Heartbreak and Healing on the Island of Koh Chang
In Anyone's Best Interest
There’s an island called Koh Chang - it’s a tropical place where vibrant flora blooms beneath emerald canopies and where coastlines are covered in powdery, white sand. Koh Chang is a place where countless fruit stalls line local roads, offering fresh mangos and juicy pineapples and bright bunches of bananas. Koh Chang is a place where seaside hammocks sway beside turquoise waters. It’s a place with rainforests, gushing waterfalls, and mountain passes. It is both a place of stillness and a promise of adventure.
Koh Chang is the place I moved to when my heart was newly broken. It was the end of the “winter” season on the island - a season of clingy, sticky sweat and of seeking coolness in the sea. It was also the end of my relationship - a severe and tumultuous finale to something I once I found stability in.
I was still dreaming about him. I dreamt about his fluttering eyelashes, the sound of his socks shuffling across floorboards, and the face he made whenever he opened the front door to let me in from the cold. For moments every night, he was mine again, only to be torn away in the morning. After weeks of daring to dream, it felt like I had been treading water, barely keeping my head above the surface. I needed to gain footing on solid ground. Koh Chang seemed like a place I could find that footing.
I moved to the island on a Sunday, aboard the 8:00 AM ferry. I moved there because Fulbright required me and my cohort to find month-long internships that served our “professional or personal interests.” I convinced the program directors that, why of course, living on a tropical island would be in anyone’s best interest. The directors did not know that I was suffering, or that I was seeking escape. They did not know that my personal interest was to heal from heartbreak and that my professional interest was to simply survive.
I promptly signed a contract for a front desk position at an upscale resort. I didn’t think too hard about the internship. I simply thought of it as my ticket to paradise. A change of scenery could help me with my recovery.
It was early morning when my cousin drove her car onto the ferry, fitting it snugly between a row of trucks and a queue of grumbling motorcycles. As soon as we were parked, my teenage cousin and I threw ourselves out of the backseat. We clumsily rushed to the front of the boat, recalibrating our balance to the bobbing of the ocean.
At the bow of the boat, we looked out at the Gulf of Thailand, a boundless expanse of sparkling, azure waves. The sea’s surface shimmered with reflections of the golden sun above. The endless union between water and sky created a universe of blue. I could see distant, green islands on the horizon.
The view was stunning - the type of stunning that makes a person feel that they themself are divine - that only a celestial being would be worthy of experiencing such a sight. I felt powerful and deserving in that moment: feelings far from the ones that had consumed me for weeks.
As the ferry puttered onward, I let my hair down and cherished the briny breeze running through it. I watched the Trat shoreline disappear from sight, hoping that my dreams and the pain of the breakup were left on the mainland.
When Koh Chang came into view with its green hills and turquoise bays, I welcomed its pristine coast and everything that came with it.
A Promise of Paradise
The island was magnificent. It was dewey the day we arrived. Palm fronds dripped with recent rainfall. The jungle breathed in misty exhales. A single road led us through the forest, alongside the sea, and past a strip of vendors selling fresh seafood. We drove past children riding electric scooters and a lone elephant roaming in a grassy field.
I reveled in the scenery, already writing a romanticized excerpt about the island in my head. I fantasized about the adventures I would go on when I was not working at the resort. Then, I fantasized about the resort: the luxury I would live in. What a perfect place to forget about an ex, I told myself.
The resort was hard to find. It was an unmarked, right turn off of the main road and a five minute drive down a gravel path. My cousins and I drove past woody marshes and overgrown fields before reaching my new workplace.
A magnificent hotel building loomed large and pretty in a manicured lawn. Its massive, ornate, wooden structure overlooked a mountain range on one side and the ocean on the other. I looked up at the building and wondered which of its rooms would be my “provided housing.”
I met the HR officer at the security gate. She was wearing a teal blue, two-piece uniform and had her hair spun tightly into a bun. She barely looked at me before gesturing to scan my fingerprints. Then, without speaking, she led me across the resort.
We walked along a spotless sidewalk that cut through the resort’s luscious garden. We passed blooming orchids and ducked underneath overgrown branches. I was engulfed in green. Along this perfect path, we passed luxurious villas. I watched guests emerge from their villas and step straight into their front-deck pools. They submerged their heads beneath spurting, stone fountains.
