Koh Phangan Art on Sale Proceeds to Prisoners Support

After recently visiting an old friend in prison, famed Koh Phangan artist Colin G Thomason decided that proceeds from his annual sale of artwork this year would go towards supporting foreign prisoners in Thai jail.

 

In an interview with Colin, he explains:

You may know that 2 years ago I sold several of my paintings at half price to raise money for Nepal after the earthquake?  Raised over 600 quid!  Last year, likewise, my annual sale raised a similar amount for a friend who does voluntary work in a poor Cambodian village.  I've been thinking what charity next?  Hey Presto, Prison Support!

Q. Half price back catalogues on sale?  Yes! My back catalog up to the end 2016 all on sale!

Q. How many paintings have you got on sale?  Hundreds!!  All on sale at a 50% discount!

Q. And you want them to go to good home?  Yes!! I dont want them where no one can see them... I want people to enjoy them!

Q. How will you spend the proceeds of this sale?  Proceeds go to the Prison Support Group to use as they see fit.  £89 in the pot already!!!

Q. Describe the genres you have going on sale?  How can I describe them??? Amazing!!

Q. What is your current inspiration?  Sci Fi weirdness... I hardly ever stop painting!!


Half Price Koh Phangan Art on Sale

Q. How long will the sale go on for?

This sale of Koh Phangan art will go on until the end of November 2018... (then a half price Xmas sale for an old fool with a wife, daughter, stepson and 2 cats to support!)

Q. What motivated you to give to the prisoners support group? 

I visited a friend in prison in Bangkok - a stark demonstration of the need for support.

Q. What's your market?

I'm marketing these paintings to Phangan friends or old acquaintances from the UK who would like to get my artwork at bargain prices... and all for a good cause! 

Any money raised until end Nov 2018 will be for the support group to use as they see fit - not only my friend!  Aiming to get any Phanganese friends in the UK to go down to Essex... a friend came up from Ramsgate to buy last year!

And of course this sale is open to all!  So I need publicity and some info for interested buyers, although some people dont give 2 hoots about charity - they just want to get a Colin G Thomason painting at an affordable price! 

And I get appreciative homes for my art... I want them to be enjoyed!

Q. OK Colin, tell us about your paintings that are up for sale! 

Photos of paintings here are all still available and are representative of a variety as there are so many!!!  There are Koh Phangan landscapes and seascapes, psychedelic art, charicatures, Sci Fi weirdness, snowscapes, tree paintings - the list is endless. 

Most paintings, hundreds of them - framed and unframed - are in Dunmow, Essex, UK where the sale is now on.  There will be a sale on in Northumberland from the beginning of May, unframed only - viewing by appointment, contact me to arrange!

Q. Where are you now and what are your plans this year?
 
I am in Isaan til mid March then Bali for six weeks - then I go home to the UK from May 1st to October.  My agent Helen is in Dunmow, Essex where most of my paintings are.  Unframed paintings can be posted worldwide, if buyer pays P & P.

Contact me to make an appointment - though people who know Helen just turn up.  Hoping to make another £40 sale today!

Thanks to Colin for lending his charitable support to helping foreign prisoners in Thai jail.  The support group is focused on helping Koh Phangan guys in trouble in prisons throughout Thailand, mainly in Koh Samui, Chumphon and Bangkok.

More info on island prison support efforts here!

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Jailhouse Boogie : Paradise in a Cage

As lucid and poetic as ever - and a freebird once more - one of our much loved Koh Phangan characters waxes lyrical about prison life.

 Blame it on the Boogie: Sheik Yer Booty

Recently released from Koh Samui Prison, I'd asked Sheik how was his time inside?  His response was intriguing, and our insightful interview began here:

"Wow pretty happening spot, old friends and many new acquaintances.  Pretty relaxed place considering the atrocious conditions.  Truly surreal.  Paradise in a cage."

Now returned to his native homeland, Sheik Yer Booty tells his Samui Prison Tales.

Koh Phangan Days  

This picture is of me at Leela Beach, way back in 2003.  The year my brother died and I permanently moved away from Canada, to redefine my existence on Koh Phangan.

Earlier years on Leela Beach, Koh Phangan

Canada (except for my amazing friends and family) held such horrible memories for me that I had to boogie - and search out somewhere to adequately express myself - without having the weight of prying eyes set upon me.

