Adventures in Thailand: Keeping the Jungle at Bay…

Let me start of by saying, I love nature. Some of the best memories I have been out doors, on the ocean or watching the wonder that is the world around us. In addition, I am a huge fan of Thailand. The food, wildlife, weather, and so much else about this country I absolutely love. However, in my recent stay with my dear friend Ariel, I have been finally been able understand what people mean when they say living near the jungle is a constant battle to keep nature at bay. If you let up your guard for even a day, (sometimes even a few hours) nature takes over.

Now I know some of you probably think, you should just let nature runs its course, and nature can’t really be that bad. Well, I guess that depends on you as a person. Let me give some examples of some of the ways nature has crept in over the last week and a half.

I should mention that Ariel’s house is much like many Thai houses and is very open. It has three bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen / porch all that is outside and covered.

Shortly after arriving here we noticed a wasp flying around the kitchen. This was a kind of wasp I had never seen before and we promptly named it ‘Avatar’ because it looks like some fierce hybrid thing. No sooner than we named it, we caught it trying to build a nest on one of the walls in the kitchen. Now this would clearly not do. We were forced to spray the poor bastard and go running for our lives as he spent his last bit of energy trying to sting us (understandably). We cleaned up the starting of his hive and went about our day…

… the next morning I awoke to find more of Avatar’s brothers who decided our little warning wasn’t quite enough. Instead of trying to build their nest on the wall, they decided to build it on a wooden can opener that was in the drying rack beside the sink. Why on earth would a wooden can opener be a good place to start a bee-hive? I have no idea, but didn’t have time to ask them. I grabbed my spray gave them an unhealthy douce and took off at full sprint.

It was several days before they made their return and attempted to make their hive in the cover of night. Ariel was out for a few drinks at a local bar and had left his kitchen light on, a seemingly harmless mistake. When he returned, not three hours later, the little guys had already begun full scale construction of a hive on his kitchen light. Again… why when there are so many good place? Who knows, but Ariel didn’t bother to ask them…

Now that is just a matter dealing with bees. Other life forms have a whole story.

Next stop, ants. I love ants. They are one of the cutest and probably most bad-ass insects around, seeming relatively harmless most of the time. I am not sure what they have been feeding the ants in Thailand, but these guys are mean bastards. Most nights, when we finish cooking and sit down to eat, the ants have already preplanned their strategy of attack. Every morsel of food we drop to the ground has a full fledged demolition team ready that begins within minutes. It is extremely impressive. However, when the food drops a bit too close to our feet, or we happen to walk across an ant line… thats when it become painful. Despite the incredibly small size of the ants, they decide it is a great time to taste human flesh before dying. I can’t say I blame them, but seriously, ouch…

Mosquitos I will leave alone, they are always a pain in the ass, and in Thailand, they are no different. Screw you guys.

Perhaps one of the most awesome infringements of nature are the lizards. So far I have seen about three or four different types of lizards (in the kitchen or porch) that range from the size of hotdog, that eat the small flies and moths to the big daddies who probably weigh about 1.5-2kg. Most days are rather quiet, but night times are filled with these guys, literally, all over the walls taking out every moth dumb enough to get close to them. Their speed is really amazing to be honest. The only time they really cause any problems is when they get inside your bedroom or somehow lose their ability to cling to walls and come crashing down on you.

Millipedes, slugs, snails and other crawly things find their way into the kitchen on a seemingly regular basis and require swift brooking out. These guys really don’t bother me too much but I know that the millipedes especially creep Noriko out.

Now to be honest with you, all of this is well and good, and has been relatively fun. I really don’t mind the wildlife and have been kind enough to them over the past week and a half. However, there is one thing I simply cannot cope with…

Big-ass-spiders. These things look somewhat like tarantulas. They are big, they are hairy, they move fast, they jump and they creep me right the hell out. I know I shouldn’t be afraid of spiders, but I am. Deal with it. Its not that if I see them I get all panicked, but when I am sitting down in my kitchen, enjoying a nice cup of tea and playing chess, feeling quite at ease, when one of these massive spiders comes in to the kitchen and starts scurrying around trying to find a place to make a home for her and her babies, I admittedly freak out a bit. Not only that but we have to stop our game and begin an epic mission to take her out, which proves surprisingly difficult. Perhaps because of their size or whatnot, they prove surprisingly resistant to spray. After the mission is complete, comes the cleanup. Now the spider usually comes in here for a reason, and that is because it is a dry safe place for her hundreds of babies. The next part of the mission involves cleaning up those babies to make sure the house is not overrun by massive, hairy spiders in a few weeks.

