Thailand

Okay, I lied. Sydney will be in the next blog... or maybe the next one after.

Thailand wasn't what I thought it would be in many ways. I've just finished e-mailing a friend of mine about how glad I am to be back in Singapore, to put it in polite terms.

We went with a tour group consisting of 22 people in total. And everywhere we went, we were joined by hundreds of other tourists at every single place. Business locals heckled us everywhere. Shopping was an exhausting chore because we were constantly being told what to buy and at what price to buy. Motorbike-taxi drivers would get in our faces and ask us where we'd like to go and saying 'no' twice is not enough to turn them down. I sat with a Dutch guy at a breakfast buffet by accident one morning and what would be an awkward time turned into a heated discussion about how much we hated going out into the streets.

Though Bangkok is internationally known as a beautiful city, I'm going to beg to differ. It might have been 20 or 30 years ago. But now, pollution has blanketed this city layer upon layer, crept into the water systems, and has even made the simple activity of walking on the sidewalk a miserable experience. Even the rain, which sprays like a mist and hardly falls as full and large droplets, feels unnatural on the skin. Every single day, I go back to the hotel stinking like a wet dog. Naturally, I didn't take many photos because of the constant daily rain and I'd like my PowerShot to last longer than a few months. In order to walk anywhere, you must brave the sewage and human-waste smells that drift in and about, depending on where the wind decides to lay that ungodly mayhem of a sensory assault upon. And whereas hawker food from other SE Asian countries such as Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia are safe to eat, I wouldn't recommend eating anything cooked outside in Thailand. For one thing, I'm not sure how dishes get washed, seeing as how water is not safe to drink from the tap in the first place. I'm also not quite sure where and what their water source is. For another, I'm sure it's just not worth the gastric pains and diarrhea you will most likely have the next morning.

Bangkok is a dark, dreary, and run-down city. A lack of proper sanitation is among one of the worst problems that infect Thailand. Buddhism is another, and it is what is sucking the life out of this country. There is a stubbornness among the locals here that has made Thailand almost impenetrable to Christianity. Poverty is another. Corruption. The list goes on and on. What was once a beautiful and noble land with beautiful people is now a sitting lame-duck of a country with a government unable to upgrade much of anything; its people reduced to making most of its money from tourists, not from any natural resources or economic power it holds, if any; and its children and women being forced into prostitution by poverty and/or pimps has made Thailand world-famous for its sex industry, even gladly letting foreigners come in and cause further sexual degradation. In other words, it is being raped in every aspect and that is a sad thing to see.

There are glimpses and remains of Thailand's former glory and beauty. It has a beautiful culture. When one tries to be any other than what he or she was designed to be, they turn out deformed and immature inside, and ultimately, outside. It looks and feels unnatural. When Thai people do what they do best and don't be anyone else for anybody else, especially tourists, that's when they shine. Seeing boys play a game of soccer, a woman playing an Oriental stringed instrument for her own enjoyment and perhaps her neighbors' as well, a content hawker (inside a clean building) cooking up delicious dishes for his customers... these are rare sights but they are the most natural things for Thais. Their handicrafts are amazing and beautiful pieces of works. But as the baht, of which 33 baht is equivalent to one Canadian dollar, keeps devaluing, so does its land and the standard of living for its people. It is hard for Thailand to compete in the world economic scene.

Thailand is famous for its tigers and elephants. But its tiger zoo is just... lame. I've never seen such miserable animals before in such miserable conditions. One display had two golden retrievers stuck in a 2-metre diameter circular cage with a full-grown tiger and one fly-infested one-tonne pig. And to put the final stake on the coffin, a bold sign stated "One Happy Family". Absolutely the lamest thing I've seen. The elephant zoo was a different story. The keepers cared for their animals, kept them clean, and made sure they weren't dehydrated. The elephant shows were a blast to watch too.

We went to Pattaya, a beach town, for two days. It's mostly a tourist town; ergo, food and things are more expensive here. I went parasailing and jetskiing off a coral island (extremely commercialized and way too many tourists) twenty minutes by speedboat from town. Never having jetskiied before, it was such an awesome thrill that I went twice. There are diving opportunities as well, but I didn't go because I already went scuba diving in Fiji. As a suggestion for people, don't book lengthy scuba diving tours in Thailand's towns. They overcharge by ridiculous amounts. For example, what would cost only US$700 from, say, Canada costs US$2000 in Pattaya; there is no difference in the quality of the tour. This coral island has beautiful white soft sand and clear blue water to go along with it. The fragile coral reef, however, is in such bad shape; all I could see was dead white reef on the glassbottom-boat tour, no doubt as a result of uninformed or insensitive tourists stepping on them.

Anyway, take a look at the pics and enjoy.

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