I flew into Bangkok on May 31st, and stayed at a YHA before heading for the infamous “tourist ghetto” Khao San Rd, where I managed to stay amongst the throngs of tourists, tuk-tuks and techno music for a week! My guest house was directly overlooking the street, which offered an interesting view, but my efforts to sleep could be compared to trying to sleep in a nightclub toilet.
I kept very much to myself for the first few days, and had a hassle-free time (even coming through customs and immigration)! That is until evening #4, when a middle-aged local man decided to hit on me. Once turned down he proceeded to follow me up and down Khao San Rd, trying to find out where I was staying. I asked a number of tuk-tuk drivers to just take me for a drive for five minutes, but their reply was always, “You ride, you shop”.
After a third argument my composure left me and I burst into tears in the middle of the street. Another local asked me what was wrong, took me for a walk to Bangkok’s main highway and bought me a coke and gave me a cigarette. Thank God for the good samaritans of the world, he wanted nothing in return except to see me stop crying.
That evening I’d had enough of being alone, so I went to a cafe to watch a movie over a large Singha (local brew). The cafe got more and more crowded and I ended up having to share my table with two guys who had just arrived in Bangkok from nine months in India! I grilled them both for about two hours about India, and naturally the conversation turned to their spiritual paths. Coincidence or not? We were all hoping to go to the same retreat that month on Koh Pa Ngan! We met again the next day and were inseparable since.
After a few days Bangkok had definitely “worn off” and we headed for the islands. Koh Samui first and even though I’d heard it was very touristy, we had been recommended a beautiful quiet beach called Hat Mae Nam.
The beach was picture postcard perfect! I have never seen another view like it – turquoise water, white sand and coconut palms leaning over the beach. We had expected to stay two days and then head to Koh Pa Ngan, but why leave paradise when you’ve found it?
Our days consisted of swimming, lazing and eating fruit – coconuts, bananas, rambutans and durians (I am now a durian ADDICT!) We stayed the whole week until the day before my first ten day meditation retreat at Wat Kow Tahm, Koh Pa Ngan.
It was an experience I will never expect, a thorough mental and emotional cleansing, and the teachers (Steve and Rosemary Weissman) are the best meditation teachers I have ever had the fortune to learn from.
One of the guys I had been travelling with had contracted dysentery
somewhere along his travels (probably in India) and came down with severe fevers and diarrhea at the end of the retreat. On the last day, his friend took him to hospital to get some antibiotics, and we found a quiet beach to stay on while he recovered.
His friend had to leave for Bangkok the next day (heading onwards to
Australia), so I stayed with him on the beach for a week, feeding him
coconuts and cucumbers (the only things he could stomach). By the end of the week he had recovered enough that I was confident to leave him and head to Surat Thani (back to the mainland) for my second 10 day Vipassana retreat at Wat Suan Mokkh, a much larger Buddhist monastery.
This retreat was very intensive, but I appreciated the close contact with the monks and nuns, and it gave me a better view of Thai Buddhist culture than I could have gotten anywhere else.