After briefly meeting the General Manager, the HR officer turned to me for the first time and told me that she would take me to my room. I followed her, entranced by my thoughts about healing in such a beautiful place. As we walked past the private beach, the pool, and the fitness center, I wondered what hours I would be allowed to use them. As we walked past the villas again, I wondered if I would befriend guests at the resort, if I would meet them at happy hour down by the beach or even at breakfast buffets in the morning. I imagined how one month of living in this place would change me. I pictured myself at the end of March, sitting on a veranda surrounded by new friends from around the world, completely ambivalent about whatever was happening with my ex back in the states. I daydreamed about these things as we reached the ornate hotel building in the field.
However, just as I thought we would continue up the building's wooden steps, we took a sharp turn toward the parking lot. The HR officer led me back to my cousin’s sedan and directed us to follow her out of the lot. Confused but still hopeful, I jumped into the backseat of the car.
Questioning the Contract
It was an acid-washed, three story structure guarded by a gang of stray dogs. The hor pak, or dormitory, sat in a sandy lot behind an abandoned construction site, off of the main road. It was where nearly all of the resort’s employees lived, the HR office said, handing me a key to a first-floor room.
I hid my expression of surprise behind an arm full of luggage. Blushing, I opened the door to a spacious, nearly-barren apartment. When I flicked on the lights, an uneven green hue splashed across the linoleum floors. I kicked my shoes off near a growing cluster of ants and maneuvered around a splattering of gecko poop on the floor. My teenage cousin checked out the room with me, mutually silent.
We stripped the bed of its used, stained sheets. We pulled apart the window’s curtains, which revealed a broken screen repaired with cardboard. As I inspected a gaping hole in my ceiling, I felt shame. I was ashamed to be disappointed by the housing option. I felt guilty for not wanting to live there. I felt idiotic and entitled for believing that my provided housing would be a suite at the resort. I also felt dread - an aching fear about spending lonely nights in the dim room, left alone to my dreams.
My teenage cousin leaned against me, knowing what I was thinking about. We took one last scan of the room and then, arm-in-arm, stepped outside to thank the HR officer.
That evening, my cousins and I floated in the sea at golden hour. I bobbed at the surface, looking back at the white-sand beach, the modern hotel my cousins were staying at, and the lush mountains rising above it all.
We grilled fresh shrimp and crabs over the barbecue for dinner. We clinked beers and watched waves lap at the shore. All the while, I internally confronted my anxieties about staying on the island. I felt concerned, genuinely afraid that I would not be able to heal from heartbreak if my situation was any different than what I had planned for.
On the windy motorcycle ride back to my dorm, I clutched my wet swimsuit to my body, feeling it splatter salty, sandy drops onto my legs. I traced the dark silhouette of the mountain range with my eyes as we whizzed by. I thought about the island’s pristine coast, the green hills and turquoise bays, the promising view of it from the ferry on the sea.
I realized then that I had to accept and adapt to my situation. I had limited control over my environment. I also had no way of predicting what my month on the island would be like or how I would change and heal. This was no different than living life: continuing onward and dealing with whatever lessons came my way. I had to not only confront, but also grow from the things that challenged me, that made me afraid and uncomfortable and even uncertain.
Selling Stillness
The day after I moved to Koh Chang, I began my internship at the front desk of a resort. I was told that this position would allow me to observe the ins and outs of hotel management and gain an insider’s perspective on the tourism industry.
That first Monday morning, I commuted to work via songtheaw. The truck taxi was parked directly outside my room at 7:28 AM. I could see it through the flimsy curtains of my dorm window. The songtheaw’s headlights glowed faintly, like the tired eyes of the man in the driver’s seat.
The driver leaned out of his window and stared up at the dormitory. He gestured at someone on the second floor: probably an employee rushing out of their room, clutching their half-done hair. I locked up my room and stepped out into the morning humidity.
