November 17, 2004
Deepavali - Hari Raya Puaso
Last Monday we came back from a long Deepavali - Hari Raya Puaso weekend in Thailand. Ah, it was so beautiful! Thailand is definitely one of my most favorite places. Just stepping out from the airplane you can feel yourself unwinding, there's something in the air that immediately sets your mind on HOLIDAY.
Well, no photoshoping here, seriously, the colors are like that, there's no cheating, no color enhancement. I don't know why, but water in Thailand is of this greenish azure crystal clear color that makes such a beautiful combination with white sand. Not only that, we once again were amazed with the friendliness of Thai people. Such a contrast with Leijonakaupungilainen always "busy busy", "run run", "me first, you after" pushy attitude! Don't know if people in Thailand only have much more time to acknowledge a fellow human being, but it was great to pick up this kind of relaxed attitude and smile in return. You don't even get much of a colonialist feeling in Thailand, people have their dignity and their pleasant nature is not (only) because they want to lure more money out of you. Even the way you pronounce Thai words "kop kun kaaa", "sawatee kaaa" makes you smile...
Some people aparently weren't affected by the kindness surrounding them..:) We flew in Phuket and took a boat to Koh Raya. There is a Finnish owned dive shop there and the island is full of Finns, Swedes and Germans. We experienced a reverse cultural shock - how clumsy and strange these people were! As Kaj put it "oh, they're DOING Asia".. So you can see these super tanned, messy blond hair youngsters with important and "experienced" looks. Made me think that where do I really belong? Is there any place on Earth that I would feel home? I mean, Asia is weird, Europeans are strange.. Who am I? :) Fortunately the island was inhabited more by families and a bit older tourists, so no real backpackers, Italian bimbos, video and reggie beach bars (no, not true, there was a "rasta hippy bar", but aparently its fame has faded quite some time ago).
Koh Raya is not really an "undiscovered" "pristine" destination. There's tens of fishing, dive and just speed boats arriving every day and parking in every single beach in the island. Phuket people make day trips there and there's major resort developments under way. It was sad to see the scale of constructions - one day there appeared a huge platform (maybe 10mx20m) full of construction gravel in one of the beaches, the constructions never look beautiful, but this looked really worrying - how much this little island can take.. It must have been so beautiful some 10 years ago!!!
Diving was disorganized, but very beautiful in Koh Raya! The landscape underwater is really magnificent around the island - lots of huge boulders and rocks, beautiful! The Finnish dive shop was the most disorganized that I've ever seen, our first dive was delayed because there wasn't enough of equipment, so we had to wait for other people to come out from the water. Later we got some use of our "me first, you after" skills learned in Leijonakaupunki and everything went fine - don't ask questions, if you see a BCD of your size, just grab and drag it..
Going away to Krabi (a town in the mainland) felt really good - like a reality check for us. It is a very touristy place too, but feels much more "real". Locals have their ordinary lives there apart from serving the tourists, also the prices are 3-4 times lower than in Koh Raya. This sometimse not so beautiful architecture and messy streets full of stray dogs (ah, they're so ugly!) felt nice. You know, like "real" Asia is suppossed to be.. :) It was a pity that we had only one day in there, but we rented a motorbike and went to the xxx (what is the name?) national park.
There was a beautiful waterfall (its right after the rainy season in Thailand - very nice and green!) We climbed and swam in the stream with some local family (they took a picture of us in bikinis (at least I was in bikini, Kaj had swimming pants :) - they themselves were swimming in full clothes)
Reaching the swimming place included some climbing on the rocks (fortunately that left crowds of so called "geriatric" tourists far far down there) and opened some magnificent views through the forest over the land.
This was not the first time I almost died (or at least almost threw up or fainted) while trecking in tropics. I should seriously do something about my physical fitness.. And remember to eat and drink... At the end I felt so knocked down that couldn't care less about the amazing limestone rocks in this Budhist temple that we visited on the way back.. Looks good on the picture though..
And now we're back to Leijonakaupunki and everything looks very clean, tidy and civilized here.. So normal again...
Posted by gkligyte at November 17, 2004 10:53 AM