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Thailand

An Old Friend

By Michael Flarup

February 21^st, 2010

Krabi

The heat is coming down in moisty spikes as i shift my weight on the rusty bike underneath me. We’re on a desolate and palmy road in the Trang Province, rural Thailand.

The Hotel we’re staying at is located at the Beach Had Yao, a fairly remote location by tourist standards. The Beach Boutique Resort has 17 dark wooded and white stoned bungalows, an infinity pool and a beach restaurant. If you want to do anything other than hang around your room, chill at the pool or eat at the restaurant you’re running out of options. As a cure to jetlag it was the perfect escape, but we quickly starved for adventure.

We jumped a shuttle from the hideaway resort to some of the local attractions. The Emerald pool and volcanic hot streams cut deep into the limestone rocks and provided for some fun afternoon experiences (and pictures)

Biking the countryside

Back at the hotel we borrowed what seemed like a 100 year old bicycles and wheeled out the ever stretching heat glazed roads. While the other 4-star hotel guests might have given us the odd look, biking around the Trang upland was a blast. There really wasn’t anything particularly special about the rural area, which made it all the more interesting. Wheeling through a rickety fishing village we where greeted by everyone from 5 to 90 who could yell out an enthusiastic ‘helloooo’ with a thai accent as rocky as the road. Crowds gathered around little wooden shacks built on stilts, the dust and penetrating smell of fish hung in the air as the local news and goings was discussed. We ate at a small seafood restaurant before continuing inland. While far and wide apart, batches of houses and shacks seemed to clutch around the winding concrete road. The population here are mainly Thai Muslims and we passed both a mosque and a thai boxing stadium before finally turning back to the tide swept beaches of Had Yao. I don’t generally mind remote locations, but i’m happy that we’re only staying at this resort for 3 days before moving on. Relaxation is part of the recipe, but keeping your options open in terms of eating out and discovering new places is such a vital part of breaking the routine.

What are these photos about?

Koh lanta

As the iron ferry waddled its way through the turquoise waters we were welcomed by stilted beachfront sheds, lined closer than what seemed engineeringly possible. Sleepy from the sea sick pills and salty from the air we pulled into the rusty harbor.

This was Baan Saladan, the northern transportation hub of Koh Lanta, a fairly dusty and slightly busier-than-advertised destination. A once laid back destination for backpackers looking to escape the touristy affliction of Phuket & Krabi, Koh Lanta is quickly growing into a midranged popular destination by itself. While there is still old-school hippyish charm to be found further south of the beach-ridden west coast you’ll need to know where to look. Setting up camp in a small bungalow in the northen beach of Klong Dao, we met up with my parents and sister who was also visiting Lanta for the first time. After a few days of beach-life and eating out in various establishments in neighboring Saladan, we moved further down the coast to the younger and more vibrant Phrae Ae beach, also inventively called Longbeach. While certainly way more up my alley, I couldn’t help feeling like Lanta might soon reach a point in which it will have to loosen its grip on the kick-back perception and sail straight into mainstream, trodden-path mayhem.

On what could possibly have been the runner up for warmest day of the month, we decided to hire a guy to take us down the much less developed east coast of Lanta. Nested in a rocky bay, the old Chinese & Malay trading village was part of Lanta’s seafaring heritage. Here we explored the old town and some cold beer. The much sharper cut coast housed several smaller ‘Chow Lair’, or ‘Sea Gypsy’ villages. I walked around their flapping laundry and chuckling chickens, feeling like the biggest tourist of all times; constantly changing lenses and taking pictures of what, for them, must have been completely uninteresting daily-life objects. After a short week of family time on Lanta, we parted with the Parents/Sister combo and headed south. Way south. The island hopping was about to commence.

Koh Lipe

While nursing a bottle of perspirating mineré water i uncomfortably try to squeeze my longer-than-necessary sun-block bathed legs into submission on a 3 seat-wide aisle of a rusty ferry. We’re a half days travel south of Koh Lanta, and the furthest south I’ve ever ventured in the Andaman Sea.

After an earnest day’s travel, involuntarily stopping at every minor lump of cliff protruding from the azure-teal sheet of waves we finally arrived at Koh Lipe, a southern white-beached island close to the Malaysian border. As the bastard child of the Ko Tarutao marine park, it remains the only island of 51 not to fall under the strict environmental rules of the national park. This is mainly because of the 700-or so ‘Chow Lair’, or ‘Sea Gypsy’ inhabitants, making development regulations sketchier. This has wedged open the door for ambitious foreign entrepreneurship, making this sleepy and relatively inaccessible island into a backpacker destination. Situated between much grander and volatile nearby islands, Koh Lipe is a hilly younger sister lying low, with her sandy beaches compared to neighboring big brother the towering Adang.

Our adventures on Lipe where wonderfully withdrawn. We spend 5 days locomoting from beach to beach, turning pages in sun-yellowed books. With scientific approach we tested and proped the local restaurants and caught a few cold beers on what was thoroughly a very laid-back island. As with many other frontier backpacker-soon-to-turn-tourist destinations we met people who had visited years before and felt the place already overrun by development. The ever turning irony of this sort of complaint is obviously that by the act of visiting (or revisiting) such a place we become enablers of the development we are so quick to shun. This leads to the conclusion that no paradise remains untouched by the people who visit them.

