Advertisement
Published: April 22nd 2007
As miles of shabby concrete buildings and untidy fields have rolled by our bus windows, Thailand has reminded us of Mexico, so I've been compiling a list of ways in which the two countries converge and contrast. I've broken it down into things that Thailand has that Mexico doesn't, things that Mexico has that Thailand doesn't, and things they both have.
THAILAND
MOTORBIKES--It's not that nobody has motorbikes in Mexico, but everybody has them here--schoolkids, shopkeepers, shoppers, Mom Dad and three kids, everyone's on a bike (not a bicycle, which you don't see that much).
TEDDY BEARS--Again, Thais did not invent the teddy bear, nor did they perfect it, but they yield to no one in their love of it. Not just kids, who have plenty, but motorists, bus drivers, ferry pilots, decorate their surroundings with teddy bears in abundance. You see teddy bears in shops, you see teddy bear logos on packages, you see white rice molded into a teddy bear shape. You even see something here you will see nowhere else, teddy bears hanging off the rear bumpers of people's cars.
BEVERAGE BAGS--Snack shops here sell soft drinks on ice in clear plastic bags with handles, so people can hang them from their wrists as they go about their day, and sip from them with a straw. We never saw this in Mexico, and it's one of the things that makes me wonder if Thailand is a bit poorer than Mexico, because other than saving a penny, I can't think why people wouldn't rather have their drink in a bottle or a can.
TOOK-TOOKS--A noisy, fuming three-wheeled taxi cart that survives as a symbol of Thailand despite campaigns to ban it.
LONG-TAIL BOATS--Even noisier and sootier than took-tooks, these wooden boats have an old car engine set in a frame on the aft deck, attached to a drive shaft with a propeller at the end. Again, cheapness can be the only advantage for this unwieldy set-up; in Mexico, all the boats seemed to have legitimate maritime engines.
SCRAWNY DOGS AND CATS--I've never seen skinnier dogs and cats, even the ones that live in restaurants seem like they're just scraping by. Once again, even in a poor country like Mexico the animals seemed more robust.
FOOD CARTS--Every country in the world has food carts, but Thailand has more than the rest of the world put together. Every night, the curbs come alive with impromptu restaurants--some plastic chairs and folding tables come off a cart, the grill fires up, and we're off. It absolutely marks the character of the country; you get the feeling that more food is cooked out of doors than in.
BIG BEER BOTTLES--They exist in many countries, but they dominate here. The 12-oz. bottle is common, too, but the 20-oz. is always offered and usually preferred. In Mexico, the 12-oz. bottle is the standard. And don't ask me what that comes out to in ml. The other day I saw a condo for sale, 45 sq. m., 1,150,000 baht, and I said, I don't know what either of those numbers means.
KEY CARDS TO TURN ON ELECTRIC--The air-con hotel rooms usually have a magnetic card attached to your room key. The electricity in the room only runs when the card is installed in a reader on the wall. This is to keep you from running your air-con while you're not in the room, although it's usually easy to detach the card from the key. Still, we never ran into this in Mexico. Or maybe we just never stayed in any air-con rooms.
GRAVITY TOILETS--Toilets that you flush by pouring in scoopfuls of water from an adjacent barrel. The toilets in Mexico flushed with handles.
MASSAGE PARLORS--Maybe Mexico had some too, I certainly don't remember three on every block.
BIZARRE KNOCKOFF T-SHIRTS-- T-shirts are universal, but here you are near the epicenter of world clothes production, and species proliferate. You can't count all the brand-name knockoffs--you probably COULD put all the genuine logo shirts in Thailand into the handlebar basket of a motorbike. Then there are the brands that have local currency but no world presence--Gallop California and Camel Active. But most curious are the products that incorporate recognizable brand names in inexplicable ways--Abercrombie Michigan, or Levi's 1892, or an Alabama cap in blue. You could argue that the odd displacement of the actual trademark is a crude attempt to deflect a lawsuit, but if anybody were worried about lawsuits here, the streets wouldn't be filled with genuine fake Diors and DCShoes. And then there's a plethora of shirts with random, vaguely signifying strings of English words, including many obscene ones that you are sure the wearers, and perhaps the manufacturers, do not understand. You get a vision of garbled instructions and bleary-eyed third shift graphics operators, mixing up words and colors, churning out mistakes and mutations, don't worry about it, ship 'em out, we'll sell 'em all.
