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December 21, 2004
Travels
From one city to the next, nobody knows where we'll end up to rest. Can it please be a beautiful deserted beach on some tropical island? The Lonely Planet Guide, with it's golden Buddha eyes staring out the cover, leads and educates while hanging the loud but silent tourist billboards on our backs. Edition number ten, the newest, yet already almost two years old, guides us all in the same directions. It leads the solos, the couples, the graduated friends, the heart broken, the heart breakers, the middle-aged desperates, the shutter happy, the drunken happy, some not so happy while others ridiculously so. The planet doesn't seem so lonely anymore.
I drink freshly cut ginger tea and soak my rice in delicious red curry, trying to beat whatever nasty invader has made my throat hurt so bad. Maybe it's just the blue smoke from the tuk-tuks and diesel trucks that's blown into the faces of every motorbiker in Chiang Mai, myself included. Swallowing is torturous so I try not to. I forget for just a moment and an absent-minded swallow slips in as we walk by the local pharmacy with the words "Free consulting with pharmacist" printed on the window. I go inside and tell her what's wrong. She asks a few questions and hands over two kinds of multicolored pills. Clarinase and Amoxycillin (as trihydrate); are those names supposed to be intimidating? It took under five minutes and I paid less than five dollars for both and have since recovered. America is supposed to be the land of the free, so how come the same result would have cost me absurdly more time and money, not even factoring in the insurance plan I would have had to have just to see a doctor to get a prescription?
A ten hour bus ride from one capital to the next, bouncing and rumbling through the pitch black night. Yellow street lights and the occasional security checkpoint, who could be hiding in the cargo containers? Frighteningly underaged Burmese girls looking in the wrong places to provide for themselves and their families? Muslim terrorists from the south? Drop a million paper swans on their heads, encourage the trash pickup and maybe we'll all be friends one day.
The tuk-tukers and the shady taxi drivers want to be your friend. You can ride with them for a special low price that they only offer to their friend one time. Later on you find out that true friends to them are colored pieces of paper with pictures of the king and the mutually recognized symbols we call numbers on them. Higher is better. They know where to wait, at the steps of the bus, at the toilets as you come out, on the street just before you get to the more reasonable and legitimate meter-taxi's. Quite an effecient system they have worked out, as we're ushered into an air-conditioned red one that'll take us to the legendary Khao San Road. The driver speaks not a word of English, but he knows where we are going. Who needs to guess? It's six in the morning and the sun is still hiding. Traffic never seems to cease in this metropolis as we weave and dodge in the early light. I practice my Thai with the driver and tell him "It's too early, no? I would like to sleep." He laughs and rubs his eyes. "Khao San Road, near or far?" I question. "Near." he says.
Cities in America have areas called Chinatown, Little Italy, and even Thai Town. If Bangkok did the same, Khao San Road would be called Falang Central or Backpackerville. As we step out onto the street there's no question we've made it. Signs for guesthouses and tourist agencies abound and the streets are littered with all-nighters stumbling back to sleep through the heat of the day. The other types out at this absurd hour are those like us, searching for a place to put these heavy bags and my guitar, which I haven't taken out since I left Chiang Rai. A mental slap on my wrist and an urge just to sit on the sidewalk and play rises in me, but we have to find a room. Door to door we go, always getting the same response. "So sorry, we're full!" is the polite way, or a silent wave of the hand sends us on to the next rejection. The strategic searchers have staked out a particular guesthouse, waiting for the inevitable daily check-outs and then the cleaning girls to open a room for them to snatch up. This place is nothing like the North is all I can think. I'm going to reap it for all it's worth and move on. Am I wrong to think this way?
Posted by Tom Bodhi at December 21, 2004 07:32 AM
Comments
BodhiYour words paint pictures of the people in Thailand, particularly the falang crowd in all its variety. You really capture what it feels like to be traveling in Thailand, including being sick, being cheated, and looking for lodging. Traveling with these ups and downs seems to give you a higher perspective, allowing you to stand back a bit, even from your own troubles, to observe the world. As a student of the world, you seek out opportunities for observation as well as real life experience. Are you wrong to think what way? Travelers move on eventually, by definition. We reap what we sow. Perhaps you are reaping some of the history of falang presence in Siam, both its rewards and its detriments. As a bodhisattva, you are here for the benefit of all sentient beings, including yourself! As a conscious lifeform, you make choices that take you on one path or another. May you walk the path of beauty. May you find people with a clue. Thanks for sharing your consciousness with the rest of us. You are my eyes and ears in Thailand. Love,Emma
Posted by: emma at December 24, 2004 12:42 AM
Great little piece! Keep up the good work. I especially liked the imagery and the way you ended.
Posted by: gian at December 30, 2004 11:50 AM
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