Naked Expats and moving swiftly on...

(written 28/08/09, posted 06/10/09)

R gets up at 6.30am due to spending the whole day yesterday asleep on the bus. She tells me one of the other guests has been wondering around unashamedly naked. I go cautiously to the showers and see a man now in a loincloth. It’s M from Somerset, who’s been in early retirement in Thailand forever. We get chatting to him and he’s lovely and enjoying being aimless. May move on soon, may not.

For some reason I’m excited this morning. I think it’s the prospect of my last two weeks on a beach and I’m hankering after some time alone too. R goes off to buy shoes and I need to back up photos. Again. On the net I find out another reason to be excited, my VSO placement in Delhi has been confirmed! After a failed placement, an semi-offer that wasn’t suitable, one delay due to visas in what is essentially a run of bad luck, I now have a bona-fide confirmation with leaving date. Woohoo!

R and I have beers over lunch to celebrate before we part ways. I’m sad to leave her as I reckon we’d have lots of fun. Time to go though…ferry it is. Raining out on the sea which comes as no surprise. Phi Phi looks great when the ferry docks. A tiny set of alleys where the locals and tourists mi together. I find a bungalow which has been my little dream so I head off down the narrow, car-less streets in search of one. I reach the beach on the other side in a few minutes which confirms for me how small this island is. Bungalow sorted, I unpack and within two hours have eaten, had beers and booked diving for tomorrow. I couldn't walk past all these diving shops without stopping. I'm very excited so go to bed early to prepare for my first dive in over a year.

The Other SIde of Thailand

(written on 21/08/09, posted on 06/10/09)

Today has been a bit of a nothing day. A few temples, chat to a Buddhist monk for a while about the Karen hill tribes north of Chiang Mai and the work that VSO is doing with Burmese refugees at the border. I try and get a massage at the Disabled Centre but no-one is there. I order a juice and some spring rolls at a bar opposite. A chain-smoking 60-something man from Birmingham shouts through the order to his baby-carrying Thai wife. The spring rolls arrive cold in the middle and I make like a shepherd and get the flock out of there. Is this the other side of Thailand I’m seeing?

I spend a few hours on the internet backing up pictures and emailing until it’s time to meet M. M is on his VSO language training today as part of his two month long in country orientation.

I get heckled on the way back by four ex-pats calling me into their bar for a beer. As I’m early and it’s 4pm on a Friday I go in. ‘Why not?!’ as they say here. Text M to tell him where I am. The bar is empty and they are rattling. We chat and I joke is this Chiang Mai on a Friday: lots of beers with the men, sitting around arguing which is what they mostly do. The depressing answer is everyday is like this in Chiang Mai. For you maybe I think. After I’ve been bought a couple of beers I escape as this lunatic with a fascination for taking photos of his penis turns up. He has on Thai silk pyjamas unbuttoned, a headband, receding curly hair and John Lennon glasses. In summary, he looks like he dropped out at Woodstock and never regained a sense of reality. All of them have been in Thailand for about eight years and some have children.

I meet M back at the hostel and we discuss the whole thing over beers. Yesterday with L we went to the night market on the way for food and went down a whole street of bars with young Thai girls and seedy looking older men. I’m not that naïve but I really don’t get it that this still happens. Even more intriguing is the fact one man was accused earlier as being a bit of a crim by one of his cronies when they were arguing. He admitted he couldn’t return to the UK to see his daughters. M tells me in 2006 when the tsunami struck, a lot of people used it to ‘disappear’. We nod at each other with knowing looks and finish another beer.