Good-bye Australia, Hello Thailand

Erick here.

Too long since I last posted. More than a few times this week I have sat down at the computer and thought that it was time to write new post and then I would decide that it didn't feel right. Like I needed a certain vibe to produce a quality entry. I think probably it was more like I was procrastinating and coming up with a fancy excuse. No more. Now I write.

My last few weeks in Australia were a bit different than H,A, and GE. While they were in Brisbane for the holidays, I spent my time working at a camp in Victoria, specifically the Gippsland Lakes region. The camp was called Cooinda and went for nine days.
Cooinda is a camp for teenagers (mostly from Melbourne) and has been running for more than forty years. It is a water based camp, meaning that the majority of their activities have to do with...water. Things like sailing and kayaking and the like. The basic structure of the camp is that the campers are divided into groups of about ten, called patrols, taught about camping, sailing, etc. and then taken out on multi-day expeditions on the lakes surrounding camp. Most of the travel is done via canoes, but there was a patrol that used kayaks and even one that was ferried out on a motorboat. Almost all of the activities are done as a patrol and the camp staff use the patrol as a platform to teach(and learn) about relationships and teamwork and so on. That is Cooinda at a glance. I spent my stay there as the canoe instructor, which was a really good time. I wasn't sure what to make of the whole Cooinda thing at first as I am used to working at stricter, more regimented camps, and this one was far more laid back. But I came to find out that laid back is OK and that you can run a safe and fun and adventurous camp this way. By the end of my time in Gippsland Lakes, I had made some good friends and had some cool adventures as well. It was time well spent.

Following my time at Cooinda, I spent the weekend with Lou and Kelly, who I met at Cooinda. My plan was to spend the weekend in a hostel in Melbourne, but Kelly got wind of this and brokered out Lou's spare room and it was an offer I could not refuse. Both Kelly and Lou have been, at one time or another, involved in the Melbourne arts community, so the weekend took on a bit of an arts theme. The highlight would have to be the masterminding of my debut as a stage actor. Explanation: on Friday night, Kelly got a text message asking if she wanted to help with the rehearsal of a upcoming play called 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'. I can't say that I am much of a play person, but apparently this one was a runaway success on Broadway and so now it was time for it to have a go in Australia. Anyway, the writer of the play set it up so that every time the play is on, four people from the audience volunteer upon arrival to act a small role in the play as schoolchildren at a spelling bee. As this was a rehearsal at the company warehouse, there was no audience. Enter Kelly, Lou, and Erick plus a fourth volunteer. The idea is that because you are a volunteer you have no idea about what you are supposed to say or where you are to stand or sit and so the actors sort of rally around you and whisper in your ear and drag you around the stage and this adds to the...umm, randomness of the play. The actors were well-known (but not to me, save the lady who played Mrs. Hoggat in 'Babe') and to say I felt out of place on the stage with them would be a bold understatement. I would like to think that I am pretty calm and smooth up in front of people, but about the time I was dancing in a big circle with a bunch of adults pretending to be children, there was no more smoothness. If ever I thought that acting might be a way for me to forge a living, my experiences last Saturday with the actors of the Melbourne Theatre company put that to rest.

(I'm just now realizing that I've written two sections about two events, one that lasted two weeks and one that lasted an hour and a half.)

Thanks, Kelly and Lou(and Header the cat) for a great weekend and an unforgettable way to spend my last few days in your beautiful country.

Following my adventures(and misadventures) in Victoria, I caught the overnight train to Sydney and met up with the others at the airport. We spent the afternoon catching up and then boarded the flight to Bangkok. Leaving Australia didn't feel as significant as I think it should of. I think that this may be because somewhere in the back of my mind I suspect that I will come back again one day. Whatever the case, I didn't have much time to process because in a few hours the plane touched down and our next objective was to find our way to our hostel in Bangkok. This was accomplished after we caught an outrageously overpriced cab. I think maybe the cabbie is now staying in the beach house next to ours.Forever.

