Throwing Water

There were several days this week when I had to restrain myself from banging my head against the wall. In addition to a new section of general English, we launched our Adventure, Community, and Eco (ACE) initiative, in which we will teach English and guiding skills to twenty-five villagers. It’s been manic to say the least; every lucid moment when I was in my blog-writing zone was otherwise accounted for ... and when I have worked on it I’ve either barely been able to string together a coherent thought or suffered from guilt that I should be doing something else (like sleeping). I fear the resulting lack of quality will be evident, and for this I offer whatever remains of my patient readership a sincere apology.

The Evaluation

Teaching at NATR is like working in a vacuum. I constantly question my pace, methodology, effectiveness, and the logic of the curriculum. My only feedback so far has been the Thai smile. So it was with great anticipation two weeks ago Saturday when Linette--one of my evaluators at Transworld Schools who, by remarkable coincidence, is now teaching in nearby Khao Lak--came to Khuraburi to evaluate our program and observe my classes that day.

The night before was filled with anxiety as I prepared a lesson on indefinite articles and countable versus non-countable nouns. As I do every week, I went through a lengthy process of deciding what specific skills to teach, creating all my own paper tasks using the Internet, Word, and Photoshop (I have yet to find a textbook that's culturally relevant or that I jibe with pedagogically); optimizing my boardwork for maximum efficiency; and creating "activation" games with all necessary materials and realia. Apparently the maxim among ESL teachers is one hour of prep time per hour of lesson. In my case the ratio is more like eight to one. I’ve placed a Herculean burden of responsibility on myself to deliver a quality product to these amazing and resilient people.

I got to bed at about 3 a.m. and had a brief and fitful night's sleep. In a dream I was eating macaroni and cheese (I dream of cheese often) in a cafeteria and noticed my high school chemistry teacher a few tables away. It's worth noting that without the inspiration and confidence this great man instilled in me--the first teacher I ever had who made me want to learn--I’d have probably have ended up working as either a forklift operator or a bus driver (um … right). Regrettably, I couldn’t remember a word of our conversation upon waking.

When the lesson was over the next day I felt as though I'd just subjected the class to a horror worse than the tsunami. I went through the motions of bowing and politely responding to each “Thank you, teacher.” When I finally mustered the courage to face Linette, she was beaming. "Great lesson!" she exclaimed. To my perplexed look she continued, "Didn't you notice? They got it!" In my anxiety I'd apparently missed the amazing moment she then recounted, as several of the struggling students' eyes lit up and they whispered "oh!" when the concepts crystallized for them. Linette's only genuine criticism is that I need to get over myself and not stress out so hard. I feel I’ve heard this before.

The next day I left on what was supposed to be a three day respite on Koh Samui with a friend, but what instead turned into an eight-day-long adventure that sent me hop-scotching all over the Kingdom.

When in Rome ...

I traveled by bus and ferry to Koh Samui the next day with Linette, who was also meeting a friend there. Koh Samui proved a shining example of exactly the sort of irresponsible tourism we’re trying to prevent from happening in the north Andaman; it’s a garish, overdeveloped resort town complete with Starbucks, McDonalds, and shopping malls. I walked the streets of Chaweng beach, observing in revulsion the farang (the Thai word for Caucasians) in culturally offensive dress, treating the place as their personal playground and the Thais like second-class citizens. I wished for one of those infernal “Same Same but Different” shirts, only written in Thai … or anything to distance myself from these idiots in the eyes of the natives. Do people who visit this absurd place actually claim to have experienced Thailand?

Now I’ll step down from my sanctimonious platform for a paragraph and confess that I did indulge wildly in the abundant creature comforts of this place. The first night my friend Phylippa and I holed up in her room with several bottles of wine and watched, in a marathon session, season two of “Lost” on DVD. The next night night, following a day of leisurely sauntering about town, I convinced Phyl, Linette, and Linette’s friend Salem to go bowling. Yes, bowling. I scored a 108--forty points higher than the second-highest score--and, well into our third pitcher of Singha, I let it slip that in my youth I’d been on a league. To the resulting laughter and taunts of being a “tosser” that followed, I urged my companions spend a night in Clifton Park, New York--the uninspiring maze of vinyl-sided McHouses where I spent my childhood--for it to make infinite sense.

Soaked in Bangkok

Tuesday afternoon I dreamt that I’d flown back to California to renew my drivers’ license, and as I was standing in line at the DMV I realized I had no way to get back here. There was a brief panic at being (literally and figuratively) thousands of miles from where I was supposed to be, followed by a sinking disappointment: I’d forsaken the mission again. I awoke to a reality that didn’t feel much different.

