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Phuket
revisited. Who says you can't go back?
Deja vu is defined as the illusion that the present
situation has already been experienced. So it was deja vu I
was feeling as I surfaced from a shallow dive and stared at
the small deserted beach around the northern point of Patong.
I
had definitely been here before. Fourteen years before,
in fact.
I had often wondered about the location of the small
beach where I and a companion had spent an idyllic
ten days all those years ago. The name was written
in a diary (I was a serious traveller in those days,
every event and location conscientiously recorded)
.The diary had long been banished to the depths of
my parent's basement and I really had no idea where
on Phuket we had actually stayed.
In 1975, Phuket had been discovered by tourists, but
only just. My friend and I had heard about it from
another traveller in a Youth Hostel in Kuala Lumpur.
"There's this island off the southern coast of
Thailand" he said. "It's called Phuket you
gotta go there." So it was, that we found ourselves
in Phuket town after a two-bus two pickup ride from
Hat Yai. Another truck took us the last dozen kilometres,
bumping and bouncing along dirt tracks, over hills
to a small beach, deserted except for a small thatched
hut and a water well.
Somewhere beyond the fringe of scrub bordering the
clearing was a fishing village. The thatched hut served
as a restaurant, where a villager and his family served
fried rice, fish and cold drinks. We frolicked in
the water by day, slept on the sand at night.
Each morning brought a vista of sea and a distant
beach, long and gently curving with a few odd souls
dotted here and there, and what appeared to be a house
or two.
This was Patong, and it held no attraction whatsoever.
We were happy where wewere, swimming, eating and sleeping,
all for about a dollar a day. Backpacker heaven.One
day we hitched a ride into the town, hired motorbikes
and toured the island, visiting beach after beach,
marvelling at the views from headlands and wondering
how on earth we could bring ourselves to leave this
island. Which, of course, we eventually did. It was
ten years before I summoned the courage to return,
the 'you can never go back' was a motto to live by
and when I did eventually return there were hotels
and condominiums, landmarks that made it impossible
to gain bearings. I suspected our beach had become
a private venue.
Now, another half decade later, I gazed at the shore,
head just above the water, just as I had done all
those years ago when I had swum out to meet a returning
fishing boat and looked back land ward, grasping the
gunwale of the wooden vessel.
Amazingly, the only change I could discern was a pile
of thatch where the hut had been. I marvelled again
at the beauty of this spot and at the fact that Phuket,
for all its development could still throw up hideaways
like this.
Jump on a bike or hire a jeep and explore the coves
and inlets, the nooks and crannies of the coastline. Find your
port of refuge, even if it's just for a day. It may be a
beach, it may be a restaurant, a village or temple compound. Chances
are, when you return (and statistics suggest you will)
your hideaway will be intact, Fact is, you can go
back.
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