Life in Paradise (Well, Sort Of) – A drunken rant…

This place is very charming. One of the most charming places in the world I think. I can only explain it like my first impression of New Mexico. They call New Mexico “The Land of Enchantment” and I found out very quickly why. The place is “other-worldly.” I came across moths the size and shape of hummingbirds minus the long beak, You can look at the same landscape and the shadow from the clouds falling on the ground morph what you are looking at within just minutes. Everything there was dazzling and new. My experience of being there describes the awe and freshness of being here. Of course this is a jungle rain forest mountain range hugging a long stretch of white sand beaches. Both of which beg to be explored. Like last week my friend Richard and I took a hike to explore the rain forest mountain which is in my backyard. We rode in as far as the paved path would take us and then we began our hike along the river that headed to the top in hopes of finding a hidden waterfall. I don’t think I’ll forget our time together as we hiked up the mountain and poor Richard ill equipped on the mosquito repellant department surrounded by a cloud of mozzies as thick as the grey clouds above us supplying a constant drizzle on our heads.
But that’s just the shit of it all… You know…you make friends and they become part of your life and things are normal for awhile and you have fun experiences and great adventures – and then they leave.
I think that has been one of the hardest things for me… Chris has been my best friend for 3 years and he’s always been next door to me when I needed someone. Now there are a just a wave of people coming and going much like the tsunami that hit here. It makes an impact on your life and then recedes away. I think this place takes a toll on a lot of people. People just cope by hitting the bars in town. Usually the people that are volunteering are traveling to other places and stop through Khao Lak on their way. So they stay from 2 weeks to a month. Just enough time to get to know them and develop friendships and then they leave. And of course there is either someone’s last night in town or a birthday each evening which means more drinking and debauchery.
I’ve been pulling in more and more as I lose more and more friends. It gets pretty lonely sometimes, but I think that is more of a resistance to adapt rather than the circumstances. There is no denying that it is tough when the same pattern repeats itself: someone interesting and fresh comes in and stays for a month and then all of a sudden it is their last day here. You exchange email addresses as you do, and then you have an email address and maybe receive an occasional email with “Hey how are things going in Khao Lak”
“Well things are crap here,” I want to say… “There was a tsunami that killed 8,000 people and while there are 60 or so volunteers here at any given time working on a 25 kilometer stretch of coast, which has been largely ignored by the Government and the organizations that collected all that fucking money, there is very little justice or balance in this whole situation. And while it’s Saturday fucking night and while everyone is getting tossed at the bar I am writing this, pretty fucking tossed myself actually, halfway through my bottle of Sang Som, I find myself increasingly pissed off at the Red Cross, these mother fucking mosquitoes and the lonlyness I feel.”
Now I do have a shitload of music and I am comforted by the fact that I could listen to 58 days, 18 hours, 47 minutes and 12 seconds of music before I hear a song over. But… sometimes it just doesn’t cut it.