My coworkers didn’t speak very much on the ride to work. They stared blankly through the cage of the truck, waiting for our hotel's massive wooden structure to emerge at the end of the road. I did the same, with headphones plugged in and a mindless, comedy podcast babbling into my ears. I wasn’t actually listening to the podcast. I was simply filling my head with chatter because I had become terrified of silence and the sad, scary thoughts that came with it. I needed noise, any sort of sound, to distract me from the narratives in my head. I needed voices, any voices, to play in the background so that I felt less alone. So, I listened to - but did not hear - the hosts of my podcast discuss pointless subjects until we reached the end of the road.
There, we all disembarked the songtheaw and went our own ways: off to clean rooms and cook food and serve guests staying in multi-thousand-baht suites. I went on toward the office, where I would hand room keys to tourists and promise them paradise, as if I hadn’t also come to the island seeking a bit of it for myself too.
Day 1
P’B arrived a few minutes into my shift, sliding out of her shoes at the entrance and leaving them neatly near the threshold. She shuffled across the office, her bare feet softly patting the wooden floorboards with each step. She was wearing a chartreuse uniform and was carrying a notebook under one arm. She sipped on a glass of homemade matcha.
She was startled when she noticed me waiting at the desk. She quickly turned her surprise into an introduction. “P’B” she said, offering her name. “My brother is A, so I am B!” She smiled, her lips still partially enclosed around her silicone straw. “Good morning, naa. Gin khao rui yang, nong?”, “Did you have breakfast yet, little sister?”
When I responded “yang, ka”, “no, ma’am”, she swung her tote bag onto the counter and ruffled through its contents. After a few moments, she exhaled, flustered. She didn’t have a snack to give me and she was disappointed. This reminded me of my mother.
P’B was my supervisor, as well as an immediate friend and caretaker. Even upon first impression, she was chatty, charming, and just a little cuckoo. She was also extremely dedicated to her job. On my first day of work, she made me feel comfortable and seen and taught me the ways of the resort, all while also staffing the front desk nearly all by herself.
I learned quickly under P’B’s supervision and example.
It took only three days for me to become a critical member of the resort’s staff - not necessarily because of any natural merit or skill, but simply because I made up a third of the front desk team. P’B worked the day shift, while a man I’ll call “P’Mog” worked the evening shift. As an intern, I was there to observe a little bit of both. However, because the resort was severely understaffed, I quickly became the third full-time staff member.
I was thrown into the deep-end immediately, working about 60 hours in my first week. P’B and my coworkers had no other choice but to train me quickly and trust me fully and I had no other choice but to handle it. I had to memorize customer service information after hearing it once, learn and master the hotel’s computer system, and communicate with guests in Thai even when I didn’t understand all of the words.
My first week of work distracted me from the emotional pain I had carried onto the island. Every morning, I had to rise out of my dreams of Deming and ride a rickety songtheaw to work. I was still hurting, but most of my days were so flooded with stimulation that I had very little time and energy to recognize it. Instead of sulking in my thoughts, I had to dash and sweat and problem-solve and communicate. I had to learn, help, and work and work and work. My job gave me something to be good at. I loved it for these reasons.
A View from Behind the Counter
On the Wednesday of my first week, P’B arrived at the office with bags under her eyes. She sunk into her desk chair, which was ripping at the cushion and she stared at the stack of paperwork next to her keyboard. Our coworker P'Mog once again failed to "close office" the night before and had left a mound of tasks for P'B to complete. P'B swore under her breath and began clicking her computer awake.
Before the computer screen had even turned on, a guest ambled up to the reception desk on their way to breakfast. "The mattress is too hard," they stated. "Can we have a mattress topper?" With kind eyes, P'B assured the guest that they could. She walkie-talkied housekeeping staff and placed an order for a mattress topper to Room 2210 - a room number that the guest had not even disclosed; P’B had simply memorized it when the guest checked in two days prior.
Before P’B had set the walk-talkie down, there were two more customers at the counter. In a slew of Thai that I could vaguely decipher, one guest asked P’B to upgrade their room. P’B started searching for available suites on her computer.
The other person, a foreigner, directed their complaints at me, remembering that I spoke English. With a reddening face and a rising voice, he told me “I called the front desk twelve times last night and no one answered! The villa next door was blasting music and I couldn’t sleep! Why didn’t anyone answer?”