Just before my arrival to Koh Phangan, my family and I suffered the loss of my brother.  Five years younger than myself, he was my best friend and confident.  His tragic death, for me at the time, seemed to have signalled the end of laughter and good times.

For years before his passing I had thought of returning to Thailand, specifically Koh Phangan - having visited the island once before in 1996.  The advent of my brother's death propelled me into the warmth and sounds of the island.

Sheik enjoyed the freedom of life on Koh Phangan for more than a decade, before as he describes it, 'the inevitable' happened.  His prophetic profile photo before his arrest (below) seemed to point again to darker days.

Prison Time

When I first entered the prison I felt sort of stunned.

I had already gone through the emotions that one would expect leaving Koh Phangan.  I knew right away that it looked like I was in for the long haul.

Sadness and self directed anger had set in.

What surprised me the most - and still does - was the overall feeling of futility that I was experiencing.

I had resigned myself to the fact that this was my life now, I was experiencing the other side of the ying and the yang: all the nastiness coming to replace all of the joy that I had experienced over the last 10 years or so.

The Monkey House

On my arrival to Samui Prison, I hadn't really taken in my immediate surroundings:  I was tired and spent.  However, I was quite taken aback, to say the least, when I saw a little later what was to become my living quarters.

The farang block the prisoners call "the monkey house". 

Grossly overpopulated, the cramped conditions were overwhelming.  Thank goodness that I am a relatively small and flexible person who can be made to fit just about anywhere.  40 of us were left scrambling for a place to sit or sleep on the tiled floor.

 My first few days saw me sleeping on the floor.  The top half of my body in the common room and the lower half resting in the toilet.

Prisoners are not afforded bedding upon arrival and have to scramble to have some sort of means to attain relative comfort.  I was fortunate enough to run into an old and very dear friend of mine in there - who unfortunately does not have the small and flexible physical characteristics that served me so well.

He provided me with a blanket to sit on and a small pillow for me to rest my head on.  Having broken my neck some years before this was a necessity, which was just that: necessary.  I say there were 40 of us crammed in there at first; that later became an unbearable 45.

Boogie fan: Sheik Yer Booty showing a Full Moon DJ some love

Jail Cell Blues

My first few days saw me sleeping on the floor.  The top half of my body in the common room and the lower half resting in the toilet.  As if this was not bad enough, I moved to the middle of the room with hopes that this would alleviate some of the discomfort - but to no avail.

There, I avoided the non stop traffic that my lodging in the toilet brought on.  But I was subsequently squeezed into a seriously tight situation - made worst by the admittance of 3 new cell partners.  Kicks and jabs were far too common and restlessness prevailed.

I was later moved to a make shift hammock (blanket with loops at the end) strewn from bar to bar, dangling just above the population: my face in proximity to the ceiling was at a distance of about 10 inches.  The whole scene was truly uncomfortable.

Whenever I felt sorry for myself, I would place myself in the shoes of my friend (who shall remain nameless for the purpose of this interview) who has so far survived 3 years under these circumstances - and is possibly the tallest person I have ever known.

Yin and Yang  

Lord of the Dance

As I mentioned before I felt basically exasperated.  I felt as though the other shoe that I always suspected would fall had finally come down and that of course it would find me stuck in jail in Thailand. 

I wasn't shocked, more like resigned to it.  I felt almost like this was payment due for the amazing time I was having, the amazing life I was experiencing: at once finally being utterly happy with myself, my friends, my family and life in general.

Kind of like a case of things being too good to be true.  I felt that life's cycles usually work that way.  Mine anyway.

That is, until a little later I realized that happiness is a state of mind - that can be attained no matter what the outside experience is.

Paradise in a Cage

Wow pretty happening spot, old friends and many new acquaintances. Pretty relaxed, considering the atrocious conditions.  Truly surreal.

Lovers strolling hand in hand, making out on straw mats strewn about the place.  In contrast near riots as the shower obsessed population go crazy giggling and splashing about in the toilets.  So weird.

The ladyboys and mannish boys stroll along cooing, lofting without a care in the world.  Imagine paradise in a cage.  Honestly, it really adds to the charm of the place.  I'm sure it must have a psychological effect that is undeniable.

