Kimi B Ley

From life as a beach bum scuba instructor in a bounty ad., to the joys of englandshire-upon-sewageville...Hugs and I'll blow some bubbles for ya

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Thoughts I wish I could say to Boucher

So I've been feeling like I'm not the friend to you that I can be, feeling guilty (something I realise yu are unfamiliar with). But now I'm actually just seeing your superficial side, seeing that, as many of your friends have pointed out to me, you are immensely selfish. You do shit without considering consequences, take what you want,when you need or want it. You live on a short attention span, nothing holding your interest for anytime, including people who are utterly replacable to you. Allegedly the only people you ever have actually fallen for are players like you, people that treat you the way you treat them, so stick with your bar girls eh? It was pointed out to me that altho you expect your friends to drop everything, and the world stops when something happens to you , that you are incapable of returning the favour or friendship,that yuor friends put up with it as thats just who you are, but are unreliable in the extreme and wouldn't be there if any of your mates got cancer or were in a bad way.

Take, take, an aging man amongst whores obssesed with his schlong and without a thumb. Proud that you can still wank and screw bar girls, what a fulfillling life you live. So at least you have enough cash currently to pay your whore, mimi. So is she the one after GF that you wren't gonna go back to, or a new business transaction? Still you are devastated over GF eh? All you can ever cope with is non-attachment and sex, your dick, that is all you actually are isn't it. So scared of emotion, but not liking it much when yur whores are fucking 3/4 other men around you...you coward. Like father, like son much as you said. Still a thai chick or whore would suit you they deal with cheating far better than most.You never learn shit do you? And I hate what I see now, I think you have no values, that everything I stand for and value you don't. I find you and what you do disgusting, a dirty old man at the age of 34 going on 12.

You constantly disappoint me, I try and remember the person I knew, under all that shit, the decent, generous, affectionate, deep, intelligent, beautiful but hurt, emotional you. But that doesn't exist, you don't like that you, and I don't like you now.

I can only see more of the same in your life, you tragic loser, no meaning, nothing, shit, and I don't want any part of it. Much the same as you being a cowboy and reckless waving around and trying to feed a moray and being surprised when it bites your thumb off it is inevitable that fucking any whore that moves will leave with with some probably terminal std. But its your life, I wash my hands of you, and think you are a cunting fuckpig beyond words.

Never contact me again, and try not to lie to people and tell them I've invitied you to uk for a few weeks b4 your op., I wouldn't touch you with hazardous waste gloves on.

Boucher

M. Boucher- did see him, twice. It was truly vile to be honest. He is fucked up beyond belief, and considering what I've been going through with him, and talking to him about he was a tool.

He spoke a lil about GF (he finally got rid of her ashes at easter), he has had another thai girlfriend since, as he needed someone to be there physically (obviously she was a bar girl). He has decided that he is actively looking for a thai girlfriendcomewife that he can treat right to make up for GF, he wants to support the family and all that shite (nice to hear). No the guilt is fucking him up proper style. I cannot have him make me feel more worthless considering how much support I've given him. He was very offhand with me, and 2 days after I arrived he left the island and didn't return till April.

Tsunami alert - suffice to say that Boucher didn't bother phoning or texting then either. He managed to get through to people I was at the mini viewpoint with (he was in patong) but didn't even ask if I was there or ok or anything. That was quite some smack in the face. Considering I spent 28 hours that first time, not knowing if he was dead or alive and being petrified, and then helping him through, I was that low down in his thoughts that he didn't even ask anyone else if I was ok. I think that was a kinda harsh, disappointing revelation.

That and the first time I saw him, noticing his new tatoo which exclaims 'in my heart forever' in thai. I also found out that He-gooner and Gayer had known about GF and not told me, that West suspected and it had been going on for a few weeks more than I had been led to believe. Felt pretty shitty.

Maybe a little naively, I thought that after what we'd been through this last 5 months we'd be even closer as friends. If I'm honest tho, I felt that he couldn't even be a friend to me. When I broke my jaw, and the tsunami alert happened I was soooo far down his list of priorities that I didn't even register. Maybe he didn't want, or couldn't talk to me but a text message along the lines of heard about your jaw u muppet/pisshead and r u ok, doesn't take that long eh?

The realisation dawned that I had put myself out to be a good friend to him during a truly shit time, even tho it impacted directly on me but somehow wasn't even worthy of a teeny bit of friendship in return. I came away deciding that it was the end of our chapter.That he had demonstrated an inability to act or care as even a friend to me.