Thankfully, so far only one of these spiders has decided to test her luck against the wrath of Ariel and Kyle since I arrived. Hopefully there will not be too many more. I don’t think my nerves could take too many of them.

So far the snakes and other wildlife we have seen around has stayed out of the kitchen. We will just have to see how long this lasts. Until then, I will continue my ever vigilant watch over kitchen to remind intruders to stay out, lest ye be punished.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Part II

So when we arrived in Nagasaki it was about 10am in the morning after a rather sleepless night on a bus. My first impressions of Nagasaki were perhaps somewhat spurred on by my grumpiness after my sleepless night. However, me and the girls grabbed our bags and a coffee and we were off. We had a very full agenda for the next few days and whether we were tired or not it was time to go.

When we met the Hibakusha, they insisted that they show us, not only sites relevant to the atomic bombing, but also the historical sites of Nagasaki. For those that do not know, during the closed era of Japanese history, Nagasaki remained the only city open to outsiders. The Portuguese as well as the Dutch had lived in areas in the city, as well as a number of other Europeans. They had helped to build the first paved roads that were created in Japan and had also started a number of the giant fisheries and factories that went on to become the major Mitsubishi ship yards. I guess fate is not without its sense of twisted irony, that those same ship yards that had been created and introduced by Europeans, were later turned into the sites that produced the majority of Japans navy prior and during the Second World War…

 

A view from on top one of Nagasaki’s many peaks. Ogawa-san taking a photo of us.

One of (if not the oldest) Catholic Churches in Japan

 

As was common with European settlements, Christianity followed. However due to the governments regulations against the Christian religion, the Europeans were forced to live separate areas in order to contain their Christian influence on the Japanese. Despite this, at the time of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, there were some 12,000 Christians living in Nagasaki, a fact that I had previously been unaware of. At least in my mind this helps explain the Pope reaction to the atomic bombing in 1945 when some 80% of Catholic Christians in Nagasaki were killed in the blast (which in all probability represented a majority of all the Catholics living in Japan in 1945).

 

An old European house with some nice Japanese fusion going on.

In addition to the European settlements were also the Chinese settlements. It was here that we tried the ‘original’ Jambong, a now-famous Chinese soup that had been created by a Chinese settler living in Japan when he was trying to create a cheap, delicious, nutritious dish for young Chinese workers and students. Needless to say, it was delicious but is anything but cheap these days.

 

Jampong!

After the site-seeing of Nagasaki’s historical sites, we also visited Nagasaki’s war-memorial sites, of which there are many. Below you will see some of the pictures and descriptions of some of these sites. Perhaps some of the most interesting of these sites was the park that contained a number of statues donated to Nagasaki in the name of ‘Peace’ and hopes of a nuclear free world. What I found most interesting about this park is that most, if not all, of the statues and memorials donated were from Eastern-European countries which had been part of the USSR. These statues had been donated during the Cold War and left me wondering what the intention had been. Why had the USSR donated so many statues and memorials in the name of Peace and hopes of a Nuclear-Free world while at the same time building thousands of nuclear weapons? Also, where were the American or European statues and memorials? It left me with questions I will have to look into later…

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Another interesting thing I learned was about a bomb shelter that was found by the Americans after the war ended. The bomb shelter was less than 500 meters away from the epicenter of the blast but had somehow survived rather unscathed. It was from this bomb shelter that American engineers derived the blueprints for their own bomb shelters, some of which are still in use today.

