Email from Thailand

Solo backpacking , 15th June - 29th June & 31st July - 10th August, 2006

It's not every week you get to cuddle a tiger, ride an elephant and bike and raft through the jungle! ... On my first couple of days here I saw the Grand Palace, a massive golden reclining Buddha and a huge weekend market just on the city outskirts (which aside from a puppy and kitten section, has a big 'bra section' in which I got distressingly lost). It's the rainy season and it's hotter than a goat's behind in a pepper patch - apparently the world's hottest big city, but a different kind of hot to Hong Kong. The summer in Honkers is more of a I-want-to-eat-my-own-legs-and-die kind of humid - whilst here you actually get some respite in the shade and develop a protective film of sweat all day. It ain't pleasant in the off-season here but I've little choice.
Humongous reclining Buddha photo: http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/6096/recliningbuddhawat22rj.jpg more attached! =o)

Anyways, I arrived in Thailand from HK a fortnight ago and am off to Cambodia tomorrow. Khao San Road is Bangkok's tourist slum - and a ghetto it sure is. Every shop, stall, neon sign, hawker, beggar, tuk-tuk driver and tout is battling for business from the budget backpacker on every corner. The infamous road itself is populated with copious caricatures - the main stereotypes being dozens of the notorious 'ladyboys' (or "fifty-fifties" as one strip-club tout tried to entice me with), several crusty old hippies who've probably not seen a razor or bath in years, lots of equally dirty sex-tourist types (mainly old European men arm-in-arm with 20-something Thai girls), loads of middle-class English gap-year girls with dreads/braids, and then there's the normal people like yours truly. I'm travelling alone, but it's not been as social as other trips as I keep meeting boring couples, folks-leaving-tomorrow or downright weirdoes - it's been better outside of the capital though, where I've met some cool Canuks! Walking around the Khao San area, you always get the feeling you'll bump into someone you know - and it's happened no less than 4 times - really bizarre.

Pat Pong is a similarly infamous part of the city where the strip clubs and 'ping-pong ball' shows go on - it's also got a cool night market now though. Remembering something I read about women in the sex industry here, I didn't go to one of the shows - plus, they get a lot worse than small balls - we're talking cigars, razor blades and vegetables - work it out for yourself, I'll say no more!

The entire country is currently kitted out in yellow, with flags and royal flags fluttering from every post, aerial and rooftop. It's the king's 60 th year on the throne and boy, do the Thais love the king! I just finished reading a Culture Shock book - the king doesn't interfere much, but he's respected by all - when the country plunged into political turmoil earlier this year and people started kicking off in the streets, he suddenly piped up and told everyone to "pack it in" - and it didn't half work too! Reading the book also made me cringe over all the social faux pas I've been committing - nothing too major, but there are rules for everything from greeting people to where you sit in the cinema, depending on your status. And like in India, status is everything - hence the grilling visitors get on their income, age, relationships etc... The worse possible taboo you could commit is touching someone on the head, and I reeled when I read it since someone I was hanging about with did just that during karaoke the night before. Thais are incredibly gentle and hate violence - it takes a lot to make someone angry, but when they do get irate - they go nuts.
Grand Palace photos: http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/8041/grandpalace16qc.jpg and http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/681/grandpalace25ih.jpg and http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/3499/grandpalace32cz.jpg and http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/8119/grandpalace48ch.jpg

My first stop was Ayuthaya - the old capital -and home to hundreds of Buddhist 'Wat' temples. I hired a motorbike with a French girl I met on the train and did the main ones along with the obligatory museum. There are only so many ruins you can marvel at, although they were pretty after the rain stopped - the dampness gave them a warmer look. All very photogenic, but after two days I'd already spent far too long there. I took the night train to Chiang Mai - the 2 nd class air-con sleeper bed was great and there was even a disco carriage, complete with flashing lights and bar! Sadly, some Brits were around so no-one got much sleep - they were real idiots in fact...
Ayunthaya elephants photo: http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/5190/elephants9sg.jpg one of the wats: http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/1819/wat20pe.jpg and kid at one of the wats: http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/5447/kidatwat9du.jpg

Anywho, cooler and more relaxed, Chaing Mai in the North was great and I did an elephant ride, some white-water rafting and jungle mountain biking all in a day. The elephant ride was at a sanctuary - previously in Thailand the animals were used as war tanks, but now they have little use. It's not the most efficient of travel methods, but it certainly farted enough which probably propelled it along a bit faster.

