Please Stand to Pay Your Respects to the King

---

I keep looking for Elvis when I see/hear that phrase...but apparently there's a different concept of royalty here in Thailand. In any case...Sawadee Krup (hello) and welcome to Thailand!

As I've mentioned several times, from time to time while traveling I need a few days here and there to do non-travelish things. This week I figured I needed a good dose of quality American cinema...so I went to go see Die Hard 4. Yeah, it's classic. Everything blows up and Bruce Willis should have died about 100 times...just like the first 3 parts of this series. But you're not here to read about Die Hard...I only mention it because after the previews I noticed everyone around me began to stand up. Not knowing what was going on, I figured I should stand up too. The screen then said "Please Stand to Pay Your Respects to the King" and was then followed by a 2 minute video showing various landscapes of Thailand with different pictures of the King raining down throughout each scene while the national anthem played. A nice touch, I suppose...and it made me wonder what the reaction would be in the States these days if everyone was told "Please Stand to Honor President Bush." How much popcorn and Dr. Pepper would end up on the screen? (I suppose 68% of the people would toss their popcorn while the other 32% stood...eh?)

But enough about politics. I want to talk more about why Thailand rules.
1) Only country in the region to have never been colonized.
2) Pad Thai for 20Baht ($1US = 33B)
3) Fresh fruit for 10-20Baht
4) Fresh fruit shakes for 20-40Baht
5) Thai massage (hour) for 150B (yeah...an hour massage for $4.50)
6) Beaches
7) Beaches with #2-5
8) Tuk-tuks
9) Buddhas...emerald, reclining, crystal, big, small, gold, silver, standing, sitting, stone, old, new, fasting...you name it. There are Wats and Buddhas everywhere one looks.
10) All the cheap & yummy food not previously mentioned.

I'm often (always) hungry. I'm often (always) cheap. Thus...I love Thailand so far.

However, as seems to often be the case in my writing, I've gotten ahead of myself. Let's take it back a couple weeks to my arrival to The Land of Smiles.

Did I mention that Australia is big already? Well...it's big...and takes a long time to go from Brisbane to Melbourne to Bangkok. During the final 30 minutes of my 9hr flight from Melbourne I could see the lights of Thailand below. It all of a sudden it started to hit me that perhaps I've gotten a tad too nonchalant about my travel attitude. I was about to arrive in the evening in a foreign country that doesn't even use the same alphabet (let alone the same language) without accommodation arranged and no guidebook to guide me. My plan was basically this...get my bag, get a taxi and say "Take me to Baan Sabai". (Baan Sabai being a guesthouse/hotel that someone in my dorm recommended to me the night before I left Aussie).

Due to the fact that I was busy right up to the point of leaving Australia, I really didn't plan anything. The good news is that Thailand is indeed really an easy place in which to travel and - despite the taxi driver not knowing where this hotel was - I managed to get it all sorted out with minimal problems. I ended up getting dropped off in the main tourist area of Bangkok...Banglamphu. There's a street there called "Khao San Road" and is basically a low level version of backpacker hell (or heaven depending on your tastes)...especially at night. Thumping discos, vendors selling all kinds of cheap crap, street bars with signs assuring us that at their bar you can get "Very Strong Drink", tuk-tuk drivers hassling everyone to hop into their rides, and 24 hr tourist booking agencies (just in case one wanted to book that trip to Cambodia at 4am after being at the disco).

Side note: If you're ever in Bangkok and wanting to go to Cambodia...do NOT take the tourist bus from Khao San Road. I don't know from experience...but I hear it stinks.

So the reason I say that area is backpacker hell is that I'm not exactly looking to come to Thailand and simply hang out on the tourist street surrounded by 90% travelers and the other elements listed above. There's a time and place for easing up on the true "traveling" activities, but Khao San isn't that place. It's a spectacle to see...and then to leave behind.

A humorous note about the area...there are many restaurants that show movies on TVs scattered around the dining area. After dumping my bag at my hotel I went out for a look around town. The place next door was showing "Transformers"...which I think had only hit the theaters the previous week. It was clearly filmed in a theater with a camcorder & continually bounced around and went in and out of focus. I gave up after a couple minutes and continued on with my exploration for a bit before heading to bed.

Please Stand and Pay Your Respects to Danielle

Moving on to my next day...a very exciting change of pace for me. A visitor from home. After over 3 months of not having hung out with anyone I actually know, this is exciting. My friend Danielle was being sent to India for work and managed to swing a deal to come to Thailand for 10 days before hitting India. So in the morning I hopped on the airport bus (which costs 150B vs the ~300B a taxi would cost...yeah a 45min taxi ride w/ tolls costs only $10). The airport bus redefines the word "slow". It claims to take an hour & Danielle was arriving at 10:05. Factor in luggage and immigration checks & I figured the 9am bus would give me plenty of time. I won't go through all the details of the bus ride, but will simply give one example to illustrate how absent the trip was of any concept of speed...the bus driver actually shut off the bus, reclined his seat, and crossed his hands behind his head at one intersection...where we spent 14 minutes. Yikes. I got to the airport at 10:40 or so and Danielle come cruising out of customs shortly thereafter.

Upon finding Danielle I learned that her luggage was somewhere else in the world - not Bangkok. This story sounded a tad familiar and slightly hosed up our plans by requiring us to stay in Bangkok longer than desired. Thankfully, there's much to do and much to eat (forgive me if the food theme is overly repetitive...I really like the food here and I'm almost always hungry).

I won't even attempt to try to list all the Wats (temples) & Buddhas that we've seen in the past 2 weeks - several are mentioned in the photos. But in the 3 days it took to get her bag sorted out we saw lots-o-wats, the royal palace, Chinatown, various markets selling everything, Ayuthuya (the old capital...containing more wats), the mall, the river, bridges, and a lot of fresh fruit & various curries. Quite a bit, really.

