Lost in Phi Phi
Ok so I didn't stick to my plans and leave Phi Phi when I intended. I tried. The weather conspired against me.
Or maybe it was my heart.
I think I may be in love.
With the weather grey and dull and constantly threatening to rain, I decided I was better off on Phi Phi. No matter that it was raining there - I had friends to meet and CSI dvds to watch, nights out to indulge in. And more diving.
I completed my advanced course for PADI - four further dives to test my navigation, buoyancy, fish identification and planning multi-level dive skills. It was a funny two days which saw Kim, my instructor, and I giggling constantly underwater as he tried to protect me from 'animal porn' (slugs mating), scratched his head at my attempts to swim backwards that saw me eating sand, and as we fought over who was barging into whom as the current swirled us around.
The island is so beautiful, so naturally blessed with stunning beaches, turquoise seas and imposing cliffs. The people, both Thai and western, are welcoming and friendly. They have been through so much and come out smiling.
It genuinely terrifies and appalls me to think and to see the devastation wrought on the tiny sandbar which separates the two main beaches and where all the main resorts are, or were. Everything about who lived and who survived on Boxing Day 2004 was down to chance.
I found myself thinking constantly, 'That could have been me. It could have been any number of my friends.'
The love affair did not end well. I eventually had to wrench myself away on grey and rainy Friday. But my last night out, while mostly great fun with the crowd of people I had come to know and love, turned sour.
I'd had a nagging sense of guilt and sadness which dogged my time on the island. So many of the westerners who loved here had been on the island when the wave came or rushed to help with the clear-up and who all came back.
Everytime I mentioned I was a journalist or said I was planning to write an article, there was a wary look in their eyes - even those who hadn't been here at the time.
In the months after the wave there was such heartache. Such appalling scenes. Such effort to rebuild the lives and livelihoods that had been broken. I suppose it was dragging up a past which many wanted to let lie, although many realised I was writing about Phi Phi's future and not its past.
On my last night talking to Chris, a diver who had been here pre-tsunami, come back to clear-up in its wake and again to live and work here, his thoughts on my journalist efforts were clear. I felt kicked in the stomach. Like a sick intruder. Like all my fears about what I was doing were realised.
He was drunk but his sentiment was nevertheless undeniable and deadly in its intent. As soon as he heard my profession, he cut me dead. Spoke some harsh words. Refused to speak to me.
Incensed, I tackled him. I told him he hadn't given me a chance to say what I was writing. I told him about going to Sri Lanka. He listened.
He told me how journalists had arrived during the clean-up and drank until all hours, trying to extend their stay in 'paradise'. And after several weeks being looked after, they turned around and wrote about how westerners were taking liberties with the Thai people, turned against the rescue workers. He told me I was looking for a break from people's misery.
I have enormous respect for the people involved in the immediate aftermath - and those floods of backpackers who stayed on Phi Phi to lend a hand wiring, painting, cleaning, builing homes for people. I cannot imagine the horrors of thousands of bloated bodies across the beaches, the smell, the sense of loss and fear and guilt...
But I felt so guilty then. I felt like and intruder. I felt guilty for not having been here and helping. I felt I had no right to be asking people to remember those days.
I had a moment of pure self-doubt which lasted through my final hours on Phi Phi. Until Friday morning when I looked out at my surroundings of constuction work while eating breakfast with my friend Far. I was in a restaurant that had been rebuilt three times since the tsunami (due to repeated land sales). The owner's business which she had built from nothing over a decade to a successful enterprise was back to its original small size.
She had not given up. She had not accepted her lot or bowed out after her successful restaurant and rooms had been decimalised by the wave. She had fought many battles in the ensuing period and her worries are not yet over. Her lease on the current land is up in a year and she may have to move and rebuild yet again.
Yet she is cheerful and optimistic and grateful. And there I was sitting in her restaurant bemoaning that I did not know what direction my life was going in.