I calmed my quickening heartbeat. I responded to the guest, kindly reminding him that the front office closed at 9PM, but that I was genuinely sorry for the inconvenience. I assured him that I would talk to his neighbors if it happened again and gently reminded him to please dial 0 for Security if any other issues arose at night. The guest simmered down. He let out a final sigh before grunting “thanks” and bumbling away.
The rest of the morning was like this. I watched P'B prioritize her guests' needs, skillfully managing emotions and negotiating compromises, all with the warmth and reassurance of a great host. I attempted to mimic her. When all of the morning cases were closed, P'B turned to me and said, "I need to watch the sunset tonight. I deserve it. Want to come?"
Sunset Sadness
After work, P’B picked me up on her motorcycle. She drove me to dinner on the beach, where we watched the burning, red sun fall below the horizon. We shared stories. P’B talked about her motivations for learning English, her relationship to her brother, and the reasons for why she loved working as a Guest Relations Officer (GRO) at hotels across Thailand.
“When guests smile, or tell me about how great their day was, I remember why I do this job,” she explained to me, over a plate of pad krapow. “People ask me why I don’t apply for a higher position. I always remember, it’s because I like to work with guests and see them smile.”
She continued, “I like to move around Thailand and work at different hotels. People think I like to move because I am unhappy with the place or the hotel. That is not true! There is good and bad everywhere. I like to move around Thailand and have different jobs because I like to experience life! I want to see the world, eyes open.” I agreed, heartily. I explained that I felt similarly about life. After all, such beliefs prompted me to apply for Fulbright and commit to moving across the world for a year. P’B smiled in approval.
What P’B did not know was that ever since my breakup, I lay awake at night wondering whether my choice to move to Thailand had been worth it. She did not know that even in that moment, I genuinely believed that my breakup could have been preventable if I had just stayed in the U.S. I had lost someone I deeply loved because I had taken a risk and had sought out life experience.
P’B didn’t know about these thoughts, but she also probably didn’t have the emotional capacity to help me through my insecurities. She had another ten hour work day ahead of her, as did I.
We drove home in darkness. And for a moment on that motorcycle ride, I decided to switch off the racing thoughts in my head and to simply ride through the night.
Week Two: Truths
It became very clear to me that P’B was being exploited by the company. Though she was extremely diligent and competent at her job, management failed to treat her like it.
P’B had started working at the resort three weeks before I had arrived. The day that I arrived, she had worked twelve days back-to-back with zero days off and no more than a fifteen minute lunch break per day. While it was the company’s requirement for all employees to work six days a week (allotting a pathetic total of four days off each month), it was not standard for someone to work weeks without a break.
The resort’s management team kept telling P’B to hold on and to wait it out, promising that a new GRO would be hired to alleviate her workload. No GRO ever arrived. I was the closest thing to relief that the company could provide - an unpaid intern with no prior experience in hospitality.
I had been ignorant to all of this because I had been so fixated on how my job provided a perfect, personal distraction from my breakup. However, once I became aware of P’B’s situation, it was difficult to unsee all the ways in which she and my other coworkers were being overworked and mistreated by the company. I started to see it every day during my shifts.
The Daytime Shift
Two young women, both petite and leaning on each other’s sunburnt skin waited on the white-cushioned couch on the veranda in front of me. They were quietly flirting with each other, breaking their whispers only to scan the luscious garden that surrounded them.
They were from Israel and both had short, poetic names. They spent a few days in Bangkok before coming to Koh Chang. They were vaccinated, three doses each. They were about the same age as me. One of their birthdays was coming up.
I knew these things because I was scanning their passports and travel documents, listening to the printer’s mechanical hiccups as it slowly spit out a copy. The printer took about 20 seconds to scan each document. Sometimes, those 20 seconds were the only moments in the day when P’B and I had a chance to stand idly.
Usually, when I was waiting for the scanner to print, I would stare into the garden. It was a gift to work in an open-air building, where I could catch glimpses of striking red cordyline plants and blooming orchids.
Sometimes, in the early afternoon, it would rain so hard that the garden’s plants would droop at the weight of the water. I would watch the downpour from my position at the printer, and I would exhale in relief. I believed that any storm could wash away my past and help me with a new beginning. I adored my view from behind the counter, even though my time to enjoy it was limited.
