[Back to Kansas] [Next] [Previous]

Thailand

I was in Thailand for March of 1996, and I spent time in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, Ko Similan and Ko Samui. Here's what I have to say about the trip.

Thailand: The Trip

The Weather Inside

I was in a funk for much of Thailand, but that has nothing to do with Thailand. I had crossed the border into some lower region of my mind. Maybe it was the heat, or road-weariness, or the Buddhist literature I was reading, which caused me to lay awake at night asking questions that have no answers. The contacts I had hoped to make fell through, and my brief interactions with other travelers didn't have any depth. Thailand was easier traveling compared to what I'd been through, but it didn't feel easier. I sat on a beautiful white-sand beach watching the sun set, watching the waves roll, something I usually enjoy, but now I was just restless and bored. Hmm, what's making that high, whiny noise? Oh, it's me. Sorry. I'll stop. A bad day at the beach still beats a good day in the office.

Language

In Nepal, I met a man and his daughter who had just come from Thailand. The man complained that no one in Thailand understands English. He said, "What kind of taxi driver doesn't understand airport?" I thought he was being close-minded, but what he said was true. Unless you have a guide, your chances of getting around Thailand speaking only English are just slightly better than your chances of getting around the US speaking only Thai. He said no one could understand his attempts at Thai either. "I wanted to go to Lam Poon. L-A-M-P-O-O-N. What else could that be but Lam Poon?"

First of all, Thai doesn't use the Roman alphabet, so L-A-M-P-O-O-N is someone's guess at how the word would sound to an English speaker. I also saw Lam Phun and Lum Poon. Second, the official system for Roman transliteration is misleading (ph and th are not pronounced as in English, for example). Third, it doesn't cover all the sounds in the Thai language. Fourth, it isn't always adhered to. Fifth, it doesn't indicate rhythm or tone. Thai has five tones (high, medium, low, rising, and falling) that can change the meaning of a word. So for Lam Poon, which has two syllables, there are 25 possible pronunciations.

Thanks to the Bangkok Youth Hostel, the first Thai word I had to pronounce was Phitsanulok. This is the name of the street in front of the hostel. Phit-san-u-lok: four syllables, 625 possible pronunciations. "Fits on you lock" drew puzzled expressions. The actual pronunciation is more like "pizza new look". It didn't help that I appear to be a Thai, a tall one anyway. But what came out of my mouth wasn't Thai, and that threw people off. I got a lot of weird looks, but nobody Lam Pooned me, ha ha. I felt deaf, dumb, and illiterate. It wasn't until I got out of Bangkok that people were more helpful.

I wanted to find a computer, because I hadn't been able to write anything that I was happy with by hand. I found one the first day, at the National Library, lots of them, in a spacious, well-lit, air-conditioned, quiet room full of terminals. A perfect place for writing. Then, on closer inspection, I saw that every last one of those terminals and keyboards displayed Thai.

Getting Around Town

My language inhibitions forced me to use the bus in Bangkok, but that's the best way to get around anyway. The city thoughtfully prints transliterated names on all street signs, and all buses are marked with Arabic numerals, so with a good bus map you can explore the whole city. You don't even need correct change. Just hop on a bus, and an attendant with a coin box comes around to take your money.

Don't expect to get anywhere on time in Bangkok. Traffic comes to a halt for no reason even during off-peak hours. I didn't experience any of the 8-hour nightmares I'd heard rumors of, but I had a 20-minute ride that took over an hour. Sensible people got off the bus and walked.

In Chiang Mai, the best way to get around is by songthaew. A songthaew is a small pickup truck with two long benches in back, and a roof but no tailgate. It can hold about ten people, or more if they get friendly. The drivers follow specific routes, but will go anywhere for the right price. To ride one, you flag it down (in slow times, they flag you down, too), tell the driver your destination, and if he nods, you hop in the back. When you want the driver to stop, you push a button on the ceiling, and when he pulls over you run around to the front and pay 5 baht. Notice that this system requires you to talk and be understood by the driver. Because of my experiences in Bangkok, I wasn't feeling up to the task, so I tried everything else first. I walked. I rode a bicycle. I rode the bus, which had worked so well for me in Bangkok, but in Chiang Mai there must be a bus shortage, because they don't send them around very often. Whereas a couple of songthaews go by every minute. Finally, after four days, I gave in and tried a songthaew. And I had no problems at all.

Getting Out of Town

The Thai train system is modern, clean, and inexpensive. For less than US$20, you can spend a whole air-conditioned day rolling past the countryside, and that includes a couple of snacks and a tiny, hermetically sealed meal. It's a good way to travel as long as you don't do what I did. I bought a ticket for the overnight train from Bangkok to Surat Thani. The ticket clearly stated the departure time of 9:55 pm. But when I got to the station, the big board showed the train for Surat Thani to be leaving at 10:35 pm. So I figured they changed the time on me. I must have gotten up on the bone-headed side of bed that day, but I said, why would there be two trains of the same class going to the same place 40 minutes apart? So I got on the wrong train.

