Thailand - what an unexpected surprise. I've avoided the country until now because it is totally overrun with tourists, and I generally like to edge into places where I have a chance of seeing something a little unusual and off the much beaten path. In fact, I only plumped for Thailand because the flight prices were viable over Chinese New Year, and because there was a high probability of that wonderful humid style of heat that I am designed to live in. Quite honestly, there isn't a thing I would change about the whole nine days away - it would be nice if there hadn't been a veritable plethora of dramatic snorers in pretty much all the overnight trains I took, but in hot countries I can deal with a mere five hours of sleep at night.
I wont bore you with all the details, I'll just think back to the few snippets I thought at the time were blog-worthy. Having been to the elephant sanctuary, however, I feel obligated to tell you all about the treatment of elephants in Thailand. This is applicable to all working elephants - those used for logging, the babies you'll see on the streets of Bangkok at night, the elephant you can sit on and be taken trekking for that 'once in a lifetime' experience. At three months of age, or thereabouts, the baby is taken away from their mother and forced to undergo an ordeal that I forget the name of but translates to A Ceremony to Destroy the Soul. Elephants are trapped in a cage for a minimum of three days, in which they are unable to move in any direction, and denied food and water for the duration of the Ceremony; while caged, they are subjected to torture with beatings, attacked with sticks embedded with nails, their eyes and delicate inner ears jabbed mercilessly. When the elephant emerges, they will do pretty much anything their owner asks - including allow a platform to be strapped to their back so unwitting tourists can enjoy a gentle stroll through a forest. The elephant sanctuary works to rescue these beautiful, gentle creatures from the hellish lives they've been experiencing, some injured by landmines, others blinded by their owners for refusing to work. Some of the animals are still so destroyed by their past that, even after five years of loving care, they are too afraid to allow other elephants near them - never mind people. The sanctuary is the kind of place you go and feel your heart in your throat the whole time, seeing the happiness of the elephants lucky enough to be there and developing an urgent need to rush to the nearest forest and buy all the poor beasts still lugging logs around.
So that was the eye-opening part of the vacation. I also plunged into bustling Bangkok, added to my Buddha experiences by seeing a rather large reclining one and, for good measure, one made of jade (known as the Emerald Buddha - sounds a tad more flash that way, I suppose), and numerous temples nestled alongside the endless put-putting tuktuks and lurid pink taxis. I'm fairly certain I was in a taxi with the driver sniffing coke as we went... Either that, or he suffers from the severest case of ADHD on earth. I meandered down to the beautiful island of Koh Tao where I went snorkelling and diving, discovering the Christmas Tree Worms: perfectly formed inch long creatures in the shape of Christmas trees, multi-coloured, that shrink to nothingness if you snap your fingers close to them. At one point, I was swimming around in Shark Bay (named after the black tip reef sharks that live there) searching for some of the sharks in the depths below. I have to admit to being slightly relieved not to bump into any after all.
Overall, I think the experience was so perfect because it was so easy to travel there. Everything is designed for tourists - and the reason I met so many nice people is because there are endless tourists beating the same path as yourself and, chances are, some of them you choose to speak to will be acceptable specimens. The unspoiled beauty of the Philippines is ultimately in a different league, but nevertheless Thailand afforded me all that a vacation should in the truest definition of the word: an effortless change of scene, good company, adventure and new experiences, a plentiful supply of bargainous alcohol, and a bounty of photos on returning home. The trip also firmly reminded me of who I am and what I want to get out of my brief time on this world, and has served as a useful pointer for why I'm in Hong Kong. For those of you slightly in doubt on that point, and to reaffirm for myself, I'm here in order to save enough money that I can avoid the 9 - 5 rat race for the rest of my life. I want to be able to move around the world, staying as I choose in a place, finding work that will pay enough to fund a basic lifestyle as long as I want to be there. The time away also confirmed to me what I already know: that I certainly don't need a 'significant other' to be happy. Travelling with a guy would have been useful for two reasons: I wouldn't have had to contort myself to put sunscreen on my back, and... yes, I can't think of a second reason.
I plan in future to put the energy required for my wrathful rants toward something useful - fear not, dear reader, this is a future prospect and in the interim period I will complain away on here. I've a friend in the Peruvian Amazon who wants to create a nature reserve to rescue monkeys: I'm really rather fond of elephants, but I absolutely adore monkeys. Don't be surprised if after my time in Hong Kong I announce a move to Iquitos in order to help with the creation of this reserve, that's all I'm saying for now.
Happy new year (Chinese, obviously) to you all - may you all be safe and secure, find and pursue your purpose for being, live and love and feel alive every minute of every hour of every passing day. Our time here is too transient to be caught up in the world of consumerism, of competition with our neighbours, of destruction and annihilation of our souls. I had a conversation with someone on Koh Tao a few days ago, who argued that we are merely the sum of atoms and should accept this reality, that he claims not to find depressing. I respond with the thought that everyone has the possibility of a soul - something beyond neurons and protons and whatever else is kicking around inside the humble atom - but some are too afraid to acknowledge it. After lying on a deck with the sea lapping gently below me, watching stars shoot across a clear night sky, how can anyone doubt there is something greater than ourselves? Something which makes us go weak at the knees, places an urgent lump in our throat, and causes tears to gather at the corners of our wondering eyes. An overwhelming array of emotions are waiting to be felt, if you just let go and give yourself the chance.
"Come to the edge, he said. They said: we are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came, he pushed, and they flew."
(Guillaume Apollinaire)
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