At the very least it registers in one's subconscious and helps to diffuse the overall urgency of the place.  Unless the person in question is a homophobe, I suppose.

* In another interview with an ex-inmate, *Alex expressed similar sentiments to Sheik: the futility of wasted days in jail; and how most Thai men engaged in gay relations to relieve the tension... although the Thais may argue that ladyboys are the 3rd sex!

A place where everybody knows your name...

Farang Dynamics

Most everyone on the farang range is fairly mellow.  Most have accepted their fate, and are enthusiastically looking forward to the future - what else to do?  No one seems outwardly depressed; however on their own I'm sure that everyone is suffering in one way or another.

New additions to the population are a little tightly wound, as can be expected... Most have never been incarcerated before, so certain levels of anxiety can run high at times.  Life in limbo, not knowing what to expect... what sort of time to expect.

Some have no idea what exactly they have been charged with, the language barrier being so great.  Communication between the institution and the farang prison population is almost non existent, causing great anxiety amongst those newly arrived - and to a certain degree amongst long timers as well.

Koh Samui Prison represents the greatest lesson 
in patience and humility that there ever was.

Those who have been privy to and have played the game for a while are, as a result, more calm and accepting of their situation - to the point where jokes are made of the futility of the situation.

That is not to say that frustations do not run deep amongst these prisoners; only that, when possible, certain situations are better off laughed away.  The opposite could drive one crazy.

New arrivals generally have yet to understand that no amount of anxiety and self retribution will help their cause.  Koh Samui Prison represents the greatest lesson in patience and humility that there ever was.

Change Comes From Within

Although happiness has always come from within, it does receive help from the exterior and material self - however, happiness is primarily bred from inner comfort.

'Free your mind and your ass will follow'

After my brother's passing, my demeanor at the time was one of self destructiveness and pain.  I spent years wallowing in self pity, but gradually would see my way through it - by acknowleging the fact that my life was, infact, blessed.

Change occured rather bluntly once, during the episode of what I would call a nervous breakdown.  I took notice of the constant beauty that surrounded me: the sand crabs as they performed their dance in the sun.  Life in perpetual motion.

Happiness comes from within, and so does change... 

Where for a moment I foresaw the end of all things good for me, the next saw me rejoicing at the mere concept of motion, the beauty of being.

Ever since, life with all its twists and turns has been just a wonder to me.  One that is so great and full of potential.

This realization, coupled with my understanding of logic - as it pertains to life's willingness to bring happiness - finds me not dwelling on individual moments of sadness, anger or anxiety.

It is my philosophy that no matter what may happen during the course of one's life, however terrible that event can be - the loss of a life, the end of a relationship, or time served - with time, all of these advents become mere memories and lessons learned.

I believe that only by accepting our past are we then allowing ourselves room to grow. 

To grow into a realm of happiness and the comfort that that brings.  In other words, no time to waste being unhappy - when logically I know that later I will be happy:  such is life's lessons as I understand them.

Freebird Fly Free

A month after my arrival to Koh Samui Prison - not so long, but it felt like forever - I was very surprised to find that I was being released, as I had already resolved myself to the tedium of incarceration.  I felt extremely happy and very hopeful for the future.

One month later and I am still all of those things!

Ah Mel, as positive and excited as I am to be starting all over, I miss my home so much.  I guess I was getting too comfortable.

Looking forward to new horizons.  Staying positive as always, embracing clarity.  All is groovy.  I just miss my music so much.

Time to boogie, really.

Glad to be anywhere but there.

As our old friend flies free to his next life adventure, we wish him luck on the journey.  Huge thanks to Sheik Yer Booty for his fascinating insight into Koh Samui Prison life!

 Related Articles:

Samui Prison Tales 

Samui Prisoners Support visits Koh Samui Prison regularly to buy inmates much needed drinking water and supplies... All donations gratefully accepted!

 PayPal email : kohsamuiinmates@gmail.com

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Enchantment and Debauchery - Wild Times on Samui 1994

I'd been going full on since arriving in Thailand, but Koh Phangan's Full Moon Party had knocked the partying out of me.  Back on Koh Samui I spent the week recuperating - before the Wild Times began again!  It was Christmas 1994...
 