In addition to all the sites we visited in Nagasaki, I was once again overwhelmed with the gratitude we received by the Hibakusha for visiting. They offered us their homes to stay in, took us out for dinners and lunches, carted us around and were eager for me to meet a number of academics who had been studying and teaching about the bombing in Nagasaki. Despite going against the original plan, they insisted I meet with a director and broadcaster from NBC who had made several documentaries about the bombing in Nagasaki. He was gracious enough to make time for me and offered me interesting insight into why Nagasaki had been bombed.

Night view of Nagasaki

 

When I left Nagasaki the next night to return to Hiroshima, I was at a loss for words and am still struggling to process all the information of my time in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Hopefully it has provided me, at least, with some interesting insight into why the bombs were dropped and the consequences of those bombings. At the same time, more than anything, it helped me to understand the absolute horror that is nuclear war and cemented in me the desire to reduce or (hopefully one-day) eliminate nuclear weapons. Why do we possess the means for our own destruction? The majority of nuclear weapons today are 300 times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima. When you consider that 140,000 people died in Hiroshima because of bombing it becomes hard to imagine a bomb that powerful. In what circumstances would we ever need a bomb that could potentially kill 42,000,000 people? Let alone 19,000 of these bombs? In my mind, it simply does not make sense. If we ever use these weapons again, it will simply be the destruction of all-of-us. So why the hell do we have so many?

Nagasaki Memorial

On the plus side some, albeit small, efforts have been made. In October last year the American decommissioned their largest bomb named the ‘B53’ that had a destructive power 600 times that of bomb used at Hiroshima. (link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053179/US-dismantles-B53-nuclear-weapon-600-times-powerful-Hiroshima.html )Time can only tell if we will can change, or whether governments will continue to spend billions of dollars maintaining and extending the life of nuclear weapons.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Part I

It was a dark, rather chilly night on May 10th when I boarded a 12 hour night bus in Shinjuku headed for Hiroshima. I had been invited by a friend of mine, Chelsea, as well as by several Hibakusha’s who I had met onboard the 75th voyage of Peace Boat. For those of you that don’t know, Hibakusha’s are people who survived the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and experienced heavy doses of radiation in the aftermath. Having studied much about the experience in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the reasonings behind Americas use of the atomic bomb, I leaped at the chance to speak with survivors.

The 12 hour bus ride went by smoothly enough, and before I knew it I was in Hiroshima. I was taken back by how nice it was, rolling mountains everywhere, rivers and lakes, it was simply beautiful. I started my first day with the Hibakusha and some friends from Peace Boat who had come along to learn as well.

We started the day at Hiroshima station, and walked to a near by bridge about ten minutes away. It was here that Mr. Lee stopped us and told us about his experiences.

Mr. Lee telling us about what he saw on August 6th 1945 just moments after the bomb dropped

He told us how he had been on his way to work when the bomb had gone off. Not knowing what had really happened, being confused and injured by the blast he had climbed to his feet, unsure of how long he had been knocked down. When he stood up he noticed all the buildings around his had been completely destroyed and there were people everywhere crying out for help. Not knowing what to do, he sought shelter under the bridge where he saw other people gathering as well. Many of them climbed into the water to escape the heat and relieve their injuries but instead joined the countless bodies that were already filling the water…

We listened to him tell us his story, talking about the sights he had seen, watching people walking towards him with their flesh hanging from their fingernails, muscles exposed everywhere that shin showed. The entire experience was almost impossible to imagine given the beauty of the place today.

After hearing his story, Mr Lee took us towards Peace Park, where the memorial and ruins of the atomic blast remain.

The Atomic Bomb Dome was one of the most interesting monuments left. Being one of the few structures made out of concrete in Hiroshima, sitting at just 500 meters away from ground zero, it remains a skeleton of the building it was. According to sources, blast temperatures of 2000-3000 degrees Celsius ripped through the building and the area completely annihilating the wooden homes and structures that dominated Hiroshima in 1945.

Perhaps the strangest feeling about this structure was how peaceful it was. The area was surrounded by trees, birds were singing and the sun was shining. This was an area filled with flowers and one of the nicest parks I had visited in ages. Peace Park in Hiroshima is filled with memorials, fountains, flowers and beautiful trees that had been brought over from all over the world. It stands just a few hundred meters from the epicenter in an area that was once a residential area, largely populated by children and young adults.

