Advertisement
Published: April 21st 2006
We loved Thailand for many reasons. The people are warm and friendly, the landscape is gorgeous, and for travelers it is an easy and accommodating place to explore. Most people in Thailand speak at least a decent amount of English and the tourist infrastructure is well-developed. And the food… oh how wonderfully we ate. In 31 days we did not have a single bad meal and can count only a few mediocre culinary experiences.
More specifically, we really enjoyed our time in Chiang Mai, Ko Samet and Kanchanaburi. As much as we did not love Bangkok, after four separate visits over a month we came to appreciate the city for what it has to offer. For a traveler with a limited amount of time to see Thailand, however, we would recommend as short a visit as possible to Bangkok. As Bangkok is a major hub and a prominent world city any visit to Southeast Asia is likely to include time here. We highly recommend our hotels in Ko Samet (Samed Villa) and Chiang Mai (Gap House) no matter how high your budget is. We think they hold up with the best of them. Our five hotels in Bangkok were fine
Ancient Thai Beach Burial Rite
otherwise known as "burying the dong" in Ko Sametbut if you were going to splurge on a room in Thailand we would recommend doing so in Bangkok and saving your money in some of the other locations.
We have collected a few odds and ends here as we move on.
Toilets Thailand has two types of toilets, the western style toilet and the squat toilet. The squat toilet was designed so that you don’t have to sit on the seat. You get used to them pretty quickly but, and Amy may or may not know this from personal experience, you can tinkle on your pant legs with a squat toilet.
Cats and Dogs Everywhere you go, the beach, Lumphini Stadium for muay thai, downtown, and even the elevated platforms of the SkyTrain well above the bustling streets of Bangkok, there are dogs and cats. The animals are mangy, and often injured or with fleas or open sores. For travelers with an eye for potential bites and subsequent rabies shots this can be intimidating at first. As you make your way, however, you become much more relaxed.
Most people completely disregard the dogs, even if they walk right into a restaurant. The dogs
have no sense of themselves as pets, which makes them essentially oblivious to people as well. They don’t follow you, seek affection, or express any fear and run from you. They are not fed from the table or treated like spoiled family members and so they do not act like it. Of all the dogs we saw meandering in and out of the beach restaurants only one begged for table scraps (and it was after a western man fed it). The dogs don’t get anxious if you walk by or over them, and they don’t startle if you come upon them napping and disturb them. And they tend to nap everywhere.
Cats are less common, but follow the same etiquette as the dogs. They go about their business and don’t much mind that you are in their way watching boxing matches or checking your email. They don’t brush up against you, purr, or demonstrate any familiar cat-like behavior other than the urgent need to get somewhere else.
Prostitution At every stop we made in Thailand we witnessed the local prostitution industry at work. It is so ubiquitous that Roger thought it was legal. It is, in fact,
illegal, though the laws appear to go completely unenforced. As observant as we try to be we can not tell you how many Thai men we may have seen with prostitutes, nor can we account for the number of mixed race couples who were dating or married we may have encountered. We know sex tourism happens and we know this because the locals talk about it, the bars encourage it, and a bookshelf in every book store features a section of books about it.
We feel we saw constant and obvious language and cultural barriers apparent between tourist man and Thai woman as evidence of a business relationship. We saw men explaining how things were in their country, men ordering girls around to fetch beer, and men standing back to allow the woman to do the talking as if she was his personal valet. We saw several male tourists with young Thai men as well, though we did not once see a western woman with a Thai male.
There are more stories about the Thai prostitution culture or the Asian sex trade than we could possibly comment on. We know there is more to it, culturally and as
a matter of business between Thailand and her guests, but at eye level it seems to be pretty simple: white man of almost any age or nationality walks into a bar (massage parlor, barber shop, night club, restaurant…), has a few drinks with the very young, exotically dressed, flirtatious young women, picks a favorite, and pays the manager for her company. It looks like the men come here to play “couple” for a week. Holding hands, rolling around in the waves, candle lit dinners…. And why not? For ten American dollars a day you can have a fluent guide, a young and willing sexual partner regardless of your grotesque belly or offensive habits, and strut around like you are the King of Asia. Everywhere we went - every mall, every guest house, every beach, every bar, every restaurant, every market - these couples were there.
We arrived in Thailand somewhat unconcerned with prostitution. In America you don’t see it all that much and neither of us would make eliminating or cracking down on it a major law enforcement effort (Roger actually thinks a free woman should be able to do what she wants with her body). After visiting Thailand,
Our Least Favorite Beach Scenery
Hasselhoff fan + too little fabric = German dude however, you see it everywhere and you can not continue to ignore it. We also now keenly understand what opponents of the world’s oldest profession have said about the way it affects a society’s view of women. Any local woman with a white male or any woman dolled up a little more evocatively became a prostitute. Could she be bought? What was her life like? Does she have to engage in wholly disgusting acts at the whim of a tourist for ten dollars a day? What will she do when she is older?
We don’t have a good grasp of who the prostitutes are or how many are working in Thailand. Estimates range from 200,000 to 700,000 working in Thailand today. One Thai province, the rural and impoverished northeastern province of Isaan, is actually known for women entering the trade. We have heard that women from Isaan tend to have features pleasing to westerners and the province was a major provider of prostitutes during the American war with Vietnam. When the war concluded the vacuum in the industry created by the departure of soldiers was filled rather neatly by tourists.