Wild Times on Samui - Lamai Beach 1994

Wild Lamai Ocean

Lamai Beach in the daytime was as beautiful as ever.  The waves would come crashing down on the undulating white sand, denying me entrance into the sea.  The aqua-blue sea behind the galloping white horses looked inviting, but I'd been trashed on this beach before and my wariness remained.

On other days, a calm sea would let me enter to swim in the instant depths of Lamai.  The current was strong, the wild ocean responding to the waxing and waning moon in its most powerful cycle around the December solstice.  The highest tides in Thailand were always around this time.

Lamai was lined with palms, and was a tropical vision.  My brother Tim had arrived here in 1990, staying in White Sands' bungalows for less than £1 a night.  He sent a postcard home with an arrow pointing to his A-frame thatched hut on the beach.  My fascination with Lamai had begun there.  I'd dreamed of this utopia for years.

Enchantment on the Hill  

Up on our hilltop resort above Lamai, the lazy days were spent in the Thai restaurant.  Typically constructed in wood, raised on stilts, it was decorated with wicker furniture and bric-a-brac.  Open to the elements, there was only a roller blind to pull down in a rainstorm, or to shut up shop at night.

The jungle vista became a green blaze outside the wooden framework of the restaurant.  We could have been in a tree house, looking down all around us to the treetops below; the azure blue of the heavens above us.  The neat ganja joints, laced with opium oil, being passed around the restaurant made the colours especially vibrant.

It was a truly trippy experience.

Bao at his favourite lookout above Lamai

On some afternoons I'd escape to the thatched pagoda - perched on a rock overlooking the bay - with one of the Germans, Mickey.  We'd listen to Bao gently playing his guitar; singing to us, the wind, and whoever else was listening.  As we sat on the pagoda looking down on Lamai, it was a surreal setting to find ourselves in. 
 
There were no intruders here.  We were all welcomed and invited to share the hilltop homestead, and to take what we wanted from their laid-back lifestyle.  And so we did: Mickey would later marry Bao's sister, Gop, the sweet, innocent girl who had become my new best friend that season.

The hilltop restaurant: the Canadians and Gop

Christmas in the Tropics

By the time the Friday arrived I'd recovered from the excesses of the Full Moon Party.  Now, it was the eve of Christmas Eve and I was ready to party again! 

The Newmarket crew didn't join me out that night, saving themselves for Christmas, so I ventured to the Bauhaus alone ready to mingle.  I found company in my old friend Danny's travelling partner, Wesley - who told me all the old late '80s Thailand stories - and Massa, the Danish guy staying at our bungalows.

Sipping home brewed toffee vodka

After a night out on Lamai, Massa 'the Moonshine Man' gave me a lift back to our bungalows.  There we were greeted by a naked Swede called Kent, standing on his balcony scratching his manhood.  Kent got dressed and joined us as we sipped Massa's home-brewed toffee vodka until the sky began to lighten.

At this stage, 'Special Agent' Kent went to bed - we were all living our own fantasies of who we wanted to be at that time - and Massa and I made our way down the steep descent to Lamai beach for sunrise.  We sat side by side on a fallen palm tree, watching the wild ocean as a blaze of red burned above the horizon.

Waves crashing down on Lamai's coral sand beach

The silhouetted waves seemed larger than ever now, as they curled over and smashed down into Lamai's coral sands.  We were having Christmas early.  Or at least I was, for Scandinavians celebrated Christmas on December 24th anyway.

Even though I was hanging out with the hard core Lamai boys, it was quite innocent.  They all had their eyes on the delicate young females that graced the Lamai bar scene, meaning I always felt completely safe in their presence.

I was never their prey.  They accepted me as one of them.

Samui day trips and nights out

China White Nights

In the early hours of the mornings, I'd return home from late nights out in Lamai to be invited onto the balconies of other hardcore Scandinavians.  There, I'd watch them rack up powdery lines of the purest China White.

Until then I'd always thought heroin was brown, but these connoisseurs explained to me the distilling process of their preferred drug, and how China White was the purest form of heroin you could get.

They were passionate about it when they talked, and it seemed to have a different effect on them from the skaggy monged-out drug I'd witnessed in the West.  They were even more wide awake and frenetic after a line, but I was never tempted to join them - I already knew people in my home town who had died of heroin overdoses.

