17 Oct Help cleaning the beach
Beach cleaning at Koh Kam Archipelago – such a good day!
Today we did not have any tour bookings and my boss said it is not urgent to continue with translation work. So that means I actually got a day off – yeah! In case you are following my Blog for a while already, you probably know that I am an active person. I do not enjoy to lay on the beach on a day off. So instead of relaxing I took the chance to join the beach cleaning at Koh Kam Archipelago. Such a great decision I do not regret at all!
Getting to Koh Kam Archipelago by speedboat…
Staff from the national park
A local guy picked me and 3 other Finnish seasonal workers up and drove us to the pier. After an unhealthy but niiice breakfast with sweet sticky rice and some fried bananas we got on the speedboat. We drove to a paradise beach called Koh Kam Archipelago. The beach we cleaned was part of an island in a national park. The ride to the speedboat and the island itself was just stunning. Surrounded by only some mountains it really reminded me of the island where Robinson Crusoe could be found also :D.
So, as I said, the island itself is just beautiful except of one big point: The beaches were full of plastic bottles because it had been left without any care for low season. As a result of this we had our goal set: To make the Koh Kam Archipelago beautiful again!
Many people helped out to clean the beach…
Fully packed plastic bags
Volunteers helping out to collect the trash
With a group of around 25 people, including staff from the company named Similanchartes & Tours, some locals from the National Park, the Finnish girls and me, we arrived at the beach. Here we got ourselves some big plastic bags.
Unfortunately, it never took me more than 10 minutes to fill up one plastic bag. Tons of plastic bottles and any kind of trash like flip flops, toothbrushes, lighters and more destroyed the nice beach view. It really felt so good to pick up all the rubbish and to see how the beach turned clean again.
While I was filling the bags with rubbish I kind of really got aware of how bad the use of all the plastic is for our environment. Before I took part in the beach cleaning, I already tried to reduce the plastic waste. But no I do even more focus on a sustainable lifestyle. What I want to say is, this cleaning action really taught me a lesson: we HAVE TO reduce the amount of plastic and never ever litter…
In between collecting all the trash: A 5 Star Thai lunch…
After about 2 hours picking, we were quite satisfied with the beach and decided to have lunch. The local guys on the boat provided us some basic, but very delicious rice noodles with vegetables and Massaman curry.
When having lunch, I really felt like getting an insight in the real local life. Almost nobody around was speaking English and I do not know how to say it better but – life seemed so easy at this point. Easy lunch, easy cutlery, no fancy location – but everybody was so happy. And not to forget on this real Thai experience is of course – the nap that all local guys took after dinner 😀 No stress, no stress, in Thailand I feel like there is never a reason to stress!
This is how we went home: With around 20 people and additional 40 bags of trash
When we carried about 40 fully packed and sometimes quite heavy bags on our boat, there was only little space left to sit. But nothing wrong with that – the little space made me feel like we really did a good job. On the way back the locals turned some international 80s music like Madonna or “one night in Bangkok” on so we kind of celebrated a little Thai boat party on the way home :D.
This day really taught me a lesson…
local guys – always in a good mood
Coming back with all the trash packed in the bags was such a good feeling! I will focus more on sustainability in the future now, that is for sure. Great day with some karma points comes to an end now. So I am off to some running and then I will sleeeeep early! Good night! 😊
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