The atomic clock, stuck at 8:15

Memorials inline with the epicenter of the bomb

Memorial for children who died from radiation after the bombing

Korean Memorial for those who died during the blast, mostly those who worked forced labour. Unlike most memorials, this was is not facing the epicenter. Instead it is facing Korea.

 

Many teachers died who were trying to help their children after the blast

A mother attempts to protect her children from the blast

 

A memorial for the mobilized children workers who died in the clothing and machine factories close by.

After a few hours walking around in the park and getting a feel for it we went and heard another Hibakushas stories who had come to this area on August 6th after the bomb went off.

She had been in grade school at that time and had missed school because she was helping her mother with her family business. After the bomb had gone off, she had rushed to school to see if her friends had survived… However when the bomb went off at 8:15am almost every single student in her school had been outside for the morning assembly in the school yard. In the moments after the flash, her school yard had been blasted by temperatures exceeding 2000 degrees celsius.

Explaining what happened to her on August 6, 1945

She remembers showing up at her school and being told to collect the bones of her fellow students. No one was speaking as they went about their work. There were large ceramic pots they filled with fragments of bodies that had remained in the school yard.

Once they had collected a much as they could, they brought the piles of bones and began to pile them. Most of the pieces of bone were small and fragmented, yet they piled them high.

The pile that still remains where they buried the school children in Peace Park

Hearing all these stories and trying to imagine what how all of this happened was almost impossible. No matter how much I was told about what happened, I believed it, but simply could not imagine it. How could the world of gone so mad that we did this to each other? It was a terrifying thought and the day was far from over.

We departed our lovely guests and headed to an art exhibition that had been but on by young local artists. It was occupying a four-story building that was going to be torn down early next year, but until then, it was theirs. They had been using the space to bring together artists who wanted to get their work out there and who wanted to work to promote peace.

An artist working on an imagine entitled ‘All or Nothing’

 

 

After seeing the art show it was almost time to leave. We had a few hours left before catching the night bus to Nagasaki so we went to have dinner with another Hibakusha and talk about our days experience.

Despite the fact how tired we all were it was a nice dinner. I could not get over how welcoming and thankful the Hibakusha were that we had come. Despite their age and experiences they seemed an endless source of energy. I was finding it humbling how much they had gone through and had come out so positive and outspoken. I do not know if I would have the strength to do the same if the situations were reversed. That night around 11:15 we boarded our bus headed for Fukouka and Nagasaki. More to come about the trip in the following days…

Panama, Peru and now Jamaica

So I have spent the last few days busy hoping from Peru to Panama and am now emailing from Jamaica. As you can expect it has been awesome. I have been working closely with the Hibakusha on board, who have survived the atomic blasts in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It has been a fascinating experience that I am loving. Needless to say it is an experience I would never have had if I didn’t come back on board.

Sadly I have very little time to write too much in detail but know that I am well, happy and enjoying life. In the next few weeks I will have some major decision making ahead of me. Whether to return to Canada this fall to attend grad school, stay in Japan and work for an NGO or find something else. Right now it is all up in the air and I am waiting to hear back on a few applications, job offers and the like.

So far I have received confirmation from a MA program as well as a handsome scholarship but am waiting to hear back from the phd program that will contact me next week. Please pray to what ever Gods you are close with and cross any appendages you have and wish me the best.

Attached are a few photos and I will keep you all posted next week about my life. Next stop is Havana, Cuba where I will be participating in a anti nuclear weapons forum… May even get the chance to meet ol’ Fidel Castro if I’m lucky!

Here is a few photos from my last few ports.

Much love,
Ky

75th Peace Boat. Part 1: Tahiti…

So it has been a bumping journey so far. Lots of waves and rocking of the ship as we crossed the pacific ocean to tahiti. Overall though, it has been amazing. It is good to be back on water and i have finally made it to tahiti! My japanese has been picking up as i practice almost every chance i get each day. All it takes is a little perseverance and confidence and my skill improves daily. My plan for tahiti is very chilled. I am hoping to do some snorkeling, cycling and eating a dish called poisson cru, which is raw fish in coconut juice. It will be good to get back on land, but know that i feel at home again on the boat. I guess that could be impart because i have almost spent the most time on board this ship in the last year.

