Water is the world’s most volatile conundrum. It is concurrently the hardest and the softest compound. It carves right through solid rock like butter, yet flows through our thin, delicate veins over eighty years. Too little; we dry up. Too much; we drown. It is unspeakably beautiful and indescribably horrific.
The worst floods in forty years are afflicting Thailand. Hundreds are dead and thousands left homeless.
I was supposed to go to Bangkok for a two week business trip. After that, I was going to go on vacation to Vietnam for a week of exploring the alley mazes of Hanoi and the limestone labyrinths of nearby Ha Long Bay. Twenty four hours before departure, my organization relented and canceled the training I was to attend. Waters were threatening central Bangkok and they didn’t want to take any chances.
Given the suffering of the Thai people, my problem was a ridiculously minor one. I wanted a vacation, and needed to travel within a week, but where to go? Even though I was sure I wanted to get of Europe for a bit, there are plenty of destinations on this side of the world. But something was nagging at me. I had already my heart set on going back to East Asia. And I always wanted to learn how to scuba dive.
I read a story in the Bangkok Post about how the Thai government was frustrated that tourists were canceling their travel plans to destinations in the south because of the flooding threats on Bangkok. The old airport, Don Muang was under water, but the new international airport was fully operational and safe from flooding through innovative engineering foresight of the airport’s flood walls, drainage and advanced pumping.
Then I thought how Thailand was the perfect place to learn how to dive.
Then I thought how this would be the last week long window of opportunity for probably another year to learn how to dive.
So then I made a spur of the moment decision and booked myself a ticket to Bangkok via Istanbul. I decided that I would pack up and be at a diving school down in Khao Lak, north of Phuket within a week.
I had never planned an international trip at the last minute before. It was kind of thrilling. I found an opening in an Open Water class at a reputable diving outfit with a wicked name: “Wicked Diving” and readied my old green backpack for its return journeys to Turkey and Thailand.
Cheap air tickets will some time plan your trip for you. In this case, Turkish
Airlines planned for me to spend a night and a day in Istanbul.
Returning to a place you’ve been before diminishes the stress of travel tremendously. Last time I was in Turkey back in 2009, I got lost when trying to transfer from the airport subway line to the city tram via a confusing path through a sub-road market. This time, I arrived fresh off the quick hop from Kyiv and easily found my way to my cheap hotel in old Sultanahmet in a matter of less than an hour.
I dropped off my bags, and still full from plane food (yes airlines in Europe FEED their customers even on 90 minute flights!), I picked at a hummus plate with fresh baked bread at a colored glass lantern lit bistro. I watched in bewilderment the restaurant matron, as he adeptly picked out the nationality of passer-bys presumably by the way they walked and dressed, and then beckoned to them in their native tongue, Здравствуйте, приглошайте вам к ресторану!, Hallo, Sie sind zu meinem Restaurant eingeladen!, Bonjour, vous êtes invités à mon restaurant ! Ciao, sei invitato a mio ristorante!
Istanbul was an opportunity to break in my new camera, a Nikon 3100, and finally take some good pictures of one of the world’s most photogenic cities. As you can see, my blog-worthy pictures on this trip have already improved.
The Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia look much better under the lens of a Nikon then it did under the Ergo-lens of the $35 digital I spent years with. I still miss that small, light, cheap camera though. Some dastardly Swede has it now.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I passed this one – how often does one see the flags of three lands one has lived all arranged together randomly? Maybe unintentional, but yes, as a matter of fact I do indeed agree - the flags of the US, Ukraine and Wales all seem to go together quite nicely.
It was a nice, relaxing layover. I spent the day walking around Istanbul, dropped by a 500 year old hamam for a steam sweat, visited the Galata Tower, and ate an incredible fresh fish sandwich at a restaurant under the Galata Bridge as fishermen above me reeled up soon-to-be-fish sandwiches beside my table. Then I got lost in the Grand Bazaar. Literally.
