Home & Life

I think it's clear that I've not been too organised on this trip, but up until Khao Lak i'd usually have a relatively solid plan, or at least back up plan when I arrived at a place. Here however I was a bit lost. I rocked up in Khao Lak with no plans for accommodation or even anything to do while I was there - it's a beach town and I was feeling pretty beached out.



Kelly had told me about a volunteering opp at a place building climbing frames, gardens, school buildings etc but when I called them up they said they had no projects on and didn't need volunteers. I'd also come across a website through theirs (though I've since been unable to find the path I took!) of an orphanage-run bakery which had a number you could ring to visit. I gave them a buzz although I wasn't convinced of the legitimacy of the website, but they told me they had two volunteers there already and so were full.

I sat looking at my papaya shake wondering where I was going to stay (all the other accomm was in the region of 800baht a night :s) and what I was going to do with myself in the four days before my liveaboard diving trip.

I think my karma credit from 2010 kicked in again and I got a phone call from the random orphanage saying they'd make some space, but they were about 20min out of town and couldn't pick me up.

Now in all honesty my spidy senses weren't tingling, there were no alarm bells going off even when it became apparent that the cab driver had never heard of this orphanage or it's location. I had to call them again and hand her the phone. I was only 15minutes later as we were winding our way up into a jungle covered hill that I began to wonder what on earth I was doing heading into the middle of nowhere with a person who spoke no English to meet a strange man whose number I'd lifted off a dodgy website and whose English wasn't much better than the cabbie's at a place none of the locals had heard of....hmm.


They might look cute most of the time but these guys have attitude!

All my fears subsided as I arrived to meet some very smiley Thai fellahs at a colourfully painted group of buildings next to a small cafe where there was banana bread and tea waiting for me... let's be honest, if it had been a prison I'd still have been chuffed so long as there was banana bread and tea.

Home & Life orphanage should probably do a little work on their marketing! It's amazing here. There's a mini organic farm with papaya trees, mangosteen, lemons, beans (of some sort), corn, coconut trees and erm, other things. They run a small bakery with(ish) the children and a little cafe which gets visitors mostly in the afternoon as the kids get home from school. There's 26 kids of varying ages from 5-17, all victims of the tsunami but all massively cheerful and very adorable. When they got home from school the day I arrived they all lined up to say "Sawadee ka, my name is ---, I'm --- years old". Incredibly cute!

A bit of background: After the tsunami hit, support from the government and charities flooded into the key towns and tourist traps but many of the smaller towns and secondary victims were left to fend for themselves. People who lived in the surrounding hill towns but worked at the coast lost their livelihoods when their boats were destroyed or often were just too terrified to even look at the sea again. Loss of livelihood (often along with a parent) has left many families struggling to feed themselves and six years on they still haven't quite made ends meet. Many families simply fell apart as happened for most of the kids living at Home & Life. Most of them aren't what we would conventionally call "orphans" as they still have parents around living in Phuket or other towns nearby but they simply can't support the children on their own. Boom, Bim (identical twins) and Beer, three energetic young girls were left in the care of their mother who could only get together enough food for each of them to have one meal a day, and couldn't find the money to buy them their school clothes. One of the boys' mothers was forced into prostitution in Phuket and would come home late at night drunk, abusive and unable to provide food or attention for him. One girl lost her father in the tsunami and was found up a tree a few days later where she'd climbed to escape the wave only to be attacked by a monkey hiding in the same tree. The most recent addition is a lovely little boy aged about 12 who they first met when he appeared from down the road and came to play with the children here from time to time. He'd sometimes show up with bruises and they were worried about him until one day he appeared on the doorstep with a bag and asked if he could stay. He'd lost his father in the tsunami and his mother had no time to take him to school and would leave him at home with her abusive boyfriend. He hadn't been to school since the tsunami (almost six years) until three months ago when Home & Life took him in.

