Phanganist had heard about Pat and his books 'A Distant Island' and 'Chaloklum, the village of no last names' and thought he would be a good person to interview about his Koh Phangan story and his transformation on the island.
Pat responded with a beautifully detailed story rather than answers to our questions (although he tried to answer them in the text).
The first book 'A Distant Island' is about coming to Thailand and healing. Pat spent twenty six years in the Marines as an attack helicopter pilot. Both Iraq wars and numerous smaller conflicts. The book is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Black Opal.
'Chaloklum, The village of no last names' is scheduled to come out the end of May and wilol be available through the same.
So now we hand over to the man himself, enjoy...
‘Chaloklum, the village of no last names,’ is the story of breaking from our predicted path in life and taking a chance.
It is a tale describing how one can’t help but be influenced by Buddhism, whether you are a follower or not, while living in its cradle. It is an account of finding a home that broke all the traditional rules of residing someplace safe and comforting. It’s a love story.
It is a narrative that chronicles the change we all see taking place in our surroundings. It is the story of learning to be a better person'.
Retiring from the Marine Corps in 2007 on the island of Okinawa in Japan, my life was laid out before me as if foregone conclusion. My future included moving back to the United States and finding a job that would further line my bank account in preparation for a leisurely retirement surrounded by the material things that I had learned to love.
There was no doubt that I would grow old in a spacious house encircled by people I knew, wanting for very little. That future would probably include an annual vacation to fill my adventurous needs, maybe a fast car to fulfill my occasional requirement for a adrenaline rush, and a hobby or two to keep my mind active.
Prior to moving back to the country of my birth, I took a vacation. It was to be the final holiday I would share with a Thai woman whom I had found myself falling in love with over the last year.
Calling one evening from my home in Japan several weeks prior, I had asked for her to pick a spot, anyplace in Thailand that she wanted to vacation. I didn’t inform her it would be our last.
Being somewhat of a relationship coward, I figured that admission should come during our final hours together. A method and timing that would ensure I wouldn’t have to suffer the confessional consequences too long.
Traveling together to the island of Samui, located in the Gulf of Thailand, I found myself plagued with the notion that moving back to the United States might be a mistake, retiring to a life I often found tiresome and boring.
Traveling from the airport, the cab delivered us to the ‘La Hacienda Hotel’ in Bophut Fisherman’s Village, situated on the beach. A pleasant looking woman in a black cotton dress checked us in, and provided a key and directions to our room.
One flight of concrete steps later we stood inside a beautiful room overlooking the strait of water we had flown over not thirty minutes earlier. Stepping out on the deck adjoined to our room, the bluish-green waters glistened under a hot midday sun and an island just to the north, with steep emerald green mountains, stood as a testimonial to our tropical surroundings.
As I walked past the sliding glass doors back into the room, my girlfriend, sitting on the bed, asked, “Why did you bring me to this island?”
Slightly surprised by her question, I immediately became concerned she might know the true intent behind the farewell vacation and replied,
“I just wanted to share some time with you.”
“But we spend a lot of time together in Bangkok - why did you ask me where I wanted to go and then bring me to Koh Samui?”
“Does there have to be a reason?”
Searching my eyes, she calmly said, “You may not want to tell me now, but someday I will discover why we are here.”
While it might have been lost on my western trained mind in that hotel room, this moment exemplified the beginning of what would be the beginning of a long lesson into the intricacies of Buddhism I would undergo.
I would gather much later her belief about discovering the truth was directly linked to Buddhism. Buddha once said there are three things that cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and thetruth.
While the truth might be something to be manipulated and fashioned in western society to fit the occasion, in Thailand the truth was either sought or not. If one wished to see the sun or moon, they could look up at the appropriate time of day. If they wanted to see the truth, it would eventually reveal itself.
The next two days were filled with the standard tourist fare. One day we were whisked off on a speedboat to the Ang Thong Marine Park, some distance to the west, where we explored island lakes and kayaked through passages between small rocky outcroppings.
Another day we rented a boat and crew, and went fishing. Each night we would wander the streets of BoPhut, eating and drinking in western style restaurants and bars. On our third night in Fisherman’s village, we dined at a small restaurant with a bamboo façade and thatched roof that overlooked the channel between the two islands. A warm breeze gently drifted across our table as the overhead stars reflected off the glass like water.
The lights from the northern island twinkled from distant shores as its steep mountains appeared like a black hole beyond. Looking across the expanse of water between, it occurred to me the island of Samui had never been the conundrum of this adventure, rather, the island glimmering in the distance was the real mystery.
The very next morning we bought tickets on a ferry servicing the two islands and traveled to nearby Koh PhaNgan for a day trip.
A beautiful setting with glorious jungle laden ridgelines, cascading streams and waterfalls, the island was encircled by crystal clear waters fill with vibrant sea life. During the day trip we stumbled across the small and fairly remote fishing village of Chaloklum, situated on a wide bay.
As we explored the island I became aware of something else about the island I couldn’t put my finger on. It was a feeling of peacefulness that seemed to permeate every pore of my skin. There was a calmness that appeared to waft the air around me.
There was a notion simmering in my psyche that I had found a home that I never knew existed. It was a sensation unlike any I had ever encountered.