Obviously women who become prostitutes do it
Slam Dunk Monkey Style
Monkey school near Chiang Mai for a variety of reasons. Some prefer making as much in one night as they would in a month of backbreaking work. Some support their families back in their home villages. Some are seeking the security of a potential long-term relationship with a wealthy western man. Ironically, the Buddhist concept of karma can actually affirm these motivations and make the work a virtuous if unfortunate sacrifice for a greater good. We have even heard that western retirees may move to Thailand for lower health care costs and to find a young wife, essentially for retirement care, and support an entire family on his pension.
There are stories of women being sold into prostitution by their families, though where reality ends and stories to garner sympathy and affection begins is impossible to tell (you can assume at a minimum that the ten percent of prostitutes that are under the age of fourteen probably do not choose this life). As the industry is illegal, prostitutes have no recourse if they find themselves in an abusive or dangerous work place. Women with grievances are often threatened with jail time - because prostitution is illegal - if they become unhappy or even abused
by their employer.
And what about the men? We saw older guys with women young enough to be their granddaughters. We saw young guys who looked like stereotypes from nerd movies, fat, sweaty beasts too cheap or too shy to pay for a first world hooker, and we saw the usual parasites, touring a poor country simply to take whatever they could to indulge or amuse. Not to pick on the Germans, but we understand that German men are among the most indulgent tourists of the sex trade and they hail from a nation that recently legalized and regulated prostitution. So do they come for the exchange rate? To cheat on their wives or partners? Because they don’t have to feel bad for demanding deviant pleasures?
We are hesitant to become too outraged over the western shopping for sex (we know it doesn’t sound like that). We did not go to the Patpong neighborhood, the sex tourism nexus of Bangkok, and we do not know how many prostitutes are making an informed choice about their lifestyle and economic well being. It doesn’t matter what we think anyway, as any country with a $4.3 billion industry is not likely
Amy Watching the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho
Hint: if you turn the picture sideways it looks like Reclining Amy with Buddha watching to change too quickly. And while the tourists may stand out like a sore thumb, credible sources also claim that two-fifths of sexually active Thai men visit a prostitute twice a month.
Communication - Language and Signs Thailand is a crossroads for many travelers, Asian and western alike. In moving around Bangkok and the more rural areas it is apparent that English is the second language of choice. Often we would hear a European tourist talking with a Thai, both speaking in broken English with heavy accents, and marvel at how they could communicate at all. We were rarely at a disadvantage as English-speakers and are fortunate to be fluent in what would appear to be the common language of the world. We often imagined a shy and bumbling Japanese tourist in Thailand trying to find common ground in English.
It is not uncommon for a street name to be spelled differently on signs just a block apart. This is something you must watch carefully as you move about. Everything seems to be spelled out phonetically, meaning there may not be a right or wrong spelling. The island of Ko Samet provides one simple example. Around the island we found signs referring to the island as Samed, Samet, Kosamed, Kosamet, and Ko Samed. Longer names, like Ratchadammon Road in Chiang Mai, can become even problematic as pronunciation, accent, and the almost limitless ways to phonetically spell such a name come into play. Throw in that “road” is sometimes used in place of “soi” - we assume, Thai for “-road” - and you are primed for a headache. Soiratchadammon looks very different on a map or directory.
Emphasis is very important. There are five base tones in Thai. These tones, like whale songs to the American ear, are powerful in their subtlety and very difficult for American throats to use correctly when reading from a guide book vocabulary. Long words are pronounced very quickly in Thailand, almost a blur of emphasis and feeling that would not match up to text if it were in front of you. A major pronunciation stumbling block was “ph” - pronounced in the USA as “fff”and in Thailand as a “p.” The temple of Wat Phra, for example - Americans say “Wat Fraa” which will make no sense to the most eager to please Thai who knows the temple as “Wat PRA.” Again, as English is very common and the Thai are very hospitable we generally had no problems.
Food We think it’s been made pretty clear in our entries but the food here is amazing. Amy could eat Thai food every day for the rest of my life and probably be pretty happy. The food is so flavorful with a variety of spices, many of them to make the food hotter.
We learned from our cooking class at Gap’s in Chiang Mai that Thai cooking places an extraordinary emphasis on fresh ingredients and preparation. The markets are full of everything you need and the only guidelines are your taste and don’t use olive or sesame oil. The dishes are elegantly simple, quick to prepare, and easily modified to accommodate your individual tastes. Once a dish is cooked you can use a variety of chilies or sauces to add even more kick, or peanuts, palm sugar, or lime to tone it down (each of these items is generally omnipresent when Thai food is served). We sampled some fantastic dishes in more pricey restaurants and equally fresh and delectable foods on street corners. We remain amazed that despite minor rumblings and adventurous eating we never got sick from the food in Thailand.
Pirated VCDs and Icelandic Pop We addressed the massive piracy of music and movies before and do not have a lot to add but wanted to be sure to mention the following:
One, VCDs are more cheaply low-grade copies of movies. They are very common in Thailand, but not burned at as high a resolution as a DVD (thus no matter how many awards that Clooney prima donna may get, his “genius” will be selectively shortened to 109 minutes max).
Two, for three dollars Roger bought a pirated CD of A String Quartet Tribute to Bjork because the thought of ethereal Icelandic pop music being transformed into string arrangements, illegally copied, and sold in a gift shop on Ko Samet, seemed ridiculous beyond words.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.455s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 27; qc: 128; dbt: 0.3362s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.6mb
Jen Frazier
non-member comment
Food!
All I want to do when I read these is head out for Thai food! Thanks for the interesting reading material to get me throught the work day.