January 15, 2013
Traveling means different things to different people. To me, traveling means exploring, having new experiences, breaking free from what I know; breaking free from my comfort zone and doing things I normally would never do. Having been born and raised in a big city, I'd grown accustomed to the "finer" things in life, the luxurious and the expensive were the norm to me. When I was young and stupid, I went so far as to purchase a brand new car because the leather seats matched my handbag. If I added up how much I've spent on handbags over the years, I could probably put a down payment on a home. None of these material things ever made me truly happy. They filled a void; for over a decade, material objects and mind altering substances only served to fill a void.
I left Los Angeles in July of 2012, selling whatever I could and hugged my dear friends and wonderful dad goodbye, not knowing when I would see them again. I bid farewell to 2 perfectly decent jobs, and set out on a journey into the unknown.
It's been nearly 7 months since I left home, and I have gotten to know myself more than I ever have in all of my 35 years of life on this earth. The best thing I've ever bought myself was a plane ticket. It took me a long time to realize this, and now it has become a way of life: The best things in life are free.
I was never a nature-loving girl. I was afraid of dirt and didn't like getting grimy. Puddles scared the shit out of me. I thought for sure I'd contract a communicable disease from filthy water. And forget public transportation. There was no way you'd catch me on the bus or subway back home.
Oh how the tables have turned...I've been climbing caves, waterfalls, and various other rocky and scary things, barefoot, at that (with a little help from the kind souls i meet)
My car didn't fit in my 40 liter backpack, so trains and buses became my allies. I was scared to death of motorbikes, but sometimes that's the only way to get around in South East Asia. Flag down a motorbike for hire, hop on, and pray to arrive at your destination safely. I even attempted to ride a scooter on Koh Lanta, and careened into metal railing, but hey, I tried something I was scared to death of. Next time I will practice in an empty parking lot with no inclines.
I played with 20 Cambodian orphans in Siem Reap, whose parents had abandoned them, and the orphanage was funded solely by a Western woman, God bless her heart. The children slept outside under a rattan awning, and were in awe at everything I said and did. They all remembered my name, and ran after me blowing kisses as I left. I gave one little girl a coin, a euro. In my mind, I wished that she would one day get to use that coin. The red dirt road to the orphanage had more potholes than I'd ever seen before in my life and I don't know how motorbikes managed to navigate the treacherous path.
I drank tequila and beer with Thai prostitutes at a bar on Koh Samui and listened to their stories. Most of these women have children to feed; their children live elsewhere in Thailand; and selling their most valuable asset is how these women and their children survive (if they're lucky, men will pay them up to 5000 baht. I heard of a girl who only got paid 200 baht which is about $6. When I was 13, and we had moved to Bangkok, I had a live-in babysitter/housekeeper. She lived with us in Bangkok, but had a sister who lived in Chiang Khong. Her sister sold her body and bought a house for their mother and herself, and then discovered she was dying of AIDS. The sad fact is, this is not uncommon in South East Asia.
After getting off the ferry and partying all night on New Year's Eve,I found out how corrupt Koh Phangan is from a local woman the following day. It was January 1st, 2013, and my friends and I were having breakfast and chatting. Seated at a table to my far left, a European guy with shaggy dark hair wearing only a speedo, started convulsing and fell off his chair. 2 guys from another table went to help him up and he threw punches at them, and then swung at the girls in the kitchen. They dragged his ass to the clinic nearby, and after we finished eating, we saw that he had calmed down and was sitting at a table outside the clinic with a black and white puppy.
The woman who was waiting on us told me some heart wrenching tales. Drugs are easily accessed on Koh Phangan, if you didn't already know, and the cops do absolutely nothing to prevent any of it. Pharmacists on Koh Phangan encourage Ritalin sales so party people can stay up all night. Ritalin is 200 baht a pop, definitely not cheap , and hmm, I wonder who's making a profit. Someone had jumped from the second story of a building the previous night and gotten impaled by a metal rod.
The local woman told me these are everyday occurrences, and that saddens me to my very core. How does one draw the line between partying and having a grand ol' time, and going overboard? How do the local cops turn their head? there are medical clinics on every corner, and hmmm, i wonder why... And how do foreigners not know or choose to ignore their own limits? There is much more to life than being stuck in a drug and alcohol hole and being half dead to the world. There were signs for parties as far as the eye could see. Half Moon Party, Full Moon Party, Waterfall Party, Jungle Party. How about a Clean The Beach Party so that people aren't wading in their own waste, plastic bottles, cans, and plastic bags? Every time I turned around, there was some numbnut pissing in the ocean.
Don't get me wrong...dancing all night as the ocean wind whips through your hair, as the tide caresses your ankles (mostly pee pee tide) and the sheer energy of all the partygoers is a revelation in itself. the music doesn't stop 'til about 9 or 10 a.m. but do yourself a favor and quit while you're ahead; take care of yourself and others. There's more to life than fist pumping, snorting your brains out, and being an empty carcass the next day or couple of days. There's more to your vacation than staying at a posh 5 star resort, that's probably just a place to stash your bags anyway (hopefully).
I met some masseuses by my bungalow in Lamai Beach, which is the quieter side of Koh Samui, and they give massages on the beach. Their workdays are 10 hours long, with no breaks, and massages start at 250 baht (about $8) a pop. Can you imagine how tired your hands would be after rubbing down a big fat german guy for an hour, let alone 10 hours? my bungalow cost 600 baht a night, which is about
$20. some Thais don't even make that in a week's worth of work. Sad but true fact.
I realize that tourism brings income to impoverished countries, but at what expense? Thailand's crystal clear blue waters are now littered with trash.Endangered dead pink dolphins are washing up to shore from the Gulf of Thailand. Monkeys on Monkey Island in Krabi are eating the trash that tourists are leaving behind.
I could sit here and write about Barcelona, Ibiza, London, Paris, Milano, Venezia, Bologna, Rimini, Lazio, Agrigento, Castelmola, Cefalù, Palermo, Taormina, San Gimignano, Verona, Antwerp, Brussels, Langkawi, Georgetown, Kuala Lumpur, Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Amsterdam, Cadaques, Figueres, etc. but we'll save those for another day. those countries don't need to be saved. my motherland and surrounding countries do.
Loved ones, here's a Lightning in a Bottle slogan for you: Leave it better. Leave it beautiful
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