The Koh Tao Farewell Parade

As we drive on the left side of the one road that runs the length of Koh Tao, it feels as if we are in a going-away parade of sorts.  Piled atop all of our possessions in the back of the pickup-taxi floats, we wave goodbye to all of the friends we have made on this even further escape from our now “normal” lives of travelling the world.  We have just left our scenic, postcard of a beach called Freedom that has been our home for the last week.  We look longingly at the clear blue water that has been corralled by the pincers of palm covered peninsulas to enclose our bay, knowing that soon we will be snapped back into “reality” when we touch down in Kolkata, India.  Freedom Beach is not the only freedom we leave behind, we also leave the freedom from schedules, service, and supervision that we had for this short stint of self- sovereignty.

As we begin our ride to the docks, we drive past Jack, an Irishman who works for Buddha View Travel.  He sits waving at the desk outside his rental shop next to his wife’s restaurant Yin Yang where our group has spent countless sums of baht on Thai dinners, motor bike rentals, and motorbike repair fees.  Jack says he has never seen a group as unlucky as ours. Four out of seven rentals from our group result in crashes that incurred repair fees and medical bills.  He is not mad about dealing with the repairs, only sorry that we had so many injuries and that we were no longer allowed to rent bikes from him after all the crashes.

Just past Buddha View Rentals, we drive past our good friend Adnan, the Turkish scuba instructor who we spent so many mornings with over the course of the week.  He was the only one who could get us to do some semblance of homework during this week of relaxation.  We read our scuba manuals every night in preparation of his class the next morning.  While he was very much our teacher, introducing us to the risks and rewards of diving, he also became our great friend, inviting me to visit him wherever he is in the world in the future to finish my certification and take some free fun dives with him. 

As we pass New Heaven Dive School, we call out to him.  He walks out of the beachfront, open-air shop in his sea foam green fisherman pants that he wore every day, shirtless and barefoot as usual.  He waves to us as we speed off down the bumpy road to the dock.  We wave goodbye to him and the new underwater world he introduced us too.

Our trucks come to the fork in the road and I am happy to see that we will be taking the path to the left.  I know that another one of our friends lives in the leather shop just past the Golden Barbeque Buffet we ate at and I hope to say farewell to him as well.  We were first drawn into his shop by the plethora of leather products we saw hanging outside of his storefront window.

 Always a fan of leather, the Alexs and I went to check out the pricing on his handmade products.  When we took off our shoes and entered his shop, we felt like we had just entered a Rastafarian den of rawhide products.  Leather and denim jackets and pants adorned the wall across from the counter and bar stools where a man in a black tank top with a large turquoise pendant around his neck, a long black pony tail, and scraggly facial hair sat grinning behind the counter.  Little did we know that this man had so many fascinating stories that he made the Dos Equis man look as interesting as Ben Stein.

This man sat framed by the shrine built to the Thai king and Che Guevara poster on the slanted cave-like concrete wall on his left and a doorway shrouded by a green turtle-patterned sarong that led to the back room.  I began to discuss the possibility of a custom belt being made but quickly dismissed the idea when the only long enough piece he had left was dyed black and white in a pattern akin to the animal it once came from.  With that option gone, we began looking at the other offerings he had already made. 

As we looked we engaged in small talk with this spaced-out leather worker.  We discovered that his name is Teek and that he had been on the island for quite a few years.  He offered us some peanuts that he had on a dish on the counter and invited us to sit and talk a while.  Reaching into a hidden compartment, he pulled out a bag of marijuana and proceeded to roll a joint and offer it to us.  Politely declining, he explained that he does “only herbal man, no chemical $&*#.  If people bring chemical in here I tell them ‘Go away!’”  He invited us to have a beer with him so we walked down the street, grabbed a few bottles of Chang and headed back to talk some more.  We talked about our trip for a bit and his life on the island.  When it got late we prepared to head out and he invited us to come back and hang out another time.  We would definitely return.

As the week went on, we made it our routine to go to see Teek in the evenings after dinner.  We would have a beer and talk about all sorts of things.  Teek told us about how the people of Thailand love their king very much.  He told us about his son who lives in France with his mother, his family whom he has not seen in many years, the influence of the mafia on Koh Tao, and many outlandish tales of his past.  He told us that he would take us to his favorite restaurant on the island, which turned out to be one of the most memorable meals of the trip.

We agreed to meet at 7-11, a place he said sold “$%^&*# plastic food,” where he would shuttle us to the restaurant on his motorbike.  While we were waiting outside of the plastic food vendor, lightning flashing in the dark night sky, Teek drove up on his Che-emblazoned MTX and told Bagheera to hop on.  He proceeded to shuttle each of us individually up the steep bumpy hill to the restaurant.  While I was on it he nearly swerved into the ditch on the side of the road but we eventually all made it there.

Teek ordered us some of his favorite Thai dishes and a round of Changs.  He insisted that we eat all of the food, serving us from the platters and his own dish even though he later told us that he had only consumed four Changs and eight joints that day.  Thai hospitality at its finest. 

Even when the food supply began to run low, conversation topics did not.  We sat around the table on our tan, patterned pillows and talked for hours.  Teek told us about his history in Bangkok before he came to Koh Tao.  When he was younger he got into trouble with the law just because he was a nice guy he told us.  “I in jail for two year and no tell anyone,” he recalled.  This jail time was sentenced because he was in possession of a home-made hand gun and two kilograms of marijuana that he was holding for a friend.  Rather than rat his friend out though, he took the jail time for him.  He had not informed any of his family when he went to jail, even his twin brother named Tok (named after the grating sound of the clock their mother heard when giving birth to them: “teek-tok, teek-tok, teek-tok”).  It was during this period of incarceration Teek learned much about freedom.

Teek always talked about freedom and how that was the most important thing in life.  He did not worry about finances or plans for the future, only about being free and living life how he wanted too.  He summed up his philosophy in one short phrase: “You have lot of money but no freedom, #$%&! You have nothing!” 

In the future Teek plans on opening his own self-sustaining camp in the jungle where people can come live off of the land with him for however long they like.  When we asked if he had an email so we could get in contact with him to come visit again he laughed and replied, “#$%& internet!  You have spirit and want to see me, you will find me!”

As we drive past Teek’s shop on the way to the dock, we shout his name hoping that he might hear us.  In a matter of seconds, he comes sprinting out to the road and begins jumping up and down waving his hands in the air.  With this last goodbye, we drive on toward the dock.  Teek was the last friend we are able to see on our departure drive. 

We leave this island more regulated but also more mature, more united, and with more friends.  Autonomy is left behind in favor of organization, order, and over-bearing nuns as we head to Kolkata.  This change of pace will be taken in stride as simply another chapter in the life of a Rounder.  In the words of our friend Teek, “#$%& man, freedom!”