Evason Phuket Raceweek 2005

The annual Evason Phuket Raceweek is on. 5 days of yacht racing, prize giving and post race stories. How on earth am I here? The Race organizer, Andy, has connections with someone who knows NATR. In fact the Evason Spa and Hotel, where the contestants and post-race activities are being held, have their own post-Tsunami relief projects underway. Working with Ban Bangmuang school, they are helping to build a Learning Center.

With the relief projects connection between us, they invited NATR to show off it's Moken Handicrafts project. Appropriate as the Moken handicrafts are gorgeously made replicas of Kabang boats.

Mit, a new volunteer with NATR, Bodhi and I met up on 24th. They brought a large range of moken boats to sell. It was so good having their company. Needless to say we had a great evening at the Evason introductory party and cocktail hour. An essential part of the job you know, smoozing with the potential buyers.

The Governer of Phuket gave his speech to the crowd. Less pompous and stiff than many of the usual politician's, he gave a very genuine speech about how the Regatta helped tsunami recovery in so many ways. Bodhi's speech introduced who NATR is, why we're there and what our Moken project was about.

After the cocktail hour the three of us headed to Scruffy Murphy's, followed by a couple of other interesting bars along the Patong way. Finally hitting the sack at about 1:00am in the morning. I love when NATR folks come down to Patong, it livens up my currently very quiet life.

The 25th was set up day requiring some shopping for parts to make signs, hang signs, and generally pretty up the display area. As the display area was down on the beach, I had to park the car up at the top of a series of steps. Mit and I carried down the boats, two by two. It was hot work and the display area doesn't have a natural breeze flowing through it.

Finally we had the boats set out and the signs out. The evenings entertainment began, the prizes were given out and Trevor, a psychiatric nurse who was DJ'ing for the even, gave us a great introduction. Trevor's a very cool character to talk to. Living in Thailand for the last umpteen years, he dealt with many of the post-tsunami survivors and their grieving and counseling. He is an admirable individual, and, as with many of the people I've met in the last 6 months, someone to treasure knowing.

Many people expressed interest and we did sell a couple of boats our first evening. We hope more over the next couple of days as many people said they'd be back prepared to buy.

The Evason staff working the whole event are awesome. Helping us to get a better spot for the display, arranging night lighting, getting tables for setting up. And they are so interested to hear about the crafts and our tsunami relief. Wanting to know how are the children, do they have parents, do they go to school? I was able to answer that many are orphans, some lost one parent. NATR's scholarship funds are supporting those children who are both orphans, single parents and generally affected by the tsunami. They have 2 years of guaranteed suppport. Hopefully we can extend that up to college going age.

One gentleman I met had spent 7 months with the Moken in the Mergui Peninsula a good number of years ago and of course immediately recognized the distinctive Moken boat shape. His companion had also made a film on them some time ago. In fact there's supposed to be someone here called Marco currently making another documentary on the Moken.

I wonder what tonight will bring? I'm on my own for the next 2 nights selling the boats. As with any sea-based events, there are some salty characters. Hope I meet more tonight!