With a loud thud, P'B smacked a stack of wooden clipboards onto the counter. She exhaled, releasing all of the frustrations from working with previous guests. She immediately swiveled around to collect the tray of welcome drinks and cool towels from the coffee table behind her.
As P'B cleaned up, I returned to the women on the veranda, retrieving their check-in form and politely asking for a deposit.
To the question of “cash or credit?” the two guests cheerily told me that they wanted to pay however was easiest for me. I nodded graciously - these women were the types of guests who saw the urgency in our eyes and understood our hustle. I was notably grateful for guests like them.
My response was drowned out by the sound of a songtheaw noisily pulling into the parking lot. It rattled with a bed full of people and luggage. P’Eat, one of two bellboys, sprinted past the veranda and toward the truck, pushing a wooden wheelbarrow. His beige uniform was soaked in sweat, his hands were blistered from hauling massive suitcases across the resort by himself. He was the only bellboy that day and would single handedly carry luggage for at least forty guests.
Mid-sprint, he tossed a glance my way and shouted “luk kaa, bpaet kon!”, a warning that there were eight new guests arriving.
"Song bpaet", I responded, meaning "2-8", Thai hotel code for "got it." I quickly wrapped up the check-in process with the women on the veranda and looked over at P'B, who was preparing to face the party of eight guests. I was not envious of her, but I felt terribly guilty because I could not effectively help her. My coworkers deemed that it was best that I worked primarily with the English-speaking guests and avoided the Thai guests, especially when they came in large groups or had complaints.
P’Pun, one of the cashiers, nervously peered over the top of her computer screen. She needed to step in and help. Oftentimes, P'Pun and the other cashier P'Aim were asked by the management team to fill in for - and also train - GROs when we were understaffed. But P'Pun and P'Aim were not paid to work as both cashiers and GROs, let alone to even know what GROs did. When they helped us, they had less time to complete their already-taxing cashier duties. Then they had to work overtime.
Since there were only two cashiers, when one of them was sick or on vacation, the other one was forced to work consecutive days. When P'Pun had COVID, P'Aim was the only cashier on staff for two weeks. She went ten days without calling her three-year-old son, who lives on the mainland.
P'Pun and P'Aim were frequently exploited as veterans of the resort, uncompensated and unthanked for their help. Though they felt jaded by the company, they chose to stay because "Koh Chang is home" and "our coworkers are our family."
My walkie-talkie sounded off. P’Eat, the bellboy, could not help the two women on the veranda to their room because he was busy moving the luggage of the newly arrived guests. Since it was against the resort’s policy to send guests to their room unaccompanied, it was then my role to walk the two women across the resort’s grounds. So, against their polite pleas, I helped them with their bags. We maneuvered past the cluster of new guests.
The women were giddy at the sight of the hotel building. They were giddy about most things and were very talkative. When we stopped at the entrance of their third-floor room, they thanked me profusely. They said “we should hang out, if you have time.” I smiled and agreed, knowing fully that I would not have time, nor energy.
I rushed back to the front office, where I manually uploaded their information into our system. As I typed out their vaccine statuses into a spreadsheet, I imagined what activities and sightseeing they’d do on Koh Chang. I thought about the laughter that they’d share on the backs of motorcycles, the beers they’d clink together on the beach. I felt a pang of jealousy.
I remembered my original hopes and dreams for living on Koh Chang, my plans to explore the island and confront my emotions. I hadn’t had much time to do these things. Most of my experiences on the island had been limited to my work within the office. Instead of healing by the ways of the water and the sun, I spent my days working to the point of exhaustion. I was not alone in this. Whereas I had no time to cry about my breakup, my co-workers had no time to call their children or to travel to the mainland for doctor’s appointments.
I put my head down and went back to typing. There was a heaping stack of paperwork beside me that I would have to finish before the sun set. I would complete all of it before 5:30 because there was no other option. I would go home and collapse into bed with limited desire to do anything but sleep.
Knowing When to Back Away
A critical lesson that I had to learn while working at the resort was how to concede to certain situations that were unideal or unhealthy for me, and admit to myself that I didn’t want to - and didn’t have to - “tough it out” all the time. I had to give myself permission to want change, ask for help, and create boundaries.