Classes are going very well and my days are thoroughly packed. It is rare that i finish my obligations before 10pm each night but regularily head to starlight bar onboard for a beer and to relax a little bit. It provides an excellent chance to practice my japanese and relax before bed. My advanced class onboard is so far a delight to teach and my global university classes start afew days after tahiti. Ive already put on a few classes for them and they seem like an optimistic bright group of young adults.

My life in saudi seems almost like a dream now. Something that i did in another life that i woke up from. My time there was peaceful but my only real challenge was learning to appriciate what i loved most in life. Now that i have returned to the real world, i am left with a mixed impression. The memories i had there and the friends i made will last a long time. Those of you who i spent so much time with, know that you are missed. On the other hand i feel as if lazerus reborn. I feel more enlightened, more at peace with my inner demons and more comfortable than i have probably ever felt before. This was impart because of my time spent in a purgatory i call saudi arabia, and impart because of the friends i made there.

Sadly i have had little time to take much photography but i will include the few sunset photos i have taken so far.

Sendings my love to all my family and friends. Sending special love to Paul, Anna, Ned, Leah and Joanne Kleinschmidt. I am so sorry for your loss and wish I could be there for you during this time of loss. Know that you are in my prayers.

-Ky

Another trip around the globe…

Hello everyone! Its been a while since I have updated. I got rather tied up with leaving Saudi Arabia, getting applications ready for grad school and moving to Japan. Needless to say it was a hectic time.

However, things are a bit more stable now… at least for the next 36 hours. I finished my orientation at Peaceboat and am getting ready for another exciting trip around the globe. I guess that original statement I made last year, ‘A Once in a Lifetime Trip’ didn’t hold true.

Tonight I will be meeting some old friends here in Tokyo, including my old coordinator and some of my previous students and doing some final packing before our voyage begins. Despite the fact I have done this before, I am well aware of the fact this voyage will be totally different. Different participants, different staff and an entirely different atmosphere. The only thing I am doing to prepare is have no expectations. It is difficult though to not get too excited!

Here is a list of the ports we will be hitting and a little movie to go along with it. I will try to keep this update whenever I get the chance. I apologize in advance if I am slow to respond to emails or anything like that.

Yokohama, Japan, January 24, 2012
Papeete, Tahiti, February 6, 2012
Callao, Peru, February 18-20, 2012
Balboa, Panama, February 24-25, 2012
Panama Canal, February 25, 2012
Montego Bay, Jamaica, February 27, 2012
Havana, Cuba, March 1, 2012
Dakar, Senegal, March 12, 2012
Las Palmas (Canary Islands), Spain, March 15, 2012
Casablanca, Morocco, March 17, 2012
Barcelona, Spain, March 20, 2012
Marseilles, France, March 21, 2012
Monte Carlo, Monaco, March 22, 2012
Civitavecchia, Italy, March 23-24, 2012
Piraeus, Greece, March 27, 2012
Istanbul, Turkey, March 29, 2012
Bourgas, Bulgaria, March 30, 2012
Constanza, Romania, March 31, 2012
Odessa, Ukraine, April 1-2, 2012
Port Said, Egypt, April 6, 2012
Suez Canal, April 7, 2012
Kochi, India, April 18, 2012
Singapore, April 24, 2012
Keelung, Taiwan, April 29, 2012
Yokohama, Japan, May 3, 2012

Anyhow I need to go get a beer and do some final things before heading to Yokohama tomorrow. Sending everyone my love and wishing you could be here with me. I will be sure to take plenty of photos (as usual) to share.

Much love everyone,

-Ky

Status Update on Life…

Hey everyone.

I left Saudi earlier this week. It already feels like it was a life time ago. Before I left I made a little video of my last experiences and daily life in Saudi. I meshed it all together. I hope you enjoy…

 

 

Discipline more important than Education?

