Today we have a mini adventure planned. The aim is to walk to the tip of the coast, where the 'Sea Gypsies' live. It's a long walk, peppered by tourists zooming by at top speed on their motorbikes - and concerned Thai people asking if we are lost. When we say, "no - just walking" they nod with obvious incomprehension. Why would anyone walk? And why here?
Actually the second question is a reasonable one to ask. The Sea Gypsies are a people, not an attraction and we are acutely aware of that. We don't want to go and poke around near them, asking them to perform ritual dances for us and eroding their culture with tourism. What I would really like to do is make friends with someone who happens to be a Sea Gypsy so that he or she can teach us the wisdom of the sea. But the Sea Gypsies, at least according to the makeshift outdoor museum we eventually find which is dedicated to them - are non violent to the point of being afraid of strangers. My mind goes back to a visit to an Amish settlement in America, and a conversation with an American who told me that the Amish are sometimes tinted when they drive their carts into the town by youths who want to get them to break their oath if non violence. You never know what insane things a stranger might try. You never know who you can trust enough to be vulnerable with. If you and they know that you will not defend yourself, even being with that person is a statement if great trust. It is sad, I think, that the easiest way round this us to chose not to trust. Sad that whatever strangers the Sea Gypsies may have encountered have acted in such a way as to make it seem necessary to be afraid.
Pacifism is a very brave standpoint to have. Nations have armed themselves, have spent millions on developing and training an army, purely to avoid looking vulnerable to others. I understand that it may not, unfortunately, be a good move to make yourself obviously open to your inquisitive - and armed neighbours. History has taught us that, for some reason, it is very tempting for governments the world over, to decide they should own someone else's land - and then lay waste to that land and its people in the process of trying to take it. History has taught us the consequences if such actions. But not, it seems, to refrain from repeating it.
And so we each arm ourselves to convince all the others that we can defend our land, so it isn't worth their while attacking. I have often wondered whether it might be more frugal if we could do away with the actual process of developing weapons and training men to kill other men - and simply put it about that we have a big army. If we spread enough rumours of enormous, well trained forces, of finely honed missiles that can wipe out a country, wouldn't that be enough to stop anyone invading? And of course, you might all suspect each other of doing it - but you wouldn't dare trying anything - because you wouldn't actually know.
Solved. World peace delivered to you today. And not even simplistic.
All of which is a rather pointless ramble, partially to avoid admitting that, despite our walking a long way and back again, which was an achievement in itself, our walk was - well, rather a pointless ramble.
Sea Gypsies, horror of horrors, have the nerve to look more or less like normal people. So by the end of the walk we're not sure if we've seen them - and are still struggling not to admit that we came to stare. The 'museum' is nice but deserted and contains only a brief brush stroke picture of daily life. Sea Gypsies believe in the sea and various supernatural elements and superstitions. Two weeks before the Tsunami of 2004, Sea Gypsies in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia moved their settlement to high ground, taking their cue from changes in the behaviour of the sea creatures and birds, and tiny alterations in the sea itself. We stop by a Sea Gypsy graveyard, and soak in the sense of price, boat shaped graves filled with sand and decorated with shells rest at the side of the sea, around which their lived had been centred. I want to sit at their feet and learn. But you can't absorb wisdom by gawping at someone. And if you thought our Thai was bad enough, we definitely don't speak Sea Gypsy!
So in the end, it's the journey itself which becomes our goal for the day. Partially an endurance test - I in particular am feeling the need to be out and doing things. My body feels sluggish and I long, insanely, for sore feet and that smug sort of ache you get when you've tired yourself out. This is most unusual in me, but I embrace it and we stride out into the sun, and walk miles looking down our nose as we do so, on the cushy tourists who have hired motorbikes.
When we get back we know little more about the Sea Gypsies than our internet research already told us - and no one has invited us in to listen, enraptured to folk takes a d sea wisdom. Though we have been shouted at by a mad old lady which was quite exciting, and there was an exhilarating moment in which we took a short cut along the beach which turned out to be a dead end and considered wading! We thought better of this though repeated the exhilarating 'dead end' moment several times on several roads along the way.
We arrive home suitably smug and sweaty, but in many ways we are experiencing a lot of 'dead ends' in Koh Lanta. The Community Museum continues to be deserted and locked and, like the Sea Gypsies museum, seems like an ancient, long abandoned institution. Our walk today was, really, a 'dead end' in itself. And yet it was still a worthwhile journey. I have a feeling that this will be the key to Koh Lanta. To stop trying to find things - and simply enjoy the wandering.
The Sea Gypsies did not get their Tsunami forewarning through rushing about. They got it little by little, year by year. Just by being in the sea. Living with it and in it. And going with the flow.
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