Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Phi Phi 2004

I still dream of Phi Phi.

I've been home from Thailand for a year and a half now, and it's hard sometimes to remember ever being there. The language left me at a rate roughly 1,000 times as quickly as it took to learn. The names of the people I knew and the places I'd visit all mix together at times. But I remember Phi Phi.

It's impossible to read the stories of the devastation to the island communities on the Adaman coast near where I lived. I can see and feel the clear body-temperature water and the technicolor fish swimming up to my ankles. I'd spend hours just floating on my back and imagining in vain anywhere on the planet more idyll. What's impossible, is to imagine a mammoth wave hulking from out of nowhere to sweep over snorklers and sunbathers and helpless children.

It's sickening. And surreal.

Most of the structures on land were flimsy at best. Hardly structures at all. Phi Phi, though developed into a glutted tourist town like anything pristine and worthy in Thailand, was quickly washed away like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs under the tap.

Randy Newman from his Good Old Boys album offers the dirge and tonic:

Louisiana 1927
What has happened down here is the winds have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

The river rose all dayThe river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangelne

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame
what the river has done to this poor crackers land."

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tyrin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

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