After a deserved retreat around India and Nepal with a lot of personal “enlightenments” while visiting isolated mountain communities in the Nepalese Himalaya, spiritual or religious places such as Varanasi and Lumbini, or the agitated streets of Kolkata, it was time to head back to work in Thailand. It is a country that I am familiar with, but this time I had a new totally challenge… work in a remote island away from the tourist crowds, living in a tent and managing a small dive operation.
The island is called Lao Liang and it’s a very small island with no cars, no roads, no resorts, no anything, just a 250 m beach surrounded by huge limestone cliffs and sea. There are nylon tents with a high level of comfort, a restaurant area, a toilet area, a small bar, a small “dive centre”, a rock climbing “centre” and that’s pretty much it.
It was 3 months of new experiences, trying to rise and develop a non-existent dive operation from a falling bamboo hut, while guiding some climbing customers and helping in the general operations of the island. At the same time
There was time to rock climb a bit (in some of the best rock ever seen), deep water soloing, kayaking, yoga, diving and meet some very interesting people.
It was definitely a new, interesting and challenging experience which unfortunately didn’t finish the best way, since I had to evacuate the island with a huge infection on my left knee, due to a recurrent staph infection from Nepal. Also, my pro-active, rebellious and environmentalist attitude wasn’t giving the best results with the established, conventional, unorganized and cultural attitudes on the island.
Good experience, but I was glad to leave … when things are not willing to improve, sometimes the only resort possible is to let them go.
The island is called Lao Liang and it’s a very small island with no cars, no roads, no resorts, no anything, just a 250 m beach surrounded by huge limestone cliffs and sea. There are nylon tents with a high level of comfort, a restaurant area, a toilet area, a small bar, a small “dive centre”, a rock climbing “centre” and that’s pretty much it.
It was 3 months of new experiences, trying to rise and develop a non-existent dive operation from a falling bamboo hut, while guiding some climbing customers and helping in the general operations of the island. At the same time
There was time to rock climb a bit (in some of the best rock ever seen), deep water soloing, kayaking, yoga, diving and meet some very interesting people.
It was definitely a new, interesting and challenging experience which unfortunately didn’t finish the best way, since I had to evacuate the island with a huge infection on my left knee, due to a recurrent staph infection from Nepal. Also, my pro-active, rebellious and environmentalist attitude wasn’t giving the best results with the established, conventional, unorganized and cultural attitudes on the island.
Good experience, but I was glad to leave … when things are not willing to improve, sometimes the only resort possible is to let them go.
