Part VI: Thailand - Tales from the hippie lands

Happy New Year guys!!!!

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Hey guys,

I haven’t written for some time now. I think the sun and the crystal waters softened my brain (meaning that I couldn’t be bothered to sit in front of a computer while I could be laying on the beach...) I’m now sitting on the submit of a hill in the middle of Santiago de Chile, next to a big sculpture of the virgin Mary. You can see the whole city from here... I’m trying to gather together all the bit and pieces I have scribble in my note book since last month, what a mess!!

If you missed Woodstock 69, if you think dreadlocks look cool and having a communal nude swim in the ocean is between your New Year´s resolutions for 2007, you should get into a Rainbow Gathering, here you have the chance to see and experience how hippies live... Let me explain, I was happily doing nothing in Don Dhet, Laos. Do you remember I said that places like Pai, Hampi or Vang Vieng were perfect to do nothing? ok, next to Don Dhet they are like Oxford Street in rush hour. Don Dhet is one of the 4.000 islands in the Mekong river, south of Laos, no electricity, no TV, no shops,... there are just a few guest houses spread between the sunrise avenue and the sunset string, the only two streets. For sure I went to the sunset string, I may not be an early bird. The sunset string is full of bamboo bungalows with hammocks in the terrace first line of the sunset on the river. Life is quiet there, the only possible activity is truly to swing your hammock from side to side while reading your book or listening to your music.

So I was in Don Dhet happily doing nothing with a fellow traveler friend, Lara, a french-scotish sweet heart when I met this two crazy people who told me about the Rainbow gathering. They were crazy enough for changing my traveling plans in the minute we talked about it, so, packed up my stuff and departured towards Bangkok. After one full day of shopping, a miracle for those who know me, I departured towards Ao Chaak, near Ranon. On the bus I met this really nice french girl and this crazy 57 years old guy from California whose amulet was a piece of peyote, such an amazing character, to old to be young, to young to be old, he was always telling all these stories about his trips on Peyote and Ayahuasca, his meetings with god and death... crazy... From the bus we had to walk for 3km on the road towards the sea line, from here another 3-4 km walking along an isolated beach. At this point we arrived to the welcoming center, a small bonfire with some food and drinks to rest before getting into the gathering, we had some food and when the tide was low enough to cross, we walk the last half an hour through the rocks to the beach where the gathering was held. A remote beautiful white sandy beach surrounded by jungle. As soon as we arrived some naked people yelled welcome to us, – Welcome home!! – Welcome home!!

The rainbow is a gathering, not a festival, from people from all over the word that gather together to have a good time and share their skills through workshops. The rules are very simple;

- No alcohol
- No drugs
- No electronic equipment

The day starts around 6 or 7 with the first rays of light. Every morning on the beach there are always a few different yoga workshops, Sivananda, Mantra-yoga, Pranayama , Ananda, Japanese meditation and so on... After the morning exercise there is some spare time before the first meal of the day. Everything works on voluntary work so if you fancy to help chopping some vegetables, cooking, bringing the supplies, cleaning the camp area or anything you feel like doing you just have to join in and it is also the best way to meet people. Around 12-1 there is the first meal of the day.

I have to say that at this point it became a bit of a sect, let me explain, after a few calls from the kitchen – food ring, food ring, we joined around the sacred fire, surrounded by a circle of stones with some inscriptions nobody really knew what they meant. Just in case you ever go to one of these gatherings, make sure you don’t throw any butt, any plastic or anything into the ¨sacred¨ fire, it can only be feed with wood and you will be told off if you do the opposite.

So at the beginning of the lunch we stood in circles around the fire holding hands. We started singing some songs. It wasn’t exactly this one, but was the same type.

I am the circle
we are the circle
I am one as you are one
and we are altogether one
I am one as you are one
and we are all together One.
United people are... as one.
United people become as one.

After this it was the time to sing ohm.
– Oooooooooohhhhhhhmmmmmmmm. First time I joined, I kind of freak out and couldn’t avoid laughing. It is quite amazing the vibration produced by 500 people singing ohm
– Oooooooooohhhhhhhmmmmmmmm, funny. After this, we kneeled down to thank mother earth for the food we were going to have, bla, bla, bla... The food was usually some kind of vegetable soup, rice, noodles,... of course everything vegetarian. It was quite tasty taking into account the number of people to be fed, about 500 and the kitchen facilities, a few handmade bamboo tables and a long hole in the ground with fire and huge saucepans on top. Some days we had Thai food, others French cuisine, Japanese pickles and miso soup...

