She who is centered in the Tao
can go where she wishes, without danger.
She perceives the universal harmony,
even amid great pain,
because she has found peace in her heart.
Music or the smell of good cooking
may make people stop and enjoy.
But words that point to the Tao
seem monotonous and without flavour.
When you look for it there is nothing to see.
When you listen for it there is nothing to hear.
When you use it, it is inexhaustible.
Tao te Ching - Chapter 35
Live and learn. We read in guides that many tourist agencies that arrange for bus trips in these countries are often overpromising and underdelivering. And so it was with our bus trip from Bangkok to Surat Thani on the east coast of southern Thailand. We had arranged a VIP bus which typically means comfortable chairs, air conditioning and an on-board WC. The vehicle had wheels and windows but aside from that it failed to measure up to all other specs – it had a WC but the plumbing seemed to be running the wrong direction. A sleepless, smelly, hot and stuffy bus ride may not rival the discomforts of travel in the 19th or earlier centuries but we spoiled westerners are not accustomed to really tortuous treatment. Perhaps that is overstating it a bit but, combined with the customary games of chicken that these vehicle drivers love to engage in, experiencing 12 or so hours of these privations can make one a bit testy. I wasted several hours in the wee hours plotting revenge on the travel agents who stuck us on the Beelzebub Express. I should have slept. For who profited from my anger and blame? Not I.
But, paying heed to the Tao, I am reminded to be more equanimous (this is several days after the trip so I can afford to take the long view). Small miseries make the achieved goal much sweeter I think. One wants to feel one is moving toward a special experience. This flies in the face of Buddhist teachings which tell us that living for the future or dwelling in the past are sources of suffering - one of the most difficult things to keep in balance when one is on the road, in search of adventure and meaning (and comfort), is being in the present.
When I pull up some positive memories from the ride: we passed some incredible things in the night – a tremendously large Wat loomed above us on a hillside. In the middle of the night a towering golden Buddha statue rose like some miraculous vision, high above, surrounded by inky black. A gibbous moon rose and hung over the wrinkled sea, casting down its pearly path while we sped past market stalls with intense fluorescents displaying beautiful mangoes, papayas, bananas, fish and raw meat (contrast). We passed a truck full of cattle - a few young men rode in the back of the van, swinging in hammocks or clambering up and down ladders while the truck hurtled along – probably an age-old vision here but quite striking to my eyes. Dawn found us in a flyblown bus terminal, with nothing edible on offer, at the margin of a brackish canal. There were the requisite flea-bitten dogs with running sores and spotty noses knocking each other about in the cool(er) grey-blue air. The locals were surly and not one of them could answer my hostile questions about whether our bus was a VIP one (they all lost their ability to understand English when I cornered them). For all this it was picturesque in a sort of Old West kind of way. One can choose to see character or homeliness – it’s just a state of mind. Can I perceive the universal harmony?
The day continued to go badly; after about an hour we were bundled back on to the bus and we drove for another hour and a half back up the highway to a ferry wharf. We waited there in the now-smouldering sun for another hour until a few more tourist buses showed up. This was not part of the charter we had agreed to. Positive experiences were: watching three dolphins, two of them albino, swim calmly about, hunting fish, only a few yards from the wharf. Dark, lean men cast heavy nets off the wharf to catch who knows what because the nets always came up empty. A couple of older fellows were pulling crabs out of traps, disentangling them from the webbing carefully – the moment they were free the slow-deliberate action turned into a sort of keystone cops dance as the liberated crab used all its strategies to bounce and skitter away. Fishermen 2, Crabs 0.
On the ferry at last and into the beautiful white-blue Sea of Thailand heading for Koh Samui and then our island, Koh Phangnan. The boat is crowded with 20-something kids, feckless and spoiled-looking. Ohmigod, is the island going to be crawling with such as these? I don’t dislike young’uns but these were hardcore party types, you could smell the depleted whisky/redbull fumes on their breaths. A couple of rows forward a two American-psycho lads with modern-day mullets with white Rasta dreads woven in (truly a fashion faux-pas) were showing their latest loot. One had bought a taser in Bangkok and fired it off to the great delight of their entourage – an incredibly loud, intense clicketing sound. Scary as shit. The other pulls a bowie knife with a 10 inch blade, one of those carbon-steel jobs that looks like it could skin you from a few feet away. Please God let them get off on Samui. (prayer answered).
And finally Phangnan. Pretty little island – as usual the port town ‘has character’ and we get out as soon as we scarf down some oily fried rice – first meal we’ve had in about 16 hours. We bicker with a Sangthaew driver to take us down to the tip of the island, famous for full moon parties. We have chosen to be here in the dead time but we are told that 5 to 10 thousand kids show up to the monthly vice-fest to get drunk, stoned, insane, copulated and whatever your imagination might fill in. The beach is maybe 500 meters long and the tide is high. The sea, we are told is full of horny, drunk rockers consuming vast quantities of booze from their ‘fuck-buckets’ (check Facebook for the Koh Phangnan 1 installment) and shitting and screwing in the shallow waters. Yum.
From there – and at this you might be asking yourself ‘Why? Can’t you read the signs?’ we run into the Longtail Mafia – a consortium of angry gangsta-types who will ferry you out to resorts and bungalows that are not accessible by road. They charge any price they want to perform the service and they demand what in this country is a ridiculous price. I ask a few different ones but the fix is in. Same price all around. I ask, jokingly/testily what happened to good old free-market. Unsurprisingly, no answer. In for a penny as they say. We get dropped up the island a mile or so at a bay called Haad Thien. It is lush, tropical, bohemian – sort of – and we stagger up the beach and drop our bags on the sand and our butts into a seat where we must consume our reward. Thank Buddha for fermentation and refrigeration.
Probably as good a time as any to stop this blog. I will write a few thoughts about this strange community tomorrow. It was my brother’s 60th birthday this day. I failed to connect with him but some part of him will know that I was thinking often about him. Good thoughts.
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