The strength of the people on Phi Phi was what impressed me. And the community spirit of westerners and Thai's together - as if they were facing the natural world together. Picking themselves up collectively and supporting each other 100% to ensure they all survived.
But I still had to leave. Ten days on Koh Tao and nine on Phi Phi was rather cutting into Cambodia and other travelling options.
So on Friday, I set sail for Krabi and travelled to Phang-nga. On Saturday, I did a tour of the national park - made famous in James Bond's Man with the Golden Gun. It was a stunning tour on a long tail boat with an Australian brother and sister I met and a German couple.
The landscape was breathtaking. The sea was like glass - the mountain ranges reflected along with the brilliant sunshine. Odd islands jutted up through the waters covered in trees. Secret caves led to enchanted caverns. Monkeys played in mangroves and sail boats cut across the amazing seascape.
Until James Bond island - crammed with package tours from Phuket. And a canoeing stop - where they paddle the unfortunates who had signed up around a large rock and through a small cave for a vast sum (I read my book).
Sarah, Dan and I stayed in a Muslim fishing village that night which is constructed on stilts next to one of the craggy rocks. We wandered the village (fairly touristy) before eating dinner next to the water and watching the sun sink behind the moutains - the colours reflected in the sea.
Today, we travelled back to Phang-nga and then parted. I came by bus to Khao Lak - the area worst hit by the tsunami.
It was nearly two years ago but, like many places in Sri Lanka, the land next to the ocean was flat. So the waters swelled further inland. Half the death toll in Thailand occurred here. There is around 35km of beach here - not all was affected. But I was driven around by one of the resort owners today.
He pointed out ruined pavilions which stood 4km from any high ground - the former reception of a four star hotel, or the club house of a bungalow resort. Here was the hotel where residents could not escape because of the high wall and there three boats which had been washed 1km inland.
Villagers have moved inland but some resorts have rebuilt next to the ocean. Some, foolishly you could argue, more than 4km from the evacuation point - in other words high ground.
It is hard to take in everything here but tomorrow I aim to meet volunteers who are still based here and find out a little bit more.
Or maybe it was my heart.
I think I may be in love.
With the weather grey and dull and constantly threatening to rain, I decided I was better off on Phi Phi. No matter that it was raining there - I had friends to meet and CSI dvds to watch, nights out to indulge in. And more diving.
I completed my advanced course for PADI - four further dives to test my navigation, buoyancy, fish identification and planning multi-level dive skills. It was a funny two days which saw Kim, my instructor, and I giggling constantly underwater as he tried to protect me from 'animal porn' (slugs mating), scratched his head at my attempts to swim backwards that saw me eating sand, and as we fought over who was barging into whom as the current swirled us around.
The island is so beautiful, so naturally blessed with stunning beaches, turquoise seas and imposing cliffs. The people, both Thai and western, are welcoming and friendly. They have been through so much and come out smiling.
It genuinely terrifies and appalls me to think and to see the devastation wrought on the tiny sandbar which separates the two main beaches and where all the main resorts are, or were. Everything about who lived and who survived on Boxing Day 2004 was down to chance.
I found myself thinking constantly, 'That could have been me. It could have been any number of my friends.'
The love affair did not end well. I eventually had to wrench myself away on grey and rainy Friday. But my last night out, while mostly great fun with the crowd of people I had come to know and love, turned sour.
I'd had a nagging sense of guilt and sadness which dogged my time on the island. So many of the westerners who loved here had been on the island when the wave came or rushed to help with the clear-up and who all came back.
Everytime I mentioned I was a journalist or said I was planning to write an article, there was a wary look in their eyes - even those who hadn't been here at the time.
In the months after the wave there was such heartache. Such appalling scenes. Such effort to rebuild the lives and livelihoods that had been broken. I suppose it was dragging up a past which many wanted to let lie, although many realised I was writing about Phi Phi's future and not its past.