Discipline seems more important than Education in Saudi Arabia

Working here in Saudi has been a strange experience. One thing that has recently come to my attention is the fact that disciple here is valued higher than education. This has been made quite clear by the draconian rules we have been told to enforce in the classroom over the last four months. The term draconian may seem harsh, but here are some examples of our classroom rules:

No Food or Drinks Allowed (this includes water bottles)
No Sandals (only shoes are permitted)
No Hats or Sunglasses
All Students MUST Wear Uniforms at ALL times.
Students MUST Complete ALL Homework
No Cellphones Allowed
Students Hair Must Be Cut Short, Above the Ears
Students MUST Sit Properly in their Desk
No Arabic or Interrupting is Allowed

Failure to meet any of these rules and the student will be marked ABSENT from the class and asked to leave, not being allowed re-entry to the classroom until they follow rules. This would not be an issue, except that when a student reaches 22 absences they are removed from the program.

For example, say a student shoes up to school meeting all criteria, except they are wearing sandals. The student will be told to leave until they find shoes. Many students live an hour or so away from our institution so are unable to return to class that day. It is to be noted that such an instance would result in 5 absences as we have 5 classes a day. As a result, 4-5 such occasions and the students are expelled from the program and the school.

Another example, say a student is unable to complete homework due to a family emergency. As a result they are not allowed back into class until their previous homework and all mounting homework is completed. As a result the student either must catch up or be expelled from the program. No leniency is given for personal emergencies or any such excuses.

Being that the program runs for three month periods, students have very little room for making errors.

If it was the case that I would be allowed to be lenient, I would happily overlook these ‘violations’ of the disciplinary rules, however they are enforced across the board and the major part of my job is to ensure these rules are followed.

Education comes only secondary to discipline in this program. The goal seems for the students seems to be who can jump through all the hoops put in place rather than show exceptional skill in English. As a result, many students who have lived abroad and have shown advanced skills in English have already been expelled from the program due to their relaxed, I would say, ‘Westernized’ views when attending classes. The expected end result is to have ‘Well mannered, disciplined employees who have received English Training’ rather than students who have demonstrated exceptional abilities in English Language studies.

I guess it makes sense that I will be heading back to Tokyo GET where teaching is focused more on the students and learning. To be honest, I cannot wait to getting back to a teaching method where ‘discipline’ is never, ever, an issue or mentioned.

Merry Christmas from Saudi

Merry Christmas everyone from Saudi Arabia. It’s been a while since my last post and my apologizes. Things have been very busy here with work, grad school applications and preparing to leave in January. In less than a month from now I will be heading back to Japan to start Peace Boat orientation which embarks from Yokohama on January 24th. To say I am excited is an understatement. As much as I will greatly miss the friends I have made here, it is time to move on. I am not suited to the Saudi life style…

Christmas was interesting. It involved a mixture of Harris traditions eating snack foods all Christmas eve with a new twist I added: moonshine. A Christmas away from home, I have decided, is unbearable without a few drinks. Desperation sometimes leads to drastic measures and I did what any right-minded man would do, I made my own booze. Needless to say it was a Christmas unlike any other and I can officially say I have spent a holiday season working in a desert.

Wish you all my love and hope you have had a wonderful season. Have a drink for me if you have the chance and enjoy your new years. If not for yourself, do it for me as I will be continuing to work the entire time.

Merry Christmas.
-Ky

Dear Thailand: I love you.

Perhaps it is childish of me, but lately I have found myself looking for signs. Signs that I am on the right track, doing the right thing or in the right place. That is not to say that I actively go looking for these signs, but every now and again it feels like fate or some higher power is slapping me in the face.These moments are seldom and far between, however the mere chances of them happening leave me with an overwhelming feeling of awe.

