Exploring The Outskirts Of Town

written: February 24, 2008

Being the environmental lover that I am, I am very proud that I currently do not drive a car. (Nor do I even have a car to drive if I wanted to for that matter.) BUT (and that’s a big ‘BUT’) not having the freedom to just jump in my car and go explore is something I greatly miss. That is where FRIENDS WITH WHEELS come in very handy.

I’ve met this guy from London named Simon who has been taking a break from his acting career and relaxing in Thailand for last 7 months. (Immediately, for those of you with wandering minds, there is no romance between Simon and I…so now you don’t have to email me to ask.) Simon has a motorcycle. Along comes my day off and I’m dying to get out of the loud and busy town to do something different and explore this area that I now call my home. I call up Simon and off we go. I suggested we just drive and see what we find. And that’s exactly what we did.

Instead of taking a right (which is the way to town), we took a left. Within minutes we drive through a quaint little town, kind of like a mini Hua Hin. It had all the same nik-nak shops, restaurants, little hotels…but just less of everything, and on a smaller and less busy street. I liked the energy of it….more mellow and less chaos. Then we kept driving.

On to a big four lane highway. The sea remains on our left for the next two hours (by varying degrees..from being right next to it, to it being out of sight) and to our right (and on our left at times too) is everything from shops, random buildings for who knows what purpose, homes, big wide plots of undeveloped property, little square plots of water with little mechanical things driving around in them to stir up the water which we decided must be shrimp farms, rolling lush hills covered in tropical vegetation (reminded me of the lush hills on the island of Kauai), stagnant pools of water, temples and various Buddhist shrines. We find our way to another, even smaller quaint little town that tourists clearly do not regularly visit. We found a little straw hut on a beach and sat down to enjoy the view. Within seconds, mamma arrives with a menu in English. (Well, my prideful idea that we had ventured beyond the area that most tourists discover was quickly shot down, now wasn’t it?)

We have a delicious lunch of stir-fried veggies and calamari with a fried egg and rice, plus two bottles of water….sitting in our private little hut, the only ones on the beach, with a view of the ocean decorated immediately in front of us with a fleet of about 20 colorful little fishing boats…for $5 total!! Gotta love Thailand!

Back on the bike we go…through a national park with lush hills on both side of us….flat areas of vegetation…..little low cost homes here and there…little random food shops here and there…..We find another quaint town (and this time I think I can really say we’ve ventured outside of touristville) and head to the beach. It runs for miles in both directions and there isn’t a soul on it. We find the only tree and set up camp. It’s not a good beach for swimming because the tide is in and you’d have to walk for who knows how long before the water got any deeper than your ankles. Furthermore, it’s a fishing town and there seems to be hidden nets lurking right under the surface. Bummer, eh? Guess I just have to lay down on my towel and stare at the horizon. Yeah, it was a tough day.

As I laid there, away from the ever present noise of Hua Hin, and my new life as a doctor at a ritzy world-class resort, I had one of those ‘ah ha’ moments. It was like this: I have been dreaming about being a doctor for almost 30 years; I have had my mind set on becoming an ND at Bastyr for the past 10 years; I’ve been studying my #^%$! off for the past 5 years at med school; I spent months wondering what the heck I was going to do after graduation; I spent 3 months selling almost everything I own, gave away my cat (still can’t believe I did this), found a stranger to live in my home, and said more good-byes in a span of a few weeks than I ever would like to do again…all in preparation for moving literally half way around the world to start my new life in Thailand….And here I was, laying on a towel under a palm tree. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. No plans. No ‘have-to’s.’ Nothing I was trying to achieve…except relaxing and letting go…. There isn’t a word that can capture the true essence of what that moment meant to me, so instead of diluting my experience with unsatisfactory words, I will end this entry now.