On my last night talking to Chris, a diver who had been here pre-tsunami, come back to clear-up in its wake and again to live and work here, his thoughts on my journalist efforts were clear. I felt kicked in the stomach. Like a sick intruder. Like all my fears about what I was doing were realised.
He was drunk but his sentiment was nevertheless undeniable and deadly in its intent. As soon as he heard my profession, he cut me dead. Spoke some harsh words. Refused to speak to me.
Incensed, I tackled him. I told him he hadn't given me a chance to say what I was writing. I told him about going to Sri Lanka. He listened.
He told me how journalists had arrived during the clean-up and drank until all hours, trying to extend their stay in 'paradise'. And after several weeks being looked after, they turned around and wrote about how westerners were taking liberties with the Thai people, turned against the rescue workers. He told me I was looking for a break from people's misery.
I have enormous respect for the people involved in the immediate aftermath - and those floods of backpackers who stayed on Phi Phi to lend a hand wiring, painting, cleaning, builing homes for people. I cannot imagine the horrors of thousands of bloated bodies across the beaches, the smell, the sense of loss and fear and guilt...
But I felt so guilty then. I felt like and intruder. I felt guilty for not having been here and helping. I felt I had no right to be asking people to remember those days.
I had a moment of pure self-doubt which lasted through my final hours on Phi Phi. Until Friday morning when I looked out at my surroundings of constuction work while eating breakfast with my friend Far. I was in a restaurant that had been rebuilt three times since the tsunami (due to repeated land sales). The owner's business which she had built from nothing over a decade to a successful enterprise was back to its original small size.
She had not given up. She had not accepted her lot or bowed out after her successful restaurant and rooms had been decimalised by the wave. She had fought many battles in the ensuing period and her worries are not yet over. Her lease on the current land is up in a year and she may have to move and rebuild yet again.
Yet she is cheerful and optimistic and grateful. And there I was sitting in her restaurant bemoaning that I did not know what direction my life was going in.
The strength of the people on Phi Phi was what impressed me. And the community spirit of westerners and Thai's together - as if they were facing the natural world together. Picking themselves up collectively and supporting each other 100% to ensure they all survived.
But I still had to leave. Ten days on Koh Tao and nine on Phi Phi was rather cutting into Cambodia and other travelling options.
So on Friday, I set sail for Krabi and travelled to Phang-nga. On Saturday, I did a tour of the national park - made famous in James Bond's Man with the Golden Gun. It was a stunning tour on a long tail boat with an Australian brother and sister I met and a German couple.
The landscape was breathtaking. The sea was like glass - the mountain ranges reflected along with the brilliant sunshine. Odd islands jutted up through the waters covered in trees. Secret caves led to enchanted caverns. Monkeys played in mangroves and sail boats cut across the amazing seascape.
Until James Bond island - crammed with package tours from Phuket. And a canoeing stop - where they paddle the unfortunates who had signed up around a large rock and through a small cave for a vast sum (I read my book).
Sarah, Dan and I stayed in a Muslim fishing village that night which is constructed on stilts next to one of the craggy rocks. We wandered the village (fairly touristy) before eating dinner next to the water and watching the sun sink behind the moutains - the colours reflected in the sea.
Today, we travelled back to Phang-nga and then parted. I came by bus to Khao Lak - the area worst hit by the tsunami.
It was nearly two years ago but, like many places in Sri Lanka, the land next to the ocean was flat. So the waters swelled further inland. Half the death toll in Thailand occurred here. There is around 35km of beach here - not all was affected. But I was driven around by one of the resort owners today.
He pointed out ruined pavilions which stood 4km from any high ground - the former reception of a four star hotel, or the club house of a bungalow resort. Here was the hotel where residents could not escape because of the high wall and there three boats which had been washed 1km inland.
Villagers have moved inland but some resorts have rebuilt next to the ocean. Some, foolishly you could argue, more than 4km from the evacuation point - in other words high ground.
It is hard to take in everything here but tomorrow I aim to meet volunteers who are still based here and find out a little bit more.
posted by charlie at 10:40 pm
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