To: Friends & Family

17 May, 2005

Last check in from My Thailand Trip

I suppose this is the seventh of the trip's e-mail installments and the last ... for this trip.  ;-)

Well my adventures continued on Ko Phi Phi Island.

The clean up efforts we undertook on Loh Moo Dee Beach were dramatic. Getting up broken glass, fallen coconut fronds and coconuts, trash and debris shifted a beautiful beach at first glance into an even more beautiful beach on close inspection. The second day we started to kick around (or rather Jens threw out there "...wouldn't it be nice if...") the idea of throwing a celebration when we were done. Originally, we had the vision of a dozen of our friends--amazing how in paradise people you met only a day or two before can become steadfast friends. Envisioning we'd be together enjoying one another's company on a beach removed from the beachfront nightlife on Tonsai Bay. Maybe we'd even invite along an acoustic guitarist and have a small barbecue...like I said that was what we were originally thinking.

The seventh day from our initial clean-up efforts commencing was the date Candace, Colleen, Jens & I set for the party. By the fourth day of planning and putting feelers out there for interest we figured out the number of attendees could be more like fifty...possibly even sixty people. Mind you planning a party in paradise is no easy task...actually a series of stressful variables that a motley crew of four farang (foreigners in Thai) got to experience first hand. First off, we realized that we needed more help. Suzi stepped in to save the day on so many regards that I lost count. She helped us out with flyers, getting beach mats so people could sit on the sand around the floating candles she procured from some undisclosed source, plus brainstorming through countless other details where the rest of us were clueless.

Then there was the issue of food and drink. We were fortunate enough to use one of Jens's connections; a Thai woman named Mai, to take care of those logistical challenges. There is little more endearing than seeing a Thai woman talk in German to one of your friends who then turns around and translates for the English speakers (the Canadian and the two folks from the States) what was just discussed. (Mai spent three years in Germany as a chef and speaks fluent German...Jens's native tongue.) Spring rolls, curries, kabobs, steamed rice and a list of other food that seemed enough to feed an army of volunteers...and did!

Then there was the logistical challenge of getting the attendees to Loh Moo Dee beach, a beach that for an evening cookout can only be accessed safely from the water by night. The overland path to get there is not lit and treacherous by day...so we had to arrange longtail boats for the twenty-minute trip around the island. We thought we were good on those boat arrangements until the day before the party. After a series of snafus we had to find alternate boatmen. We did and things seemed okay at that point.

Food was addressed. How to accommodate the attendees' needs for creature comforts was taken care of and so was the means of transportation. All set! ...or so we thought. Well, the night of the party arrived and Mai had prepared enough food for seventy---just in case. We were ready to send the first attendees over to Loh Moo Dee around five-thirty...with one slight snag. The longtails were nowhere in sight of the bay. After a bit we decided to wrangle up a couple of other boatmen (that eventually turned into four additional boatmen) to shuttle people over to the beach. We later found out, when the two boatmen we officially arranged arrived, that they were stuck onshore at Long Beach---as the waves were coming in too high for them to be able to leave the shore. Loh Moo Dee is on a shallow lagoon so the waves were not an issue like they were on Long Beach... (Made sense to the local Thais, but we farang party planners were without a clue.)   

Imagine this as the vantage coming into Loh Moo Dee. With the sea at your back onward to the horizon you see silhouettes of coconut trees against a backdrop of midnight blue sky speckled with twinkling stars. Across the lapping waves just off the prow of the longtail you see in the middle of the beach a bonfire of coconut shells, around which there are people gathered. To the left and the right of the bonfire you see candles creating pools of light every few feet in the white sand. Around the bonfire and around the light pools people sit cross-legged on beach mats listening to the acoustic blending of waves lapping on shore, guitar and didjeridoo. You sense in the deepest part of yourself that this is a place to be...a place where intention brought you into this group. To say the least the beachfront is a beautiful place.

There in that place of beauty we held the “No Money, No Honey” Party for the namesake shirt that Mr. Hut wore in the party poster. On Loh Moo Dee Beach, where we created a gathering, even after running out of provisions and the organizing team making a beer and ice run mid-party, in the eyes of the attendees everything about the party went off without a hitch...for all one hundred and fifty attendees! Yep, we blew our expectations out of the water, but everyone had a great time. The food lasted until 8:30 (we had food advertised on the flyer available from 6-8:30) and the beer and sodas--with the replenishment run---lasted all night. The acoustic guitarists on the beach were a smash. So was the guy who played his didjeridoo (an Australian wind instrument that has a haunting melodic quality) and the three or four people who provided an impromptu fire show---sans the techno music and instead accompanied by the didjeridoo, guitar and lapping ocean waves.

I left Ko Phi Phi a few days later on the morning ferry. The three days prior to my departure there had been a glimpse into what rainy season is like in Thailand. That translated to the ocean swells being high...six to nine feet. Well, I'll tell on myself before it somehow leaks out to the masses...I got sick, lost my cookies, hurled, whatever you want to call it. There were also twenty or thirty other people on the ferry who lost it. I'll know next time to not have a full breakfast within an hour of getting on a ferry that is about to encounter rough seas.  

Many other facets of my Phi Phi experience exist in my mind--spending time volunteering by day and planning a party by night; getting to catch up with Kelley about her Thailand experiences when she was on Phi Phi for a visit before heading to London; of venturing to the far side of the island with a group of new friends to find out what was open there; continuing to see dolphins at play in the sea; having a home cooked meal prepared for us by Mai the day after the party as a thank you (that's right thanking us for letting her help in the party! I love the disposition of many Thai people!); getting to see the book by the children of Phi Phi Island and how it translates their tsunami story so eloquently, etc. These among many other experiences made the Phi Phi experience a time I will never forget...and I look forward to being there again.

For now I am in the Shenandoah at a cabin in the mountains--reflecting on and processing so much of what transpired these last few weeks.

In Love and Light, My Friends,
namaste, jace