Island Life

Islands are a getaway. They are an opportunity to move at one's own pace. They are a liberation from the tyranny of sightseeing.

Ko Chang gave me a break from temples and the fast pace of big cities, which is why I spent Christmas there.

About the only thing that didn't move at my pace were the taxis, a fleet of pickup trucks, all with black canopies, that acted as the island's public transit. They flew down hills, seemingly without control or brakes, and climbed with difficulty up the next ones only to fly down them again.

All of this happened with a dozen people crammed inside and hanging off the back. On the downward slopes, internal organs moved at their own pace, slammed to a halt on the subsequent climb. They kept going for a split-second longer than our bodies, just long enough to turn a few somersaults. Leaning now towards the road behind, we gripped the iron rail above us, hands sore with the effort.

If the canopy had a hole, we could have thrown our hands up and screamed for joy and sheer panic.

The pace of life was mine again once I reached Lonely Beach. There were a number of restaurants and bars. There was the cool of my room and my books, Leonard's Cuba Libre and Le Carre's The Russia House. There was the beach and any number of outdoor activities. It was all my choice.

My first choice was fishing. I had these Old Man and the Sea visions of struggling against the odds and pulling in the big one. But imagination so often lead us astray; the fish weren't biting.

Shades crooked on his nose and a smoke dangling from his lip, one of the Thai crew, with his fishing line in the water, sang along to a now-mournful Bob Marley. "No fishy, no cry!"

Our boat pulled in three medium-sized fish for the day - I got one. Though my epic visions didn't pan out , the trip got us out in great weather to see the islands that surrounded Ko Chang.

Next day was the beach, an eccentric little walk from the village. Down a dirt track, I faded right past the rocky waterfront and a couple of bare-bones huts set among sparse trees. I arrived at The Treehouse, one of the local bars, discovered the sandbag path across a patch of deep water and continued down the rocks and dirt to the sand.

The walk became even more jungle-like when the Treehouse staff inexplicably erected a barbed wire fence across the path. I and everyone else had to climb through the trees to make the beach.

The beach was lovely. Sand stretchd out in a rough crescent shape, backed up by bungalows and bars. The Gulf of Thailand was warm. I spent a few days removing my tan lines.

While I was finding new ways to relax, the Thai locals moved at their own pace too. They mostly chatted with each other and waited to do business with us tourists. Sell a sarong, do some laundry, book a tour: there was a lot of money in just waiting.

The staff at my guest house, however, entertained themselves with a monkey. He showed up once a day, sent the Thais scurrying. He hissed at them. They edged back to their seats but left a big space underneath his tree and cast suspicious glances upwards.

Sometimes they threw things at him. Balled-up paper, garbage, elastic bands and left-over food all went up and I watched their eyes to determine success or failure. The gleam of pride and cleverness. Wide and beady panic. They hustled past me and my lunch again, screaming and yelling.

The monkey, meanwhile, went back to his apple in the tree.

With very little to do, island life was a getaway to the simpler things. On Ko Chang, I had fishing and the beach. The locals had their waiting to make money. The monkey had his apple. We all got to relax.