I conceded to something I didn’t have to “tough out” when I decided to move out of the staff dormitory. I moved out after a few sleepless nights of listening to my ceiling leak and stray dogs cry outside my room. I knew how privileged it was for me to turn down provided housing and to move down the road to a hotel. I knew how offensive it may have been for me to reject the dormitory that most of my colleagues called home. I also knew that I could stick it out and handle the situation if I had to. However, I also could be honest with myself: I didn’t have to stay in the dorm just for the sake of staying. I had the option to move out, and moving out could bring me just a little peace and sleep and comfort during a time of emotional fatigue. I didn’t have to feel guilty about choosing an option that I had. I also didn’t have to prove anything, about my fortitude or grit, to anyone. I gave myself permission to seek out something that would incrementally help me. I forgave myself for it.
I also confronted the General Manager about my work schedule. I was an unpaid intern working 60 hour weeks, with only one day off each week. At first, I was hesitant about asking for more time off. After all, I was working the same schedules as my co-workers. Also, I would only have to work this schedule for one month. I considered toughing it out for the month. However, I eventually admitted to myself that I didn’t want to work myself into the ground and that my situation was unideal, maybe even exploitative. I realized that all of this could be my truth, even if it was also a truth for my colleagues. When I decided to talk to the GM, I had to ask for change and draw a boundary with an authority figure. I also had to internalize the fact that it is perfectly fine to want change and to draw boundaries.
I didn’t realize until after the internship that these skills - of being honest and gracious with yourself, and of advocating for your wants and boundaries - were skills that I was already equipped with. In fact, I had exercised these skills at the end of my relationship. When I had recognized an aspect of my relationship with Deming that made me deeply unhappy, I addressed it, and we tried to work on it together. I communicated my concerns and we decided on our boundaries together.
Eventually, I recognized that my boundaries were continuously being pushed and challenged and that I was making compromises on what I was comfortable with. At some point, I had to admit to myself that I did not want to (and did not have to) sacrifice my health for him. I did not have “tough it out” any longer. That’s when I broke up with him.
Only during my internship did I realize that my act of self-advocacy during my breakup was a sign of strength in character, rather than a detriment. Though I had formerly blamed myself for “giving up on him”, I learned how to show myself grace and give myself permission to have boundaries.
Seeing the Island for the First Time
Once I gave myself permission to stop trying to “tough it out” all the time, I felt a lot freer. I began to experience the island in the ways I had originally wanted to.
The road that I lived on - the island’s main road - buzzed in the evenings with locals on motorcycles and flip-flopped foreigners sunburnt and dazed from their day at the beach. Local vendors with cracked hands and sweaty necks sold barbecue skewers and steaming bowls of noodles out of their mobile stands. The evening air was always humid and breezy and the sky, a sherbert orange.
I enjoyed walking home down this road after work. I would always make it back to my hotel in time to take a quick, refreshing shower. Then, I would meet up with my Fulbright friend Katie and her Thai friend P’Bao for dinner. We indulged in fancy restaurants often, treating ourselves to flavors we hadn’t had in months at Greek, Korean, and Italian restaurants. Sometimes, when we went out for desserts or drinks, I ran into guests from the hotel. They did not recognize me outside of the resort, with my hair down and no uniform. I kept it that way, enjoying the luxury of experiencing the island as a wide-eyed guest, rather than a host.
At the end of every night, vendors would fold up their tables and bike away, leaving the street to the stray dogs, who were really the ones in charge of town. I would walk home in the faint light of the restaurants that were still open and their owners would wave goodnight to me. I began to love the island and the person that it helped me be.
A Lesson for All
Eventually P’B also learned a lesson about drawing boundaries. On her twenty-fourth consecutive day of working with no time off, she decided to resign. She pushed back her desk chair, walked to the other end of the office, and knocked on the General Manager’s door. After five minutes of speaking to him, she returned to the counter. “I just quit,” she told me. “I’m strong, but not like this. I will die if I work like this any longer.”
P'B left the island the next Monday, bound for Bangkok. She was the third person in her position at the resort to resign in less than a month. I, and many of my coworkers immediately mourned the loss of P'B's radiant, loving presence. We all half-heartedly tried to convince her to stay, knowing that our motivations were selfish.