It can't be this one-sided, I cannot make all the effort, he makes me look and feel like a mug, picks me up when he needs me and chucks me to the side and forgets I exist again when he doesn't. I deserve more respect than that. I won't be reduced to someones ex, or emotional crutch.A person cannot demand and expect support and friendship from me on their terms and give nothing back.I am not his back-up option, break glass in case of emergency shit anymore.I have no interest in going backwards. I do not consider myself a pushover because I continued to have contact and be a friend, I considered it as strength and forgiveness on my part, that I was being a good person seeing through our/his shite as real friends do.

I should by now have earned some respect.

Fuck I want to smack him sometimes.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Jaw joys, spreading the joy...

Well my jaw was very metal mickey...for mash eat smash!!! Or my sister thinks a lil reminiscent of Jaws in the james bond films.Gayer reffered to me as Trapjaw (apparently some bad chap in the Heman series, but I'm a girl so have no idea...) 2 rather fetching metal bars with muchos wire and elastic keeping my teeth clenched and shut...( kept me out of trouble, no snogging or blowjobs for me eh?!).

So was relegated to drinking buildup drinks through a straw, or for a real treat sieved soup..but for this I needed to eat alone and ideally have one of those pelican bibs for kids as I made such a mess, much like a baby. Just thought I'd share that, as its quite an amusing image, if its not you having to do it! Muchly strong painkillers, was kinda spaced out much of the first 4 weeks, but very cheap to get pissed...beer thru a straw works!!!

Ingredients for my new cocktail, which has been named Willio's Maudlin;)

- Slim Fast
- Ice
- Milk
- Banana
- Alcohol - a lot of. (Personal favourites are dark rum or vodka in this instance)

Place in liquidiser, serve n drink.

Magic, tastes lush and due to receiving a myriad host of vitamins and minerals (not to mention fruit) and lining ones stomach effectively there is no hangover regardless of how muchis consumed.

Second Tsunami Alert

I was pretty much asleep when the thai owner of the place I was staying was hammering on my door shouting that the water was coming in 20 minutes, to get to high ground, to look at the people running. I joined Gayer, his chick and Svenska outside Gayer's place and all was pretty chaotic as we tried to get more info. and direct people that wanted to get to higher ground where to go. A lot of the volunters and tourists that we dealt with found it all totally extreme like it was part of the buzz, and something else to add to their stories, since we had the warning and on high ground should be ok.

It was persuading the peeps (farang) that had been there the forst time to move that was the problem. It upset me a lil actually coz M Boucher, and Big Guy were in patong and decided to sit on the beach, Turtle decided to stay on the beach in front of carlitos until he was manhandled away. It was trying to tell people that ok so it hadn't come up as far as chunut path last time but it had a hell of a lot in its way to break through, whereas now, there was just sand, no buildings to slow it. And that in terms of their families and friends hearing about it, was it not just fairer to go to high ground and come down later, for their peace of mind. People also didn't want to split up since last time it had been so hard to find out if others were ok, so to get a group up, you had to convince all of them. Eventually we managed this and the 4 of us went up to mini viewpoint where there were 200 odd people.

We watched all the boats leave the bay for deeper water and sit there lights on waiting. The people that were finding it exciting were making that harder for people that had been dealing with things for months. All the electricity on pp was turned off, to help prevent any looting, and we all sat there till 4 am,it was pointless trying to go back before this since it woulda been supersweaty in those rooms with no fans or lights. It was hard watching peoples reactions, initially watching the thai people running for what they thought may be their lives, trying to drag people by the hands, and seeing how drained everyone was the next day. All the time, lil me off my nut on morphine, attempting to make sense of it all and do my crisis counselling bitty. I just wanted all of them to leave. I think everyone has gone through enough, they are trying so hard to help, or make things feel normal and it isn't. PP is still a disaster zone, and I want them away into normality so they can start to heal emotionally.

Ko Phi Phi - March

PP- it is fucked, I doubt I will ever return. It was so sad seeing it. As you pull up on the ferry you see right through to the other side, just palm trees...no 7-11, no hospital, tonsai village bungalows, just the cabana and the shadey porch thing that was in the centre of the hippo/visa complex. Its odd none of that being there.

