The Fear Isn’t in Leaving – It’s in Coming Back…
I’m sitting in one of my most favorite restaurants, Lamuan Seafood, where for 10 months I’ve come to many times over and have been adopted into the hearts of the owner and the staff as part of their family. It’s been 10 months here in Khao Lak, and it’s about to end. Sitting here in Lamuan’s drinking my Chang beer there are a number of thoughts running through my head. It’s not being out of work – I’ll easily land a job with my background. Nor is it finding a place to live – that’s actually sorted out already in Austin and I’m really looking forward to that new adventure of a new city and new relationship. No… What I fear isn’t that stuff. It’s more along the lines of coming back to a culture I’ve grown so far away from while I’ve been here. And it doesn’t live in my heart that I made the impact I set out to…
Christmas here in Thailand was really amazing. 85 degrees on a tropical beach with a special person, a former volunteer that came back on her holiday break to spend Christmas with me. Last night in low light, our last sunset we said good bye before she walked to her plane. The prior two and a half weeks were spent bouncing around Southern Thailand’s beaches and cruising from one island to the next.
Some say you should never play a player. Well one of Khao Lak’s best didn’t listen and tried it on me… Well, it backfired on him.
A calm took over me one morning as I woke up and saw the sunrise. I sat on my porch that overlooked the beach bungalows that terraced down to the Gulf of Thailand as the sun slowly crept up from the sea. The people from the 
There have been a few nights I’ve been swinging in the hammock at the Fisherman Bar with some young co-ed volunteer from Canada or England. And I know, I know – the only good looking women in England are actually tourists and Canadians talk funny, Eh. But, there have been a few exceptions that have slipped under the radar and into the hammock with me on such nights.
Sunday!
This place is very charming. One of the most charming places in the world I think. I can only explain it like my first impression of New Mexico. They call New Mexico “The Land of Enchantment” and I found out very quickly why. The place is “other-worldly.” I came across moths the size and shape of hummingbirds minus the long beak, You can look at the same landscape and the shadow from the clouds falling on the ground morph what you are looking at within just minutes. Everything there was dazzling and new. My experience of being there describes the awe and freshness of being here. Of course this is a jungle rain forest mountain range hugging a long stretch of white sand beaches. Both of which beg to be explored. Like last week my friend Richard and I took a hike to explore the rain forest mountain which is in my backyard. We rode in as far as the paved path would take us and then we began our hike along the river that headed to the top in hopes of finding a hidden waterfall. I don’t think I’ll forget our time together as we hiked up the mountain and poor Richard ill equipped on the mosquito repellant department surrounded by a cloud of mozzies as thick as the grey clouds above us supplying a constant drizzle on our heads.
One of the Thap Tawan village elders Seewai invited us to go octopus fishing one day. I had no idea how to catch an octopus and the night before I had visions of heading out to sea in a longtail boat and snorkeling down with spearguns and fighting huge octopus. So morning comes along and a couple of us collected at the road to wait for Adam who told us he’d be by before 5:45 in the morning. 6AM goes by and we haven’t seen him yet. With my motor bike I rode down the way to see if there were anyone else waiting and ran into Josh and Jen who were still waiting also, I rode to Adam’s and found the truck still there which meant he was still asleep. Scrambling when woken up he yells at me that it’s only 4 in the morning. After pointing out to him that the the sun is up and sense we are so close to the equator the sun usually rises around 6 in the morning. He then mutters something about his phone being wrong and throws on some shorts and runs outside. Well, on the way. Then we get out there late and Seewai was waiting for us. He took us out to the beach where there was no boat waiting, no spearguns for us, no snorkels. “What were we going to do?” I thought as Seewai just kept walking out to the water which was pretty well receded as it was low tide. So everyone just followed him. We walked out to the offshore reef and saw some really cool things on our way out we saw plenty of sea slugs (which apparently you can jerk off and they will cum all over your hand – nice), we saw about 5 puffer fish that were just chilling out in the reef and puffing up when we sloshed by, lot’s of crabs, in fact we caught those as bait for the octopus. So here is how you catch an octopus (moy wai in Thai). You take a piece of crab meat and stick it on the end of a string or piece of seagrass. Then you look for small holes in the sand in the reef areas and stick the crabmeat in the hole. Wait until the octopus comes out and then you stick it with a metal stabbing tool. Then string them up and take them home to cook them up. One of the girls, Koi, had her own unorthodox way of catching them… She let them catch her. We walked up to her and an octopus had wrapped itself around her leg!!! It was a fascinating day out on the reef.