homestay at Naga Island - part two

Wilson told us that he has been to Naga Island several times before and that he knew the way to the other side. He took Bob and I past the village houses and straight towards the jungle interior. We immediately came upon a marsh-like plains. He had no idea how to get around it. The grass was tall and the mud was deep. I asked Wilson if there are any snakes on the island. His reply was "No. No snakes on island". I was relieved to hear that and I told him so.

"Except during the morning and evening. Be careful of snakes." I subsequently asked about sting rays and sharks. His answer was similar: there are no sting rays in the water - just be careful not to bother them and they won't bother you.

We back tracked away from the marsh and chose a new path. This lead us through the rubber tree orchards. No rubber was currently being harvested because it had just rained, and supposedly that slows down the oozing flow of rubber sap. Nonetheless, all the trees were equiped with their coconut cups, strapped around the tree with wire, and positioned just below a metal spout at the lowest point of the diagonal cut.



We were walking through whole forests of these rubber trees. We would come across random tin roof shacks, into which Wilson sought help from the locals. They seemed to point in all sorts of directions for the beech. We would just have to figure it out on our own.

Somewhere, we happened upon the Naga Island school. It was kind of ominous, just out there, half surrounded by barbed wire fences, seemingly abandoned. We further blazed a trail through the jungle.

We had been slowly ascending the hill and eventually we reached the top. Jungle gave way unto rubber trees. Rubber trees gave way unto jungle. We found tin roof shacks devoted to rubber processing. They mix the white rubber ooze with water, and then they use cast iron machines (the imagery resembles an old school printing press) to create rubber mats, the industry standard. These are then hung out on bamboo racks to dry in the sun for about a week. Probably longer, considering the weather around now.



Note that the whole island is covered by a scattering of garbage. The trash is mostly concentrated around their living areas, near the beach, and near their homes. So this image of a lush jungle island ecosystem should be punctuated by the more than occasional plastic bags, old nets, water bottles, styrofoam, and 7-11 type food wrappers. It's hard for me to understand why such a closely held community like the one of this island would allow their pristine living environment to be so arbitrarily polluted. But I suppose that's the state of the entire planet, isn't it.

We descened the other side of the hill. The beach could not be far away. We stumbled upon a more industrial area of the island near the shore, where a logging and construction opperation seemed to be underway. We walked across the catwalk that spanned the construction pit. The workers pointed us in the general direction. At this point, we were able to simply follow the shore to where the rest of the group was, just beyond the bend and a rocky outcropping.

The beach was marvelous. I could wade out very far and the water would only be up to my chest. Somehow, floating seemed much easier than in Seattle. But perhaps the eternal cold of the Puget Sound simply prevents me from fully expressing my aquatic instincts. Most people decided to go back, suspiciously right after I got there. They tried to convince me to leave with them, but I obstinately refused, having only just arrived. They were wisked away via long tail boat, while I did handstands in the water, shaking my feet in a derogatory fashion at them. Bastards.

I was the only living soul on this long beach, populated only by a long convenient row of lounge chairs. I relocated one near the water's edge and read for an hour. It occured to me then and suddenly: I am completely alone on an exotic shore on a strange island in southern Thailand. It's difficult to describe how I felt. I was existing very strongly and it felt wonderful.

The sun was getting forebodingly low in the sky behind me (I was on the east shore, so the sun was setting over the island and casting a shadow over me). It was about an hour until dinner, so I decided to head back. It would be good to arrive early. I had three official options: 1) walk back along my uncovnetional path through the interior of the island, 2) swim back around the perimeter of the island, and 3) walk back along the perimeter of the island. I had been planning to return via the jungle path, but without a friend, I was growing increasingly concerned about getting lost in the twilight. And Wilson's obscure warning about the snakes was not making me any more confident. Swimming was not really an option - more of Wilson's joke. Thus I was committed to walking around the island, as several of the others had done earlier. I set off.

I was hoping that sandy beach would remain sandy beach. Around the first bend, I discovered that the shore transformed into rocky fields and outcroppings. Occasionally I would find sand again, where to my relief I would see the tracks of my peers. Mostly it was strange rock formations under my feet.

This was perhaps the most bizarre experience out of my whole time in Thailand thusfar. Solitude can do strange things to the mind. The combination of twilight, solitude, exotic mars rock formations, nocturnal animal sounds eminating from the jungle on my right side (I was going anti-clockwise around the island), and my intense mood of being in time existence, started to make me feel a little schizophrenic. The tide was low, so I would be hopping across these expansive fields of rock, which I described to myself at the time as being "blasted landscapes". As I slinked across these blasted landscapes, I would hear the scurry of tiny claws on stone. I would halt. The scurrying stopped. When I started walking again, the scurrying sound would resume. It was crabs of course. But I couldn't see them. There was also the occasional squirting noise. Like some sort of underground sea creature. Communnities of night beetles inhabited some of the trees near the shore. They would be making these loud chirping screeching noises, and then all of a sudden they would go silent for a while. Then resume wailing.

Then there were the sea trees. Out in the middle of these desolate landscapes were these random trees. They seemed so out of place. They would often be adorned by rags and fishing nets. Their roots extended yards away from the trunk and then surfaced in the mud, like tentacle fingers reaching up out of the earth. I continued onwards.

The island shore seemed to never end. There was a neverending variety of rock formations. Sometimes low gentle rounded black masses. Somtimes jagged red shards. Somtimes blasted mars landscape. Somtimes the rocks sort of resembled scattered concrete or coral in a mud flat. There would be pools of water that I had to avoid. I came across old ruins on the shore, abandoned fishing boats half burried in sand, and even what looked like an the ancient remains of a pier, reaching out to the water.



It got darker and darker and still I had not reached headquarters. 40 minutes had past. I was now estranged from both space and time. Where am I? Who am I? I poundered to myself. It felt just like Myst, if any of you can appreciate that allusion. I felt like I was in a totally unheard of dimension. If a lumbering beast crawled out of the sea, onto the shore, I would have accepted it's strangeness just as I had come to accept the mysterious scurrying noise that stops when I stop, or the illogical tentacle trees that continue to confound the mind. I was half surprised to have been walking for near an hour and to have not come across a mind-bending puzzle or a linking book (a portal... more Myst allusions).



To be continued...