The main street is recovering slowly, loads of rubble still, and parts of buildings. From pp scuba onwards along the front is pretty much looking like normal, and you can almost pretend nothing happened. But that is all that is normal, the road with the adventure club and viking on it are looking ok, but then there is nothing.

From where V shop was, the market, sale pepe, the pool bar, the resevoir...none of it is there. Just personal belongings in with the sand and a few palm trees. No charlies, no princess (apart from the pool), no ciao bella...nothing that side at all...whole swathes of the island gone, or parts of buildings precariously hanging on.

I found it very hard to orientate myself, looking for landmarks or trying to work out what had been where, I felt lost, somewhere I knew really well. It is so tragic when you knew the island and how many hundreds of bungalows and people etc., had been there. Fattys... half of it standing open to the elements, mosquito...so sad.

Carlitos is the office or base for the volunteers of hi phiphi and other organisations, and is good in terms of letting you know what is open, of which there isn't a huge amount. Its also odd as the areas that were untouched were areas that never really existed when I was there. They built a concrete monstrosity complex in the middle which contains reggae, tiger, rolling stoned, islander bar, madam resto etc., about a million ATMs everywhere you look...very surreal, but at least Nods (papaya is open).

Unfortunately I found out about some more people who didn't make it, the lovely woman from sawadee that would come round the dive shops on her bike, and do food for karma party nights didn't survive and neither did her children, and lovely Somchai didn't survive either and his body was never located. His family were in krabi though. Weird story with him, he had moved to run white and blue, the head of tourists police phone rang and it was somchai telling them they could see his hand to get him out, so people ran over and were digging through rubble but couldn't find him. The phone rang again and it was somchai but no voice could be heard. His body was never found, so the thai belief is it was his ghost.

The land, pp is fucked and raw and sad, any night that I wasn't off my nut, I had really vivid nightmares, like I could see the tsunami, the people, and I'm not one to freak easy.Quite a lot of people have almost identical dreams or hear things at night...I don't know.

I'm glad I went as now I know the truth but I won't go back, and I wish my friends would just leave. The place and memories I had of pp didn't exist even before the tsunami, you look around and the island was turning into patong, into touristville. I did what I could, but the politics, the shit between the volunteering groups etc. was draining and disappointing. I thought people would pull together, not be competitive and looking for the worst in people. Disillusioned. I didn't like the vibe on the island at all, others do and think its great but not me.

Phi Phi Politics...

Politics: This is the bastard one really. The government want pp back from the landowners, of which there are 37. They haven't officially stated what they want to do with the island but it appears the plan may be to turn it into a 5 star resort,more exclusive and more natural.Move away from the backpacker,touristy,party island vibe. The government have offered the landowners money for the land, which they have turned down, demanding to return to the island. The government also offered them land further up into the mountains but the owners want the land they had before as it was well positioned for their businesses and the tourists. As such the two are at a standstill, since the government has said they will cut utilities, water, electicity etc., if they try to return.

There are also issues over the general town plans, since zoning has to come into effect, and officially there should be no buildings within so many metres of the sea. This would defo. knock out places like island divers etc., and pretty much require a complete rebuild. Plans continue to be submitted but are always turned down, either by governement and town planners or by the locals and landowners. Complete stalemate...

Legally in terms of what is standing on pp, you can work on what is still standing, i.e., repair, but you cannot rebuild anything that was taken down. Thai military ships turn up for a few days at a time to check there is no rebuilding happening. Also officially it is illegal to actually be on pp, businesses are not meant to be open, tourists are not menat to be there, volunteers are not meant to be there etc. but it is being overlooked since these are the people cleaning up the mess...which lets be honest means the governement doesn't have to. It is unknown what will happen in the longer term, it almost appears that the government is playing a game of stalling for as long as possible with the landowners etc., knowing that if this isn't sorted by next high season, then no-one will have money and they will have to give in to the governments demands,as they will have no businesses left. Many of the locals want to return but need jobs to come back to, which is where organisations like hi phiphi help as they are paying the locals 200/300B a day to help with the cleaning and repairs, and that money comes straight from donations. Some locals don't want to return though, due to their beliefs in ghosts etc., a lot of interdenominational cleansing ceremonies are held but...

Its sad for people like Kuhn Charlie who owned and lost princess and charlies, and 270 of his staff as he really wants to be back and is dealing with a lot of the politics for the thai people.