The seemingly simple act of traveling across a short sound of water to a fairly undeveloped island and discovering Chaloklum would change my life in ways that I could have never imagined.
Within a week I had bought a commercial building on village’s main street and began the process of establishing a profitable business within it walls.
During the next nine years I would learn many things about Koh PhaNgan and Thailand. Becoming a member of a diverse community of expatriates, hailing from around the globe, I would discover that the true fragility of mankind is not its primitivism but the simple need to be heard and accepted. On
Chaloklum’s narrow streets, surrounded by tall lazy palm trees and with the constant sound of water gently rolling across its beaches, I learned two valuable life lessons that elude many their entire lives, acceptance and forgiveness.
In a country halfway across the globe from my own I realized that culture plays an amazingly large part in how we perceive our surroundings and the events unfolding around us. Residing in Thailand’s vibrant and colorful Buddhist society, I found that our individual opinions, attitudes, and values were like a beach, slowly reshaping to the force of the waves rolling across its sand.
The nature of the sand will always be the same, but the beach will change shape to reflect its surrounding environment. Our beliefs and principles slowly conform to unrelenting force of the proximate culture and the close relationships we chose to develop.
I would come to understand that Buddhism may seem mystical and romantic to many people, eliciting thoughts of a peaceful and forgiving existence, but the practice of the religion outside of its font is an artificial attempt to attain a way of life that is common in Thailand.
I say this because Buddhism is not just a religion in Thailand; it is explicitly interwoven into the culture. Even to the most ardent reclusive expatriates, exposure to Buddhism is unavoidable while living in the country of Thailand. With my girlfriend at my side in a small fishing village situated on a crystal clear bay, my American taught judgments and values slowly warped into the amalgam of east meets west. Raised a Christian, at the end of the experience I found myself thinking more like a Buddhist.
Surrounded by stunningly beautiful beaches and mountains, Koh Phangan is cheap. Housing is inexpensive and food cost a fraction of that in the western hemisphere. One can come to this island and live for months on a paltry sum of money. The nightlife was vigorous and its effects can be lazily slept off the following day.
Music and meditation are as intertwined into the island way of life as Buddhism is into Thailand. This lifestyle draws people to the island and once here they never want to leave.
We live in an amazingly free society amongst the island’s population and I often hear Koh PhaNgan touted as a place to rediscover or transform oneself. The freedom found on the island is extended even further as friends and fellow residents tend to reserve judgment, even in the face of ludicrous acts or behavior well outside of the moral boundaries of the western world.
While there is truth to this claim of rediscovery and transformation, I have found it to be a far more complicated proposition than can be explained in a short sound bite. With that said, rediscover or transformation becomes a personal journey where the island simply provides the perfect venue for some - and not so perfect for others.
When asked about moving to and living on the island I warn people they will undergo an initial test. If one passes the test, or survives the journey, then the island can change you in ways that no other place in the world is capable. However, if you fail the test and fall prey to Koh PhaNgan’s freedom, the island will leave the permanent mark of personal bankruptcy. 
In other words, Koh PhaNgan can be as destructive as transformational. For those that pass the island’s trial, the journey continues and your time on Koh PhaNgan becomes a life altering experience that most of the world’s population could never fathom.
Rediscovering or transforming oneself aside, recently asked why I chose to live on Koh PhaNgan elicited the memory of an experience not too long ago. Sitting on the back patio of The Lost Dog Café in Chaloklum with a friend one evening, watching the water gently roll across the beach, he said,
“The fact that Thailand has never been colonized plays a part in their perception of farangs - no matter if we marry a citizen or create a profitable business, we are mere visitors in this country. No matter how much money we spend or the good we do for Thailand, we will never be anything more. They make living here as difficult as possible. That doesn’t make the Thai’s bad people. I think it’s just a part of their culture.”
“Then why are you here?”
Hesitating for a moment, he replied, “My friends back home used to call me a searcher. They knew I was looking for something different. They knew I wasn’t happy with my surroundings. I was searching for
my place in the world.”
“We’re all visitors in Thailand, but we’re also visitors in our own nations. Each and every expatriate on this island is searching for something other than what our home countries offer.”
Looking at me quizzically, he asked, “Why are you here?”
“The fact that I can’t read the road signs.”
Softly laughingly at my reply, he asked, “What do you mean?
“I enjoy the daily challenge of living someplace that is far removed from where I grew up and understand. I like trying to decipher the Buddhist mind. I take pleasure in the unpredictability of where we live. I truly love not being able to read the road signs and the fact that I’m never sure whether I’m
headed in the right direction.”
What I was trying to explain to my friend on the back deck of The Lost Dog that evening was that each and every expatriate on the island needs to live someplace that is somewhat unpredictable. While most of
the world’s population prefers to live surrounded by the knowledge of what will likely happen next, we don’t. We all understand the chaotic nature of the world and enjoy its unruliness. The expatriate citizens of Koh PhaNgan all had the courage to escape the pleasantries of western society because we find predictability mundane and boring.
This simple fact has placed us in an environment where we are surrounded by a diverse group of people with whom we would have never found ourselves socializing with in our past lives. What links us together is this intangible commonality of seeking out the madness.
The expatriate residents of Koh PhaNgan all share one quality: we are all searchers.
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