The night flight from Istanbul to Bangkok took me over Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. I saw the bright lights of Lahore, and smiled at seeing dawn break across the face of the jagged wall of the Himalayas once again. Above the waters south of Bangladesh, I completed my circumnavigation of the planet Earth. Up until this trip, the furthest West I’d ever been was Bangkok, and the furthest East I’d ever been was Calcutta. I felt like I should’ve gotten a pin or something.
Impressed by Burma from the clearing morning air, I made a note that I’d have to make it there one day… …once the clouds burn off.
Final approach to BKK showed just how devastating the floods had been outside the city. Entire communities appeared as archipelagos of steel roofs. Cars were marooned on bridges that were flooded at both ends. Boats sped across farm fields like meteorites.
Bangkok’s new airport is gorgeous. It’s probably one of the nicest transportation hubs in the world.
I hopped a small Airbus to Phuket airport, where I was picked up by a waiting taxi and sped to the town of Khao Lak and my villa among the palms.
I spent the week in Khao Lak becoming a certified diver. Diving outfits the world over turn out certified divers by the thousands daily, so this is not really a big deal anymore, thanks to Jacques Cousteau and the commercialization of undersea tourism. An instrumental version of the James Bond song “You Only Live Twice” played in my head the whole week as I became contented within the 30 meter limit of the world of non-decompression diving. The only confusing thing was that a thumbs up in diving is actually a bad thing (it means you want to go up), so I had to get used to giving the “A-ok” thumb and forefinger when someone asked me if everything was alright. One day we dove off a small longtail boat in rough seas along the shore.
The next day was the breathtaking azure waters of the Similan Islands, where sea turtles and giant moray eels awaited me. Now I regretted not buying that underwater camera.
Diving was even more amazing then I ever dreamed. Not only for the magical landscapes and creatures of the underworld, but for the sensation of feeling as if one can fly above and though it all with superhuman power with subhuman effort. And discovering the tiny little creatures of the sea floor and their living rock homes made me feel like I was six years old all over again, pouring through the fields and forests with a magnifying glass.
All week long, when I wasn’t diving or in diving class, I ran various errands in Khao Lak. I had a tailored suit made. I bought sandals and t-shirts. And I ate. I ate. And I ate some more. I devoured the most perfect fish curry I’ve ever tasted at the Dee Restaurant. My eyes were burning at the end of it – but it was FLAWLESS.
At the end of the week, the Loy Krathong Festival erupted over Thailand. This is the full moon of the twelfth lunar month and is big cause for celebration. Fireworks boomed over the beach. Thais and tourists alike lit lanterns and sent them soaring overhead in armadas of glowing thousands.
Unexpectedly by wayward way of Krabi on a misdirect minibus, I was on a ferry boat out on the Andaman Sea on 11/11/11 bound for Phi Phi Island, the groggy day after Loy Krathong. Landing at Tonsai Village on Phi Phi was a bit of a headache. Tonsai was LOUD and mad. The shopkeepers and innkeepers, the tour operators and dive operators were all ravenous.
I checked in to a cliff side, fan-cooled bungalow overlooking a reservoir and was immediately consumed by drooling mosquitoes. I smiled with pride as I remember that THIS is how I used to travel the world: a backpack, a five dollar a night dusty bed and insects galore. A cold shower was instantly followed by a long overdue, yet sweaty afternoon nap under a mosquito net and a faltering fan.
Nostalgia fulfilled, I got up and walked down to town and directly booked the following night’s accommodation in an aircon bungalow with cable television, swimming pool and a breakfast buffet.
The noise is what pollutes Ton Sai village at night. The electronica bass boomed from mostly empty outdoor clubs along the beach and poisoned any sense of isolation or island calm. I found respite at a quiet bar along the water called the Sunflower – an oasis of good music and hammocks.
A late night downpour overcame the island - this being the final l weeks of the monsoon season, and thankfully extinguished the bass from the dreadful clubs on down the beach. On my hammock as the rains engulfed the sand around the bar, a perfectly edible crab scurried below my hammock, followed by the lazy hop of a green tree frog, followed by a dizzied hermit crab. Some British pilots on holiday from their jobs at EasyJet stopped by and we chatted about innovations in air traffic control, Arizona and the unsafe low pay of US regional airline pilots.