One example of such an instance occurred several years ago in Seoul, South Korea. It was a late Wednesday night around 2:00am and I was in an area of Gangnam trying to catch a bus home. As I walked toward the bus stop I saw someone ahead of me. As I approached I realized I knew him. I had met him about two years before while travelling through France with the Canadian Battle Field Association. We had only ever really talked in passing but for those brief 10 days in France I got to know him. We had not even tried to keep in touch afterwards and now here he was. I stopped him and we chatted for a few minutes until our bus came, which also happened to be the same bus. Not only that, it turns out that we also lived in the same neighbourhood. Forgive me if you think it is foolish, but the chances of meeting someone I had met in France years before, at that time of the night in Seoul, at a random bus-stop, in a city that big and being neighbours? Given the circumstances, it almost seems too coincidental.

The most recent example of a series of coincidences happened in Thailand. Its a bit of a long story, so bare with me. My friends Tom, Nick and I had met up on Phi Phi island after being separated for a few days when I received a text on my phone “Are you in Phuket now? I am going to Phi Phi tomorrow. -Aaron”. It took me a few hours to realize that Aaron was one of my good friends from Peaceboat. He had been living in Bangkok and had gone south with his girlfriend to avoid the floods. He had met my old room mate, Ariel and found out I was in the area and called me up. Without much thought, I quickly changed my vacation plans with the purpose of hanging out with him. We met the next day on Phi Phi island off the coast of Thailand and ended up spending the rest of the vacation with him and his girlfriend Carol. We spent the days swimming, snorkelling and looking for sharks and the nights drinking buckets, dancing and fighting each other in the ring.

We all left Phi Phi island just after lunch on November 10th, heading back towards Phuket in hopes we would catch our plane leaving from Bangkok on the 11th. We were planning to stay in Old Town in On On Hotel, where the Beach was partially filmed, and go out to some local spots for our final night out. The previous week, we had gone out with my old room-mate and co-worker Ariel, and had met a friend named Kuck or “Hugo”. Hugo had introduced us to a wonderful girl named “Pigeon” and shown us around to local nightspots. He wanted to see us once more before we departed, so we obliged. The night we arrived was the full moon festival in Thailand, where they give thanks to the Water God, so Hugo decided to take us to his friend’s newly opened bar on the lake.

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Once we arrived, we cracked into the Sangsom buckets and began our last night of “freedom” before heading back to Saudi. Carol, being the only girl with us, had gone off to talk to the only other western girls at the bar. It was not before long that she came back with her newly found friends and we all began talking. Shortly after that the topic shifted to Saudi Arabia, Thailand and the Peaceboat. Much to our surprise our new friends had heard about Peaceboat before and not only that, were the neighbours of Ariel, my old room-mate. Things all of a sudden made sense, as I recalled the stories Ariel had told me about the couple that were his neighbours.

As we began talking, I brought up how random it all been. First, I happened to go to Phi Phi instead of Krabi. Second, Aaron had left Bangkok and happened to find out that I was in the area. Third, we had completely changed our vacation plans to come back to Phuket and hang with Aaron. And now I was randomly meeting two people I had head so much about from Ariel. Of all the bars, all the places, all the people to meet, we agreed it was very circumstantial. It was then that one of the girls said “Hey, know what would be even more weird? If you knew my friend in Saudi named Mick…”

“I know a Mick…” I replied.

“Mick Larson with the fro?” She asked.

“Yep. He’s lives on my floor.” I told her.

We almost had to take a second to let it all soak in. Mick had been her co-worker and close friend and had worked in Thailand a year or so ago. Now he was basically my house mate as we live in what seems like an adult dormitory. It is as though fate had decided to pull neighbour swap on us. My old room-mate and friend Ariel now lived next to her, and her old friend and co-worker was now my neighbour, friend and co-worker.

Maybe the world really is small. Maybe I am looking too much into the coincidences in my life. Maybe it means nothing at all. I guess it all depends how you look at it. Personally, I like to look at it as an affirmation I am doing the right thing, in the right place, at the right time.

What ever the case may be,  my vacation could not have been better. I enjoyed every last minute of it and cannot help but wish that I was back in Thailand. Hopefully next year I will find time to go back, rent an apartment for a few months and relax. I would like to thank Aaron, Carol, Hugo, Pigeon, Ariel, Tony, my co-travellers Tom and Nick, as well as everyone else whom I met or saw. Ill end with three simple words: Best Vacation Ever.