Report from Haad Tien, and New Old Mysore Posts

I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
I’m going on down to yasgur’s farm
I’m going to join in a rock ’n’ roll band
I’m going to camp out on the land
I’m going to try an’ get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel myself a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it’s the time of man
I don’t know who l am
But you know life is for learning
We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

-- “Woodstock,” by Joni Mitchell

I woke up this morning and involuntarily, but calmly and quietly, began mouthing Joni Mitchell’s words in what felt like a mild drug overdose. This is despite the fact that I have been as clean and sober as a churchmouse. It may have something to do with the fact that I have not eaten in five days. Unless you count shakes made of watermelon juice, clay, and powdered psyllium husks, or nightly bowls of broth.

Haad Tien is not Woodstock. Jimi and Janis have been replaced with ubiquitous Asian trance techno fusion music. The hits of bad “brown acid” have given way to shots of wheatgrass juice. Nobody is playing in a rock’n’roll band, or camping out on the land.  Some may be setting their souls free, but many more are cleansing their colons.  We are nowhere near “half a million strong.”  More like a couple hundred.

Actually I doubt that even Woodstock was really Woodstock. I think it was held in Bethel. In any case, there is definitely a sort of updated hippie feel to Haad Tien, and it must have reminded me of Joni Mitchell. I’m staying at the main attraction here, “The Sanctuary: An Alternative Resort,” where nobody wears shoes, and where guests with flip-flops are required to take them off everywhere. Many of the guys have long hair or dreadlocks or both, and most do not wear shirts. The favorite activities, at least the ones I know about, seem to be fasting, yoga, sun worshipping, meditation, getting massaged, eating vegetarian food, colonic irrigation, and partying all night long.  On each receipt, all of the cash registers here automatically print "MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR." The sweet smell of marijuana is often in the breeze.

I knew this trip was going to be unusual for me, soon after our plane from Bangkok arrived at the “Airport Terminal” on Koh Samui. Samui is the only nearby island that is big enough for airplanes. The “Airport Terminal” is a collection of large bamboo and wooden huts. To get to Haad Tien, you get a ferry to Koh Pha Ngan, look for a flatbed truck, hop in the back with a bunch of fellow backpackers, go across Koh Pha Ngan to Had Rin, and then look for one of the many old-fashioned, wooden, fishing longboats, and pay a fisherman to take you to Haad Tien, provided that the waves are not too big that day. It’s all so romantic. But I had been traveling all night. I was not in a romantic mood. I went directly to the nearest beach and hired a nice young Thai who did not know much English but had a speedboat. He took me straight to Haad Tien in less than a half hour. This was even though he did have to stop the boat once in the middle of our trip, to allow a large school of dolphins to pass in front of us.

As we approached Koh Pha Ngan, the relatively unspoiled island that hosts Haad Tien, it reminded me of the part of the movie, King Kong, when the expedition boat was approaching Kong’s place. Lush green tropical rain forest mountains jutting high out of the mist. Craggy rock cliffs covered with palm trees. Barely any sign of human life, except for two small villages and a town along the coastline. As we approached Haad Tien Bay, I could see the Sanctuary houses and bungalows, none of which are anything more than palm-thatched wooden huts on stilts, sticking out of the trees on the side of a mountain, and hugging big boulders and rocks.

After the boat hit the sand a dozen feet from shore, I threw my flip-flops on the beach, rolled up my inappropriate long pants, and jumped into the shallow but wavy water. My laptop, yoga mat, and a few other belongings were on my back. They somehow stayed dry during the whole trip from Samui, despite waves splashing over the bow all the time. I made my way to the Sanctuary “reception desk,” which is just the bar at a vegetarian restaurant that serves as the headquarters and main hangout for the whole place. I looked at the rows and rows of liquor bottles. I smiled, because for some reason, let’s call it grace, I have lost all desire to drink, at least for a while. I celebrated with a carrot juice, and the bartender fetched a waiter to show me my house/hut.

To get there, we had to walk up about a hundred yards of narrow cement steps, winding steeply through the palm trees and rocks up the mountain, with bamboo railings along the side of the path. The house/hut is about 30 feet by 30 feet, half of which make up a covered deck. The structure is perched up over Haad Tien Bay, with a stunning view of the crashing waves on the beach below and a large mountain promontory (in Ireland they would say either a “head” or a “finger”) across the bay, heading, or finger pointing, out into the sea. Just to the right of that, the sun rises every morning out of the Gulf of Thailand.

In some ways the most interesting feature of this abode is the bathroom. It's in a cave. It's big and has marble floors, white tile walls, and all the usual bathroom things, but the whole room is deep underneath a huge boulder, which serves as both the roof and ceiling. Other massive mountain rocks apparently have supported the boulder for thousands of years, and I hope they continue to do so.  They stick out of the white walls inside.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story later, if you want. It will include such episodes as, “Practicing Ashtanga on the Edge, Literally, with Rolf,” “Facing a Perfect Storm While in a Little Yellow Dingy with a Blender for an Engine,” “The Cows that Came Back as Frogs,” “I Hike Through the Jungle to Haad Rin and See Myself in a Tree,” and of course, “Listening to Techno Music with Samples of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech, While Naked on My Back in a Colonic Cleansing Room, with a Plastic Tube Up My Ass.”

Meanwhile, if you want more Mysore lore, I just posted two entries that I should have posted over a year ago. One, called Relapse and Rebound (February 9, 2004), I was too embarrassed to post before. I guess now I have no shame. The other, The Days Are Gods (February 13, 2004), involves, among other things, an encounter with a giant bee, and binding in Marichyasana C. I put off posting it because I never finished it. Now I just don’t care!

Comments

[Alan Little]

I'm relieved that the relapse post wasn't current. Bloglines showed it as new, and if there was a date on it I didn't notice. I did think "odd, suddenly he's back in Mysore", but I assumed that was just some kind of Pulp Fiction narrative timeshifting thang.

[J]

“Listening to Techno Music with Samples of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech, While Naked on My Back in the Colonic Cleansing Room, with a Plastic Tube Up My Ass.”
Dude, you slay me! Enjoy it all. What I wouldn't give to be around a bunch of crunchy munchy ashtangis on an island paradise. Any of our tribe members out there (gay)? YES photos, PLEASE!
Peace - J

[Jamey]

Hey..

I'm a fit, gay, american (ohio!), son of a lawyer, ex-alcoholic, former yoga teacher at the jungle gym in hat rin, currently living in goa, teaching yoga at purple valley and I'd love to talk to you.

[julie]

hey russell, i've always enjoyed your blog. thanks for posting. i koh phangan! i live in hong kong and practicing with rolf 2x a year is as close as i can get to mysore for the time being! be sure to check out bamboo hut - best food, best view, best vibe, and tree (the manager) rocks!! i usually stay at the sanctuary, but when i'm back in may, i'm staying at bamboo hut!
how long are you there for? are there alot of people from mysore there?
thanks,
julie

Just returned from practicing with Rolf and I now know what you mean by "practicing on the edge!" I've never been so careful jumping forward in my life! Are you still there? Sorry our paths never (knowingly) crossed.

[Lisa]

Dude! Where are you? No posts - no pictures. Where you at?

[page]

oh, you lucky man... i miss my sanctuary, the yoga hall... my house witht eh float tank and jeda the cat and the geckos and little yogi chris who could pull a beautiful pose or two on the cooler in the sanctuary bar... go up in the yoga hall and tell me, are there still manuals from wisdom yoga 2002?

say hi to the sun for me....