For many, P'B's resignation meant an instant loss of joy at the resort. For me, P'B's resignation was a terrifying omen: I would have to fill in for her until she was replaced. In an instant, I went from being an under qualified intern to being one of two full-time GROs.
The week prior, I had learned how to walk away from unideal and unhealthy situations. P’B’s resignation forced me to learn the flip side of that lesson. I had to learn to accept some challenges, to push and prove to myself that I was stronger and more capable than I gave myself credit for. I had to learn that I could handle more than I expected.
For a few days after P’B’s resignation, I came into work as the only GRO at the front desk. At first, I kept looking over my left shoulder, instinctively turning to ask P’B a question. But P’B’s chair was empty, her computer screen asleep. Eventually I had to stop searching for her. I had to grow into the role, be self-sufficient and confident in my competence.
That week, I faced my fears about communicating with Thai customers: I was forced to dive into conversations, to ask for translations from my coworkers when I needed it, and to not take it personally if guests were upset with my language abilities.
During those days of being the face of the front office, I gained confidence in my knowledge, efficiency, and hospitality. I learned to forgive myself for the mistakes I made, while also holding myself accountable for the responsibilities I was given. I learned how to rely on my teammates and also how to be relied upon. I took a position that I once believed myself to be under qualified for and I made myself qualified, and I became, daresay, impressively good at it.
A Tip for the Weak
For all the ways that I had surprised myself by my competency at work, I astounded myself even more with the strength I had in my personal life.
Around the same time that P’B resigned, I learned new and hurtful information about my ex and the nature of our breakup. I found myself sobbing one day, over a text, alone in a cafe.
When I found myself sobbing alone in the cafe, I let myself cry a little longer. I allowed the tears to pool in the crinkled crevices of my eyes. I let myself feel pathetic and devastated for just a moment, accepting my role as the flubbering American girl clutching an iced green tea. I conceded to the ways that I felt weak. I cried even more.
When I was ready, I found the ounce of strength within me to push my chair back, pick myself up, and head to the jungle in search of a secret waterfall. Katie came with me.
We took a right past an elephant camp and we forged into the bush. We pushed back overgrown branches, climbed across slippery ravines, and swatted at swarming mosquitoes. We followed blue PVC pipes, which ran parallel to the hidden trail, and used them as railings when we needed stability. We always found our way back to the path after making misdirected decisions.
When I found myself crying about my ex, nearly 8,000 miles away from home, I forged through the jungle under a dark and damp canopy and found myself a waterfall. I found myself a waterfall even though it was dry season. I found myself a waterfall even though when I found it, it was just a sad, sheen slab of rock barely trickling with water. I found myself a waterfall even though its stream was just a pool of green gunk with a layer of marbled liquid. I found myself a waterfall even though the journey was hard and even though the waterfall was not much of a waterfall after all.
The jungle hike reminded me that the world was still so big and baffling and that there was much to see beyond my tears. Though finding the waterfall did not fix my aching heart, the adventure symbolized to me the strength that I had within myself, which I would carry with me as I moved forward. I was reminded that I still had a beating, throbbing heart that craved experience and life and love, and that once again, I was stronger than I had originally believed. I stood at the foot of the waterfall in the middle of the jungle, covered in sweat and dirt and bug bites, and I high-fived Katie. Both of us laughed at how we had gotten there, happy and relived that we had tried.
From Push to Play
I carried strength with me into each iteration of life on the island. I grew more self-assured and confident. I knew the value of working hard and of pushing myself. I was eventually rewarded. The universe gave me a friend - a joyful friend.
I met P’Joe on a Tuesday. He was sitting at the front desk waiting for me to return from my weekend. He sat at the desk, timidly, just like I had sat there waiting for P’B on my first day of work. He was tall, young, and had deep-set eyes that glimmered when we noticed each other.
He was also fairly new at the resort and had started the same week that I had - I had seen him on the songtheaw but had never made conversation. He worked in another department, directly under the General Manager, but was asked to temporarily help me and P’Mog at the front desk.