During the lunch there was always people walking around announcing the workshops for the afternoon, to which, as in the morning, you just had to join in. There was all sorts of activities, different language circles, belly dancing, contact dancing, meditation, Thai massage, cooking, drumming, didgeridoo, story telling, baking, tea making, handcrafts and many other I don’t remember. It was particularly fun the contact and tribe dancing (Dances like the ones you can see in the film Baraka). I think I enjoyed most because everyone was really free spirited. If the teacher told you to behave like a child everyone would be running around yelling and behaving as a child. In the environment we usually live, we always create a lot of barriers around ourselves to show and act as we are supposed to do according to our social standards. It was really nice to leave all those barriers aside and let ourselves out.

I planned to be only two days in the gathering, but at the end stayed five, I have to say that at the beginning I quite didn’t felt in place, too different to anything I have seen before, but after a few days I relaxed, let myself in and had so much fun. Every morning the same story – I’m leaving mañana... I spent Christmas Eve in the gathering. After the Christmas meal (veggie soup as every day) we had a musical evening where the so called Japanese family sang some typical Japanese songs, the Israelis gathered with the Iranians to sing in Hebrew, some Americans played and sang Indian music. There was also some kind of dodgy flamenco between other music types. I would say something about the toilets, called shitpits, but you can imagine everything by yourselves...

So after five hippie days, I had to leave the festival to go to koh Phangan, to get ready to meet Edu and Marta, two friends from Spain. It is to go from one extreme to the other, from all the hippies in the gathering, where I spent three pounds in five days, to the consumerism, the up market holidays, the beautiful looking people, bungalow with hammock in front of the beach, scooter to move around and diving course...

On the morning of the 31st, my friends Edu and Marta arrived from Spain, as soon as they arrived, first thing was to go to the beach for a bit of sun and some snorkeling in the coral reefs.

Diving in the islands is great, you have easily 15 m visibility with loads of colorful fish. After the diving we ate some good fish and had a lot of chatting through the afternoon, four months without seen my Effra buddies!!

Then time for dinner came, barbecue fish and some vegetables, soo delicious and tender!!! There was a lot of people around already celebrating. Around nine o’clock we organized ourselves to get a taxi to the Hat ring where all the party was.

Once we arrived, we got to the beach together with a few other thousand people. There were fireworks thrown from the beach, health and safety doesn’t exist in Thailand and the music of all the clubs in the beach was mixed into one only boom boom. The best clubs had torches in the beach and amazing fire jugglers. New Year was a mix of fireworks, lights, shouts, we didn’t really get to know when the actual New Year was, it didn’t mattered either. The party was soo good!! People all over the beach!! I have to say that the night extended itself until early in the morning.

Next days were really quiet, recovering from the big night, lying in the beach, diving, eating and generally relaxing,

Before Marta and Edu departure we went to Koh Samui, a bigger island a few hours away by boat. It was uglily over built and the prices were amazingly high. We ended up in this amazing up market resort with beautiful brick bungalows hidden behind thick colorful vegetation. There was an infinite swimming pool next to the beach with hot and cold water in the shower!! Sun beds on the beach. The bed was as soft as I could never have imagined, there was air-condition, satellite TV, fridge, and I don’t remember how many bottles and towels in the bathroom. It may sound normal, but I can tell you I’m not used to this kind of privileges anymore (Thanks Marta and Edu!!). We had a really good night finishing off with the rum they had brought.

Next day my friends sadly departured towards Bangkok. Since obviously I could afford that place any longer, Paula, my Australian surfing chick (hello Paula!!! Take it back!!) and I went to Koh Tao, a smaller island with blue waters and white beaches. We spend a few more days in a beach with only one guest house and two bars, hammock time!! When Paula left I decided to go even quieter, only a few of you know how persistent I can be to look for the perfect bungalow, with the perfect sunset, at the right money, so after a few hours searching I found this guest house next to the sea, isolated by a mountain, bungalows first row of sea and not a sound. There was also the coolest bar of the island, built over the sea, the Banana Bar, hum, the owner, was the more relaxed person ever met. The thing about the guest house was that to get there you had to, either take an expensive 4x4 taxi to go through the mountain or do it by yourself with the scooter, half an hour of pure motocross with amazing slopes full of rocks and gravel, promise hardcore. At night you couldn´t go through this so you had to stay in, in the Banana bar I mean.

After the relaxing time I changed guest house, met some Spanish and Thai people and inscribed myself in a diving course so last days is Thailand got pretty busy going out at night and diving at 7:30, every morning. I´m not too sure about which is the way to learn, I heard in some schools first day you dive in the swimming pool but in this school first day I was at 12 m depth. Last day we saw an amazing turttle so grazily swimming in the water.

Ok, That´s all for now, I´m now in Pichilemu, Chile, hanging around with and Italian and an Argentinean guy, we´ve been surfing and camping for last days. I don´t know what is harder, the blows the waves give me everytime I fall off the wave or the floor of the camping, anyway that is part of the next mail,

Cheers,

Qr,…