Full moon party

Well, no party exactly. If you're interested, you'll need to get on a plane and go to Thailand. The Full Moon Party at Haad Rin has turned into something that sounds well beyond my interests, with over 10,000 attending.

The full moon this month was not only visible here (no clouds, hurrah), but the camera contributed some special effects to this, the so-called 'beaver moon'. It gets that name from a time when this full moon, the last before Solstice, indicated that the time had come to go hunting for the beavers whose pelts were so very valuable.

It has also been referred to as the 'mourning moon' to coincide with saying good-bye to things no longer needed. Maybe it's a good time for cleaning and tidying up, or perhaps for cleaning out the pantry for donations to the food bank.

Better yet, maybe it's a good time to dig deep into the wallet for donations to charities who might help those less fortunate. Yet another kind of full moon party.

Too many to forget

If you’ve been hypnotized by the lights on the Christmas tree, maybe you haven’t heard or seen any news in the last day or so. If that’s the case you might not realize that today is the 5th anniversary of the largest natural disaster in living memory -- the tsunami that killed over 200,000 people on Boxing Day, 2004.

The scene above is from a beach in Thailand, but one that’s on the Gulf of Thailand, the opposite side from where the devastation took place, the shores of the Indian Ocean. Still, I suspect many beaches that looked much like it were among those destroyed.

As so often is the case, my life gets caught up in what seems to be coincidence. Last night I started reading one of my brand-new gifts, Douglas Coupland’s Generation A. The first character to appear in the book is a Sri Lankan survivor of the tsunami. Page 1 reads like one of the tsunami videos on YouTube, “Imagine walking to the window’s louvred shutters and looking out and seeing the entire contents of the world you know flow past you…palm fronds, donkeys, the local Fanta bottler’s Jeep, unlocked bicycles, dead dogs…”

Thinking of all those people killed in such a short burst of time, I’m brought back to part of a film I caught on TV the other night, Star Wars. When Alderaan is obliterated, Obi-Wan says, “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”

I think many people felt the same kind of shock after the tsunami hit. How astounding that so much destruction could happen in the space of just a few minutes. Earlier tonight, I lit a candle, and am hoping for peace for those many lost souls.

More about the Thailand tour

As mentioned in an earlier post, the trip to Thailand meant beaches, temples, markets -- all that the brochures promise, but oh so much more.

Although we spent most of our time on the island of Ko Pha Ngan, we journeyed to Chayaphum (in the northern area of Isaan) and environs (national parks, more temples, a tiny village still dedicated to growing rice). We also spent a few days in Krung Thep (Bangkok), where we stayed on the 68th floor of the Baiyoke Sky, the tallest building in the city. We had spectacular views and it felt like unbelievable luxury (especially the bathtub!). What a contrast from the simple life we'd had, lounging in the hammock at our bungalow.

But contrast was ultimately what the country was about. So much was so different from the kind of life we're accustomed to in Canada. The street markets and food vendors, the easy-going pace, and maybe most of all, the amazing highway system. Of course, the fact that so many people drive motorbikes rather than cars frees up an incredible amount of space on the roads. Even during Bangkok rush hour, most vehicles seemed to keep moving, probably due, at least in part to the complex system of overpasses. And even when we were hours north of Bangkok, the highway was six to eight lanes wide. It seemed a far cry from what passes for infrastructure here in B.C.

I've not posted my photo album on a public site, so please let me know if you'd like the by-invitation link.

And oh yes, those pesky clothespegs. Jeez, but they were annoying! I seemed to spend more time re-assembling them than I did actually hanging out the clothes.