How I found my tribe on a forgotten Thai island

by Annami Mailovich (South Africa)

I didn't expect to find Thailand

Sometimes life gives you sea gypsies and longboards. It took me almost 24 hours on busses, trains, motorbikes and a slow boat on the Andaman sea to get to a nondescript island off the coast of Ranong, a border town where Myanmar connects to Thailand. I came from Kanchanaburi, a town north of Bangkok, where I met Nana. I had 10 days left on my Thai visa, and I wanted to see “the real Thailand”. “I have a place for you,” she said. “It’s a beautiful place.” She drew a map near and explained how I should get there. As the next 24 hours unfolded, I needed luck, good hand gestures and a sense of humor. From the Thai Kak Pier in Ranong I was slowly moving toward Koh Phayam’s white beaches and nothingness – a place that has one ATM, three roads and bars that’s closed until the next “busy season”. I caught a "mototaxi" from the pier. As the driver buzzed away I came to my senses on a bamboo veranda with the sound of the jungle zinging in my ears. I headed off to Buffalo Bay, with the movements of the waves breaking onto the caramel sand, and just the ghost on the famous Hippy Bar, with plastic scattered around the place that looks like a forlorn shipwreck on the otherwise perfect beach. The rain forest moved as I walked on the road, creatures and snakes did their thing, Hornbills shrieked and the sound of the ocean breaking filled the air above the beach. The next day I took a walk into the forest, only disrupted by the odd human. I first turned onto a road marked by a sign saying, “Heaven beach”. A young guy from Myanmar found me lurking around a deserted hammock. He offered me something to drink, and left me to my diary, the hammock and only later, a Belgian guy called Paul woke me from my chill. It turns out he has been living here since a devastating tsunami hit the region in 2004. He told me about the South African missionary “looking after the sea gypsies” on the other side of the island. “His name is Philip, Philip van Wyk.” He’s been there for years, he told me. With some vague directions and I took off the next morning, trying to find this mystery countryman of mine. After about an hour and a half of walking I found the river that I should be crossing. At this stage it still seemed like a walk-able splash through the river, but I realized that I might have to swim back if I crossed the river now. Obviously, I wasn’t going to turn back now and saw a couple of guys on my side of the river, hanging around and I just pointed to a picture of Philip, one I found on the Bangkok Post’s website. “Yes, Pheeleep, Pheeleep” they nodded and pointed to the wooden structure. “School” they said. And I realized, paradise is a simple place. On the other side of the river I found a farm boy and former mechanical engineer barefoot in the kitchen, whipping up breakfast sausages and some eggs. It turns out the Belgian guy’s sea gypsies are BBC-verified, they are called the Moken people, and after the 2004 tsunami they, as a community, had to be reintroduced to life on land. I was astounded, here I was with the people with the greatest natural lung capacity in the world. “I hear you speak Afrikaans,” I said to “Pheeleep” in my mother tongue. His friendly blue eyes greeted me as if we knew one another. He took me to the English class, where I took part in the conversation, at some point he fetched me and we spoke about God. My last couple of days in Thailand became a journey of high fives in the village, English lessons and the Moken boys even taught me to surf. On my last day with the surfer gypsies, one kid from English class (and taught me how to get on the longboard) took me back to my hut for the night. “We will miss you . . . You must come back.”