Still Workin'

So we spent two weeks building houses for Thai villagers. It was fun.

There was one fellow, a Thai fellow, named Jackson who kept us entertained by singing constantly (doo-doo-doo, da-da-da-da-da) and occasionally getting us drunk on the job. Oh, and one time he caught a really big lizard with his hat. Great guy all around.

At the end of the day we'd clamber off the pick-up truck at our drop-off point and wander, zombie-like, into the grocery store for tater chips and bottles of beer. Did we feel a bit smug walking amongst the tourists in our cement speckled work clothes? Hell yes. Why else do people volunteer if not for the sense of moral superiority? Altruism? Bah!

One night we all threw in for a heap of fresh shrimp and barbecued them on the beach. Jackson made a hot air balloon out of twigs and a plastic bag and a candle it glowed in the night sky like a really dodgy star.

Time well spent, if you ask me.

Workin'

We went for an orientation on Monday at the Tsunami Volunteer Center. TVC is up on a hill just south of Khao Lak's main drag nestled in the rainforest. We stood around getting our pictures taken for ID badges and drinking coffee with the seven other new volunteers until there was a quick meetng in which they told us some dos and don'ts (1. Don't touch any Thai person's head. 2. If you're a couple, don't hold hands or show affection in public, etc...) and then we loaded into the back of a pick up truck and we were off.

We toured the villages that had already been completed to get an idea of what we would be building, then we went to the boat yard which is where TVC had built longtail boats for all the fishermen who'd lost their's in the tsunami. They'd replaced all the boats and were building a huge yacht in which to sail around the world. It was pretty fantastic.

We saw two enormous ships that had been pushed a mile inland by the wave. It was incredibly odd to see a 150 foot long police boat in the middle of a field.

Then they took us to lunch where we met the folks we'd be working with. We all made smalltalk until someone put two and two together and realized there were two Massachusettsians on the crew. They called over to Louie, who had been somewhere else (napping, playing with the kittens? I don't know) and it turned out we knew each other. Wild.

That was about it. We went back to our bungalow and had some beers and braced for an early day of hard labor under the hot and punishing Thai sun.

Oops.

Khao Sok is pretty quiet and pretty quiet was just what we were... Oh, holy crap, I completely skipped over a very important part of our trip. For some reason I mixed up the order in which we did what we did.

Ok, insert this between Kantiang Bay and The Next Thing I Know...

When we left Kantiang bay we headed not for Khao Sok but for Khao Lak. An important distinction. We spent two weeks in Khao Lak building houses for folks who had lost their homes in the Tsunami of December 2004.

When we first got to Khao Lak we walked around in flip-flops with our enormous, three-months-worth-of-stuff backpacks on our backs for about an hour and a half trying to find a place to stay. K spotted a bunch of bungalows behind a restaurant set back from the main road but we couldn't find the proprietor and so we soldiered on, checking many different places, none of which compared to the ones behind the restaurant. So we went back and hung out until a hilarious lady appeared. She spoke six or seven words of English and I had recently mastered "hello" and "thank you" in Thai so our conversations were largely gestural but she knew what we were looking for (white people with backpacks don't often peddle magazines or salvation in Thailand) and she set us up with a cute, quiet bungalow in the palm tree crowded garden.

We hit the beach.

The beach in Khao Lak was nice but not as idyllic as the beaches on Ko Lanta. No matter, we loved it all the same. We arrived in town on Friday and work didn't begin until Monday so we spent the weekend lazing at the beach and drinking Singha on our porch. It was by all accounts a great weekend.

Hard Drinking Monkeys

We walked through a forest of banana trees and other tropical flora to the banks of a little river. At an oxbow there was a swimming hole and a bunch of local kids swinging from a rope and jumping in. The tourists were less adventurous, preferring to watch from the water. It wasn't until we swam out into the middle of the swimming hole that I noticed the monkeys; literally hundreds of all ages climbing in the crevices of the 75 foot high cliff. The little ones would form lines of three or more holding onto the tail of the one in front of them. It was fantastic.

Then an eel bit my ankle.

I thrashed and shrieked and made for the rocks. Once there I turned around and Kristy looked concerned.

Kristy: What the hell?

Me: A fish just bit me!

Kristy was a bit calmer than I but she started swimming in increasingly frantic circles until she finally headed off in the opposite direction as I had, towards where we'd left our stuff.

Me: Uhh.

Kristy: I'm getting the hell out of here.

The locals thought we were hilarious. There was one guy who was pouring capfuls of whisky and offering them to the monkeys who were far more interested in the bananas other people were dishing out. Chuckling he handed me a full cap and I drank it and it was foul and perfect.

I summoned the courage to leap back into the water and back into the water I leapt. I tried to look cool as I swam at a breakneck pace towards the safety of our spot on the rocky beach. I'm sure I failed at looking cool but I did make it back successfully and without any more eel bites.

We left in search of food...

Next thing I know...

We're on a bus on our way to the rain forest of Khao Sok.

I have a photo of the bus somewhere which I will add later but for now a description will suffice. It was bright orange and looked like a carnival, an appearance which disguised the general "un-fun-ness" of the trip we were about to embark on.

After a couple of stops at various market towns we were dropped off on the side of the road in what looked to be the middle of nowhere in particular. There were three taxi-trucks waiting for the bus and so we just poked about for a minute until there was only one left and we didn't have to make a decision. He brought us to his guest house/bungalow operation and sat with us, silently while we drank our bottles of soda and tried to convey to him as subtly as possible that it was okay for him to go (Us: It's okay for you to go. Him: [Twiddle of thumbs. Silence.]) It was weird.

Our room was cleanish and the bedding was heavy and synthetic, perfect for the tropical heat and humidity.

Then we headed off to the river where, we were promised, there would be monkeys as far as the eye could see.

To be continued...

Kantiang Bay

I run like a cartoon.

It's why I never made it as an athlete. Well, that and I used to smoke like a fish.

We went south which didn't take long because Ko Lanta isn't big and we got ourselves booked into a bamboo hut which was perched on stilts on the side of a hill. At night the whole thing swayed about a foot and a half back and forth. Fun!

We were at the north end of a half-moon bay and every night we got some beers and wathced the sunset over the Andaman Sea. Ahhh.

We met a German couple from Cologne who invited us to live with them rent-free if we would teach them English. They were adamant. So if I ever say, "hey, I'm off to Cologne to teach some elderly Germans English for a few months" and you never hear from me again it's because they actually just wanted to kill us.

The beach put me in this sort of mood:






Oh, that Sally Field!

Naked Man Beach

And there we were, a stones throw from naked man beach.

Though the beach directly outside our bungalow looked nice it was a bit rocky until about 6pm when the tide came in so we were told to make our way over the rocky out-cropping a hundred yards away to a lovely, rock-free beach. We did and found a beautiful bay. The only trouble was, right at the close end of the beach there lived a lonesome naked German in a tarpaulin hut. He was sort of a half hermit as he spent most of his time alone but occassionally would chat up other 50-something year old single men. Everyday we had to pass him and his full-body tan. You try not to look but sometimes your eyes wander, you forget about the strangely-fit-for-his-age hut-dwelling Hun and POW! There he is, squatting over some piece of wood or simple machine he has constructed from rocks and crab shells. Guh-huh-huh-huh-huh!

He's probably still there, philosophizing from time to time with one of his speedo-clad countrymen. So if you're interested let me know and I'll give you directions.