I discovered my mistake after the first couple of stops, when the person who had paid for my seat showed up. My own seat was 40 minutes ahead of me, empty. This train was full, so I had to sit in the hallway behind the engineers on a pile of blankets with the cleaning man. When I thought things couldn't get any worse, they started handing out the blankets to the passengers who were on the right train, and I ended up sitting on my luggage. The stewardesses kept bringing me soft drinks and snacks; they felt sorry for me, I think because the train that I missed was actually a little nicer and a little more expensive than the train I got on. Finally, after midnight, a seat opened up and I went the rest of the way as a passenger instead of as freight.

An air-conditioned bus ticket costs roughly twice the price of a regular one. When it's hot and humid, which is always, it's worth the extra money. Trust me. You will get to suffer enough in your life without riding a regular bus in Thailand. The regular buses are equipped with rotating ceiling fans, but that's not nearly enough to combat the combined body heat and solar heat of a full bus. Air-conditioned buses are plusher and roomier, and while all buses have video screens, they only seem to work on air-conditioned buses. (Luckily for me, they pick movies that you can follow without understanding any of the dialogue.)

My most grueling trip was a 3-hour ferry ride followed by a 12-hour, overnight bus ride. It actually started when I checked out of my bungalow on Ko Samui. I knew it would be a long time before my next shower, so I was trying not to sweat, but I had a couple of hours to kill before the ferry arrived. The coolest place on the island is the post office. But before I could figure out how to pass the time there (you can lick stamps for only so long), the power went out. So I left to go wait on the dock with the rest of humanity.

The ferry seats filled up quickly, so by the time I boarded, people were already hanging off the railings, and the only space left was up on the roof, a broiler pan for humans. So much for not sweating. When we reached the mainland, everybody was herded into buses. On my bus, a so-called VIP bus, we were blasted with cold air, but they were kind enough to provide blankets as well. I went to sleep listening to the stereo playing Hotel California (...we are all just prisoners here, of our own device). I woke up in Bangkok with my legs stuck together and one eye swollen shut. I must have rubbed in some of the goo I was using on my bites. So, half-blind at five in the morning, I made my way to the youth hostel, where I woke up the clerk and checked myself in for recovery.

Modesty

Although Thailand is more westernized than the other Asian countries I've been to, I felt like I was showing too much. I was curious to see whether Thai women shave their underarms, but when I examined the crowd standing on a bus during rush hour, normally an ideal setting for such a survey, I couldn't find one sleeveless garment, female or male. Thais keep cool by wearing loose, light-colored clothes, never tucking in the shirt.

If you want to see skin, lots of it, go to Khao San Road in Bangkok, which is chock full of young foreign tourists. Thai school children come here to learn anatomy. I just made that up, but you get the picture.

I saw Thai people swimming and snorkeling fully clothed. Meanwhile, on the beach lots of tourists wore next to nothing. I don't imagine many swimsuits get sold in Thailand.

Hill Tribes

A number of villages in northern and central Thailand are home to hill tribes, people who have evolved in isolation from the rest of Thailand and whose language, customs, culture, and dress are quite distinct. The Karen and the Hmong are two of the better known hill tribes. Hill-tribe crafts and textiles are big sellers in Chiang Mai. In recent years, an industry in leading treks to these villages has sprung up, bringing economic and cultural changes that some fear will ruin them. But the tribes are interesting, and many tourists make the treks. I decided not to. It was blazing hot in the jungle, in some places literally. Also, if I couldn't communicate in Thai, I wasn't going to fare any better in a hill-tribe language. So I would be going to look, and to remark on how unusual and different the people were. And they would look at me and say the same thing. It didn't seem worth the time and money. Instead, I went to the Tribal Research Institute at Chiang Mai University and browsed their informative museum. Then I went to the Hill Tribe Crafts Foundation and bought some of their work.

Thailand: The Trip

[Top of Page]

Bangkok

Guard dog at Wat Phra Tat Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai
Bangkok is invariably described as steamy. Even without the sexual connotations, the term is accurate; I can also add sweaty, sticky, sweltering, sultry, and simmering. It's always that way, but in March at least it's not raining (soaking, sopping, and sloppy). I was constantly on a quest for air conditioning.