CLEANER WATER SUPPLY--You can rely on clean tap water in Thailand in a way that you can't in Mexico. This is one index of economic development in which Thailand is clearly ahead.
SEX TOURISM--Again, hardly a Thai invention, but man, have they perfected it. When you see Pattaya, you know you've seen something--maybe not something you wanted to see, but something you won't see the equal of anywhere else.
REMOVE YOUR SHOES--Not an instruction you see a lot in Mexico.
MASKS--You see a lot of people wearing masks, either surgical or makeshift, over their mouths, apparently to protect against pollution (I really don't know). It's true that we didn't visit Mexico City, but we never saw it anywhere in Mexico, and we have seen it even in some smaller towns here.
MEXICO
SNACKS ON BUSES--At least on the second-class buses in Mexico, vendors came on the buses to sell food. Here food is wildly available at every stop, but you do have to get off the bus to buy it. Or maybe the buses we've ridden here were too classy--although I doubt it.
MOUNTAINS--Eat your heart out, Thailand.
GANG VIOLENCE--Thailand does, unfortunately, have a terrible problem with terrorism in the far south, but the rest of the country is not marred by constant gang shootouts, assassinations, and abductions. As it happens, to the extent that Mexico does have an insurgent region, it also is in the far south, but I don't think it's seen as many killings in two decades as Thailand has in two years.
RV'S--Plenty of snowbirds from Canada and the U.S. bring their RV's down to Mexico. Not something you're going to see in Thailand.
THAILAND AND MEXICO
OVERDEVELOPMENT--Both countries feature tourist areas which feel more like processing centers. Phuket reminds you of Cabo, Pattaya reminds you of Acapulco.
MOBILE LOUDSPEAKERS--Trucks ride around the towns blaring nonstop messages that I probably wouldn't understand even if I did know the language.
SMOKE HAZARDS--Both countries have regions where fields are cleared by burning, leading to occasional air quality calamities.
TV'S ON BUSES--Be it violent movies or sappy music videos, the show must go on.
FRUIT SHAKES--Both countries are wild about fruit shakes and drinks of all kinds.
BOXING--The Thais don't see much point in any boxing where you can't use your feet, but both countries find heroes in the ring.
SHRINES--Thailand has a huge lead here, with elaborate shrines in every nook, but in Mexico you also see icons, candles, and flowers set up in many humble places.
EX-PATS--Mostly Euros in Thailand, mostly Yanks and Canucks in Mexico, but plenty of rich country retirees and refugees in both places.
RICE--You're never far from your next plate of it in either country.
HOT PEPPERS--In Mexico, in Thailand, It's what's for dinner.
DOMINOES--This was going to be included in the things Mexico has that Thailand doesn't (card-playing is much more common in Thailand), but then I saw some Thais playing with triangular dominoes, a number in each corner, you can place one triangle against another as long as the numbers in the two touching corners match. Vive la difference!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.155s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0607s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
mrselkoil
non-member comment
This is great
I am so enjoying reading your blog. I especially enjoy your descriptions of the cultures. How are you so able to fit in? How do you know what local customs require for "modestly" dressing. Obviously, you've already travelled extensively, but I do not know if I'd be able to do what you guys are doing without looking like an idiot. On our weekend, spring has finally come to New England. It was a glorious 70 degrees both yesterday and today up in NH. We had another couple from town join us for snacks and some friendly chat about the Woodland Stewards land trust. Lindsay has done some incredible research on the subject, and it looks like we have some interest from important people in Landaff. Back to the weather - frog season is in full swing. Thousands of, shall we say, "needy", frogs, have emerged from their winter hibernation in the pond mud. They are all calling for "companionship" from morning until night. The owls have started making their presence known as well. Next weekend we'll put the rest of the screens in, as black fly season will begin in May. Speaking of flies, we're looking forward to fly fishing this year. We practiced enough casting on the pond and would like to catch the Big One. Can't wait to see you guys again.