From the main village spawning from Pattaya beach, jungle paths shoot out and curl upland to the other beaches and through the dusty Chow Lair village. The first evening of exploration we went in, camera in hand, to this other world’ish collection of aluminum sheds, frying pans and waving laundry. As the sun set Maria got anxious of what increasingly seemed like an off-limits place for “tourists”. Perhaps feeling the rising sensation of invasion a small boy came running at us. He stopped in the dusty plaza of soon-to-be moonlit sheds and pointed in a direction. With a big smile he broke out a ‘Pattaya that way’ sentence as dirty as his clothes but as well meaning as his eyes. Breaking the silence with a hearty laughter we exited the village. The wild dogs barked the sun down in a magical display of red-purple hues on the bleached beaches of Lipe. As the sun was setting on our stay in this border island of both location and development, we swung back the last of the golden brew in the singha bottle and packed for a sea journey back north. This time to a place that’s very dear to my heart.

Phi Phi

After 8 hours of crisscrossing the Andaman Sea, the horn finally boomed as we docked in Ton Sai. Mounted with backpacks we stepped off the ferry and drank a lung full of the vibrant afternoon air. Towering limestone cliffs, technicolor coral-clad bays and blonde beaches smiled back at us. We had arrived at my favorite place in all of Thailand. Phi Phi Island, the starlet of the Andaman sea is burdened by beauty.

The Koh Phi Phi Marine Park is mainly made up of Phi Phi Don, and the development restricted Phi Phi Ley. After being immortalized in the movie ‘The Beach’, it’s vertical limestone cliffs and spectacularly well formed beaches have become one of the main attractions on the west coast of Thailand. There’s not a single tourist in the region that hasn’t heard of it’s stunning scenery.

At a prize

Unfortunately fame comes at a prize. After having made regular visits to Phi Phi over the past 10 years it’s clear to me that the island is heading for an ecological meltdown. While it still retains it’s drop dead gorgeousness the crowded mazelike tourist village has grown with such ferocity that could put a Chinese suburb to shame. New development is constantly sprawling up, and the streets feel increasingly tighter. The island is fighting garbage disposal problems, water shortages, destruction of it’s reefs and general environmental pollution. The crowd is younger than many other places in Thailand, and the nightlife seems to have grown out of proportion. Hard pumping beats, large scale bars with a new flyer every day, sizzling fireshows on the beach and buckets of booze.

Near to my heart

Despite all of the above, Phi Phi has played a pivotal role in my life. It’s my mental retreat, an embodiment of a tropical paradise that I’ve kept coming back to. A fixed position through years where I’ve moved. The gravitational pull of my getaways. I’ve visited this place with many different people, through what seems to be completely different lives. I’ve always felt an overbearing sense of relation, a feeling almost too palpable to be assigned a place and not a person. An early humid morning, the 25th of December 2004 I took a choice that saved my life, leaving behind so many that wasn’t as fortunate. This has further cemented my strong bond to this place. It’s been a source of inspiration and heartbreak, of laughs and tears, a centerpiece on the mental dinner table.

Phuket

As the last sunset boiled into the unruly sea at Karon Beach we sat, beer in hand, watching our trip come to an end. We spend 2 days in my old neighbourhood on Phuket, shopping what needed to be shopped and eating what needed to be eaten. My father used to live here, and we had a chance to catch up with some old friends at a bar. Other than the attached nostalgia of growing up in this part of Thailand, and the obvious abundance of convenient amenities I don’t care much for Phuket. It’s noisy and filled to the brim with the sort of tourists that pack 2 large suitcases on wheels for 1 week on the beach. But as a central transportation hub on the west coast it’s hard to avoid.

The Good & The Bad

☺ It‘s easy. 50 years as the leading tourist destination in the region has turned Thailand into one of the most accessible and easy countries to travel in. It‘s affordable and little or no planning is required. Everywhere you go a wide selection of accommodations and tours await you. Buy a ticket and just go. ☺ The Food. Thai cuisine has a place on the world culinary stage and rightfully so. It‘s more diverse than what most people give it credit for too, when you go - be sure to try something else than fried rice. One of the many panang curries or salads will surprise you. ☺ The people. They call Thailand the land of smiles and except for the staff checking your passport when you enter the country and the police enforcement, it‘s totally true. Thais are wonderfully calm, forthcoming and eager to please. With a laid back attitude and a surplus of smiles you‘ll feel welcome anywhere you go.

☹ Tourism. It‘s ironic though, isn‘t it? The very reasons that you want to go there, is the source of one of the more annoying sides of Thailand. It‘s full of other tourists, and with other tourists come a lot of bullshit. The big crowds can be tolerated for a few days, but on every trip I always make it a habit to visit at least one place off the beaten path. So while Phuket, Samui, Phangang & Phi Phi are all enjoyable and dear to me - other places on the fringes of mainstream have cool things to offer too.

I have been coming to Thailand since i was 9 and I stopped counting my trips after the 20th visit. This photo narrative is but a thin slice of the many adventures I have had in this part of the world. Like so many others, I‘ve been in love with the country for years and it‘s an affair that has followed me through my teens and into adulthood. It’s an affection that my father gave me and that I one day hope to pass on to my own son. The memories I make in this country is somehow compounded and stored in a special place inside me. No matter where my travels take me in the future, I‘m certain that I‘ll be coming back to Thailand again and again. It‘s like an old friend.