, my friend Wally Sanger died of natural causes at Paradise Lost on Ko Kradan.
I spent two weeks on Ko Kradan. I arrived their on a whim. I had been island hopping, traveling alone after a long time with a group, working my way down the Andaman sea side of the Thai peninsula for the better part of the month, mostly by convincing day trip snorkel boats to drop me at various relatively remote islands.
Ko Kradan was not supposed to be the last. I was heading down to Thailand's Tarutao National Marine Park and then perhaps into Malaysia, but I never made it. And the reason I never made it was Wally Sanger and Ko Kradan.
There was a storm blowing in the day I was dropped off so the snorkle boat I had convinced to take me from Ko Hai down to Ko Kradan would only drop my at an isolated beach on the windward side of the island. I jumped out from the bow and my bag hit the ground about the same time I did. The boat was gone two minutes later. The beach was small and lined with a thick wall of jungle. It was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I could tell it would be pouring in 15 minutes.
I sat down on the sand and smoked a cigarette. I figured, worst case scenario, I'd get a little wet.
The guidebook I had claimed there was a trail to the other side of the island, and somewhere over there were a couple of guesthouses. It took me ten minutes to find the trail and another ten to make it to the other side of the island. The rain held off longer than I thought. The first place I encountered was Wally's Paradise Lost.
He offered me a room, but at this point I had been in southeast asia for nine months, no way I was taking a room from the first farang I met. I might have literally been fresh off the boat, but metaphorically I was too cynical to take Wally up without surveying the island first. I set off for the other guesthouse on the island, which was down on the beach.
The rain hit at the edge of the tree line on the leeward beach. I followed a couple of dogs deeper into the trees for shelter. A woman walked up off the beach and came into the thicket. We chatted for a while and she talked me out of even seeing the other guesthouse by describing it as “more of a refugee camp.” I did later head down there and that was in fact an apt description.
I went back and got a room at Paradise Lost. Wally seemed entirely unperturbed by my snub and reversal; I trust he had seen more than few of my kind -- there's no shortage of self assured dumbasses in Thailand. I would not have blamed him for being a bit standoffish with me, but he was in fact the opposite. That night he pulled some ribeye steaks out of the freezer for me, as well as Tony and Zoe, the only other people staying there are the time. Sure, I paid for the steaks, that's not the point. They weren't on the menu.
The whole of Paradise Lost was like that. There were quite a few layers to the place. There was the one most people saw while I was there, which was the standard guesthouse experience. It was a clean, friendly and cheap place. There'd be no reason to complain if that was all you ever got.
He will be missed. Condolences to his family and anyone who had the great pleasure of knowing him.
http://www.offbeatthailand.com/2015/04/17/ko-kradans-wally-sanger/
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