I arrived in Bangkok at night. I had read in a couple of places that there was a train from the airport into the city, and that it was cheap and easy to use. So I hurried out of the airport with my bags, hoping to catch the last train. The station was crowded with late evening commuters; none of them appeared to have come from the airport. None of them seemed very approachable, either. Bangkok already felt big-city to me, so though I needed help, I didn't want to look helpless. I already looked disheveled and distraught, and I was wearing far too many clothes. I looked for signs in English and didn't find any. I finally found a clerk who knew enough English to tell me that the train to Bangkok would arrive in seven minutes on track 4. But I couldn't understand how to buy a ticket. I watched the train arrive. I thought about getting on. I had visions of being tossed with my bags from the moving train. I watched the train depart. I returned defeated to the airport, where a couple of sympathetic American businessmen let me share their taxi.

Zipping down the expressway, I could almost believe I was in the US. Modern skyscrapers towered around us, lit by enormous neon signs, none of which I could read. As we entered the city proper, we passed a 7-Eleven. I heard myself sigh. When was the last time you sighed at the sight of a 7-Eleven? Have you ever? That was how long I'd been gone.

Altar at Wat Buppharam, Chiang Mai
The Thai name for Bangkok is Krung Thep, city of angels, but it looks more like New York than Los Angeles. The city doesn't sleep; it only slows down a bit during the pre-dawn hours. There's lots of traffic, street vendors, and pedestrians who look like they have important places to be. There's a river and a decaying system of canals (mosquito farms). The modern and the ancient coexist, more or less gracefully. I'd like to tell you more about Bangkok, but I spent most of my time there in front of a computer, writing about India and Nepal. The computer was located in the lobby of a guesthouse, where the only memorable sights are a big-screen TV and a sign that says, "Don't Take Thai Woman (or Man) into Room."

I spent a lot of time in Khao San Road, a single long block that is home to dozens of budget hotels, travel agents, foreign exchange bureaus, and souvenir shops. On any given day, it's crowded with travelers of all kinds, mostly young Europeans sporting deep tans and hefty backpacks. You can't say you've been to Bangkok if this is all you ever see, but it's a good place to relax and people-watch.

Chiang Mai

Viharn (assembly hall) at Wat Chiang Man, Chiang Mai
Liz, a Peace Corps volunteer who left Thailand just before I arrived, sent me a great letter telling me all the things there are to do in Chiang Mai. You can take a class in Thai language, cooking, massage, kick-boxing, or Buddhism. You can volunteer at a hospice or teach English in a hill tribe village. Unfortunately, they all require at least several weeks commitment, and I had only a week. I could have possibly squeezed in a cooking class, if I were more organized. But, as I've said already, I couldn't take the heat, so I stayed out of the kitchen.

Instead, I went wat-hopping. A wat is a Buddhist monastery, usually a large walled complex containing many buildings. Their temples and meditation halls contain some of the most beautiful decorative art in Thailand. You see lots of carved and gilded ornamentation around windows and along rooflines, needle-sharp spires pointing skyward, glittering mirrorwork, glazed ceramics, and gold, gold, gold. They take the more-is-better approach to their altars; most have at least a half dozen Buddhas in different sizes, postures, and styles. Besides this feast for the eyes, any wat also offers a peaceful place to slow down and relax.

By social convention, virtually all Thai men serve as monks at some point, providing a pool of labor to keep up the hundreds of wats. Shaved-headed, orange-robed monks are a common sight anywhere in the country--riding on buses, shopping in the market, walking down the street. At dawn, they make their rounds in the community, receiving alms from the devout in a polished wood bowl with a brass rim that each monk carries.

Religious practices vary from sect to sect. Although some men stay for just a few months, I was told that a year was the minimum needed for a son to ensure one of his parents a place in the afterlife, a place that sounded oddly like Heaven. In one wat, monks could not eat anything until after 8 pm. In another, women were not allowed inside the temple.

Statue at Wat Suen Fang, Chiang Mai
The advantage of visiting wats in Chiang Mai over Bangkok is that Chiang Mai has roughly the same number of wats in a city of just over a hundred thousand. It seems like there's a wat in every block. I visited ten wats in a single day by bicycle. I was pretty sick of wats afterward, but at least I wasn't spent from traveling between them.

I took a guided tour of Doi Inthanon National Park, not far from Chiang Mai. Doi Inthanon is the highest mountain in Thailand, just over 2500m. It's also the only place with tolerable weather in March; I wanted to stay up there, but I had to go with the group. We hiked to a couple of waterfalls and walked a nature trail. The park is big and well kept, and it provides a home for a number of hill tribes.

Chatting with the tour guide I found out, among other things, that the incidence of AIDS is now higher in the north than in Bangkok, presumably because prostitutes here are not as savvy about condoms as their urban counterparts. He also said that English is now being taught in high school, so if I come back in a few years, I won't have to struggle so much. His English was quite good, but he was having trouble pronouncing "exhibition"; he was following the rules, which always gets you into trouble in English.

