Somewhere between paradise and the Peace Corps

yesterday. bangkok. sweaty, sticky, dirty, loud. bed bugs or something biting. alone. trying to remember why i commited to a year of this nonsense.

Today. Plane to Phuket. Sit next to English girl and ride taxibus together. Need to go to Ko Phi Phi I decide, Phuket doesn't feel quite right. Boat to Ko Phi Phi with another english girl and her Scandinavian(?) friend. Sunny bliss of a boat ride on the outdoor deck. Find Ko Phi Phi still destroyed. No ATM's (used to be 20), three bars (used to be 50), 10 boats a day (used to be 100). Three types of buildings: brand-new, paint drying re-builds; pancaked ruins; untouched inland places. Everywhere you look: drilling, painting, hammering, sweeping, lugging, sweating. Every night at 7pm at one of the three bars they hold a meeting and list the jobs that need doing the next day and you pick your job. Its somewhere between paradise and the Peace Corps. Amazing, amazing place right here, right now. So much community, so much unity between travelers and locals. I thought it might be morbid to come here, like tourists clicking at the hole in downtown Manhattan, but it's nothing like that. I knew i had to come here somehow, and three hours after the boat docked at the devestation i can't imagine leaving anytime soon. Meeting at the bar now. The trip makes sense again.