As I watched their wide-eyed euphoria turn to instant rage - their last lines of freshly racked up heroin blown away in a gust of wind - my resolve was confirmed.  It was a powerful, concise lesson in the ups and downs of heroin addiction.  Maybe it put me off forever.  Or maybe addiction just never was my bag.

Wild West Lamai

A decade later: still hanging out with the Samui boys

After a few hours sleep, I roused from my toffee-vodka hangover as I heard a voice say, "Thought you'd turn up!" I dragged myself to my feet to find Richard and Mark, our Canadian buddies from the Full Moon Party, had come over to spend Christmas with us.

That night nine of us - English, Canadians, Germans and Danish - set off for Christmas in Lamai and Chaweng.  After talking our way through sets of Mekhong, we left the Rock Pub - a Lamai institution - at 5am to make the ascent homeward up the hill.

That was an early night at the Rock Pub...

'No roof, open till the last person leaves in the blaring sun about midday.  Probably best to take your sunnies with you for a night out.  Blaring rock music, people stage diving off bar and tables. 

Whenever trouble broke out and bottles starting flying, which was quite often, the staff would come over and shield our heads, then bring us new tables & chairs if ours had been smashed!! 

Good times with a Guns 'n' Roses & AC/DC sound track.' 
Lamai's Rock Pub in the early 1990's as described by Dean, RIP

Lamai was a crazy free-for-all den of drunken debauchery at that time.  When Pablo first came with me in 1996, he described it as like arriving into the Wild West - only everyone was riding motorbikes instead of horses.

The Weed Run

On other days, I'd catch up with the Scandinavians on the ring road above Lamai. Sweating profusely, the alcohol of the night before escaping from their clammy pores, I'd notice them carrying 7/11 plastic bags on their motorbike handles.

Samui ringroad in the early 1990's

The contents inside the bag constituted breakfast: a bottle of chocolate flavoured milk, half a dozen beer 'tinnies' to wash it down - and the odd half kilo of weed hidden at the bottom of the bag.

The theory was that the safest way to transport your contraband was inside your 7/11 shopping bag.  Their other theory was that the safest time to do a run was bang on 6pm, when everyone would be standing to attention for the national anthem.

Back then a kilo of weed could be bought for somewhere between £50-£200, depending on which stage of the 1990's you were in.  Over on Koh Phangan the Thai mamas sold ganja on their restaurant menus as 'Special Fish'.  It used to be one of their main crops on the Haad Rin hillside - they grew so much of it they had to burn the excess.

Samui coastline early 1990's

Eventually enough tourists turned up with a desire to purchase the surplus cash crop - but then the police arrived on an early 1990's crackdown.  Thereafter the locals became scared to grow marijuana, let alone admit to selling it.

Hence the code names for ganja in restaurant menus.  More stories from Koh Phangan's Golden Seasons here!

Up Soi Katoey

In the hilltop restaurant one December morning, one of the rough and tough Swedish guys had his head in his hands, moaning to the table.  We thought he was just nursing a hangover, until his moans became louder and louder and more lucid.

"Oh no! 15 years! Oh NOOO!", he groaned, in a deep guttural lament.

It took us a while to get him to elucidate, but when he did we were crying with laughter.  Fifteen years in Thailand and he was proud to say he'd never slept with a ladyboy.  Fifteen years in the Land of Smiles and had never been duped yet... until last night.

Drunk enough to believe he was taking home a coy and lovely Thai lady, he'd woken up with a shock to find he had a SheMan in his bed.

A ladyboy with hairy legs.

Me & hometown buddy in Lamai 1994

Later, I had my first conversation with a Thai ladyboy in that hilltop restaurant.  It was the early hours of New Year's Day 1995 and the Newmarket crew had gone to bed to avoid the random company in the restaurant...

... A gay guitarist from an aging Swedish rock band, a couple of Lamai smack heads, and a pair of ladyboys, regaling their tales and showing me their fake tits.

"Ever since I was a little child, I knew I wanted to be a girl", said the graceful creature with the manly face and the perfect silicone breasts.  Her other line, which I will never forget, was, "I want a man who can toss me around like a lettuce".

That was it!

Ladyboys were destined to become my best friends from there on after.

I was hooked, by all the enchantment and debauchery... by all the Thailand madness... and by the Wild Samui Times!

