VIDEO-Broken Notes

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We tried. Twice. We wanted to bring a guitar with us so that we could work on song ideas while we were away. The first guitar was stolen…the second was used as a weapon against us and thus being destroyed as a result. What began as peaceful and inspiring morning of playing guitar and doing yoga on the top of a mountain turned into the site where we would moments later be accosted by 5 local Thai men.
As with all of our destinations for this journey, we had a specific intention for everywhere that we had chosen to go. Our final stop in Thailand before heading to India was to the Southern Thai islands. Here we were hoping to tuck ourselves away on a beach-side bungalow, to spend our days reflecting on all that we’ve seen and experienced thus far and to channel all of our thoughts and energy into writing music. Throughout our trip, everyday has been one adventure dove tailing into the next, with very little time to have absolutely nothing to do. So having days where there’s nothing to do, is to have a blank canvas, begging for us to paint it with the colors of our experiences. We figured that there was no place better to have nothing to do than on a tropical Thai island. However this idyllic setting was soon marred by an experience that neither Ben nor myself have ever encountered, and for the life of us, never hope to encounter again.
One morning after attending a yoga class high up on top of a mountainside on the island of Ko Pha Ngan, where there was a platform overlooking the entire beach cove, we decided that spot would be a great place to bring my guitar and let our creative juices flow. What better backdrop could there be for allowing us to work through all the little ideas we’d had along the way but never had the time or place to really flesh them out. So we made the hike up there and sat for a while enjoying the view and the pleasant experience of having nothing to do but be creative. While I played some guitar, Ben took advantage of the wonderful view and stared his yoga routine. I then noticed out of the corner of my eye that there was a group of Thai men coming up the path to where we were. We recognized one of the men as being the owner of the restaurant and bungalows nearby. The platform where we were was abandoned and run down like it had once been used but since forgotten. We figured that he was probably the property owner of the land so I initiated our introduction with an extended hand and a warm smile to greet him as he approached. His response to my friendly invitation was not at all what we were expecting. My handshake was not met with an open palm but instead with a closed fist wielding punches. You can imagine the state of shock and confusion we were in. Without any sort of provocation we were being attacked for what seemed to be a harmless act of trespassing. I jumped up, with my guitar now in my hand being held like a bat to use as protection. We still weren’t sure exactly what his intentions were. We didn’t know whether he was just trying to scare us to get us to leave or whether he was seriously looking to get into a fight. At that point the fight or flight mode kicked in and I had to decide what to do. I quickly took in my surroundings and noticed that there were about 4 other Thai men waiting with a look like they we’re anticipating the moment when they could jump in. In a split second, I made the decision to refrain from retaliating, knowing that if I took a swing at this man that I would soon have four other guys on me, beating me to a bloody stump. So I tried my best to avoid him while at the same time trying calm the situation by talking to him to find out why he was so furious. It soon became apparent that his intentions were not to get us to leave his property but rather to keep us trapped there so he could continue to vent his violent aggression. This was just the beginning of the dread we were already feeling. By this time one of the other guys, had picked up a long baseball bat sized log and had his arms cocked back about to take a swing. Whenever Ben stepped in to intervene he was threatened with raised fists and was outnumbered, overpowered, and frustratingly unable to do anything but try to reason with these people, who were incapable of clear thought. At that point everything became a slow motion blur. I don’t know what happened or what I did exactly but the next thing I knew I was fighting my way out of the grip of one of the guys who was trying to knee me in the face. Only the fleshy part of his thigh was making contact with my cheek, so miraculously my nose didn’t get broken and my blood stayed on the inside of my skin. Freeing myself from his grip, I was no longer worrying about knee caps kissing my chin but now saw the first guy charging at me with my own guitar in his hands and the look of determination in his eyes. This might sound completely absurd but the dilemma I was facing was how to avoid having my face broken by my guitar while at the same time trying to save my guitar from being broken. I don’t remember what my resolve was but from inspecting my wounds afterwards I put together that I had used my forearms and hip to block his swings. Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case was) after impacting my body several times, the guitar finally gave way and cracked in half. For some reason this seemed to satiate his violent temper because he threw down the broken pieces and began to walk away. With a wounded body and ego, I gathered up the remains my guitar and hurried down to our bungalow where we packed our shit and got the hell off of that island. We stopped at the police, but it is doubtful they will do anything as the police here are a joke and corrupt as all hell. We later ran into a woman we had met on that beach and she told us that one of the men who had surrounded us had beaten up her british friend, for confronting him when she had found him cheating on her.
Being that both Ben and I choose to lead a life of non-violence, this experience was without a doubt completely foreign and utterly disturbing. I believe life presents you with experiences that you can choose to learn and grow from. Whatever the actual ‘lesson’ was in this case, I think what we experienced was simply seeing the other side to the beauty and love that we have known and experienced in our lives. Embracing only the aspects of life which we find comforting, loving and beautiful isn’t truly embracing all of what life is. Life is dualistic by nature…light and dark, positive and negative, pleasure and pain, love and hate etc, etc, etc. The more one opens his/her eyes to let in the light, the more aware one becomes of the dark…the two sides of the same coin. What side the coin of life lands on seems, at times, to be no more than that of the toss of that coin. What isn’t a coin toss is how we choose to learn and reflect upon our experience of the side that’s showing.
Well, it's off to Ko Phi Phi where we hope we can rinse away this feeling we have.