From Rainbow to Bangkok and all points between

Wish I could keep you more up to date, but Thailand is experiencing Internet difficulties. Apparently there was an earthquake in Taiwan and several trans-Pacific Internet cables were damaged. This means that we get slow, unreliable Internet. This is not such a big deal with e-mail, but uploading pictures (or even logging in to Blogger) is really hard.

International Rainbow Gathering
Ranong Provence (close to Au Chaak Beach)















The location was magnificent, a private beach just a short walk from a supply road. We carved out a space for our tent in the jungle behind the beach, and quickly found ways to make ourselves useful. We met many lovely people, and saw much beauty in both nature and humanity.


CONTROVERSY

But there was also tension. We were on private land, and locals (often Muslim) walked the beach daily. I don't know if this was always a popular Thai holiday destination, or if they came to gawk at scantily clad hippies, but there was a fairly steady stream of Thais moving in our midst.

Still, some felt that "Rainbow" existed without any borders, so we should not have to be careful of Thai customs or sensitivities. Nudity became a talking point in our daily circles. We had been asked (or told) to put on our clothes, or there would be trouble. Elders asked that the family please be RESPECTFUL of local feelings, and show our GRATITUDE to our landlord by causing as little trouble as possible. Sometimes their pleas had a distinctly Rainbow edge to them, "You can't disrespect this place because it's magic!!!" Still there was daily shedding of clothing, speeches about personal freedom, "This is Rainbow, not Thailand!" and bad feelings sprouted in our midst.

The idea of community or "family" that is at the center of my Rainbow experience seems to be such a pure and simple idea, but it is so hard to achieve in an environment where people's egos are constantly battling. I don't know if it was just a very strong willed group of people: international travelers off the beaten path, or if this same problem arises in any isolated community. Those of you who worked with me in New Orleans may recall the men in skirts fiasco of the first weeks of our kitchen.

The nudity issue came to a head on the day of our full moon celebration. After a morning of silence we had gathered for lunch, and in midst of meditation and harmonious silence, a group of people began shedding their clothing.

I could find nothing noble in their baring of skin. This was not a brave revolution against an oppressive tyrant. This was the man in a trench coat leaping out of the woods to expose himself to shocked girls. This was disturbing, and disrespectful. A woman opened her umbrella and held it up between the children and a naked man, and he jumped around her, trying to make the children see him. The circle went wild with objections and support. It was a long time before we ate.








HARMONY


Still, there was so much that was so right about being there. Tino and I stayed for a week, bolstered by daily visits to the Thai restaurant a quarter mile down the beach with our two Belgian friends. We could escape the circus and sip iced coffee, and return with bags of vegetables on our backs. Supply was my favorite job, especially when the tide was high, and most Rainbows didn't want to pick their way through the boulders.











I am proud to say that we managed to get both to and from the Rainbow gathering without spending a Baht. We used our expert hitch hiking skills. The only notable ride on this journey was our last ride. He took us almost the whole way back. First we climbed into the back of his truck, but soon regretted it as he sped madly down the highway. We only hoped that he wanted to live as much as we did. After some time he stopped at a Buddhist shrine, where he greeted the toothless monk, and then prayed and lit incense. Tino and I joked that this was a promising sign. Maybe we would reach Ranong safely. When he finished he cleaned out the cab of his truck and asked us to get inside. We gratefully accepted. We stopped again for a quick tour of a fish farm (don't know why) and then proceeded (at about 160km/hr) into Ranong. He brought us to the front of our hotel, and as he pulled over to let us out, the whole left side of the truck dropped down as if we had driven abruptly into a huge hole. We got out and saw that the wheel had come off entirely. Thank you Buddha, that could have happened on the highway, but instead it happened in the most harmless way possible. The driver looked at it and laughed. Just laughed! As if this was no big deal...


BANGKOK BOUND

We left Ranong the same way we arrived. We stood by the highway, our right arms stretched out with palms faced down, and as the traffic sped by we appealed to them with little pleading flicks of our wrists. After a short time a little blue Mini pulled over, and we somehow crammed ourselves and our backpacks in with the jolly driver and his huge cooler of fish. At a military road block we learned he was a soldier. After we were waved through he pulled his ID out to show us. He pointed to himself and said, "Me big, they small," indicating the soldiers at their roadside stations. I looked around the cramped, molded interior of his auto and thought, "big man, small car."

Our big soldier drove us all the way to Chumphon, which was our goal for the day, and we were quickly lost in the mire of the city, so we found a room for the night. We woke to rain. We sat in a cafe watching Thais battle the downpour on motorbikes, brandishing colorful umbrellas. This was not good hitch hiking weather. We bought third class train tickets for that night, and after getting on the wrong train at the right time (and being insistently escorted off) we finally boarded the right train at a decidedly late time, and started our overnight journey to Bangkok.

It was quite possibly the worst train ride I have ever been on. Our reserved seats were crowded with a Thai family, which quickly vacated our seats, but they simply moved to the floor under our feet. In Thai culture it is very impolite to point at people with your feet, but Tino and I quickly decided that we were exempt from any criticism in this case. We tried to find some way to make out hard bench seat comfortable, and slept fitfully through the long night.


We arrived in Bangkok a few short days after leaving the gathering, and what a different world it was! Modern buildings, high speed trains, busy markets: Bangkok was along cry from the jungles and beaches of Au Chaak.