This puts everything in limbo, since the buildings which have been cleared and repainted etc., are able to open and operate but no-one knows whether in a month or 4 months time the government and military are going to turn up throw everyone off and bulldoze everything. I s'pose I am not sure how I feel about it, in a way maybe ecologically, environmentally it wouldn't be the worst thing, to return pp to how it was years ago, make it more exclusive and more like a national park again. Yet all those people who have lived and worked there for 30 odd years deserve to be there too...I don't know, and guess no-one does.

One of the temp. ideas to make things more difficult for the government is to buy loads of the army style tents that you can sew together, so the locals can mark their land and sell whatever they can get their hands on to make some money...it certainly isn't rebuilding, but when the people are there it is harder to get rid of them.


But the different volunteering organisations are slightly competitive too, which disillusioned me a lil bit also. Svenska set up a foundation through the lions and banks and newspapers in sweden which has been doing amazingly well, since so many swedes were effected by this. Her foundation allows people to sponsor families or orphans or individuals that were displaced from pp and Khao lak, people that haven't returned to pp but are trying elsewhere at the moment. They fund things like pots and pans and cookers etc. One family for instance, the mother was lost, and the father managed to get work in phuket making 200B a day. His 2 daughters go to school there, so he spends 150B a day getting motorbike taxis to take his girls to school then go to work etc., the remaining 50B has to feed them and pay rent, so her foundation bought him a second hand motorbike. The donors, are are allowed to choose what their money goes towards, hospital supplies, tools, support or funding for the longtail boat owners, the building of memorials.Things like that that make a direct difference to the local people. However certain people (farang) on pp are pissed about this, as they are not seeing the money, they think she's using it for the dive shop she manages or rent or whatever, all because it isn't going to their particular organisation. Its sad listening to people say awful things about things they know nothing about, assuming the worst about people. Svenska's foundation donates money for precise things like spades, wheelbarrows, her dive center has given tanks and dive equipment to the dive camp but still...her patrons want the help to go direct to people, and the swedish lions are watching where the money goes you know? Her patrons don't want to fund cleaning up pp because the government may still take it, they want to give to the families, the schools, the orphans. I don't know it just made me a lil sad.

Similarly the dive camp people become quite snobby and elitist whilst being looked down on by the landbased cleaners cause they are not walking round covered in dust and carrying hard hats. It is all like competition, you can be sat somewhere and you'll hear people comparing what work they'd done that day, oh I ripped down a wall, oh i painted this, i carried this...like its all a game. A lot of the landbased volunteers make comments about tourists, or anyone not specifically doing what they are, and make people really uncomfortable. The island needs the tourists, who do they think is buying food, drink, lil souvenirs from the locals? Make them uncomfortable and they won't return. Or me for instance, the first day I walked round someone actaully said to me, are you just here for a good look. They don't know that my husband, child, friend isn't still missing, or didn't make it, or my presonal actual story y'know. People even started making Turtle feel uncomforatble at times, using him like a prop to show his wounds and who had made it, very contrived in a way to try and get more money for the cause (fair enough, but ask him first). Quite a few film crews were there whilst I was and people were telling them he'd do interviews without even asking him, and which he didn't wish to do. You know none of it malicious but very few people actually thinking it through, thinkning that different people are dealing with this in different ways, and whilst some may like rehashing details in order to get more donations, others don't want to. This was also effecting people like Boucher,gayer etc., who all felt like outsiders and would avoid certain places because of the volunteers and comments, although they are all doing the dive camp stuff whenever they are not having to make money to stay in Thailand.

Even the dive camp are not dealing that well with the volunteers they have. It is expected that you will do it everyday to get your one meal and rent paid for. But some people have to work occassionally to have money for the other meals of the day, or to buy drink and do visa runs and things. If you are known to be working for money you are looked down on by the dive campers. I mean gayer and his chick live together and gayer does it everyday, but they were told that coz she doesn't do it everyday they want to only pay half the rent. I mean what the fuck! And obviously there are tourists and people I contacted over here that are going over to do this but your only made to feel like one of them if you do it all the time. And a lot of these people are paying to fly there and help out, this may be their one holiday of the year.

It just disappointed me I guess, and a lot of this stuff doesn't get beyond the island so...

Basically I feel I left (as in stopped living there) at the right time, it isn't the island I left and hasn't been for over a year I think. I will miss the people (some of) but not the place.

