19 October, 2005
#10
13:52, a bejegyzést én írtam
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I know I have never been....
.... or never will be emotionally self-reliant. the question is, how realistic is it to wait for others to save my life on a daily basis? my lover, my students, my friends.... - as long as I can give, maybe I can get away with it. but what will happen if I dry up? if I stand there once again in the classroom with nothing to give any more. if I look into the eyes of the man I love and I can't help him with anything any more. and now I want to hope and believe that things will straighten out and calm down and start to make sense in Thailand. the difference is, I cannot walk on that road again with an innocent mind and heart, as I have an idea where it leads to. if I'm lucky and can fit in a community, I will be stronger and happier. I will be me. and then I'll start having the delusion I can handle a love relationship and I am enough to have children of my own. and then I will fail. please lead me on another path this time....
17 October, 2005
#9
18:02, a bejegyzést én írtam
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I confess I'm rather spoilt....
....but it's the fault of my Chinese boss Mr Chang. the thing is, if you are employed by a Chinese in a traditional small town, you have lots of duties (especially to work until you drop), but he is also responsible for you in ways that would even be considered offensive back here. whatever you need beyond a simple takeaway meal must go through him. he arranges your health insurance and bank account, and has your scooter registered to his name. excellent. all utility bills sent to and paid by the school and deducted from your salary. great idea. your scooter breaks down, go and visit his childhood friend's garage. your gas cylinders run out, call him, because the gas-man's wife is scared of speaking in English over the phone. need to digitalise your print photos? he knows the best place, run by one of his wife's relatives. need a tv set? don't buy one, he can arrange that you borrow it from the parents of one of the kids at school, at no charge. comfy, huh? trouble starts if you need something not covered by the circle of his friends and relatives - then he gets stuck and is just as helpless as a five-year-old wanting to cross a major intersection on his own. that was the case with my laptop, which I got from a colleague as a Christmas present. very nice Chinese settings and softwares, I do acknowledge, not to mention the keyboard, but for some reason I would have preferred windows in English. he couldn't find anyone to fix it for me, so one day when I was fed up with the whole thing, I took the laptop, got on my (his) scooter and set out to find a computer shop. I soon found one, the typical apartment-and-shop kind of family business. it was a little bit late in the evening, some of the family was having dinner, and one of the kids was practising playing the flute or violin, I don't remember exactly. one of the kids spoke some English and explained his dad was upstairs taking a shower, and went off to get him. so, there I was, with my laptop, and that man in bathrobe and wet dripping hair. he was nice and patient and fixed everything by the next day, at a reasonable charge. but it turned out he was some relative or friend of the manager of the other English-language kindergarten nearby, my boss was quite cross and I was told off, I wasn't supposed to go to the "enemy" to get my laptop fixed, basically. but I got away quite lightly. my colleague had a tougher time when he wanted to rent an apartment, and the only one our boss's contacts managed to find was a really crappy one way out of town, expensive and with appalling plumbing - well, that's basically a euphemism for a toilet you cannot flush, and that's no joke at that climate I assure you. that's where he ended up having to stay for a while. when he had enough and arranged another apartment through one of his own Chinese friends, well that diverted the attention from my laptop for good. - so, in a way I'm horribly spoilt. the only thing that was not arranged for us was a proper work permit, but it was the standard procedure back then to be employed on a student visa. and now I'm trying to find information on visas and insurance and bank accounts and all this nuisance made me remember my Chinese boss. he was very difficult to relate to in many ways, he was stubborn and sometimes drunk for days on end (no wonder, with two wives, five daughters, one son and one niece to take care of!), but overall, this boss-employee relationship did work out quite well given the setting it would have been very difficult otherwise.
I'll need to figure out how all this works with the Thais. no matter how many months I have spent there so far, it doesn't count, because I was a traveller back then. now I'll need to fit in. and find a job and a boss in the very first place....
#8
14:19, a bejegyzést én írtam
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My unseen Thailand....