I didn’t have much time to train him during the first few hours of that Tuesday shift, but we connected over lunch. After he asked if he could sit with me at a table in the back house, we clicked immediately. We spoke mainly in Thai, the both of us fumbling over our translations, but nonetheless naturally chatting and laughing and teasing each other. We almost forgot to return to our shift.
Over the next few days of training him, P’Joe and I built a fast friendship and an effective work relationship. He was a hard worker, attentive to details, and kind to guests. He took good notes and diligently memorized information. When speaking with guests, he always leaned down to hear them more clearly, always responded with a sweet “krap phom”, or “yes sir/ma'am”, and apologized for things he did not do wrong. He was talkative and polite and liked to laugh a lot. He was a lot like me. We made a great team, and we high-fived each other at the end of each busy shift because we knew it.
Work and life on the island became a lot more joyful after meeting P’Joe. Whereas P’B had provided an escape for me in the workplace, and had created a productive and character-building space, P’Joe brought a new light to my life. He reminded me to enjoy myself, to play and laugh a little more.
Our friendship extended beyond the workday. In the evenings, we would catch dinner at the canteen together and chat on the songtheaw back from work. Sometimes, we would meet up outside the dorms in the evening and socialize with our coworker friends on the picnic tables. We went out for barbecue and drinks with Katie and P’Bao. We went out to the beachfront club on the weekends, spending nights dancing, cheering on fire dancers, and complimenting the DJ. After he taught me how to drive a motorcycle, we occasionally rented one for the both of us and would drive along the coast.
The introduction of P’Joe’s infectious joy led me to even more adventures. On my days off without him, I sought out beauty and laughter and thrill. I went on an all-day snorkeling trip with Katie and P’Bao one Sunday. We island-hopped and sun-bathed and saw schools of fish beneath the water’s turquoise surface. I climbed aboard songtheaws and strapped in for wild, rollercoaster-like rides, riding up and down and back and forth through the jungle. I motorcycled to new beaches, spent days lying out in the sun and finding my way back in the rain.
Even when P'Mog, the only other GRO, was fired from his position - leaving me and P'Joe to the front desk alone, I no longer felt like the timid, heartbroken rookie that had begun the internship. I had outlasted a handful of my coworkers in a strenuous position, while also navigating a painful heartbreak, and had done so while also making friends and finding joy.
Settled in Stillness
On one of my last days on Koh Chang, I took a solo motorcycle tour around the island. I drove into the mountains and the rainforest. I carefully maneuvered the same winding switchbacks and terrifying inclines that I had passed on my first, rainy day on the island. I braked on the declines and overtook slower vehicles on the flat straightaways in the valleys. I cherished my new skill of driving and thanked the universe for the great friend who had taught me.
On my tour around Koh Chang, I rode up the western coast of the island, passing the restaurants, cafes, and bars that I had become a regular at. I drove past expansive rubber plantations and viewpoints that overlooked the entire, luscious green island. I pulled over at national parks and trailheads that I had not yet visited. I walked to dry waterfalls and creeks and promised myself to return during the rainy season. I drove to the eastern side of the island, a quiet, farming land with tropical fields and rolling hills and palm trees that reminded me of Jurassic World. I drove all the way to the southern coastal tip of the island, where swampy mangrove terrain overtook the land, and there, I turned around. On the way back, I drove parallel to the sparkling, teal ocean and thanked the shores and coves that had welcomed me during the month.
During my drive, I saw Koh Chang in its entirety for the first time. Seeing the island this way at the end of my month, rather than the beginning of it, allowed me to witness Koh Chang through a personal lens. I saw it for the dynamic, colorful, and storied place that it was - a tropical island that had imparted wisdom and healing and joy upon me when I felt lost.
I reflected on what I had learned about myself while on the island, and I realized that I had learned many lessons that had no direct correlation with my breakup. I saw the beauty in this - the beauty in growing in ways I could have never planned for.
I drove from shore to shore, with no sound or noise to fill the silence.
I left the island a few days later. As the ferry puttered into the sea, I watched Koh Chang’s pristine coast disappear from sight, the island’s green hills and turquoise bays falling into the horizon. Just like I had arrived, I turned to the bow of the boat and recalibrated my balance to the bobbing of the ocean. When the mainland came into view, I welcomed its coastline and everything that came with it.
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