I joined two Spaniards, two Austrians in love, and scattering of other Europeans (see picture I entitle “Flesh Boat”) on a small longtail boat on a tourist trodden snorkel tour of the environs of Ko Phi Phi Don and Ko Phi Phi Leh. A local man was the skilled skipper and boatswain of our ship - I am particularly proud of this picture. I guess this is what a great camera can do.
Along the way we kept encountering speed boats surrounded by people bobbing in the water around them in lifejackets. Evidently, many tourists cannot swim. Folks- if the world is to be covered by rising oceans, we all must learn how to swim.
We visited Monkey Island, where one of the member s of our party ignored the signs “Don’t feed the monkeys” posted in ten languages all over the place, fed the monkeys and then was accosted by them. Monkey see, monkey don’t do.
At first, I just stood back taking pictures of her as she squirmed, as the creed of the responsible nature photographer is not to interfere with the natural processes taking place (in this case, monkeys feeding and exhibiting territoriality). I only intervened after the monkey on top of her bit her head.
The limestone islands of the Phi Phis are truly spectacular. The snorkeling rivaled what I’d done down on the Great Barrier Reef. Schools of bright orange and fluorescent blue fish swam fearless alongside me through endless coral canyons.
Maya Beach (aka “the Beach” from the movie “the Beach” ) was not the greatest beach I’d ever seen and the lagoon on the other side of Ko Phi Phi Leh which was filled with garbage, but everyone has their own idea of the perfect beach. Mine would definitely have stars above. Leo though will have to keep swimming through shark infested waters to find another island as all the budget tourists of this world seem to have discovered his.
Sunset was perfect. The sun is far away. It is un-spoilable.
By the next night, I was back on the mainland in Phuket town, which was surprisingly the most friendly and approachable town I’d been to yet in Thailand. The British pilots I’d talked to back on Phi Phi had recommended it to me. I ate earth-shattering green curry, a seafood salad and some spring rolls and then watched some great cable on my room on the 12th floor at the Metropole Hotel.
Back in Bangkok. I thought I had arrived in an entirely new city, unrecognizable from my experience more than nine years ago. The skytrain bore passengers in aircon comfort high above the chaos of the sweltering concrete. Glass towers and massive shopping malls stretched as far as the eyes could see. Had Bangkok become posh?
Was it Bangkok that had changed, or was it me? Soon I fell into Chinatown on foot, not an airconned shopping mall to be had, and rediscovered my footing at the end of Bangkok’s muffler. Along the walk on the Thanon Charoen Krung from the last metro outpost at Hua Lamphong alkl the way out to the Palace, I remembered the lovely chaos of the Bangkok I once knew back in the days I stayed at a six dollar a night hovel on the Khao San Road. The mopeds and the tuk tuks. The cabs and the trucks. The chicken feet and the duck heads.
I lived it up on my last night of vacation on the 20th floor at the Le Meridien’s Plaza Athenee, a super nice hotel, although one where the lack of depth of their pool’s shallow end frustrates any serious attempt at laps. I ruminated over how in Russian they have a word for swimming for exercise (i.e. lap swimming) and a word for bathing (i.e. floating around like a manatee). In English there is only one word for swimming. And therefore many people think that swimming is a leisure activity and swimmers who swim for fitness need only the same accommodation that swimmers for leisure do. This is not correct. Please, folks, build proper pools that accommodate both varieties.
But such complaints always seem ridiculous given the context that surrounds them.
Pools collected in various parts of neighborhoods from the airport to the center, a few low-lying blocks here and there were inundated , but other than that and the sandbags at the storefronts, a traveler soaked in a tourist’s myopia could not tell that just a week ago waters were threatening to inundate the heart of the city.
Water is a conundrum. Water is what canceled my trip. Water is what brought me anyway.
Global warming will increasingly dictate our lives as the polar ice caps melt and sea levels rise. Water, on the other hand, has always dictated our lives.
The future of our world is under water.
