Island Dreaming
Sep 17th, 2007 by Angela
Have you ever dreamt of what it would be like to relax on a tropical island with every whim catered for? Most people have, and some may have realised that dream.
I have just returned from a trip to Koh Samui in Thailand. It was an island, tropical, laid back and beautiful with lovely people. The pace of life was different. The way people lived was different and it was an enriching experience and often humbling experience.
The world of Occupational Health and Safety which often paralyses life in this country does not seem to have made any in roads there as yet. Power lines, intertwined like spaghetti, buzz and hum just above your head in the streets. Cats can be seen in restaurants and dogs roam freely up and down the beach and snooze on the roads. Scooter riders don’t wear helmets and tear up and down the main road as if their life depended on it. I saw men scaling coconut palms like monkeys to remove coconuts which might fall on our heads. They used their bare hands and feet and had no safety gear.
Perhaps what struck me most was the beach hawkers. They seemed to live their lives according to a different drum. Fully protected from the sun, (unlike the European tourists) they would wander up and down their section of the beach trying to catch the eye of a relaxing tourist with their array of bedspreads, doona covers, shirts, dresses and jewellery. Others sat around a little mobile food bar, which consisted of a pole with a basket at either end. One basket had the food in it, and the other a charcoal burner. It seemed to be the Ko Samui equivalent of a snack bar. In a flash, if we wanted it, we could have corn, spring rolls and other ‘delicacies’ served up to us. The charcoal burner would be fanned into life, and a few moments later, the food would appear. We enjoyed corn cobs for lunch each day prepared in this way. In between customers, the ‘snack bar’ became a meeting place, and it would have been great to understand the language and be a fly on the sand! There was a simplicity about their pace of life that made me reflect on the often frantic pace that we allow to consume our lives. Despite their apparent material poverty, they seemed rich in other ways- in how they communicated with eachother, their cheerfulness and their laughter. Even with the language barriers on our part, as their English was much better than our Thai, they could make a joke, and smile even when a sale did not come their way.
I was a sitting duck for one such hawker. Believe it or not, she was sitting on the sand crocheting something. I went up closer to have a look, and she was using a very fine cotton to crochet a top. She told me that one top took her two weeks to finish. Later, when she did her rounds on the beach with her wares, she came past me and waved the tops she had in front of my nose. Despite my protestations that they were all too small, she found one the right size and apart from my half hearted attempt at bartering, it was all over! She had a sale! I had a new top!
When we are away from our usual occupations and daily concerns, and sample life in a different environment or culture, it is easy for us to take stock and to reflect. The challenge is not to lose that feeling and spirit we were aware of whilst away, on our return. I, for one, will try to stop making ‘being busy’ sound like a virtue, and will attempt to live more ‘in the moment’ and enjoy that for what it is.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.