....includes that afternoon when we were wringing and hanging clothes to dry up on the roof, and ran to get them when the downpour started. the lodgings had no windows, and the air was incredibly humid and stuffy in there. the big ceiling fan was creaking and whirling but it still felt like breathing through a sponge. and the security guard didn't understand any of my broken Thai with wrong tones all over the place. I liked staying there, and being allowed to go through the inevitable phases of extinguishing the fire. it's a special gift when the man understands that I need to stay and wrap it all up, instead of tearing everything apart forcefully from one moment to the other. so many men fail the simplest of things, like treating the woman they once cherished as a dirty doormat to tread upon after the breakup. it's one of the most humiliating among attitudes and behaviours widely considered normal, and I had had my unfair share of it. but it wasn't the case on this occasion. I was feeling deeply sorry about having to hurt someone who loved and respected me more than I ever deserved. the pure childlike love of a young man, and a woman who wanted to make it happen but just couldn't, didn't have the courage, or whatever it would have taken....something was missing, something had gone astray.... and now I have to come back to these memories and deal with them, learn from them, now that the sun shines on them at a different angle two years on....
15 October, 2005
#7
15:54, a bejegyzést én írtam
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I still don't quite understand....
what made me say "I'm a Christian" when commenting on somethings at the blogs. ok, in a way I understand very clearly, this is the religion that I know, sort of. it's not only that I read about it or participated at some ceremonies, but it's also been all around since I was a child. and that's so very powerful, even if you feel alienated or you don't agree with things rationally, what you experience as a child will always be at the very root of your being, no matter if it's good or bad or frustrating or exciting. and then later no matter how much you learn and read, it will never be the same. now I don't like going to Christian ceremonies any more, they are so cold for me, they lack that warm spirit radiating from the Bible, just as most churches are miserably cold even on the hottest summer day because of the thick walls. I always get the feeling that something has gone fatally wrong with this religion in the past 2000 years, I just don't see the teachings of Jesus leading all the way to the exaggerations and mass murders of the middle ages by the church, or to capitalist economy in the so-called Christian countries. something just doesn't "click" for me, there is an unfathomable chasm (I haven't a clue where these words came from at the moment, let's rather make it wide gap) between theory and practice. if I must pick something, I'm Christian because that's my background, but on the whole I would prefer not to associate myself with the church itself. if Jesus hadn't resurrected, he would be spinning around in his grave seeing what has been going on in his name in my opinion. if I could choose, Buddhism would be the one to go for. I really like how the ancient philosophy can manifest itself in everyday life, it's not something confined to the space enclosed by four walls. they still know something that's long gone from our culture. I know there are Christian communities, and it's not impossible at all, but it's not everyday life and everyday value and belief systems any more. but I don't think it's possible to switch religions and ways of life to the full, it's never going to be internalised to that extent. but that's not just simply an excuse on my part for giving up learning before I even start :-) there are lots of things I'm interested in and intend to learn about. - by the way, my brother's at a meditation weekend with his teachers and mates from Buddhist College. I could have had the chance to join, but I prefer not to sleep at a simple chalet or what when it's merely 10 degrees outside, and at the moment my wish to stay kind of healthy at least is much stronger than learning about Buddhism. oh well. :-) all this thing with the Buddhist community in Hungary is a funny idea for me, it's so out of context, detached from the society surrounding it. I'd be interested in a study describing this situation, sociology or psychology, something like that.
(my English is horribly sloppy today :-( I hate it. the post will stay all the same.)
13 October, 2005
#6
23:16, a bejegyzést én írtam
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one of the crowd...
my blog is just one of 45035 blogs currently registered at freeblog. I'm just one of the thousands of young teachers looking for a job in my city (or, rather, not any more). one of the millions of 29-year-olds looking for love in this wild wide world. one of the tens of thousands who dream about moving to Thailand and starting all over. one of the millions typing at the moment and munching on something at the same time (so typical of me!) I feel so lost. I'm not special. I'm not the one for anybody. I'm not unique in anything - or, rather, my unique Eeyore-ness is not something that would help a lot with anything. I'm not a specialist in any area, I'm sooo average in all respects. just one of the crowd.... I'll be one of the farangs trying to settle down and fit in. trying to learn the language. struggling with the visa. choking on spicy food. I want to be different somehow, in some way. and to make a difference. I'm still a dreamer. :-) but it's a memory now, the magic itself is long gone. it's not a deep longing I feel - I just know and remember what I must do and why. that's the hardest, probably: knowing that I'll need to be different, and I'm not quite certain how quickly and how strong that person hibernated somewhere deep inside me can come back to life and take over. maybe it's just a matter of seconds? - I guess I'm thinking way too much. it was much easier when I didn't know a thing about Thailand or myself. no expectations, nothing. if only I could live my entire life like that....
