A Mid-September Night's Dream

On Monday, we hit the road and came to Rattapoom. Both Ying and I had a few errands to run in Hatyai and her new Rattapoom house would serve as our base camp until we returned to the island. The return trip is planned for Saturday. Yesterday, we went into the big city. It was my first time back since I moved to Ko Lanta at the beginning of April. 

The highways we took to Hatyai yesterday were full of speeders, all rushing to get somewhere. Upon entering the city, the motorists' madness didn't stop. There were edgy motorcyclists in incoming lanes, waiting for their chance to pass the line of cars by entering the opposite lane. And every different place we went to had the same landscape. It was all city blocks and buildings.

We went to Kim Yong Market to get nuts and dried fruits. There were so many people and I didn't see any westerners. There were some Malaysian tourists, taste testing the three different types of pistachios - from Japan, Türkiye, and the USA in order of most expensive to least. We did our own fair share of taste testing and ended up with a bag of natural and healthy snacks. 

We made another stop at Central Festival mall where I went to pick up my stuff from Inlingua, my old school. It officially became my old school when I was given the ultimatum to return to Hatyai and continue teaching on site or have my contract discontinued. This was brought to my attention in early July. My work permit was due to expire at the end of August and it wasn't enough incentive to return to Hatyai. 

All of the photos in this post were taken on the weekend on Ko Lanta. I'm happy on the island and I wonder about what kind of incentive it would take to get me to return to Hatyai. Without a doubt, I've eaten the tastiest food in Thailand in Hatyai, the culinary capital. However, it's going to take a lot more than just food to bring me back to Hatyai. 

For one, I'm happy to be near the sea. I like to go swimming every chance I get. I feel healthier as a result too. The concrete jungle can't offer that. Secondly, DJing on the island is such a fresh and new experience for me. I've been in Thailand for six years and I haven't really DJed for most of that time. There was a party or two that I DJed at and at one point I was experimenting with DJing rock music at a bar. Now, I DJ every weekend.

Before coming to Thailand I had a world music program and a dance music program at my university's campus community radio. Apart from that, I'd DJ at various parties thrown by my friends and other people who invited me to play. I had DJed at a hip hop festival and an electronic music festival in my last summer in Windsor before coming to Thailand. 

Then when I came to Thailand, music production took most of my focus, not DJing. That was until I came to Lanta and started playing out. I feel more excited than ever before to be spinning music. Perhaps the long break played a role in that great excitement. Of course there were always exciting things happening when I lived in Hatyai but nothing came close to my current excitement for spinning records. There's great reason to continue being on Lanta. I can't wait to get back and continue providing soul and sound to a room full of people.

On Saturday, a dinghy brought four people from a boat onto the beach right across Rasta Chill. The four travellers were of diverse backgrounds and apparently they were coming from Italy. Neng went out to help them and they ended up resting at his bar for the evening before returning to their boat for bedtime.

I didn't have any plans to DJ on Sunday but when the owner of a local Mexican restaurant invited me to play, I couldn't refuse. I played Latin music with a little bit of African music. A lot of the music I played came from Cuba and Brazil but there were also songs from Mexico, Peru and other places too. I was a bit disappointed at the end with the lack of feedback. It would have been nice to hear something about the music after two hours of playing.