William Bay Photographic Arts

Christmas here in Thailand was really amazing. 85 degrees on a tropical beach with a special person, a former volunteer that came back on her holiday break to spend Christmas with me. Last night in low light, our last sunset we said good bye before she walked to her plane. The prior two and a half weeks were spent bouncing around Southern Thailand’s beaches and cruising from one island to the next.

The One Year Anniversary was the day after Christmas. Attended by thousands the ceremony was an amazing sight of diversity, emotion and light. Held right next to the beach where over three thousand Thai and Foreign people were killed, the Prime Minister gave his emotionless and banal speech and the Princess of Thailand, who’s son died in the tsunami, gave her engaging speech in Thai and thanked the volunteers and foreigners that helped in English.

The highlight: 5,000 floating lanterns of light made from rice-paper were lit and released into the air creating a manmade constellation hundreds of feet in the air. While below on the ground every person at the ceremony lifted there burning candles in remembrance. A beautiful and highly emotional evening to mark a years time.

New Years will be celebrated with my Arrogant Bastard Ale that was brought from home, and maybe some homemade tacos for the Feliz Ano Nuevo.

AHHHHH!!! What happened? Why is Ahman Green not playing, why isn’t Robert Ferguson playing? Why are my fellow cheesehead wearing, funny talking Wisconson-ites hearts breaking all over Green Bay?

I hope they can turn this season around. I haven’t seen a losing season since I’ve been a fan… I’m not sure how I would cope…

There have been a few nights I’ve been swinging in the hammock at the Fisherman Bar with some young co-ed volunteer from Canada or England. And I know, I know – the only good looking women in England are actually tourists and Canadians talk funny, Eh. But, there have been a few exceptions that have slipped under the radar and into the hammock with me on such nights.
Sometimes, though, I’ve found myself wanting just a little more than a swing and a fling. I guess I want to share my thoughts, hear other’s, fall asleep next to someone. It’d be nice.

I found it for a small time in another volunteer…

For the sake of anonymity let’s just call her Heather Burt of Austin, Texas.
Dustin introduced us and we all went to the beach to watch the sunset and drink Chang beer. She rode on my bike and we sang “Hooked on a Feeling” as we climbed the mountain and down into town.
I seduced her one night. Not sure how, we were both sober, but watching “Garden State” seemed to do the trick. For the next couple of days before she left we would spend time together. I’d put on some Otis Redding and we would fall asleep and wake up intermittently throughout the night.
She’s coming back in December incidentally. She must really like my big… music collection.

One of the Thap Tawan village elders Seewai invited us to go octopus fishing one day. I had no idea how to catch an octopus (moy wai in Thai) and the night before I had visions of heading out to sea in a longtail boat and snorkeling down with spearguns and fighting huge octopus. So morning comes along and a couple of us collected at the road to wait for Adam who told us he’d be by before 5:45 in the morning. 6AM goes by and we haven’t seen him yet. With my motor bike I rode down the way to see if there were anyone else waiting and ran into Josh and Jen who were still waiting also, I rode to Adam’s and found the truck still there which meant he was still asleep. Scrambling when woken up he yells at me that it’s only 4 in the morning. After pointing out to him that the the sun is up and since we are so close to the equator the sun usually rises around 6 in the morning. He then mutters something about his phone being wrong and throws on some shorts and runs outside. Well, on the way. Then we get out there late and Seewai was waiting for us. He took us out to the beach where there was no boat waiting, no spearguns for us, no snorkels. ”

What were we going to do?” I thought as Seewai just kept walking out to the water which was pretty well receded as it was low tide. So everyone just followed him. We walked out to the offshore reef and saw some really cool things on our way out we saw plenty of sea slugs (which apparently you can jerk off and they will cum all over your hand… Nice), we saw about 5 puffer fish that were just chilling out in the reef and puffing up when we sloshed by, lot’s of crabs, in fact we caught those as bait for the octopus.

This is how we learned to catch an octopus: You take a piece of crab meat and stick it on the end of a string or piece of seagrass. Then you look for small holes in the sand in the reef areas and stick the crabmeat in the hole. Wait until the octopus comes out and then you stick it with a long metal prong. Then string them up and take them home to cook them up. One of the girls, Koi, had her own unorthodox way of catching them; She let them catch her. We walked up to her and an octopus had wrapped itself around her leg!!!

It was a fascinating day out on the reef. The morning light gave way to the harsh mid-day sun, and we made our way back to shore.

It’s rained off and on since I arrived in Southern Thailand. A little storm here, a little 20 minute shower there. But this was something else!!! It started just as the rest had, a light fall in the afternoon

The view from my porch at 5 in the morning during the first storm of the rainy season

But as the others had not done, it did not stop… For a week actually. I had never been in a storm that had rained 24 hours a day for a full week.

The first night was a fantasy come true. I had never been in a storm as violent as the storm that night. Lightning and thunder crashed down like I’ve never seen it before. It was a show aside from the show I was reading. Now I had seen “The Beach” but had never read it. I must say I am not a huge reader but I was captivated so much by Alex Garlands book and by the vibey electric tempest going on I was dead set on finishing this book given to me by a girl I call Baby Spice.

I sat on my front porch until 5 or 6 in the morning and read and read and looked up occasionally as a bolt struck down close by. The storm decreased in intensity but continued for another 6 days as Khao Lak was saturated by rain drops.

On Monday when work resumed we worked on in the rain, sluggish at times, but we worked on.