Farang's cat pics made me think. I'll need to adopt a cat. but once you do that.... it's such a huge responsibility. I feel guilty enough about Blacky (hihi, Bleki, that's how I spell it usually) anyway. the best-natured male company in my entire life so far - very flattering, isn't it?
it's crazy, I'm thinking about the details, and not the big issues.... how I'm gonna find a job or sort out my visa situation, or rent an apartment.... no, I'm thinking about cats! that makes me worry. but trying to arrange any of the rest now would make me much, much more worried I guess.
11 October, 2005
#5
13:24, a bejegyzést én írtam
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I remember....
....that I meant to write about uniforms, and a sense of belonging, and related stuff, but I don't remember exactly what I was getting at when I was writing mentally this post yesterday. waiting in queues boosts the number of mental posts - thought not their quality, necessarily. I just really wish some mind-reading software was developed solely for this purpose: that my wonderful and awful thoughts don't get lost forever. it would be so nice to read them over again and laugh at them. oh yes, I'm in love with myself :-) we have a kind of love-hate relationship, to be more precise. I seem to be the only person having a proper, complex relationship with me.
anyway. I just don't know why I start going crazy at the very moment when I switch to English :-)
uniforms. I actually liked to wear the white-and-red t-shirt of my school back in Taiwan. I still wear it sometimes, I didn't get rid of it. it just reminds me of a place where I belonged and where part of me still belongs. sometimes I wish we had uniforms back here, just simple ones, not necessarily a shirt-and-tie nightmare. schoolkids have started to wear really outrageous outfits, there are bare bellies, weirdo haircuts, piercings, you name it, and sure, the brand name wars raging. recently dress codes have been outlawed, in the name of freedom of self-expression. it will be a long but speedy slope we are heading for. everything has changed so much since I left school. even since I left teaching at a regular school. - what got me started thinking about this a few days ago was one of the threads in the forum archives, about scrapping the old haircut rule in Thailand. now schools can set their own regulations, which does not please everyone: they consider that the beginning of the slope, concerned about fashionable hairdos and rivalry between girls, the appearance of long-haired boys. I remember that on my last visit I saw little schoolgirls with neat ponytails, with cute blue ribbons, and I liked it. so much nicer than those ricebowl-haircuts. I hope the regulation hasn't been changed back since then, and people have learnt to deal with it. - and I also recalled Wendy and some of my older Chinese students back at the end of grade 6, when all of them had to have their hair cut short for the next three years leading them up to the most important exams. I was told it's a sacrifice, to teach girls not to be vain, and concentrate on their studies and exams instead. does it work? I don't know. the girls were really sad about their ponytails, I remember that. - can you imagine things like that back here? we all seem to have different "slopes". is it complete chaos we are heading for, at the end, no matter what? and how much time do we still have left?
#4
02:33, a bejegyzést én írtam
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emotional rollercoasters....
are soooo familiar to me, I should know them inside out and especially upside down by now - but somehow I just still can't come to terms with them. I guess I would need some time away, at an emotional fishing pond maybe, so that the nausea eases a little bit, and I'm ready for another ride.... something like that. less poetically and more scientifically, maybe one could say I'm emotionally saturated. or, to use an everyday term, quite simply, fed up. not that I ever liked rollercoasters, anyway. I actually hate them. really makes me wonder what on earth I could have got so completely wrong in my previous life that now I must be going on these rides all the time - and even pay for them in one way or another! I would just prefer a quiet walk in the zoo, or something. but.... on second thought, sometimes I have the impression that actually I AM sharing this rollercoaster with a bunch of.... well.... a not-so-nice assortment of animals. oh well. I would have a story or two to tell for sure. not this time.
I think I would prefer a simple, boring life. as long as there is internet ;-) no self-realisation in the modern sense. just being a part of something larger, something that makes sense. a place with living traditions and common values that are not just taught at school. fitting in a puzzle. what on earth is a single bit of a thousand-piece puzzle supposed to do on its own? it makes no sense whatsoever, simply put. that's how I feel. I got mixed up with the wrong set, and it's taken me too long to figure out that I belong to a different puzzle. for a while insisted that this set must be the one, I know most of the pieces, I could see the big picture taking shape. I wasn't ready to face the truth that I'm lost. it's a funny puzzle, this one. the pieces do fit together, many of them, but they prefer to go separate most of the time. and sometimes they even try to fit in to the inappropriate slots deliberately, just to make a mess! can you imagine that? I don't quite understand what's actually taking place and I keep missing the point, really. in my dreams, there is a different puzzle. probably not better or more beautiful than this one, and I don't even know it, I would also feel lost there. but there is a chance it might be my puzzle after all. - well, I'm just doing terribly badly at these individualistic life-assignments. nothing can fatally go wrong, just nothing is right. many people live with that. I can't.