It's incredible how well behaved the 26 ragamuffins are under the jurisdiction of just six adults (minus volunteers). They're all immensely helpful and I've only seen minor scraps and play fights. As a volunteer I've helped make dinner, wash the girls' hair, do maths homework - try explaining to a child by charades that a pie with one tenth shaded is 0.1 and not 1.1. Gawd that took a while but we got there in the end! - baked and packed three or four hundred muffins, cookies, and loaves of bread for the market, laid cement floors (hours of working to get a smooth even surface only to have the kids all write their names in it!), painted boards, buildings, posters and much of myself, and visited the kids' school to take a few lessons. It's also handy to have fluent English support around when other tourists visit the cafe!


Interesting teaching methods in our classes.


Baking cookies


One of the best ways to get cement off - river mud fights

After an exhausting evening trying to teach one of the older girls ukulele I nipped into Phuket to get her one (I think I may have made a best friend for life) - since then Roots, the father of the orphanage has had to confiscate their uke and keep it in his room to get some peace. I very quickly learnt the Thai for "gently gently" as the boys all seem to want to get the uke to play thrash metal like some electric guitar.


14 year old Benz


Jom rocking out

On my last night before the liveaboard (also one of the other volunteers' last nights) we had a leaving party, eating from these awesome contraptions that fitted over the top of a mini barbecue in which you could stew veg in a soup whilst simultaneously cooking meat on the grill above. After this we pumped up the cheesy Thai music to digest by jumping around with the kids.


Soupy grill meal... "moothai"?





I've since returned here for more fun with the family but more on that later...

Koh Tao catch up - it's a long 'un!

After Chiang Mai I headed south to the islands (ok island). I'm not really a full moon party kinda gal so I made a beeline for Koh Tao which has a reputation for being more laid back and less about partying than Koh's Samui and Phangan. That's not to say I didn't sample my fair share of buckets but I found a few hundred drunk westerners on the beach more than enough for me without heading into crowds of thousands at full moon!


Buckets of confidence

The party scene is truly ridiculous and well, sad really. The same songs play every night as tellingly different shades of partyers/westerners rock up (dark brown = local, deep brown = diving instructor, light brown/pink = dive master trainee, light brown = one week in farang, pink/white = new farang) to gyrate against one another, talk only to other westerners, watch the fire displays (identical to last night's) without bothering to tip the performers...it's ok they get their own back by encouraging the tourists to join in skipping a burning fire rope and jumping through a burning hoop - numerous idiots walking round with 2nd degree burns on their ankles, legs and even tummies (that one looked nasty)... The only difference between this and partying back home (besides the fire) is that all the men pee directly into the ocean, people throw up into...the ocean, and the walk home along the beach is strewn with bottles, cans and buckets just waiting to disappear into...you guessed it, the ocean. Delightful.


Of course I'm super hot on H&S and would never encourage an inebriated farang to do anything silly...funny, I have a dress just like that one

The accommodation I was in on Koh Tao was a mixture of heaven and hell. Tom found us an amazing bungalow at Sairee Cabana (A12 if you're ever there) all of two yards from the crystal blue and luke warm sea (ok maybe five yards at low tide) with a porch looking out to the horizon where the sun would set just to the left of our horizontal palm tree...heaven. The hell bit? Bed bugs....I don't think I need to extrapolate, suffice to say that we stayed in the hut for a week despite the bugs - it was too perfect to move. People would come by in the evening to take pictures of our palm tree in front of the sunset and would include our hut and even us in their shots! Postcard perfect!


Guess who's hut that is :D





After a "rest day" or two in which we kayaked to Koh Nang Yuan to snorkel off the sand bar and climbed up to the highest rock on one of the peaks (wearing only our swim stuff - a bit stupid), I booked onto an Open Water diving course. I went with Sairee Cottage next door to our accomm following a recommendation - probably the best place to head if you're ever there not least because they also do the best (and almost cheapest!) kebabs on the beach....ok I'm back from my daydreaming now, where was I?

It's pretty telling how good Sairee Cottage diving's instructors and the course were that on later dive trips I was by far the most competent and confident Open Water diver (despite one couple having been diving for over a year longer than me!) - I was even pulled in to help a guy who'd run out of air when he failed to notice he had reached 30bar (you usually try to ascend before 50!), despite other more "experienced" divers being present...more on that later.