We spent our first two days in Bangkok. It is crowded and smoggy and loud, but for all of those things, it still has some charm to it. I think it is the kindness of the people. I think GE mentioned this, but I am still blown away by the Thai people and their respect for eachother and everyone around them. I know that it is part of their Buddhist religion, but kindness to others is a fundamental of Christianity and we Christian countries aren't doing so hot. I have seen a sort of kindness before in the way that locals deal with visitors, but it is the kind that has strings attached. Here I am convinced that there are no catches; people are kind and serving and the fact that you are a customer or whatever has little to do with it. Even the people on the street greet you and offer to help with advice and little bows and smiles all around. I still don't really get it. Maybe it's not always like this. Maybe this is 'Be Kind to Foreigners Week' or something. I can't get my head around that the Thai community is always this way. But I'm willing to accept it and it is really refreshing.

After our time in the capital, we arranged to catch an overnight train and then a bus and a ferry to our ultimate desination of Ko Samui. The islands are the California of Thailand, where people come for sun and beaches and so on. We've rented bungalows with a view of the ocean for what wouldn't even get you a cheap room at a Motel 6 in the States. (The exchange rate is now our friend.)As I am writing this, we are at the halfway point of our stay on the island. On Tuesday it's ferry, bus, train to Bangkok and then off to Columbo, Sri Lanka. But that is still a few days away. Until then we are enjoying our time in paradise.

One more thought: as we have been here, I have been doing a lot of thinking as to the whole morality of tourism. I see a place like this, a beautiful island getaway since tourism has been introduced now the streets are full of sunburned, hung-over tourists and there is a McDonald's and Internet cafes and anything else that might be of interest to a paying traveller. On one hand, the tourism is good. It generates income for the country, it brings infrastructure to faraway places like this that may not have had it otherwise. I haven't seen anyone, Thai or otherwise, who isn't well-fed, well-dressed and taken care of. The Thai people who live and work here have a very high standard of living. But on the other hand, tourism has a dark side to it as well. Probably the most vivid example of this is the sex trade. It is rampant here. I remember in the DR we would catch glimpses of it and you knew that it was going on, but here it is wide open and in your face. Every hotel and restaurant and train and bus and whatever else, almost invariably, has had some white guy with a very young Thai girl on his arm. Part of me would like to pass it off to a lame excuse, like that they are friends or that they have noble intentions, but there is far too much of it to play that game. My heart goes out to these girls and I am scared to know the sequence of events that led to the life that they are now trapped in. The police have little or nothing to do with the trade and so it goes along unchecked. And there is more than just the prostitution. More than a few times I have seen Thai people being bossed around and mistreated by pushy selfish tourists and then I am ashamed for us.

So I guess that you can see that there are good but also bad things that come with tourism. I think that it should happen, that people should be free to travel the world and that they should take advantage of that freedom. But I think that as a traveller you are still an ambassador for your country and that should a country open its doors and allow you to explore what is theirs, it should be enjoyed in such a way that enhances the country and the people in it and does not detract. You owe that to people who let you come and be a guest in their country. I think about what it would be like if masses of cash-strapped Thai people started coming into Canada and pushing around my countrymen and using Canadian girls as prostitutes whenever they pleased and I know that no one would stand for it. So it goes without saying that I am at a loss when I see the way these kind, quiet, and polite people are being taken advantage of. Reslolution? At this point, my resolution is to be the type of traveller that adds to the country he is visiting and gives a positive impression of the country he comes from. Things like leaving tips and thanking people and respecting their customs. Ideally, I would like to boot out every rude and selfish and inconsiderate tourist in the entire country, and give away their money to the Thai people to say sorry for all the terrible things that have happened, but of course this is unrealistic and impossible. I am thinking of the quote that says, "If a man is to change the world, he is first to start with himself."

These are my musings and the events of the last few weeks. A quality entry. And I didn't even feel like it.