Traveling as the Actor and Audience October 17, 2009

“The traveler’s-eye view of men and women is not satisfying. A man might spend his life in trains and restaurants and know nothing of humanity at the end. To know, one must be an actor as well as a spectator.”

This quote by the English writer Aldous Huxley reaches down into the soft marrow of travel. As I move through different environments while journeying, I feel somehow separated from the people and habitat I am amidst. Silently, I absorb both the magnificent and minute details as the member of an enraptured, disconnected audience. Traveling allows me this kindness- to exist and observe in solitude.

However, I ultimately agree with the crux of the late Huxley’s reflection, that to exist indefinitely only as one passing through allows no depth in one’s understanding of humanity, no gratification derived from those chance encounters that leaves one enriched and the more wiser.

In travel, there are stirring experiences to be seized, but there must be that balance between the actor and the audience or I fear one will arrive at their journey’s end with little to show for it.

With that being said, I plan to do just that-  travel by train and eat in restaurants all across southern Thailand, however it will only be for a mere two weeks and not my entire life. I won’t deny the thought has crossed my mind, though. I will leave by the overnight train tonight, and reach the “doorway to the south” city of Surat Thani in the early morning.

Apart from purchasing the train ticket, very little of my excursion is rigidly set, and I consciously planned it this way. It looks as though I will spend several days at the dive haven island Koh Tao, then I will travel down further south to Hat Yai, a city that has unfortunately been plagued with flurries of violence and the Thai government and Muslim insurgents continue to battle on. I’ve been told that it is a gorgeous city, though. And no, foreigners are not necessarily the targets of violence, so there is little cause for worry. From there, I plan to take a small ferryboat to Koh Tarutao, a marine national park that historically served as a penal colony for Thailand. It ceased to be this when, during an economic downpoint, the government stopped sending food supplies, so together the guards and prisoners revolted and escaped the island to Malaysia. Hopefully they found life less dire with the laid-back Malays.

Alright- time to pack. Be well in mind, health, and heart, and by God’s Good Graces you will hear from me in approximately two weeks!