Miracle-vision on Koh Yao Noi

Just over a month ago, there was a miracle on Koh Yao Noi, an island one hour east of Phuket in Thailand’s Phang-Nga Bay. As the story goes, a blind man from the mainland visited Koh Yao Noi, bathed in a freshwater spring on one of the tidal flats and suddenly found his vision restored. Word has spread, and now the daily ferries to Koh Yao (which has never been much of a tourist destination) are full of hopeful Thai seekers looking to get a piece the of the miracle. A couple weeks ago, I was one of those seekers.

Actually, I didn’t go to Koh Yao Noi to get healed, but to research an unrelated magazine story. I did, however, manage to learn a lesson about vision — not from the tidal-flat spring (though I did bathe there), but from the Thai Muslim fishermen who live on the island. Indeed, when I went out fishing with these folks, I was amazed by their ability to spot wildlife in the islands of the bay. Where I saw tangled jungle and rocky shoreline, the fishermen saw gibbons, hornbills, sea eagles, fruit bats, and the telltale tracks of monitor lizards. I was raised by a biologist — and I’ve been living near the Thai rainforest off and on for the last couple years — but it still took me upwards of ten minutes to spot what the fishermen could see in an instant.

The subject of vision has been in the news of late, primarily in a well-circulated story about how video games have been found to improve one’s visual skills. Perhaps there is some validity to this, but I think that true vision is simply a matter of what you condition yourself to see. For an American suburban kid, it’s a video game bad-guy jumping out from nowhere; for a Thai Muslim fisherman, it’s the intricate details of the natural world upon which your survival depends. I’d like to think, of course, that — after years of travel — my vision is closer to that of the fisherman, but I’d reckon my eyes still have a suburban American tint. After all, I may see the jungle every day outside my window, but my survival still depends on ATMs and market stalls.

Nevertheless, I have resolved to keep exercising my eyeballs as I travel — to look for patterns in the wilderness as well as the city. After all, the true miracle of vision is often the simple ability to spot what’s right in front of your eyes.