"Jungle" and "mountain biking" do not belong in the same sentence, let alone should they be attempted together - it wasn't fun, why anyone would want to inflict such a lurid physical endeavour voluntarily on themselves for an hour is beyond me. The grade-4 rafting made up for it - the rapids weren't as scarily huge as in other countries, but it was fantastic and the scenery was out-of-this-world. The training included an emergency "we're gonna die" manoeuvre and it actually came in handy once. Our raft got very awkwardly stuck side-on whilst in a rapid - these things never sink but as it slowly went below the water, so did we. The raft became a Jacuzzi as we stood in two foot of water - it took 15 minutes to tow us out without any of us being washed away and left to the mercy of the rocks. Great stuff and all, but unfortunately, my knees and hands got horribly sunburnt - I may return in August, after Laos, to do a jungle bungee jump!
Jungle biking - knackered: http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/5306/junglemountainbikingnoneed3to.jpg

Despite saving enough to travel relatively luxuriously, I couldn't suppress the travel-masochist urge to go economy class on the train back to Bangkok and book a reclining seat with no air-con. I happily stay in non air-con hostel rooms and dream of the money I instead spend on overpriced Western food (since I'm so squeamish and all), but the train seat was awful - totally sleepless and I'm embarrassed about how little I saved. I spent another night in the capital - which, when given its full Thai name, is the longest place name on the planet - Krungthep Maha Nakorn, Amarn Rattanakosindra, Mahindrayudhya, Mahadilokpop Noparatana Rajdhani Mahasathan, Amorn Piman Avatarn Satit, Sakkatultiya Vishnukarn Prasit. Fact!
On a train: http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/6391/ilovetrains9cv.jpg

I got another train to Kanchanburi and yesterday booked transport for the 'Tiger Temple ' - a sanctuary for orphaned and injured tigers, run by monks - and was told not to wear any yellow and red. Not especially wanting to piss off a tiger, I went to inspect the 4 shirts I'd packed only to find a yellow t-shirt, a stripy red number, a shirt with yellow stripes and a red and yellow top which would be sure to guarantee me losing a limb or two. I then considered going topless, but my milky white chest, which has never seen the sun, would probably provoke the big cats even more.

I ended up missing the taxi I'd pre-booked but managed to bus and hitch-hike there. It was an odd experience, the Discovery Channel had always said how you can never tame a tiger and supposedly domesticated ones have been known to attack the keeper they'd grown up with. In return for entrance fee and donations you can stroke one of the felines and get your photo taken. One of the cats seemed pretty cranky and the roaring was pretty loud and scary. Thankfully I'd been given a white shirt to wear and spent an hour watching and sitting with them - they were gorgeous.
One of the magnificent tigers: http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/4950/snewpussycat6gh.jpg

Kanchanburi's biggest tourist puller is a bridge over the River Kwai, which you may remember from such films as 'Bridge Over the River Kwai'. I'd missed my taxi to the temple as I'd earlier been visiting Hellfire Pass - this and the bridge were infamous parts of the Burma-Thailand railway or 'Death Railway'. Built during WWII by Japanese PoWs who were kept in dozens of concentration camps along the track - 100,000 died including thousands of British, the Japanese were unbelievably harsh. I went to both museums, read everything - it's rare when a bunch of information boards can bring a tear to the eye. I don't remember learning about it at school - gruesome conditions, torture, murder, disease and starvation - it made me reassess my politics just as I'd sorted them out. How would the Ghandi approach work with genocide? I'm adamantly anti-war and reacted badly to a friend of mine saying, last month, how Hiroshima was necessary to force Japan to stop. Now I've suddenly begun to sympathise with that - though I've still some thinking to do. And this is nothing compared to the recent horrors in Cambodia which I'm about to learn about. One question still left standing is a paragraph I read at the end of the tour about how Japan still commemorates the 1000 soldiers and officers who died on the railway project annually - how is this any different from Germany remembered a bunch of Nazis who worked at a labour camp?! Answers on a postcard p-lease.
Bridge photo: http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/1147/bridgeovertheriverkwai10ux.jpg, a cemetery maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves commission http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/7692/thailandburmarailwaycemetary1v.jpg and Hellfire Pass: http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/5733/thenotorioushellfirepass6za.jpg which was cut through using pickaxes.

I got the bus back to Bangkok again today - a big thing is made of adorning the insides of the vehicles with Buddhist offerings to protect all who ride within. Personally, I'd rather trust technology, physics and a sane driver rather than garlands, pendants and mini-Buddhas. To be fair, the roads aren't too bad here - nothing is too extreme really. In a way, I'm a little disappointed - I've not seen any islands or the coast yet but otherwise the country is how I expected it, as are its tourists. I don't understand why folks rave about Thailand and return every year, travelling is lovely and easy here and the people are great but I'm probably not one for full-moon-parties, red-light districts and beaches. I'm jumping with excitement for Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam - will keep the Grundyspam down to one per country! Any tips, send them in!

Tom x

---

---