Things float around

Pandemic reflections and an update on my hiatus from Thai Island times

Note to new subscribers: This is an abnormal post. To see the types of content that you can normally expect from Thai Island Times, check out my past articles.

---

Fluidity is one aspect of this world that the sea thrusts directly upon our feet. It rushes over shifting sands, reversing rivers until the moon, zipping through space some 385,000 km away, pulls much of it back towards the other side of the planet. This exiting tide repaints the coasts with sparkling shells, myriad crustaceans and the occasional starfish or hunk of vomit worth as much as a yacht. In the tropical seas, utter serenity can replace the violence of a storm in minutes.

The Covid pandemic has clarified how many of the things that many of us humans used to take for granted, such as international travel, are not exempt from the same sort of fluid instability that is so urgently apparent in the ocean. Just like the marine life that colors the sea with its beauty and mystery, we people face powerful currents and circumstances that are beyond our control.

Teletubby landing on Ao Son, Ko Tarutao, 2017.

During my last day on a beach in Thailand, in Chanthaburi province with Chin this past January, we happened upon an adult green sea turtle that had washed up dead and tangled in dumped plastic — a tragedy that is excruciatingly common due to the sea rubbish that is almost unavoidable throughout Southeast Asia’s coasts. It floats around everywhere, dirtying beaches and killing marine life.

Pondering this problem while looking down on what was left of this poor turtle, I realized how I, too, felt beached and bashed by the “waves”.

Didn’t we all feel this way, at least a little bit, by the end of 2021?

A virulent Covid wave combined with a slow vaccine rollout defined most of that year in Thailand. But months earlier in 2020, the pandemic had already leveled much of Thailand’s tourism industry. This made the country’s move to re-tighten inbound travel rules in response to the Omicron variant late last year an awfully deflating blow for anyone from the roughly two thirds of the industry that primarily relied on foreign tourists prior to the pandemic. It is hard to overstate the economic devastation that has befallen many of these people.

Desolate shopfronts on a soi in Ao Nang, Krabi province, December 2021.

Contrary to what some thought, I did not island hop the pandemic away. We spent almost all of it in a small west Bangkok flat. Things were pretty bleak in this typically vibrant megacity throughout most of 2021. Parks closed and many small businesses died. For a time, migrant workers were locked in their barracks like prisoners. Hospitals filled up, and interprovincial transport shut down.

At times, late at night during the many weeks of curfew, I would bring a cup of tea up to the rooftop and gaze out over the silenced city, wondering how the people behind each lit window were managing. I reflected on how the difficulties I faced, while real, paled in comparison to all of the heartbreak happening out there.

But it could have been worse, I thought, had it not been for the heroic medical workers, emergency service workers, and volunteers who were fighting to save Covid patients in the hospitals and stave off hunger in the communities. If I could, I’d buy each and every one of them a drink, sit them down in beach chairs and invite them to relax for as long as they’ve devoted to helping people survive.

As for me, having already poured 10 years and at least a couple of million words into a travel media industry that often seemed as fluid and unstable as an ocean even before the pandemic began, I attempted to write my way through the pandemic. I put my head down and kept creating new content, both here at Thai Island Times and for a few of the larger travel publications that kept commissioning travel articles despite the economic downturn and tightened borders around the globe.

David Luekens @DavidLuekens

People think I'm always exploring beautiful islands but usually I'm trapped in a 12 square meter writing cube looking forward to 2am snacks with the three-legged gecko.

Now I can see how this was like trying to force a starving horse to run a derby each week. I won’t call that a total mistake, because it produced no less than 126 in-depth articles at this newsletter alone, including a bunch of comprehensive updates on the Covid situation in Thailand that were free and fairly widely read at the time. So I suppose that a starving horse — or a burnt out writer, as the case may be — might be able to perform for a while, but it’s bound to collapse eventually.

My keyboard after a decade of professional writing.

But again, calm often follows storms.

And sometimes, people don’t realize how badly they need something until they’re on the other side of it. That is the case for me now, after first revisiting Southern Thailand for a little while around the New Year, and then spending the past few months in the woods of western Massachusetts, where I grew up. Avoiding the internet and doing more hands-on activities — stonework, food service and hiking into the misty Berkshires with my best friend’s one-year-old labrador retriever — has improved my health and enabled my imagination to recover.

David Luekens @DavidLuekens

^timed out for a while. back sooner or later. xo

Oh yes, dear reader, I will be back.

But not just yet. My hiatus will continue through the northern summer, giving me the time I need to rebuild. Though I’m doing minimal travel writing now, I am working on a fictional story about an awkward knight in a remote corner of another world that exists only in my mind. (Like I said, that imagination is recovering!)

My plan is to return to Thailand and get Thai Island Times sailing again in time for the start of the 2022-23 high season (so around October later this year). For now, thank you to all readers, and especially to those of you who had signed up for paid subscriptions, for your patience and understanding. (Paid subscriptions will of course remain paused until the relaunch, and I will provide plenty of notice before un-pausing them; feel free to contact me for more info.)

In the meantime, I am offering reasonably priced Thailand-specific trip planning assistance, so don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’re heading over there and could use some help and suggestions.

Near Ko Phroet, Chanthaburi province, January 2022.

I’ve felt awful for leaving newsletter readers, Twitter followers and even some good friends hanging with radio silence over the last few months, but there is no shame in stepping back in order to rebuild. The global disruption that we’re living through has been enough to push even some of the most seemingly stable people to the brink of mental breakdown, financial collapse, or worse. It is the state of the world today, even if Ko Kradan and Ko Thalu look as calm and majestic as ever.

With that in mind, and I can’t emphasize it enough, please, please, please — take care of yourself too.

This fluid thing called life was too rough for some people to ride out even back when the world seemed more stable, generally, than it does today. So if you’re one of the countless people who have been tossed around by the pandemic, please do look for that “island” to recover on. Finding it is not always easy, but sometimes sailors have to do whatever it takes to reach the shore.

Thanks again, and always remember to keep your jai yen.

Until next time,

David Luekens