Over forty years ago Jomtien Beach was a hidden paradise. The drive from Bangkok took 4-6 hours depending on the tides. The Sukhumvit road was flooded twice daily by the coming and going of the sea. The Old Roué of the Orient tells on swimming at dawn with a lovely Thai girl.
"Fish leapt from the water. It was clean as gin."
Thirty years of tourist expansion have not been kind to the Gulf of Siam.
Two days ago I had arrived in Thailand and taxied south from Bangkok to Jomtien, where my wife lived with my son, Fenway. I sat with my friends on the narrow strand of beach. The beer was cold and the islands on the horizon hovered over the sea like UFOs from Eden. The wind was gentle and holiday makers from Ban Nok frolicked in the shallow water. For many it was their first time seeing the sea. None of them noticed the thousands of plastic bags floating on the surface like desiccated jellyfish. The shoreline was a solid bunker of plastic trash.
I spent five minutes picking up flotsam. Mostly plastics bags. Within ten minutes the beach was clean.
"I don't know why you bother. Everyday. Next high tide and the trash is back." An overweight British lager lout had witnessed my Sisyphean efforts on the beach before.
"I don't care about then. I care about now," I took off my glasses. My myopia Xed out the plastic in the water, but the Brit was right. The next high tide deposited another harvest of trash.
Once more mostly plastic bags.
Thais blame the sea-borne garbage on fishermen. They are mostly Cambodian. No one likes to blame themselves, since the real source of the plastics are 7/11s and food stalls shops along the beach. The person leave their trash on the beach, as if they city of Pattaya is paying someone to haul it to a landfill on the Moon.
The city depended on the sea.
"Remember in THE GRADUATE," said my friend Richard, who was teaching in Saudi Arabia. No bars. No booze. No women. No porno. The South African's sole form of entertainment was watching old movies. "The man saying the future was plastics."
"He was a prophet." Mark an Aussie mate detested my crusade against plastic, viewing my work as demeaning for a foreigner. He also hated the plastic. "Some Swede invented plastic bags in the early 60s. They didn't hit the UK until the 80s."
"Fish was wrapped in newspaper. Sometimes the skin would bear the headlines."
"Teenage packers at the supermarket check-out specialized in sorting the right shaped food into the bags." Mark was almost as old as me. The 60s were a different time from today.
"The Thais used banana leaves." I remember buying khao surrounded by a leaf. The cook had added spices. The rice was delicious.
"Now the stores give plastic bags for everything." Mark pointed to a passing Thai beachvendor carrying a plastic bag of fried bananas.
"A pack of gum or cigarettes." Richard loved his cigarettes.
"The Chinese pharmacist on Pattaya Tai says her customers think she is being kee-neo or cheap, if she doesn't give them a plastic bag. Food candy or chips. They want them no matter the size of the purchase."
"Whenever I refuse them, the clerk regards me as if I were pian or weird."
The Thais are no different from farangs, who regard my trash discipline as that of a crazy man. "Young people think that is choice or old-fashioned."
"Young people regard us as dinosaurs. "
"And they're not wrong." Fifty-nine years old, however my aversion to plastic bags was spreading across the globe. Bhutan was the first nation to ban the eyesores. Ireland and France placed a surcharge on the bags. 90% reduction of bags entering the garbage centers in those countries. The petro-chemical companies have lost 25% of their global reach due to bans and restrictions. The USA has been slow to buck the plastic mania as Big Oil rules the nation.
"Africa is covered in plastic bags filled with shit. It's called the poor man's toilet." Richard had recently visited his family in SA. He considers nowhere his home.
"Nice image. Shit and plastic. The future is plastic shit." Mark ordered three beers for the beach boy. "Mai sow tung plastic."The Thai beach boy brought the beers in a plastic bag, saying he only had two hands.
They were cold.
Later that evening I mentioned the ban of plastic to Fenway's mom. She thought that I was crazy."Not have plastic bag. Have what? Banana? You choie."
Thais throw plastic out the window and expect the trash to blow away with the wind.
Breaking this addiction to ease will take years.
Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific. Remote and idyllic, yet millions of plastic bags wash up on the tropical beaches every day.
I don't mean to lecture.
I hated sermons.
And I don't mind picking up plastic bags.
Keeps me limber.
But one day I'd like to see none of the beach.
No, actually I'd like to see them never.
Cause that's the way of the new modern world, no matter what the the Rich want.
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