Choices
Lest We Forget....Make Good Ones....
Choices. You’ve made a few. Hope you are on the joyful side of what ya picked.
Your average homo sapien makes about 35,000 choices a day. We choose what to eat, what to say, how we say it, what we wear and what we will do.
We choose to be kind, loving, accepting, understanding, and more minute by minute.
Some people choose the opposite of what I have stated in the last sentence. We witness that every day and most of that makes the headlines. I don’t have to remind you of the headlines you see.
Soon you all in Australia will be making a choice on a leader….which way you leaning? Atomic Dutton or Solar Albanese?
The press survives on the negative and the difficult and the hardness that makes up our world. Antagonism could define this century. This behaviour is not only between political factions, countries, and the like, but it bleeds deeply into the way people deal with each other. You know the powers that be would like us to stay apart, but we are not going to let that happen, are we?
As we float around Koh Mak in Thailand, our choices, our decisions become simpler. Food, shelter, recreation, and choosing people to talk to. With people like us, we try to talk to anyone who appears to want a conversation or who can understand our fractured American/Aussie English. We have met some good souls along the way and those people will be remembered.
This is a day of remembrance. Anzac Day. More on some bad decisions made today by some evil people, but let me share with you two stories of hospitality, humanity and making a choice.
Before we came here we were on the island of Koh Chang. We decided to stay at Ping Pong’s House in Koh Chang. Situated 400 meters up a hill from White Sand Beach, we were driven from the ferry to his place. Arriving outside his two story building of simple units, we were greeted by a wiry Thai man who we knew to be Ping Pong.
He was joyous, friendly, helping us settle in and talking a mile a minute. Songkoran, Thai New Year, was still being celebrated here. There was a big parade along White Sands Beach Road that we had to navigate to get to Ping’s. Ping was well into his celebration as he reeked of alcohol and was smoking a spliff. The spliff smoking we soon discovered was a habit that started as soon as Ping arose. We were a little skeptical at first but soon discovered more about Ping and his choices.
In short, Ping has a deep love of nature and has a family of macaques that visit him in the morning for fruit. Ping was calling out for us at 630 AM, “Paul…wake up….the monkeys!” with such joy and vitality in his voice it was easy to drag our sleepy heads out of bed. We were met with a number of these monkeys, the most widespread primate genus (outside of humans) on our planet, coming to feed on our fruit.
It was a joyous couple of days at Ping’s in a room that looked like it was decorated as a somewhat finished basement in America in 1975. But it was homey, the fridge and air con worked and we were a short stroll from a beautiful beach. We were very pleased Ping had left Bangkok some years ago to be close to Mother Earth.
On the day we were to depart to Ko Chang, I was waiting for the taxi-truck to the ferry, which I was told was to come at 1230. At 11:15, I heard Ping call my name and I figured he had a bird or some animal to show me. I came out of my unit to discover a pick-up truck packed with bags and 8 people from Germany and Russia who were going to be our mates to travel to the ferry. We were packed, but Tina was getting a massage and we had to boogie to make our boat.
Boogie I did and Ping followed us down the road to find Tina. He was yelling out to the truck of farangs, “Come stay with me. I have monkeys!”. As you can see from this picture, he is grinning like a madman and holding a spliff. Just the way I want to recall this wonderful human, trying to get by with some simple hospitality. Tina leapt into the vehicle and we waved fare thee well to Ping and the cloud of reefer smoke.
Out next choice was to stay at Baan Koh Mak and we are staying here 6 nights until they close for the monsoon season.
Alas, more cats of Thailand. There appears to be more cats than dogs on Koh Mak and supposedly a temple to the felines we must visit. Another choice!
Lying in the bungalow now I am reminded of other times spent along the Mekong during rainy season, enjoying the wetness as it forced you to slow down. Instead of an inconvenience, it’s just part of the seasons. No complaints from us as we had a wonderful swim amongst the falling raindrops this morning.
Speaking of complaints, over the last day, we had been looking to extend our stay on sleepy Koh Mak. The pace is wonderful, the 400 locals are charming and we feel at home.
Our present accommodation closes for months in a few days for the rainy season and you get the sense walking around the island that things are winding down.
We stalked Booking.com, and since many of the places are nearby, we dropped in to see if we could get a better rate and a view of the accommodation.
The Sabai Beach Resort staff tried to help us with our query but the manager/owner was not around, so we left our details with the staff. We also sent a message to Sandy, the owner/manager, with our plans at that stage. At firs,t we told her possibly 7-8 days, then we changed it to 4 days. She was a bit short in her messages to us, and as we bargained for a rate, she said, “if you stay 7-8 days I can give you a discount of 300 THB a night, but you must turn the air conditioning off when you leave the room.”
Air conditioning conditions on the booking seemed a bit odd to Tina and I, and we were now doubting we would stay there. We messaged her and then told her we might only come for 3 or 4 nights. This is where Sandy made a choice, and not the brightest choice when you work in hospitality. Tina and I are both customer service savvy and we were blown away by Sandy’s message.
Have a listen:
Flabbergasted but we laughed, and I replied:
We met a local Thai woman who recommended another place, and we will move there in a few days at ½ the price of what Sandy was offering. No disrespect, Sandy, but Va te faire foutre!
Had to get that off my chest! Yes, I made a choice and I let that woman press my buttons. I thought I had turned that button off.
Choices. As we all know in these antagonistic times, we all react before we breathe, think and reply. This is part of the problem of this time on planet Earth, my favourite planet.
Meanwhile, it is Anzac Day, and 50,000 people gathered in Melbourne at the War Memorial. A Welcome To Country was delivered by Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown.
Here it is:
Neo-Nazi’s yelled abuse and that was a choice they made. As we should all know, this is the wrong choice. Sandy, this is disrespectful, in case you need a prime example of what you mentioned in your voice mail message. This is disrespect for the people who still look after and are the rightful owners of this land. Fortunately, the majority of the people in attendance applauded and cheered. Still, the day was stained with very bad blood.
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
There are so many choices made each day.
My hope for myself and you is that you make them with care, love, community and decency in your heart and soul.
We all need more love to make the changes we want to see in our world.
We can make this world whatever we want.
Hopefully, this little video recorded in Rayong will make you laugh. We were in a Japanese eatery and the staff were simply a joy.
Make good choices.