ok, let's do some daydreaming about my ideal itinerary. about finding my puzzle.... or what. so easy to get entangled in my own images. maipenrai. I know at least what I'm talking about – or, do I? here it goes then. 1. lying in my hammock and going snorkelling every day, for about a week. forgetting about all this rubbish back here and washing away all the pain. - snorkelling works wonders in this respect. it must have to do with returning to the very roots of my being. I really wish I could trace my ancestors back to a fish :-) or maybe it's just that floating feeling reminding me of having been an embryo way, way back in time. well, ok, not quite as long ago as those fish ancestors, but still, lost in time for my conscious self. 2. going to a kindergarten or school for some time, just to watch things happen, get used to ideas and patterns, sharpen up a little bit, and get my mind set back on track. 3. finding a job and getting a work permit. getting settled. getting used to the ways at school. improving my teaching skills. meeting people. making friends. learning Thai. learning to cook Thai food. riding motorcycle. surviving this. enjoying life. 4. finding myself right in the middle of a girl meets boy storyline. boy meets girl would also be fine. I don't insist on all the other soapy ingredients. just something boring and happy. two kids. or three. two cats. the usual stuff. 5. writing the book I've always wanted to write. becoming rich and famous. :-)
I've always been exceptionally good at dreaming up things. years of experience can lead to a refined skill in working out everything right down to the finest of details. - I guess now this line of thought should come back to that puzzle above, and get summed up in some nice touching conclusion, but now this is a do it yourself piece of art. go ahead with your storyline. I'll go get some sleep, and try to dream about floating in the water right in the middle of a school of fish. no, it's not that kind of school job I've been referring to, hopefully. proud of my fish(y) ancestry though.
and my fingers just keep typing all the nonsense suggested to them by my sleeeepy, confused, enthusiastic, scared-to-death mind. trying to take it lightly. making fun of myself. looking at the world upside down. or sometimes inside out. no, no more roller coaster rides for today please. let me have a night off with this smile of a naughty child on my face.
09 October, 2005
#3
00:45, a bejegyzést én írtam
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mai pen rai....
....was not the first Thai phrase I learnt, but the first I could really use naturally, even half-asleep.... sometimes I was struggling with the attitude.... but I was managing quite well on the whole.... I had harsher and more cruel culture shocks when coming back.... over there, it was mainly culture bumps.... if I managed to deal with the Chinese.... fought and fought all my way to be able to live with them and their ways.... no, I don't think it will be shocking. difficult, yes. emotional, undoubtedly. unusual, no questions about that. but after all, what's better, the bad you know inside out, or the good you don't quite grasp?
blogging has been my lifestyle, basically, for a year and a half. the way to meet people and discuss things and let out the steam and develop. it's time for a mai pen rai blog. something quite different from an Eeyore's shelter. that makes sense too, sure - but a different sense, at the moment.
08 October, 2005
#2
23:59, a bejegyzést én írtam
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on a more personal note....
...after all, this is meant to be my English blog, my personal blog, about my journey to.... to whatever this road is taking me to. thaiblogs is there for more structured writing. I want to be messy here, and I want my thoughts to roam wild. if only I could really set them free. get them to roam. don't quite know what it takes, it's been a long time.
I really need to do some serious thinking. or.... wait, hasn't it been exactly at the root of my problems that I am always trying to think, as opposed to living?
I've been having a hard time trying to come to terms with this emotional mess in the wake of our breakup. my mind had been so focused on our plans and dreams.... and then gradually I had to realise that the emotional scaffolding had been removed from my everyday life.... I knew it, but didn't want to accept it.... for such a long, long time. probably it was worth it, a love suddenly cut short is worse on the long run than seeing it fade out day by day, feeling life seeping away from the exchange of words and touches.... probably it will be easier to survive this way....
but the question emerges once again, for the zillionth time in the past couple of years: who are you? what do you really want from life? what are your interests? fears? ambitions? dreams? plans? career objectives? - and, once again, I haven't got the faintest idea about the answers. I've been warned I need to be a self-contained, self-confident, self-conscicous person on my own before I could really enter a meaningful relationship. does this also apply to relationships with countries, cultures, philosophies? or am I again thinking way too much?!
