Natural Wonders

An
American in Asia:

His Quest for Cosmic Truth

(or at least a Decent Espresso)

Before I get into my latest tirade on the tragicomedy of Thailand tourism, astute readers will note that the title at the top of the page has changed and the page looks a little cleaner. Well, I had the page cleaning lady come through with her page mop and bucket and she commented that, since I no longer live in Japan, the former title of the site, Monster Island, no longer really applies.

It was a kitsch reference to the pop-mythical home of Godzilla, Rodan and, everybody's favourite, Mothra. However, there's a lot of other Monster Island stuff on the internet and the domain name is already taken in eight or ten different ways. Probably copyrighted (copywritten?) too.

So I dredged through my past for some expansive title that could sum up the theme of a site that is dedicated to my personal ramblings over whatever my wandering mind happens to be lost on. Remembering that among my close-knit group of highschool miscreants, I sometimes bore the secret codename Cosmic Truth, and I have spent most of the intervening time drifting with the winds of whimsy, Cosmic Drifter seemed to cover it.

Also, cosmicstraggler.com, cosmine'erdowell.com and cosmicdudewithoutaplan.com were already taken. So, while you can still access my page at its current site, it looks hipper to have www.cosmicdrifter.com at the top of the page. Eventually I'll probably move the whole thing to the new domain host.

That said, Monster Island will continue to be the working title for most of my ongoing musical projects.

The Word in Phuket

So, onto the latest in Phuket and, as they say on the vaudeville circuit, "I've got good news and bad news."

Photo courtesy of Phuket Gazette

The good news is on the environmental front. The local chapter of the World Wildlife Fund has discovered a previously unknown coral reef somewhere off the west coast of Khao Lak in the province of Phang Nga, just north of Phuket. The sucker is huge, apparently more than four kilometres across and 270 hectares (667 acres) in area, making it the largest such formation in Thailand's waters. It's kind of a big deal for a country that is already a well-known dive destination, and a potential boon to dive operators in an area that was so recently devastated by the tsunami.

The WWF is wisely keeping the location secret for now. At this very moment, over in Phuket Bay, they are happily dredging up live corals to build a new marina. There are already excellent laws in place to protect coral reefs but, as with every other law in Thailand, it isn't enforced unless the authorities can figure a way to make a buck off it.

Case in point: you can drive any speed you like in your Ferrari since the cops don't own a single highway cruiser and only the Bangkok fuzz totes radar, but don't forget your helmet when you hop on your scooter or you'll be paying 200-baht bribes all the way to the grocery store.

According to the Phuket Gazette story, the reef is 99 per cent undamaged by the tsunami, since it lies in the relatively sheltered bay of Phang Nga. Now it only remains to be seen whether they can protect it from the indiscriminate nets of local fishermen, the dragging anchors of dive boats, and the stomping feet of tourists on 'seawalking' tours.

Yes, there really is such a thing. Seawalking tours are one of the blights of Asian tourism. Run by a few local tour companies, these tours are primarily aimed at Asian visitors who can't swim. They strap on tanks and boots and march around coral reefs, supposedly keeping their feet on the sand and not crunching delicate corals that take decades to recover.

In the best of all worlds, they'd slap a UNESCO World Heritage Site label on this place as quickly as possible. While good news like this raises hopes, Thailand's environmental management record quickly dashes them.

The Bad News

In a bid to get in on the lucrative government business of starting megaprojects and never finishing them, deputy prime minister Suwat Liptapanlop is campaigning to lay a US$1.5billion development into the middle of Phuket Bay. The development would entail a giant convention center, a couple dozen hotels and a marina, set primarily on what is euphemisticaly called reclaimed land. By 'reclaimed land' Mr Suwat is apparently referring to millions of tons of rocks, dirt and whatever other crap they can find, dumped onto what's left of the environment in the middle of the bay.

Luckily, as the Phuket Gazette quotes him, "Environmentally, there isn't much to worry about. It can be designed to ensure that water circulation is not impeded."

Whew! I'm reassured. Surely they couldn't make the same mistakes they made when tin mining in Khao Lak removed mangrove forests, coral reefs and other natural barriers, allowing a tsunami to sweep nearly a mile inland killing five or ten thousand people. Naw, they're much too foresighted for that.

It now looks as though a Japanese contractor, the Umezawa Group, may win the project with a bid to build the monstrosity. They propose, among other truth-stranger-than-fiction ideas, the world's largest video display screen standing in the middle of the bay visible from Phuket Town, and a resort "based on the supposition that a spaceship has traveled through space and time and landed in Phuket Bay." I challenge the writers of "The Simpsons" to come up with a plot line riper with wacky hijinks and ironic sight gags.

However, I sorely doubt the thing will ever be built. If one is to judge by the course of development for Bangkok's new Suvarnabhumi Airport, supposedly opening later this year, we will have a good 40-year wait before the project gets off the ground.

Much worse is the strong possibility that, in the positive economic climate the project will actually start, and they'll get it half finished before greed and corruption brings development to a gut-wrenching halt, leaving a bay filled with heaps of rubble, randomly placed pilings, giant slabs of grey concrete and twisted half-finished buildings.

I hate it when my darkest predictions come true but, unfortunately, I'm getting a pretty good handle on the way things work (or don't) in Southeast Asia.

OK, I don't want to end this on such a negative note so put away the hankies, here's a punchline: It's still sunny and warm here, and the swimming's great. Unless you're in the most popular beach, Patong, where a stinking seaweed has infested the shores, feeding on the organic waste that irresponsible hotels are piping into the bay. The seaweed is harmless but the smell is leaving hotel customers with a bad taste in their noses.

Ha ha. Lemmings are funny.

Jeffrey Studebaker has been (in no particular order) a SE Asian correspondent for a Singaporean travel magazine, a teacher, consultant and translator in Japan, a guitarist with the band, Swoon 23 in every city of the US of A, a coffee roaster in Seattle, a bike messenger in Portland, a marine fire system repairman in Seattle, an osteoporosis clinic researcher in Providence, a mental ward counsellor on the night shift in Portland, a brief success in New York, and he has now returned to the US after nearly a decade in Asia to pursue a publishing career.