Magick River and The Bamboo Palace

"Why this place then?", I asked Antares who was kind enough to let me stay in his Bamboo Palace for a couple of nights (expecting nothing in return). I was a total stranger to him at the beginning; I just happened to sit next to a friend of his, Naima in the bus, crossing the boarder from Thailand to Malaysia.

His answer was simple, "it is the beauty of this place". I knew exactly what he meant, there was a definite magic in that place. It is hard to put it to any sort of order, so I thought I rather share my experience instead.

It was the first night. We watched the sun setting over the mountains. Antares cooked us a delicious dinner, followed by tea, a little chit-chat and music. It was dark by the time I made it back to the bamboo palace. I relaxed on the hammock, staring at the mountains in the distance. I remembered that the mountains were in all shades of green during the day, but now it was misty blue.

The surrounding jungle comes to alive at night. Within that certain quietness, I could extract individual noises out. There were hundreds, if not thousands of different sources of noises. Combination of all is the voice of jungle at night.

With the moon shining behind the mountains I could see some clouds starting to gather. Naima said, "it's going to rain". She was right. The jungle quietened down to a mare whisper. The wind brought hints of cool wet rain. Suddenly it started to pour.

I could no longer hear the river as the rain fell hard on the roof. Some rain which managed to squeeze through the coconut leave sheltered roof, it made a splatter on the bamboo floor. Flashes of light from the lightning over the hills helped me to find my sleeping quarters in the dark.

Slipped in to my sleeping bag, and more blankets to cover, I was wide awake. I knew I wasn't going to sleep anytime soon. Rather I would listen to the approaching storm with a certain unrest mixed with a joy of excitement.

...

Couple of days later Antares showed me a place, a bit up the river from where the kids took us swimming earlier. There, we could dive in to the river from a height without getting our heads smashed on the rocks underwater. There was something surreal about this place. To top it off, one or two Angle Flies who happened to glide in.

I wanted to take a picture of this place but didn't know where to start really. Then it occurred to me, Antares who calls this place home is as much part of this place as the river itself.

Don't we tend to overlook the people, the animals, the trees and the birds from the landscape? Don't we separate it's people from the land itself? I guess it comes down to even you and me: we think we are so different from the nature, but we are essentially as much part of it as a mare plant sprouting out of the ground - I guess we tend to forget that...

~chilling out in the Bamboo Palace: watching the day go by~

~jamming session with the random Cuban musicians who happened to rock up~

~The Magick River and the Magick Man (Antares)~



~The Bamboo Palace~

~with the kids from the village~