Bangkok is a rather large city of 10 million people and has several districts - business, backpacker, Chinatown, etc - that have somewhat differing personalities. One can get around either by foot, taxi, bus, skytrain, or the vaunted tuk-tuk - which is a colorful 3-wheeled vehicle with the front half being a motorbike and the back half being a carriage of sorts. Walking can get a bit tiring in the heat, but thankfully there are fresh fruit vendors every 5 meters who are willing to give you a natural sugar boost by selling fresh pineapples, mangoes, watermelon, etc for cheap. The traffic here is rather busy and overloaded with motorbikes, but Danielle assures me that it's extremely orderly compared to other countries she's been to - with India taking the cake for the nuttiest traffic.

Once Air India got its act together and delivered Danielle's bag, it was off to Ko Samet in the gulf for some beach time. A taxi, a bus, a sawngthaew (pick-up truck with benches in the back), a ferry, another very overcrowded sawngthaew (over a VERY dodgy road), and 5 hours later we were checked into a simple bungalow right on the beach at the Lung Dam Apache 'resort' of Ko Samet. This island was touted in the guidebook as being perennially dry and virtually monsoon-proof. Somehow we managed to get rain on 3 of the 4 days we were there...hmm...

The time on the island basically consisted of eating, swimming, chilling, cheap massages, and me finally getting a long overdue haircut. I think I already knew this, but I've concluded that it's nice to eat good Thai food on the beach while looking out over the blue waters of the Thai gulf...I could get used to this. But just as I got used to it we were off again for a ferry, sawngthaew, bus, and taxi to get us back to Bangkok so we could hop on the night train to the anti-Bangkok of Chiang Mai in the north.

The Chiang Mai experience was another change of pace for me since we were staying with friends of Danielle - Chris, Tic, and their son Ben. Chris picked us up at the train station and took us out for breakfast - rice, chicken, and coagulated chicken blood...what better way to start off the day than some nice chunks of blood?

It was nice to hang out with some locals and to stay somewhere other than a guesthouse/hostel/mazda/whatever. I believe this was the first home I've been in since leaving Chicago nearly 4 months ago. They showed us around a bit, introduced us to loads of new foods, and helped organize a driver to take us to a variety of sites - more wats, an elephant show, orchid farm, and a monkey show. The shows were a bit hokey, but entertaining...and I never knew how trainable elephants were...quite amazing really. But forget all the sites, food, culture, etc...the real highlight of staying with Chris and Tic was that one night Chris put on a DVD of one of the cinematic greats of our time - "Freddy vs Jason". The epic clash between the knife-fingered dream-haunting Freddy Krueger (from the "Nightmare On Elm Street" movies) and the unkillable goalie-mask wearing Jason Voorhees (from "Friday the 13th" movies). I can't wait to buy a copy or two when I get home...

Sadly (because Danielle is actually currently contributing to society...thus limiting her travel time...unlike us long-term travelers) the time came for her to head off to save India (she works for a non profit org and our friends joke that she's slowly saving the world...currently India on this trip).

All in all, Thailand is a pretty cool (or HOT) change of pace from what I've been doing so far. And it certainly was a cool change of pace to hang out with someone that I've known for longer than a few hours/days. Though Danielle is gone and I'm on my own again, I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of fun is around the corner.

A few notes on how travel here is different than what I've experienced thus far.

- Rather than staying in dorms in hostels/backpackers - one basically just stays at budget hotels/guest houses. It's certainly nice to have my own space & it's amazing how quickly my small amount of stuff can explode all over a room to make it look like I've been there for a while. Depending on the town & amenities, these typically cost US$5-10.

- Certainly in NZ and to some extent in AUS, I would buy my food primarily at supermarkets and then cook at the hostel. There are neither supermarkets nor hostel kitchens here - so it's all about going out for tasty (and cheap!) Thai food for every meal.

- In the previous places, it was fairly easy to meet folks due to the dorm-style living, cooking, TV, etc. One of my questions heading into Asia is about how this will work out here. Since I've spent most of my time thus far traveling with Danielle, we didn't look much to meet other folks. I suppose this question will be answered as the journey continues.

- Oh...and it's humid and HOT here.

Hmm...I feel like this entry was a very whirlwind tour of Thailand so far and doesn't cover much of what it's actually like here. Hopefully my future entries will do a better job painting a picture of Thailand. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, I've already left Thailand (twice) and am relying on my questionable memory (and thousands of photos) for all of this.

Until we meet again...

Kap Khun Krup,
Marc

PS - Coming to visit me is really fun. Feel free to do so.

---

Photos

Reclining Buddha
This dude was big...

Buddha...Tree Style
This was one of the cooler Buddhas I've seen. Is part of a temple ruin and the tree has simply grown around it.

Getting Pad Thai on Khao San
Looking stellar with my hair...
But Pad Thai for 20B ($0.60-ish) is fantastic.

Beach Dinner on Ko Samet
Danielle kickin' it on the reclining cusions at the dinner table on the beach.

Wat Umong
My best Buddha impersonation at a cool jungle wat with tunnels.

Fasting Buddha at Wat Umong
This was one of the more unique Buddhas I've seen.

Khao San Road...
...the armpit of Bangkok. Where all the backpackers descend.

Just Another Monkey Doing His Job
I think this would be Hanuman...a hero from the Ramayana.

Comments

[Brady]

awesome
My wife and I had an exchange student from Thailand stay with us for part of the 2000-01 school year, and she gave us this cool soap sculpture with the king's face in the middle. We've never used it, as it's really ornate and I would feel weird about using soap with a king on it. This trip is fascinating - hope you're enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying reading about it.