The sun has just gone down, and I’ve put on my sunglasses. The spray is usually mild on a longtail, but as night comes on, the island cools, the winds pick up, and the sea around Koh Phangan is getting rough. My fellow passengers – all three of them – are hiding behind hats or hands, a little uncomfortable in our small craft which keeps feeling smaller.
I’m weird though. I’m loving this.
As we approach the remote beach on the eastern side of the island – your only choices are boat or 2 hour jungle hike – our pilot turns on his flood light and we wade through warm waters up the beach. Within 15 minutes of sunset the air is inky with darkness, but my friends and I are shown around on lighted paths – shoes off, of course, no shoes in the resort – and since they’ve come all the way from America for this exact sort of spot, they splurge with the master suite (still only $50 or so an night). I take a bungalow further up the hill, wondering what the view will be come morning.
We eat and the food is fresh and lovely, the tuna steak quite nice, the coconut soup truly standing out. We get a little tipsy on cocktails, and I stumble my way up the now-dark mountain trying to find the path to my bed – there are plenty of twists, turns, blind alleys and hidden openings. It takes a while. At least the stars are out, shining brightly.
I could go forward in a chronological manner, but what’s the point in that? You come to the Sanctuary, partly, to escape the didactic passage of time. I met a man who’d been a week and still thought the date was the same as when he landed – he honestly thought that, no hyberbole needed.
So, during our measureless stay, we swam. The beach is small, and the water without coral – but the temperature perfect, as you expect in this part of the world. And the large rocks dotting the shore make for fun exploration – shared by small silver crabs, or larger spotted ones looking like leopards.
One afternoon we each got massages – my friends went for facials, I had a body scrub, a soak in the herbal steam room, and an herbal aroma massage (they picked jasmine for me).
Each morning we sampled different healthy breakfasts – everything in the place was healthy, everything aimed towards health.
Except of course for the alcohol. One night was Halloween – some people got dressed up (I was going to go as a coconut palm, but we couldn’t find tape or string), everyone shared a ‘scary’ movie viewing, and then the manager became a DJ and an eclectic group of 20 or so let loose with the dancing of the content and only slightly inhibited.
Every evening I finished up drinks with my friends – every evening it was after 12 by the time I climbed the hill – hence only the ever-enlarging moon lighting my way. At first I stubbed and cut quite a bit, by the last journey I had my eyes closed with nary a misstep.
There was a day the others went into town, in search of money (no credit cards accepted at the Sanctuary) and other knick-knacks. Although supposed to go, I just couldn’t (admittedly, a few slices on my soles encouraged my inertia). Instead, I met a Lebanese man and we sat on my bungalow’s balcony smoking, talking, watching thunderclouds roll in and up and down the mountains, clapping the cliffs of our cove, occasionally stunned into silence by the heady presence of a nearby Nature.
Although I would have enjoyed the goopy hike through stormlit jungles, I enjoyed myself just fine in my hammock as well. Really, there was no escaping joy here, so why worry about the form?
Once my cousin said ‘Meet me at four’ and although some sleeping part of me understood exactly what she meant, the rest was completely aware that this was an impossible proposition, one without any manifestation at this locale (oh, they had a clock – one – but who bothered with that thing?). So my response was ‘I have no idea what that means’ and we both were perfectly happy.
Someone asked me how many days we’d stayed; I smiled back with the blissful ignorance of a child who doesn’t understand the question but is quite happy to be conversing.
Chronos would call it lost time; I call it True Time, something usually in short supply and when found, you want to hold the find.
Unfortunately, that would defeat the purpose. So I’m back now – but at least I can tell others the secret.
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