Wild Times at the Full Moon Party 1994

Thai Whiskey and Temples: Bangkok Bound 1994

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Wild Times On Samui - Lamai Beach 1994

After one night in Bangkok with my friends in 1994, we made our way to Koh Samui by bus.  After a long night speeding south down the Thai highways, we caught a ferry to paradise.  We arrived the next morning...  ready for some wild times on Samui.

Wild Times on Samui - Lamai Beach 1994

Lamai, Lamai, Lamai

We arrived to Samui in brilliant daylight.  The beaches seemed as white as ever, bordering the abundance of palm trees that covered the island back then.  We jumped into a songthaew and were in Lamai within half an hour.  Worz led us up the hill to Varinda Bungalows, and I began to realise I'd spent my previous six weeks in Thailand in relative hardship.

The bungalows at Varinda were 'sturdy and well built'.  There was mosquito netting on the windows, my bungalow had a fan, and even, an en-suite toilet and shower!  It was quite a contrast to the simple thatched hut I'd stayed in at Haad Rin last time.  Never mind the mosquito netting, my shack at Bird Bungalows hadn't even had windows.

So here I was, paradise revisited and upgraded; sitting on my veranda, looking out into a tropical garden.  The Varinda hill top was filled with the colourful flowers of bougainvillea and hibiscus; tropical birds would sing as they came to perch on some nearby branch.

There were fighting cockerels and dogs for pets.  In the years to come the dog-mad Varinda family would breed dogs - they even imported a Husky at one time.  Not that it lived long.  Even in an air-conditioned pooch parlour below the restaurant, it never survived the heat. 

The garden at Varinda Bungalows, Lamai Hill

Below Varinda, a bit of a descent brought you out to Lamai beach or to the edge of Lamai town.  Up on the hill, we had the perfect positioning: we were out of the way, but close enough to Lamai's sweeping coral beach  - and Wild West bar scene - when we felt like it. 

We'd arrived into a wild, tropical paradise, all for 100 baht - £2.50 - a night!

After catching up with 'Newmarket on the Hill' in the Varinda restaurant, it was time to crash out in our wooden bungalows.  Emma never recovered from that first afternoon session, and I wandered down into Lamai on my own, with instructions from the boys on where to find them.

Somehow, I ended up on the beach instead of the main road, and I had to tread through the deep, unforgiving sand before cutting into town.  Not that I minded: it was a dazzling pleasure to be back on Lamai beach - looking up at a starry, starry sky, silhouetted by palms!

I made my way to the Rising Sun, which at the time stood out of town, on a deserted piece of Lamai's high road.  It was years before development enveloped the Rising Sun, although now it stands in the centre of Lamai.  I said hello to Rising Sun bar owner, Long John, looking for my brother's friends who I'd flown to Thailand with the previous week.

With no sign of them, I returned to the crossroads and up to the Monkey Bar, which was one of our regular haunts for years.  Twenty years later, two of the Thai girls we met there are still in our close circles.  Gai visits every year.  Her cousin, Nin, became a Newmarket matriarch after marrying Worz and having his two kids.

Lamai high street in the mid '90s

Starry Lamai Night

I found my friends having dinner in the Starry Hut, a favourite restaurant where the speciality was shark Thai curry.  From there we did the Lamai rounds: from the Monkey Bar to the Rising Sun, and on to the Bauhaus, to watch premier league football.  You can take the boys out of Newmarket…

More of the clan had arrived.  Nick and his Philipina wife Jenny had flown in from Hong Kong;  the Furze brothers had arrived with my soon-to-be best friend, Lee;  my brother, Tim, was arriving for New Year, and it was starting to look like a Newmarket reunion.  Another five were coming in January.  And I thought I was escaping from home?

But it made for good company.  

By this time the Sang Thip was flowing; everyone had lost interest in the football, so instead we took a night time walk on the beach.  We ended up horizontal on a huge flat rock outside Bungalow Bill's, all of us in a line, staring at the sky and debating the stars.  You don't see stars like that at home.

Orion's Belt seemed smaller from here.  The North Star was still apparent, but lower on the horizon.  We started talking about shooting stars... and I thought I glimpsed one.  Must be the Thai whiskey, was I imagining it?  Only when I watched another four fall out of the sky above me, did I believe what I was seeing - a meteor shower!