I've been reading an awful lot in the past week or so. blogs, forums, emails, life stories, conversations, arguments, newspaper articles, opinions, lyrics.... people. life. music. the music brings back the familiar feeling of the words.... sentences that had only just started to make sense and fall apart to words and meanings when I left.... but their music always stayed. I would often ask Sangwian to speak to me in Thai or Lao.... I loved it.... reading these sites, I've had the chance to take a glance at ambitions, principles, sorrows, fears, prides.... it means a lot to me. it's like familiar breezes blowing from home when the lonely seafarer is heading home.... though the shores cannot be seen as yet. I am homesick. (better than seasick.) and getting more confused. more enthusiastic. more emotional. more determined. more scared. very, very scared. I don't want to look at ajarn.com, I'm scared I would be put off by all those ads looking for natives. I've had that before. I don't want to plan anything. I just want to take that one big plunge.... because the boat is not taking me home.... I need to swim.... ok, not literally.... :-) but it's a conscious choice this time. not jumping in the darkness like it was last time. back then I just had to jump to save my life, with just the shirt on my back.... well, not literally, but emotionally.... I needed all that time when I couldn't even recall my sister's face or our home address.... when only the moment existed. the waterfalls, the heat, the chillis. nothing more. no past, no future. that saved my life. now I know I had to come back here to settle the bills. you can't just run away. now I know it's possible to survive here.... it's just simply not really worth it :-) I am full of new memories now. memories of places and faces and scents and cats (all those cats!) and even dreams.... they cannot hurt me anymore. the dragons are gone. now I am free to choose. it's not escaping once again, not running away from home.... it's going home. all those life stories, well, the bits and pieces of it visible to the curious outsider eyes, they scare me. sure they do. I admire their courage and ambition. I don't want to fail.... so I put off trying.... till.... till when, till it's too late? am I determined enough to start life all over again, go back to the very basics.... language, metacommunication, everyday actions.... I can walk all right.... ride a motorcycle.... but that's just about all :-) let's face it, in the past years I haven't been able to follow through any of my dreams and goals. but was the problem with the goals or with me? no way to tell. the problem is partly that I'm not fit to live in an individualistic society. I'm a social animal.... but mostly in my emotions.... I don't have the proper means of socialising.... at least not for socialising in an individualistic society! I'm just fed up with my goals, my ambitions, sometimes even with myself as a whole. I want to get out. do something. forget myself. just be. in the moment. as it is. no questions, no worries. like on Ko Chang - well, some of the time I managed. like at the waterfall. like.... like when I was holding Daniel in my arms.... teaching kids to read and write and speak and swim and laugh. impossible? I guess my asking this could degrade it impossible in the first place....
yesterday I started writing two lists. something I hadn't been able to force myself to do. a list of things to arrange.... books to return, things to give away.... and another list of things to be packed up.... I'd love to take everything.... the small memories and gifts collected along the way.... and that would mean I'm ready for full commitment.... but I already know what it takes to ship a hundred kilos of personal belongings to a different country.... and.... I'm not quite ready yet for that. it's weird to me in a way.... it took me so much trouble to trace down original Chinese scrolls, for example.... traditional objects don't sell well there.... I have no way of knowing whether that very, very old man who painted my dragons and my firebird can still paint.... lots of other things.... and now they will stay behind. I'll have to start again that process of getting objects to surround me.... homemaking was out of the question in Taiwan.... but how long does it take until you have the courage to start homemaking? if you don't start, is that another sign that you're actually.... doomed for failure?
a thousand questions and scraps of thoughts like these have been roaming and running wild and hopping and skipping and banging and nagging and teasing and laughing and.... and even cursing me!
(hm, my English needs some serious brushing-up. the cogwheels are still creaking. getting better, but still.... English belongs to that self of mine, the one I want to be. I really need it back. the edge, the phrases, the images. the touch. my Californian high-school teacher said that reading my poetry. you've got the touch. the good thing about getting few compliments is that you actually remember them and treasure them for years and years to come.... true, the most valuable treaures won't get your luggage overweight....)
07 October, 2005
#1
02:16, a bejegyzést én írtam
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My Ko Chang
Reading these reminiscences of a Phuket ages back (ok, ages for me, I started talking in sentences at that time, approximately), the feeling of impermanence struck me. If you start a long-term relationship with a place, you need to get used to seeing it develop. Or decay. It's the two sides of the same coin I guess. If you're just a one-time visitor, then you get the nice "still photos" of a moment in time and space. It's been over four years now that I first set foot in Thailand, and I've started to perceive changes – even from a distance of a 12-hour flight.... and it's caught me off guard, I cannot deal with it as yet.
