TWO FAT FARANGS

An alternative community

Many folks at some time in their lives become disillusioned by the state of the world and their place within it. As our governments wage war on lesser nations under false pretences, and those afflicted by disease and famine suffer more than we could ever imagine, we go on with our materialistic lifestyles, bemoaning the injustice of it all but rarely do we do anything about it.
Sol Hancock, the son of a prominent New York stockbroker, is one such person who gave up the cocoon of a wealthy lifestyle to lead a more simple life here in Thailand.
“It’s all bullshit,” Sol explained to me. “Money, flash cars, fancy apartments. At twenty-one I had it all - an American Express card that never maxed out, a Hummer, VIP passes to all the best clubs and three girlfriends who were drop-dead gorgous; one a Playboy centrefold.”
With the extravagant lifestyle came a downside. Sol became addicted to cocaine and crystal meth.
“The more I tortured myself with all that was wrong with the world, the more I hid behind the drugs,” Sol told me. “My dad wanted me to go into rehab, but I just wanted a break from the States, and the airheads I surrounded myself with. That’s when I came to Thailand and found Pai.”
That was five years ago and Sol has never been back to the States since. “Nothing to go back for,” he said, “I have everything I need here. All we need is air, food and water, and of course a bit of love sprinkled in. I had all the things money could buy before and was just fooling myself into thinking they were making me happy.”
Steadily, over the past three years, he has been building his own small community here in Pai. Many like-minded travellers who have passed through Pai - those who share the same beliefs that money is “bullshit” - have joined Sol and settled here. They have built their own homes - small bamboo huts - and have become almost totally self-sufficent; harvesting their own rice, fruit and vegetables. They are all vegetarians and the only use they have for money is for toileteries and drinking water, the cost of which Sol puts at no more than 10,000baht a year..
In the mornings they can be seen bathing and washing their laundry in the river. In the day Sol holds his discussion groups, a few of which I have attended myself. His views, at times, are a little controversial, but most of the times I find myself agreeing.
We share the same views that almost every government is corrupt and it is difficult to look beyond the spin they try to feed us.
Sol predicts a kind of apocalyptic world in the not too distant future, one ravished by war (religious and race related). Disease (especially HIV) will wipe out a large proportion of the world population and global warming will increase the number of natural disasters.
He believes that up here in the mountains we’ll be safe from natural disasters, war and hopefully disease. Before anybody joins the community Sol insists they must be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
“So what I’m trying to do here,” he explained at my first group meeting, “is build the foundations for a future community, one that doesn’t rely on a government or bank notes.”
I guess the community, which is almost thirty strong now, would be deemed as a sect, a group of people we should be suspicious of for not conforming to western standard ideals.
The group is made up of many different cultures and races, and one doesn’t dominate more than the other. Sol believes the current trend of multi-culturelism in most major cities will be the catalyst for many of the wars he sees ahead, but he sees this as a necessary path towards a harmonious planet that can live as one regardless of race, religion or background.
“The world’s big enough to double, even treble, the current population, but everyone’s running to the cities and suffocating each other, just to get to where the money is.”
Whenever I fly over England I’m amazed by the vast spaces of green fields. Such a small population on a little island, and you can see what Sol means by the world being big enough for us all, and then some.
“When you think about it, it’s such a naive world we live in,” he says. “All this warring over religion in the name of different Gods. Come on,” he says with a laugh, “nobody knows if there is a God. How many people are leading their lives from a set of rules written down thousands of years ago? That’s something I emphasize here - we have this knowledge from the past, but it’s not a complete answer to all the mysteries of the cosmos. Let’s look forward and see if we can solve some of those mysteries and not get bogged down in the past. “
Sol looks like a younger, skinnier, long-haired version of Geoge Clooney. He talks with a voice of authority without sounding commanding. He says he doesn’t want to be a leader to the group, only the founder, and he encourages others to lead with their own qualities. But undoubtedly the group regard him as a kind of father figure.
Whether his predictions come true, and the community grows and becomes more succesful, only time will tell.