A swathe of stars alive in the sky, and the Geminids meteor shower falling down upon us.  Even the most cynical ones amongst us couldn't help but feel the Samui magic…

Me and Gop at Varinda Bungalows 1994

Varinda Heaven

  

Up at Varinda I got to know the workings of another Thai family.  Papa Tuey sat in his hammock all day, like the king of his jungle that he was.  I always got a friendly greeting from him, an occasional, "How are you" - and even, "Good party?"  

Noi was in charge of the treehouse restaurant, speaking the most english and grinning the widest smile.  Pi Aat would occasionally pass by the restaurant, inbetween cooking and praying for Noi's heart condition.  Bau & Gop were brother and sister, and the two to whom I'd got closest.  

I first noticed Bau as he took the little boy to school on early mornings.  Later he'd fade into the background, to retire to the stone veranda overlooking the Lamai headland, and gently strum his guitar.  Gop just used to screw her face up at me to start with, unable to decipher my English.  

I soon learnt to slow everything down for her, and before long she was giving me beautiful smiles and touching my hand as she passed.  Eventually, she'd come to sit with me and play with my hair, Thai style, like old friends.

I had slipped into this world of relaxation - tempered with hard partying - without even trying.  Once again, I was at one with my beautiful world.  Occasionally, torrential downpours would burst out of the sky, and on early mornings I'd wake, delighted by the rain, to sit on my balcony and lap it all up.

There, I'd enjoy the early morning company of croaking frogs, fan-tailed birds, squirrels and geckos; and I felt perfectly at home.  I was back in the world of tropical fantasies, where calamari and lemon shakes were a daily part of life.  

Where I was the girl I wanted to be; where my dreams, like alchemy, had been turned by my own will to reality...

Mia's Diaries 1994/95

Thai Whiskey and Temples: Bangkok Bound 1994

Wild Times at the Full Moon Party 1994

The enchantment - and debauchery - on Koh Samui, and Koh Phangan, continued in equal measure.  More Wild Times Diaries 1994/95 coming soon!

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A Love Affair with the Haad Rin Queen

The low gurgle of the engine...  The smell of the ocean...  The contrast of the blue painted decks and the turquoise sea.  A journey on the Haad Rin Queen is transportation in more ways than one.

The Haad Rin Queen has been ploughing the seas between Phangan and Samui as long as many travellers can remember.  The rocky motion entrances her passengers still, as sea spray splashes the legs of itinerant wanderers and backpackers who lay about her decks. 

The old tug boat has welcomed all walks of travelling life, turning them into happy seafarers for a short while...  A brief moment, which will linger in the annals of their travellers tales for ever.

It is a sensual journey of joy.  The beginning of a recurring love affair, whether young or old.  

An experiential mode of travel, which leaves an imprint on your brain - as you too fall in love with the Samui Islands.  Their irresistible charms call to you, never failing to move you with their sensuality...

You have arrived on the Samui Islands, and you will never be the same.

White cumulus clouds chug along in the sky above, mirroring the motion of the old tug boat herself.  

The Haad Rin Queen ploughs the waves, creating her own white horses as she crosses the emerald sea.  Then, the misty blue, elephantine hills of the islands rise from the ocean - heralding your arrival in paradise.

As your dreams of the islands embed within you, it is a time to reflect.  A time to let the experience of the island you are leaving behind transmute into treasured memories...

Then the sense of expectation of arriving on the new island, with all its hopes and dreams, beckons.  

You feel it calling to you of the pleasures to come.  It is always a poignant moment of hope and excitement - of treasure and loss - full of memories of a paradise soon to be lost or gained.  

The turquoise water holds the fluid memories of emotion.  And your heart burns with the truth of it, always.  It is a tale of love; a love story with the Samui Islands, like no other. 

The Haad Rin Queen has become her own living myth.  Her rocky motion has ignited the passions of passengers for decades. 

You'll never experience a dream of the islands like this. 

And the Haad Rin Queen, she knows it.  She knows your soul better than you know your own.  
Like a siren, be careful she doesn't capture your soul. 

Happy sailor, I have been lost to her, ever since I made my first journey upon her.
 
And lost to the islands I remain.   


* Mood piece inspired by our Tropical Writer's Workshop and Koh Phangan Uncovered articles for South East Asia Backpacker Magazine, Jan-Feb 2015. *

Thanks to Moira Bulacios Prat for the top photo!   
 

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