Ko Chang's Treehouse is closing down in December....
When I bought my first and last Lonely Planet (inevitable, isn't it?), there were no paved roads reaching all the way down to the fishing village on the southernmost tip of Ko Chang. The Treehouse was only accessible on dirt roads or by boat. When I first visited, the break-neck serpentine road was already there, and along came the electric cables. And goodies to be bought. A small petrol pump. Maybe even a few atm's and internet since then as well...
At that time, Treehouse was still stuck somewhere in the 70s or 80s. Not that I remember the 70s so clearly, but I heard my impressions echoed in those memories of one-time Phuket. I didn't really like the usual clientele of hippi-like travellers though, I have always had a hard time mixing and blending in with other farangs. Many of them were soooo keen on being casual and as hippi as possible, it took them considerable time and effort to look ragged. There were meditations at the beach, and someone told me she could smell ganja – I couldn't identify the smell myself. But I just loved the place and didn't care about anything else. I loved having the kilometer-long beach all to myself when it was raining, or right before sunset – others were having a drink at that time, usually.
Playing with the Thai kids in the sand for hours or just watch them play. Lying all day long in my hammock, listening to the easy music at the Treehouse restaurant, ordering coconut milk rice for breakfast, fruit salad for lunch, fried red snapper for dinner, and putting the flowers coming with my shakes in my hair (oh yes, stone me but I do love those stereotypical banana shakes).
Making friends with the local cats. Watching the waves and take in their smell. Jumping in the waves at high tide, even with that very, very strong sideways current. I never washed away the touch and smell of seawater, it made my skin soft and young. And when the night fell, the twelve-hour downpour started. I was lying on my bed in my small hut, blew out the oil lamp, opened the window, and the stormy sea almost rolled in. Sometimes I could feel the foam of the huge waves in my face. I dreamt about the water rolling the stones back and forth, and the waves smashing against my tree - my hut was sheltered and virtually hugged by an ancient banyan tree.
(I have only found this photo – I don't have one of my hut....)
I was feeling truly blessed, at peace with the world and with myself - I had become part of an irresistible, all-encompassing ONE that took care of me and took away my fears, instead of fighting and fighting my dragons. And then one night it didn't rain, and a million stars appeared. I had never known so many stars existed. I stared at them and they stared back, and I realised that it's not just me looking for my own personal star for years and years, but there is also a star looking for me out there. The key is that we must catch each other's glance simultaneously.... I felt it was hopeless. I had never felt so lonely in my life, I was crying for a long time that night. But the waves rocking the pier muted my crying.
(out there, but with the sun off and the starts on....)
I rented a motorcycle, and that was the first time I had ever tried a non-automatic. I learnt to deal with the pedals and gears on that very serpentine road that scares the hell of people when they see it for the first time. I went along all the roads and accessible dirt paths on the island. I just love that feeling, riding for miles and miles slowly, feeling the breeze in my face, and taking in the moments. Waterfalls, an elephant conservation centre, villages, beaches with nothing but palm trees and nobody but me. The crowded tourist hangouts were really limited to a few kilometres on the Western side of the island, otherwise it was deserted, at times almost haunted.
When I went back to the mainland and looked into the mirror for the first time in weeks, a stranger looked back. A stranger that was the most me ever.
That's me and my brother on a later visit, at the entrance to the "Haunted palm valley" leading to a waterfall, as we called it. We got drenched on the one-hour ride back home, caught in the darkness, with fallen wire posts and trees on the serpentine road, and all hell broken loose. I really thought we were all going to die that night.
It's hard to swallow that it's slowly disappearing. At that time, there were rumours that the government only wanted to allow five-star luxury spas and resorts and intended to do away with the backpacker scene. I have no idea about the latest plans and the current situation. I don't know if I want to go back once more. After all, the Treehouse is closing down, and moving from Lonely Beach to Long Beach, trying to escape development and higher rents. Maybe I should look around and find a new getaway for myself, another Ko Chang of a few years ago and Phuket of the 70s. Surely there must be some more islands out there with a road or two to ride along, a few reefs to snorkel, a simple lamp to be blown out before going to bed.
You know, I just really hope that my ancient banyan tree will be spared at least.
