A hard day at the office and reflecting on nostalgia

So, Andrew, if you are enjoying yourself so much, why so much time blogging?
Well. This is a travel journal as much for me to reflect back on later once I am home and so people who may be interested can read the odd snippet. 
"Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.  I'm neither and I don't.  The heat of the noon day sun is quite apparent here.  I typically go out and do something from 9-12 or 1.00 then rest from 1 - 3.00 then go out again after that (sunset is quite early around -m7.00pm). 
So, I use some of that down-time to update the blog and meet a few new people.

"in the office" - taking time in the heat of the day to update the blog

Nostalgia and its place
On my third day here I met a lovely guy at 1-2-3 (climbing wall).  Mo is a Thai climbing guide who was belaying a guy from Denmark. Mo and I struck up a conversation.  "First time here?" he asks. "First time in a long time, "I reply "1997 last time" I say.  He smiles "Where you stay then?".  "On the beach in one of the tree huts that King's (Aussie) wife sorted for us."  Mo's eyes seem to focus off in the distance, to another time, another place.  "Ah.  Yes, Me too, I use to stay there.  I started coming here 1995.  Place..." (he pauses for awhile)..."...place different now. No more tree hut,  Many, many more people, many many more places."  It is not a positive tone in his voice.  He shakes his head as  his eyes come back into focus.  We talk some more, about where he comes from (Ao Nang), how much time he spends here (he and his brother take turns in looking after his elderly and frail mother).  "You have local Thai number?" he asks.  "Maybe you and me we go climbing together."  He pauses.  "If we climb, this not for business. We climb some of the old stuff, I like to spend some time just...climbing together, not guiding."  We swap numbers and he sets off with his client who has packed up the gear and is ready for the next wall. 


As he heads away, we smile and shake hands.  There's something about a shared history (even if it was just of a place and time that no longer exists).  I doubt we will see each other again or climb together. It is Mo's turn to look after his mother and to take over that task from his brother this week.  His offer was genuine and born of a shared memory that he (and I) would both like to catch again but both know we can't.

Nostalgia is a funny thing.  For my 18th birthday, an ex-girlfriend of mine at the time (Wendy) gave me a bottle of Dom Perignon. I still have it.  It is at my parent's place in Christchurch and miraculously escaped the earthquake.  I will repatriate it to our place at some point in time.  I will never open it.  It represents the best of another time that is in the past.  To drink it would be to open a set of memories that might have corked over time.  Better to leave nostalgia in the bottle and to look at it sometimes rather than try to re-live it.   Better to make the best of now.  So, too, my memories of Railay. It is very different place.  Vibrant in its own new way.  With that, I head out to enjoy the world that is Railay right now.  And that's not a bad world!