Our instructor Mee was brilliant. Great fun but organised and competent at the same time. The class was (at the maximum of) four students: Josephine (my dive buddy), myself and the most wonderful, ridiculous, Canadian couple, Danie and Tyson. I was worried I'd be claustrophobic or nervous of my breathing and find diving difficult but the instructors and other students put me completely at ease. We laughed at each other constantly - I got a reputation for giggling at myself all the time and underwater (I must have had to clear my mask fifty times every dive) especially every time we jumped in, which was a good thing because I'd always forget to signal to the people on the boat that I was fine. I learned to blow bubble rings pretty quickly and when Mee was busy with other students Josephine or Tyson and I would turn somersaults, do handstands on the bottom and generally be ridiculously goofy. It's hard to be scared when you're laughing all the time. Tyson and I would constantly get distracted by shiny things and go deeper or further from the group than we were supposed to but hey. Even the few times I dropped my reg whilst blowing bubbles I'd just laugh until I found it again - it'd be pretty hard to tell if one of us was narked!

Danie, Tom and Tyson convinced me to take the ukulele to an open mic night which I did. I'm pretty convinced I was awful at the first night but I had too many mojitos to remember much of it (Dutch courage does not make for good music!) and no one would admit that I was too drunk to be any good. The second time around I went for a sugar high with much more success - it really helped that the supporting lot knew what they were doing too :)


Squid fishing boats from the long tail

A couple of nights of candle-lit relaxing on the porch with team Canada were heaven and after they left the island felt a little empty (or maybe I was hungover, I'm not sure which)! Tom and I explored another bay or two, taking a longtail boat (you have to at least once!), and wandered to the island's hilarious bowling alley where a man sits at the end of the lane to put the pins back up and send you back the balls. I have no idea why but this made me so happy - it was just so funny to look down the lane and see a little bloke sat behind the pins on a stool!


It's all about the technique


Every bowling alley should be like this

I took my first night boat to leave the island and the gods smiled down on me as I was freakily lucky to be assigned a "bed" number in an almost secret cabin at the front where only two other people were sleeping amongst ten beds! The beds are about 50cm wide and the main cabin had over 50 crammed in there side by side so having 3/4 to myself in a private cabin was bliss! A South African bloke cleverly noticed the cabin and nipped through so I let him have a couple of my beds (I didn't need six!) in exchange for half a can of beer and some crisps. All in all an incredible experience of the islands that's going to be hard to match!

A difficult departure

It felt like I just did not stop for the first three weeks straight and after Chiang Dao I just couldn’t get motivated to do anything for a while.

I hung around Chiang Mai which I came to love, not as a holiday destination, but as a home...
DA bakery does the best breakfasts in Chiang Mai (including real English Breakfast tea, chocolate croissants and fat American pancakes), the lady “Tips” in the undercover market does the best smoothies which super fresh fruit and no added sugar and gives great advice on life, the universe...oh alright men then!


One of Chiang Mai's temples


Eco resort's heavenly pool plants

Yoga Sala is the place for yoga, especially if Adam’s teaching - really relaxed and fun guy who tells you to listen to your body and mocks the arrogant self-righteous yoga-bods. The south west corner of the old town has Chiang Mai central(!) park where you can sit/sunbathe next to the lovely fountains and ponds.

Funky Dog has great pumpkin curry and other vegetarian foods and a super mellow owner ("no food today guys, I’m too tired"), but is also base for the extremely querky (loopy) Peruvian Aleela who pokes your hand and tells you you have a kidney problem and then tweaks your foot and tells you to drink more water (I met at least one other person with bizarrely similar afflictions - one diagnosis!).
For sleeping Little Bird is cheap and central with a great social life but Eco Resort (east of town) has the most incredibly lush pool and fussball and table tennis.


My uke being painted.


Tom's frisbee

There’s the Saturday walking market, the Sunday walking market (more hectic), and the night market (like Khao San Road on speed..ok, on more speed). There’s monk chat at most temples between 5pm and 9pm but the best are those where you can talk one on one like where I met Songtan, an awesome monk who really made me think and was fascinated by England, snow, my life and my experiences of meditation and Buddhism. There's the parasol factory where ridiculously talented painters sit around badgering you to paint anything and everything on you for a pound, and Thai silk where they farm silk worms and weave the silk on these incredible looms. I got my ukulele, ukulele bag, camera case and book painted and then while I waited for Tom's frisbee Om taught me how to paint a butterfly Thai-style. "No pay, you funny, happy make."