Somewhere during the course of the previous day Phylippa had talked me into traveling with her to Bangkok to meet up with some friends, and we’d left at dawn that morning. I spent the whole afternoon sleeping off the trip on a hard mattress in a stark, cement-walled room in the Baan Sabai hotel on Khao San Road, unsure of why I’d chosen to spend so much as a day of my precious vacation in the armpit of Thailand, and in the process potentially jeopardizing the hope of celebrating the upcoming Thai new year and water-throwing holiday Songkran with my NATR friends at a beautiful island in the south, as I’d been planning for weeks.

That night we met up with a few former NATR Thai staff and ended up on a bender on the Khao San Road, where I found myself engaged in water-gun combat with passing cute Euro-farang, who were getting their Songkran on early. But in the blink of an eye the injustice filter that had blocked from my vision street vendors and their young children, who were ambling on the street well past midnight, failed. In that Jekyll-Hyde effect alcohol sometimes has on me, my privileged-white-man guilt came on so strong I could barely bid my fiends a proper goodnight before fleeing for the hotel.

By an incredible stroke of luck, the next day I scored one of the last available seats on a bus for Krabi, a city in southern Thailand where some friends from NATR would be the next morning. Being the eve of Thailand’s biggest holiday, the bus was packed and traffic leaving the city was gridlocked. Like all of my previous sleepless overnight bus experiences in this country, this one did not disappoint: the cute German girl in front of me reclined her seat back so far my legs were quite literally pinned in place, and the Frenchman next to me apparently needed to elbow me periodically to maintain his slumber. So I quickly resigned myself to staring through the windshield ahead, intently taking in the passing scenery in silhouette, reading (English) road signs, and estimating where we were and how long the journey would take.

I had a flashback to a night on my first trip as a Green Tortoise driver, on a westbound cross-country adventure, leaving New Orleans. I was driving a 1965 GMC 5303 "New Look" we called Sammy, one of the classic old buses that until recently were the hallmark of the company (and which allowed me to indulge my Neal Cassady fantasies). The coach bounced in step to the concrete slabs that comprise that stretch of Interstate 10, while behind me thirty world travelers slept off a night of revels in the big easy. As I inhaled the muggy bayou air it occurred to me for the first time that I'd actually done it: found a sustainable escape from the Dilbert cartoon of a life I'd been mired in for years. After several painful false starts in the late nineties I was finally on the path to whatever I've been searching for.

Somewhere near the village of Hua Hin I looked out the side window and noticed we were passing a truckload of elephants.

Gonna Party Like it’s 2549

Songkran, the Thai New Year (the word “Songkran” comes from the Sanskrit and refers to the beginning of a new solar year), is celebrated from April 13 to April 15. It occurs at the end of the dry season, the hottest time of the year in Thailand (temperatures can reach well over 40°C on some days). During the afternoon of the 13th, Buddha images are bathed as part of the ceremony, as it is believed that this will bring good luck and prosperity for the New Year. Traditionally, young people pour a small amount of lustral water into the hands of elders and parents as a mark of respect while seeking their blessing.

The modern age has added mobility and high-powered water guns to the ceremony. I met Bodhi, Jo, and fellow English teachers Helen and Jamie in Krabi at 9 a.m., and shortly thereafter we loaded the NATR pickup truck with a plastic rubbish bin filled with water, armed ourselves with buckets and water guns, and took to the streets to exchange festive dousings.

The Emerald Cove

It’s my belief that a life well lived requires exercising every muscle of your being; constantly pushing yourself beyond your limits. So, on a personal level, one of the driving forces for my decision to return to Thailand--and NATR in particular--is that being here not only exposes many of my personal shortcomings, but virutally pummels them into a raw pulp. Much like the wholly unfamiliar set of challenges I faced when I first came to the Green Tortoise, this new adventure has cast me light years outside of my comfort zone. Living in a foreign country, struggling to get through the most trivial interactions when you can’t speak the language, and working in a chaotic, extroverted, high-energy environment nearly reduces me to tears some days. But perhaps my biggest challenge has been relating to NATR’s complex director.