Tousi now has his own bar which is the nicest place on the island. It is up at viewpoint resort, which is kinda normal, and has beautiful views still. Tousi is same,same as always, gorgeous!!!, and the old stools from karma are there, and none of the volunteers know about it, so you can feel normal and be with the old timers which is lovely. An oasis of pseudo-normality :) The thai people I knew from before were definitley the nicest, most understanding and happiest to see me which was lovely.

It does make being in the uk easier though, and has changed my priorities a lil. I am going to make the most of being here, and actually live in the now, as that place I've been in my head isn't there. I will still save my money but who knows where for...kind of excting actually.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

March of the Emperor (Star Wars obviously)

For the purpose of today my minions, I am adopting the above incidental music as my returning to the Blog theme music/soundtrack...a momentous occassion deserving of music of this gravity and importance ;)

Am going to provide the abridged version of my past 7 weeks or so, employing the ever-so-useful medium of bullet points...please keep at the forefront of your superior-to-most brains that if we believe in the principles of karma, I probably committed mass genocide in a previous existence:

  • Land in Phuket - the peeps that are meant to meet me arrive 5 hours after I do
  • My accomodation on pp is, quite obviously and by stupid coincidence, the very bungalow I used to live in with M. Boucher (good for one's mental state, I think you'll agree)
  • PP FUCKED (more will follow at some juncture my pretties)
  • Boucher - saw him twice, really quite vile (no doubt more to follow on that too...)
  • Approx. 11 days into my stay, I did one of those 'stupid shit you do on maudlin' things, and proceeded in a highly intoxicated state to fall, forget I possessed hands with which I could break my fall, and so landed on my chin, breaking my jaw. Yep, smart move chick!
  • Having broken my jaw roughly 10 years previously in the same place I ascertained immediately that it was fractured, fucked and displaced and attempted to cajole my fellow caners and wino type friends to punch me in the face at a specific angle to re-align said jaw. I seem to hazily recall telling them that if they were real friends they would grant said request , and it prob wouldn't be as painful as having done proper like. Fortunately they refused.
  • Hospital next day, Phuket. Jaw is genuinely fucked and screwed and I require surgery, which will cost a mere 65000 Baht. Kimi, knowing she was holidaying back in a disaster zone, still hadn't been arsed to get insurance. Oooops! Kimi doesn't have this money :(
  • PP, same night, muchos morphine, feeling nit noy sorry for myself, packing bags, early night. Oh, this would of course be the same night as the tsunami alert following another earthquake off Indonesia.
  • Watch peeps running to high ground, fearing for their lives. All power to island goes out. Sit on a mountain till 4am. (One bit of good luck- wasn't eaten by mossies!)
  • Arrange thru the embassy an early flight back to yuk, for lovely surgery on said jaw.
  • My alleged 12 hour flight home, took 19 hours...
  • Operated on the next day(April 1st-do keep up), all family, housemates and friends conveniently had chosen this exact time to all be holidaying abroad, so lil me gets to do all this on my ownsome.
  • Come round from anaesthetic (which I s'pose was also q. fortunate)...My mouth is metal...nice! I have what feels like a Volvo bumper attached to both jaws with wires keeping me in proper allignment and fully clenched. Attractive! And liquid only diet, no oral lovin for me!
  • Invented some great new alcoholic drinks since you have to keep your chin up at such times;) (ingredients will follow too)
  • Approx. 4 weeks later, the day before the operation to remove the Volvo bumper, I fell down my stairs carrying the hoover. So again, my hands were otherwise in use. I fell and, go guess, yep landed against the doorframe on my chin. (It may be worth noting here, that this injury, due to being in a sober state was somewhat more shocking and exponentially more painful). I had suceeded in splitting open my chin, and having a few fetching stitches applied. Did manage to still have the op. tho.

Now, consider dear friends, that every word I have just typed is 100% true. You couldn't make this stuff up eh?

So brief status report, tonight is my first night back at work, I am still not allowed solid food for a min. of 2.5 weeks, so suggestions as to what meals to indulge in when real food can be consumed would be appreciated. Currently, and really rather disgustingly I am considering 3 days of constant big, filthy, stinky keebabs :) Fortunately my warped sense of humour and perspective has remained pretty unscathed, with the aid of alcohol and kinda spacey painkillers.

Till the next time (which'll be soon) eat something chewy for me.

Fun Phrase

Hairy Axe Wound....graphic but quite amusing if used by a female ;)