a wounded paradise
for the last five days i've been on koh phi phi, a small H shaped island a short boat ride from phuket. this place is an absolute paradise, but from the first moments of arriving, you feel a certain haunt of the throttling this car-less island community received just two years ago. after sailing past the beach where the movie, the beach, was filmed at maya bay:
we land at the dock:
and the first thing you see is what remains of a 7-11, wiped out by the tsunami:
a sobering view, clouding the rest of our arrival as we took in, for the first time, this fucking stunning island. there are no cars on phi phi, just bicycles and a maze of these walkways:
and the main source of transportation are these longtail boats. as you walk around the island, men sit at the side of the alleys and shout "boat, boat, taxi boat, you want taxi?" and you barter with them to take you places like maya bay, bamboo island and the monkey beach.
all of the restaurants are situated on the beachfront:
within the first moments of arriving, we pick a longtail boat and we're off to monkey beach, to see the wild monkies there who're not very afraid of humans
the beach is stunning with it's limestone formations:
the rules on this island are lax, here is the drunk tank in the police box:
and here is my mom drinking in the local cop shop (the police box) with a cop:
that night, bobby, matt, emma, uday, justin, barkwell and i went out to apache bar and drank buckets, literally, of thai whiskey, vodka, rum and any other alcohol we could get out hands on. at this bar, we met che guevara:
and saw a fire show, which just dot the beach at every establishment on the island every night:
the next day we had lunch on long beach, just a short longtail boat ride across the bay:
and then celebrated christmas eve with decorations:
dinner:
dancing:
and champagne on the beach:
we opened christmas presents in the white sand on the beach christmas morning and spent the day sitting on the beach, swimming and kayaking and playing with monkeys:
and i got a traditional thai tattoo with bamboo:
the following day, boxing day, was a hard one though. two years after the tsunami to the day, memorials were being held from morning until night, the signs for which dotted a beach full of palms, like this one in the background, snapped off by the tidal wave:
and you can't help but pay a little more attention to the debris that still dusts the island, junk we walk past every day:
and the warning signs and evacuation route instructions:
walking on to the beach where a giant board was erected remembering the two resorts that were completed swept off the beach by the tsunami, charlie's and phi phi princess:
and the board also had pictures of all the people lost on that day:
the other side of which i couldn't look at, as it was pictures of all the children lost...
flowers were set in rememberance at the foot of this tree:
we headed over to bamboo island and saw debris from the tsunami there as well:
that night, the sky was lit up by the flames of small hot air balloons, similar to the ones they released on the beach, one for each lost person on koh phi phi during the tsunami:
that day was pretty hard, i had to choke back tears several times during the day. especially when one woman told my mom and i that she'd been 9 months pregnant when it happened and was rocked around under water for 5 minutes, her stomach being pounded. 3 days later the baby was born, healthy and fine. but you see thai men and women get up every morning on koh phi phi and start building, and rebuilding and they do it all, everything, with massive smiles on their faces. s'pose it's hard not to smile facing views like this:
hope you all had a great christmas, check out the full photo album here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/vlu777/KohPhiPhiXmas200607
tsunamitsunmaitsunami
i'm watching a year old episode of ellen on the namibian tv station in my room in phuket, thailand. there's nothing else on tv in english except aljazeera, which isn't necessarily pre-bed, relaxing tv programming. my mind wanders and i watch a little tiny gecko scurry around on my floor. i'm bored. i think about the tsunami. the water stopped just a few doors up the street from here. a few more doors up the street is this supermarket:
the majority of the 250 people who died in patong, died in this market. the water poured down the steps and filled the building to the roof. no one survived. one of the more famous images from this area of the aftermath is from a video take of rescuers pulling bodies from this market.
these signs dot the streets near the beaches:
and every thai person i see makes me wonder if they lost someone, too.
all the bootleg dvd stalls sell a dvd about the tsunami and some street vendors sell framed photos of the aftermath. i wonder who was staying in my room at the time, and did they survive?
the place my folks are staying at had the only restaurant still serving after the tsunami. people were lined up for hours and by the end of the day, the joint had run out of food.
the tsunami has touched everything, like this tattoo parlor:
and now i'm heading to koh phi phi, where the worst of the damage was in all of thailand. people talk about pre-tsunami phi phi vs. post-tsunami phi phi like they're two different places. should be interesting... but i tell yas, it doesn't feel bad spedning money here at all.
karon beach
yesterday we spent the day at karon beach, just south of patong. shit, it was beautiful:
then we ate in a little tent city on some concrete that looked like something had been built there pre-tsunami. you walk in and there are all these little stalls serving the same thing and all these thai women come out to the aisle and open their menus to pictures and hoot and holler to get you to sit down and eat at their stall. we had two chicken satay with curried peanut sauce and thai pickle, a chicken cashew stri-fry, fried veggies, two sides of rice, a plate of tropical fruit, a beer, and a water and it cost, in total, $15 canadian.
then back to the beach where longtail boats sat just past the breakwater, fishing:
thai construction
check out the scaffolding, all teetery and shit. no hard hats? worker's comp would die...
the tuk tuk mafia
drivers of these tuk tuks are ruthless when it comes to promoting their transportation. recently, death threats were made against a man who tried to post a public transit schedule on the internet.
just some of the crap they sell in thailand
muay thai fighting
the story so far...
landed here, phuket international airport
bobby picked us up in his jeep
went to bobby's place
the jeep outside bobby's
walked over to our guesthouse, sheila's, and checked in
checked out my room at sheila's
the view from sheila's
the view from sheila's - the blarney stone
see the hose? in thailand, instead of toilet paper, they use a high-pressure hose to spray their ass. my brother's friend uday, poses this question to us, "if you fell and stopped your fall with your hands and one of them landed in a pile of shit would you, a) wash your hands with water or b) wipe your hands off with toilet paper and continue on with your day? most people pick A which begs the question, if we choose to wash our poopy hands with water, why is simply toilet paper ok for our asses?
walking down our street, san sabai, to patong beach
patong beach
a tallship in the distance off patong beach
someone's ass on patong beach. check out the upside down guy with his legs in the air in the background... timing is everything, yo.
(uday and my mom) after a shower and a singha beer, we took a tuk tuk to an indian restaurant for some butter chicken
after dinner the folks went to bed and bobby, uday and i went to bangla, a street they close down at around 6pmish and it just turns into a giant party. that's bobby in the santa hat. we went to a beer bar and played jenga with two thai hookers.
after jenga with the hoes, we walked over to a karaoke bar and sang our hearts out and got TRASHED. bobby and uday...
next morning i was in pain. sat at the pool by bobby's place.
went for lunch at the summer breeze
hopped in bobby's jeep and took off to kata beach
sunny and warm at kata beach one minute
clouds start to roll in the next
and the sky turns black.. fucking beautiful
back to sheila's, shower, then we walked to the paradise hotel for their $6 all you can eat buffet that's so good it rivals the river rock buffet, took a tuk tuk back
a purdy fountain on the way to bobby's, where i currently sit, exhausted, ready for snoozin
i hear it's snowing in vancouver? eheheeee