Making parasols


I can't begin to explain how complicated weaving silk is


Thai silk worm cases

And then there’s the people. I spotted Ni walking back from a restaurant along the river. She’s an old woman (84 as I later discovered) with white-grey hair, bright black eyes and lots of wrinkles. I think what drew me to her was how every wrinkle seemed to mark a smile line and her eyes were so bright smiling at me as I walked by. I looked back and she was still beaming so I asked her if I could take her photo and then ran to catch up with the others. I went back a few days later and sat on the step to her shanty hut on the edge of the river playing the ukulele to her. She introduced me to her granddaughter who we played with for a bit and I have no idea what (or how) we talked about but it was really nice to make a genuine connection that wasn't about money.


Ni

Tips was genuinely sad that I was leaving - I think she enjoyed hearing about my life and problems and chatting about her business and life plans. I may have to go back to Chiang Mai one day to finish a few conversations.

Despite the sad departure I love that feeling when you leave a place. You hoist your backpack onto your back and wander off with a whirlwind of memories, plans and hopes buzzing in your head. You cut free of the life you've been living for one or two days, or a week or two and you're free again. You can change your plans at any time, decide to go somewhere different or meet someone new. You mull over your adventures in your head: choices you made, perfect moments, funny incidents and all those to come. Dreams, ideas, revelations, changes...

New Year: It's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission

After the great Chiang Dao adventure (what could beat that?!) came New Years Eve - always an anticlimax for me so I planned on ignoring it or at least having no expectations of excitement...



On the night, the boys, a lovely NZer called Kelly, and I headed out towards the river to find a good spot to watch the fireworks competition taking place north of the old town.

Whose idea it was may be the subject of some dispute but I remember standing in front of a mini-skyscraper with a huge tacky Christmas tree lighting it up and saying "What's the worst that could happen". We strode in the front door making a beeline for the elevators (hanging with too many Americans - sorry!). Once we were all in I pushed the button for the top floor and up we went, giggling.


Fireworks across the city

You could see most of the city from the windows on the top floor but next I knew it, Rowan was walking through a fire escape and we were climbing stairs. A few flights and non-electrically locking fire escape doors later and we were on the roof bewildered by how easy it had all been.

Hundreds of paper lanterns were already burning in the sky, rising up the air columns in spirals like big glowing jelly fish on migration. We lay on our backs, Changs in hand, watching them ebb away, occasionally rolling onto our tummies to watch the fireworks across the city.


Glowing jellyfish

Although doubtlessly beautiful in large numbers, the lanterns must have an appalling effect on the environment. We saw hundreds strewn around the trees, roads and canals the next day, hanging over power lines or crumpled and dirty in corners. Some are shaped like hearts or pandas and other have firecrackers that go off beneath them. It was one of these that crash landed on the hotel roof to our (lightly inebriated) delight. Rowan caught it and brought it to the centre of the roof trying to relight it again - it was at this point we discovered the unspent firecrackers which ignited shooting sparks across the roof and causing us to jump back and behind pillars shrieking with laughter.


Roof reprobates

Rowan and I snuck into the terrace swimming pool we spotted from the roof. This involved taking a service lift and walking through a busy laundry room - it’s incredible what you can achieve by simply acting with oodles of confidence - of course we’re supposed to be strolling through a laundry room at 10pm!
We took the briefest of dips, discovering it was completely freezing, wrung out our underwear and wrapped it in a towel to head to the market.

I LOVE STREET SUSHI.


Wandering through the market at about 11.30pm we heard chanting and ducked into this stunning temple full of Thai people. We squished ourselves into spaces on the floor near this gong that was being struck periodically to match the chanting. It was intense as the striking made every cell in your body vibrate making you feel really present. Just before midnight we dashed outside to watch the fireworks over the temple - stunning. Health and safety don’t really exist in Thailand (thank god...Buddha? er hm!) and the fireworks were really close, really loud and really big.


Entering 2011 - those lights aren't stars

An epic night.