That night we ended up at Ralay beach, a narrow isthmus near Ao Nang with a golden sandy beach on one side and a mangrove forest on the other, bounded on either side by limestone karsts and only accessible by longtail boat (I was vacationing on this beach exactly one year before the tsunami). At sunset Bodhi and I left on a hike, and I used the opportunity to confess that after two months I still often feel like I’m in over my head at NATR and fear that I’m a disappointment. Bodhi quickly assuaged my concerns, complimenting my ability to work independently, and confessing his own frustrations at being spread so thin that he can’t devote more time to checking in with me. “Man, we could get so much done!” Barefoot, Bodhi and I made a precarious ascent up the side of a limestone karst to get a better view of the sunset, while the conversation became increasingly intense and philosophical. He excitedly talked about how revolutionary NATR’s work is, and asked me to outline my own vision. I didn’t and still don’t have a clear answer--I’ve spent ten years chasing something I cannot define.

Bodhi, Jo, and I spent the next two days on the island of Koh Muk in the province of Trang. The island’s most famous attraction is what’s known as the emerald cove--a hidden beach accessible at low tide through a cave. Up to a thousand people a day visit it, but by sunset it’s deserted (because of how many people drown trying to get to it after dark, we later learned). Bodhi used his remarkable people skills to commandeer a kayak from a shop near our bungalow, then he and I set out on the Andaman Sea in search of it, just as the sky was acquiring that arresting fiery quality it gets at the end of the day here.

After about forty-five minutes we found the cave--no big feat as it’s well marked with buoys. Once we entered it, I, at the bow, had the duty of holding in my mouth the flashlight we’d brought, gradually rotating my head 180 degrees back and forth, as well as up, to navigate by--we were otherwise surrounded by complete darkness, with the echo of surging water amplified in our ears. We paddled forward, as Bodhi shouted out directions in which to point the light. We were deep into the cave with little encouragement of finding the beach, when suddenly we heard what sounded like a tidal wave coming at us from the abyss ahead. In that instant a great calm washed over me, as though a important mystery was about to be solved.

Bodhi shouted “Paddle Right!” I snapped out of my trance, and vigorously paddled on that side, turning the kayak at the slightly obtuse angle where the entrance to the cove had materialized before us. The roaring swell delivered us there effortlessly.

Imagine it like pipe (an entirely appropriate simile), where the cave is the stem, and the emerald cove is the bowl, with a sandy basin that slopes gently upwards from the entrance, and is surrounded on all sides by roughly 200-meter-high limestone cliffs draped with jungle flora. (I’m convinced this place was the inspiration of Alex Garland’s novel The Beach.) Bodhi and high-fived each other, screamed, and ran around in a kinetic release of the adrenaline rush. We then sat on the beach and stared up at the sky in a meditative trance.

Navigating the cave on our way out, we turned out the light and paddled gently, observing the phosphorescence, which traced each paddle stroke like pixie dust. On the open sea, I filled Bodhi in on the details of corporate job I had after finishing my degree, the luxury apartment and new car that followed, and of the emptiness it all brought me. "Eventually I packed what I could fit in the trunk of the car and drove to California to start over." "So, your biggest material possession literally became your vehicle of escape. That's hot, man!"

“This might sound like a strange question, but why aren’t you married?” Bodhi asked. Actually, I’ve reached a magical age where most people feel the need to make that inquiry--with varying levels of concern--and the amount of subsequent explanation it requires is as overwhelming as the prospect of doing a thousand chin-ups. My attempt to dismiss the whole matter with the response “Hey, why buy the cow?” was rightly ignored. So, after a pause I said, “There was a time when that was all I was searching for. But about ten years ago that equation completely reversed itself. I don’t know--I’m on a different path now.” Bodhi naturally inquired as to what changed my course so profoundly, but like divine intervention a distant burst of lightning distracted us and the thread was lost. The full moon was swallowed up by clouds, like a precious window of opportunity you missed.

We kayaked near the edge of the limestone karst, skirting the cavern formed where it cantilevers several meters from its base, which has been worn down by countless millennia of tidal battering. We came upon a smaller version of the cave we’d just navigated, and with each surge air was forced into it, trapped momentarily in the bronchi of the great stone beast before being exhaled with a deep, primordial howling. Bodhi and I stopped paddling for what may have been five minutes or half an hour, while rapid pulses of lightning created a strobe-like effect on the great vaulted sky above us and the earth communicated in a language most humans stopped speaking ten-thousand years ago.

We reached the beach just as the storm made landfall.

Endnotes:

Bire Lama, my Nepali brother, wrote to tell me he’s getting married in September. My desire to extend my stay here beyond August is now a full-blown mission of sorts, with a journey to Kathmandu in the fall.

My biological brother and his band Scamper advanced to the final round of the WBCN Rumble--competing against The Rudds and Campaign for Real Time--to determine Boston’s best band. Although in the end they didn't take home the gold, it was an awesome effort and a great honor. Nice one, boys.