Mae Hong Son

Why did I go to Mae Hong Son? I asked that question myself. Mae Hong Son is a village near the Burmese border, seven hours from Chiang Mai by bus. It's small, pretty, and quiet, even though the main industry is smuggling. I had this continuing delusion that if I went farther north, it would get cooler. As it was, I only got farther away from air conditioning. I spent one full day in Mae Hong Son, and in the middle of that day all I could do was lay on my bed in front of the fan blowing air over me like a hair dryer. Later, it cooled off enough for me to climb up to the wat on top of Doi Kong Mu, where I got more of that contemplative wat energy, as well as views of Burma.

Similan Islands

Andaman Sea, near Similan Islands
The one recommendation of Liz's that I was able to act on was to go scuba diving in the Similan Islands. These are nine islands 60 km off the west coast of Thailand, far enough away that they have remained relatively unspoiled. (They are a national park, but that alone does not protect them from development.) To get there, I first took a train to get down to the skinny part of Thailand, then a bus to Khao Lak, a sleepy resort village about an hour outside of Phuket. From there I got on a dive boat (a boat equipped for scuba diving, not a boat that's a dive) that took me and six other divers to the islands. The boat's crew was Thai, but the dive masters were both British, and the other divers included a German couple, a Swedish couple, a British woman, and a Canadian man, so I got to speak a lot more English than I had in some time, as well as some German. My German was completely rusted out; my English was serviceable but needed a tune-up.

The underwater terrain around the islands varies from shallow reefs to steep walls to vast canyons lined with giant boulders. The scenery matches the jungle above in the density and variety of life. The water is crowded with coral in scary-looking, cancerous lumps growing to great heights; lacy, giant sea fans waving in the underwater breeze; fish of all shapes, colors, and sizes; the occasional ray fluttering away at high speed.

We had a close encounter with a shark, a two-meter leopard shark. We were following it when, for no apparent reason, it came back toward us and glided past maybe four feet from where I was hovering, trying not to look like lunch. That got my adrenalin pumping. If you're going to get that close to a shark, this is the one you want; it has no teeth.

In between dives, we snorkeled in the clear blue water or explored the islands. We ate wonderful Thai dishes of fresh seafood and tropical fruit. A storm that passed to the north left behind some stunning sunsets and sunrises. At night, the only lights were stars, plus a few squid boats strung with lights like used-car lots. Although I was running out of usable skin due to bites, cuts, and sunburn, it seemed a small price to pay for paradise.

Ko Samui

Reclining Buddha through window, Wat Phra Singh, Chiang Mai
I thought about going to Phuket, which is touristy and busy. I thought about going to Ko Pha Ngan, which is quiet and laid back. I ended up on Ko Samui, which is touristy and laid back.

Ko Samui is an island in Gulf of Thailand, three hours from the east coast by ferry. It's not big; you can drive the perimeter road in a couple of hours, passing beach after beach. I was warned by a German couple in Khao Lak that Chaweng Beach, the most developed one, was overrun with touts hassling you to buy things. So I opted for Mae Nam Beach, a quieter place, but too quiet. I had been relaxing for a while by then; I needed stimulation. So instead of laying on the beach all day, I decided to explore the island.

The German couple had said that the way to get around was by motor scooter, and they were right; there were far more scooters than any other kind of vehicle. So I rented one. I filled out the forms, got a helmet and a key, and strolled over to the motor scooter. Then I realized that I had no idea how to ride one. After I had been staring at it for a couple of minutes, waiting for a little scooter voice to come on and give me a clue, the man came over and showed me.

I rode all the way around the island, completely tensed up, afraid to turn or stop or do anything different that might cause the scooter to react in some way I couldn't handle, afraid to change my basic position even though the tops of my legs were getting sunburned. It wasn't until I had successfully negotiated the dirt road back to my bungalow that I finally breathed.

After that first ride, I was confident enough to continue with my mission of exploring the island. I rode over to the so-called Temple of the Big Buddha, a wat featuring a 30-foot Buddha out on a little island, looking like a happy though somewhat rigid sun worshipper. Way too many tourists were walking around in shorts and sleeveless shirts, which are both temple taboos. But a wat was probably the last thing they expected to find out here, so they weren't prepared.

I was feeling pretty good on the scooter by now, so of course I dumped it. I took a spill turning on some gravel. Luckily I was just starting out, so I was more embarrassed than hurt. I washed out my wounds and taped Kleenex on them. Then I ended my riding career and spent the rest of the day laying on the beach.

In Ko Samui I got the news that my father was in the hospital again, and it sounded bad, so within a week I was back in California. That was just two days before I would have left Thailand anyway, so I declared myself done for this time around.

[Back to Kansas] [Next] [Previous] [Top of Page]
© 1997 Amy Mar. All rights reserved.