Not only had my wonderful Australian posse moved on but so had everyone else staying in my bungalows. Sombre grey skies, not a breath of wind, except for those induced by baked beans for breakfast, and barely a ripple on the ocean. It's so quiet I could almost hear myself think. And "What the hell am I doing?" tought Harry, according to Harry.
After being hit with a $411 mobile phone bill, I decided upon an early retirement for something that wasn't all that necessary to bring in the first place. With its one purpose fulfilled, other than merely bankrupting me as quickly as possible, it may be offered up to the Gods in the sacrifiical flames of our bungalow owners coconut fires. I had the time of my life partying with my fourtet, but my budget was reduced to tears by the cost such partying entails. Doing the 26 day retreat in Chiang Mai was looming as the only way I can stretch my holiday beyond the following weekend.
Having had constant company over the previous week, company that I hope will produce lasting friendships, I was craving a quieter lifestyle, at least for the few days I had left at Nai Pan Yai. There was a very appealing chance to see Gemma and Adam again in Chiang Mai, so my thinking is to head there regardless and decide once I was there whether I was up to the challenge of 26 days with just my ego for companionship. Being stuck with that bozo was not the most attractive option I had ever been presented with but definitely in my best interests long term.
With nothing better to talk about at present, I will ramble on about an aspect of life on Nai Pan Yai that leads me into some philosophical rhetoric. Most mornings a tractor rolled past the bungalow at about 7am, precisely 3 and a half hours before I intended, or needed to wake up. Due to the freak tides washing away half the beach's sand content, the tractor was employed for a solid hour, hour and a half tops, to move the sand back to the banks of the buildings. Curse worthy enough they started at our end of the beach as our bungalows provided the easiest path onto the beach.
What this meant for the businesses at the other end of the beach was unclear from their behaviour. Like the tractor drivers, who earnt an entire day of lounging in a hammock by putting in one of the most impressive hours of labour known to anyone inclined to care, the business owners just hung out in their hammocks completely unconcerned that their sand would not be returned to them until the high season next year. If they needed a justification, they probably found one in the most widely held, but somewhat erroneous interpretation of the Buddhist idea of karma. 'You reap what you sow', 'What goes around, comes around', 'Give to each according to his needs, not his desires', and 'The business that waits for the tractor, makes the tractor driver wait for service'.
The last one is from my business mentor when I was setting up my art business. "When you get into business, just remember this, 'The business that waits for the tractor, makes the tractor driver wait for service'. Remember that and you'll succeed at what ever you do!" Wow, what sound advice! Pure genius! I owe the person I am to that very tractor analogy, even though my business succumbed to a potent form of euthanasia 7 months later.
Moving right along at a snails pace and back to the usefulness of the tractor. On one particular stroll up a sheer vertical slope, I expected to end up closer to God spiritually, not physically, as my unfit lungs nearly haemorrhaged trying to suck in enough oxygen to keep my lazy system responsive. The dirt track had been recently paved, but I noted with no surprise, that most of the motorbike tracks that had since been left, all veered off in random directions rather than following the most controlled route straight through the middle.
I arrived at the turnoff, my gulps of air having alerted any animal to the coming of a large, and possibly dying, threat to their safety, and saw with dismay that tractor man had a go at highway construction as well. I walked down a path that was a foot wide the day before. Now it was a 3 metre wide road with detritus strewn to either side of this haphazardly blazed trail. Lamenting the ignorance such an approach to nature preservation engenders, I come to see this as the affect of rapid progress and development on minimal or totally absent infrastructure, and forethought. How much of an impact was our very presence having on a small community that has changed more in the last 10 years, than it had in the whole holocene epoch? I don't feel I can make any claims to innocence, being implicated by simply being here at this particular moment in time.
My past trips to Asia have taught me many things. These included the fact that change is inevitable and that vetoing a certain place is not going to make a difference when the locals are actively seeking our custom and are determined to change their environment to better suits our needs, irrespective of whether or not we want them to. Another lesson learnt is that the world does not owe me any favours, as it had granted enough to me, as a Westerner, who doesn't have to battle for survival every single day like the people whose lives I touristed through. Another was that materialism is actually the complete opposite of contentment. The less you have, the more you may be able to realise the less you need. And that all life is too wonderfully diverse, and that experiencing any of it clouded by your own moods or expectations ruins a good time before your stupidity gets the chance to do so. I approach every day happy, until life gives me a very solid reason not to be. Unfortunately, I think most people approach their day the other way; outright miserable until they concede to one of the days many marvels that something is worth being happy about.
