Subject: Thailand - part 1 Sent: 1/21/199 1:01 PM Thailand - Part 1 Where do I start? It was all so fantastic and wonderful. I could start with the food. I could start with the beaches and warm weather. However I think I will start with what a shock it was to come to a country where people were nice to strangers - they smiled at you! When you asked for help, it was given in a friendly way. It was so nice. It was also sad to see how we reacted to it at first. We were suspicious of taxi drivers, waiters, bus ticket takers, thinking they were out to get something from us. It is good that the first week was just us Kazakhstan dwellers. Anyone else would have become very annoyed with our constant comments about how different it was from Kazakhstan, how we couldn't believe how good and efficient the service was. I remember walking over a canal bridge in the Thewett district of Bangkok where our guest house was, a bridge that was covered with racks of gutted fish drying in the sun. On our way back in the evening, we crossed the bridge again, and there were all the racks stacked or leaning against the railings. It was a shock to realize that people just left their things out in public, without any concern that they would be stolen. In the bazaars, people leave buckets, containers and other items tidily stacked. It felt so strange to us, coming from a country where nothing is left outside, where things disappear in a heartbeat if unguarded. I feel bad describing things in this way. It makes Kazakhstan seem so unpleasant. However, this is how we felt. It slammed home the differences and made us realize what we have become used to. I also realized how lucky we are that we have America to go back to. My thoughts turned to the people who had been on our flight from Almaty. How do they feel when presented with this? Do they see it the same way? Is the comparison between Thailand and the realities of their lives back in Kazakhstan as painful for them as it is for us? I think it must be because people from Kazakhstan are required to get a visa to go to Thailand. When we returned and showed pictures to people, a common question was if we were required to get a 'spravka' or visa to go to Thailand. When we said that we didn't, they always seem surprised. Perhaps it is more difficult for people from countries like Kazakhstan to go to places to like Thailand because they will not come back if given the opportunity. Having an American passport and the ability to go to a majority of countries in the world is a really nice thing. Right, I suppose I should have some sort of structure to this letter. I guess I will do it chronologically with tangents to discuss this in more details as they come up. January 3rd The snow was pounding down the whole day, and we were concerned our flight would be delayed or cancelled. Of course, we couldn't call the airline to find out any information; it doesn't work that way here. Since we had decided to pack really light, we were wearing all of our clothes on the trip to the airport. I did not want to lug shoes around Thailand, I wore my sandals with thick wool socks. Joan, for some reason, was doing the same, even though she had her running shoes in her backpack. She didn't run the whole vacation. The beach, food, a good book, shopping: it all conspired against her. With only my REI day pack and our Kelty midsize backpack only partially full, we were travelling very light and very pleased with ourselves. It turned out that we packed just enough stuff, which left us lots of room to bring home cheap, beautiful clothes and other souvenirs. The flight was at 1:30 in the morning, but we caught a bus around 9:30 pm as we didn't want to pay the ridiculous taxi fare to the airport. We arrived at the oh-so-modern Almaty airport and waited for awhile in the waiting area, nervous with excitement. Joan and I had not seen the Lonely Planet guidebook to Thailand up until this point - Joe had been hogging it - so we thumbed through it and made happy noises about what we saw and read. Finally we checked through customs and baggage with very little hassle. Another reason we had not wanted a lot of luggage is that checking luggage with Air Kazakhstan (I like to call in Air Krapastan) is not always a good idea. Bags often go missing. And of course, what does Air Kazakhstan do, the fine, service oriented company that it is? They shrug their shoulders and say, 'Oh, well!' Bill and Jennifer, two Australians up in Kazalynsk, went to Turkey with Air Krapastan and lost all their luggage that they checked and got nothing in return. There were surprisingly few people waiting with us. Some of them looked like well off Almaty-ites; some looked like 'New Russians' - mafia or non-mafia types that have gotten rich off of the privatization of former Soviet republics or just good ol' fashioned crime and corruption. A rather fancy airport bus picked us up and drove us out on to the snow covered runway where we tiptoed (sandals, remember?) to the stairs and up on to the plane, a three turbined Tupolev, a standard Aeroflot plane. In fact, there were so few passengers that we only sat in the front half of the plane. While checking in, we overheard an airline employee asking another, 'How many tickets are 'byez plahtna' (free)?' 'Oh, about 30,' was the reply. Since there couldn't have been more than 50 people on board, I don't the flight was a real money maker. The take-off was not a great one, with the plane shaking and shuddering quite violently. Joan is not the world's best flyer and was quite nervous and scared. Dixie had given her a sleeping pill to help her make it through the flight. She was not comforted much when some of the ceiling panels down the main aisle came loose and hung down or by some of the overhead luggage compartments that sprang open. However, the flight attendant seemed quite unfazed and calmly pushed everything back into place once we reached cruising altitude. There was lots of rooms for the locals to stretch out and sleep during the flight. Since we are nice and polite, as most Westerners are in comparison, we didn't push or shove or possessively place our coats or bags on empty rows of seats. Therefore we got to sit crowded together and sleep upright. But, hey, they had 'plof' for the inflight meal! Once the blood came back into my hand and leg where Joan had been holding on for dear life, I dozed off. I was quickly dubbed 'Rumplestilskin' for my ability to fall asleep and doze through everything. I awoke some hours later to see the sunrise over unknown mountains shrouded in clouds. As they were low and crowded together in rows, I assume they weren't the Himalayas. I kept watching until we came to Thailand, a warm, green patchwork of rice paddies, fields, towns, canals, and roads. We landed on a warm, sunny Sunday morning and emerged like deer, blinking and nervously shuffling our feet. It was so warm; the sun felt so good, and it smelled different; it smelled so good. The airport was so modern. Everything was so shiny and new; everything worked. It was very difficult to take it all in. We breezed through customs in a cloud of smiles, foreign voices and convenience. Out in the arrival area, we looked for Ian, hoping that he would be there to meet us. However, our e-mails had crossed in the cyber-ether, and he was up in the north with his parents. We debated whether to take a taxi or bus. It was so nice to not be assaulted by pushy, annoying cab drivers demanding to know where you are going and trying to interfere with your group discussion. Spying an information booth resulted in our finding out that a airport bus went very close to where we needed to go in downtown Bangkok. The first of many pleasant surprises in terms of people being nice, friendly and helpful was the bus ticket lady who served us with a sunny smile and made sure that the bus driver knew where we wanted to get off. We were going to the Tavee Guesthouse, a place recommended by Catherine Trebes, our PTO officer, who has spent a lot of time in Asia and in Thailand. If anyone is going to Thailand, I cannot recommend the place highly enough, but more later. In Bangkok, there is a road called Kao San road, a longish strip of bars, stores, guest houses, massage places, etc. That is center of Thailand's backpacker/hippy culture. Now, I try to be open minded and all, but I quickly got sick and tired of all the poser hippy people and crap there. Most of the products were straight out of Madison, Ann Arbor, Yellow Springs, or Seattle 'head shops' - tie dye clothing, hemp products with marijuana logos plastered on, cheesy, 'exotic' jewellery, and more. I also got a little annoyed with all the backpackers trying to outcool each other with dreadlocks, pierced everythings, tattoos, and 'Well, man, I've been to Laos. I think I'll go hang out with the hill people of (insert your cool sounding foreign name here).' I know, I know, people are doing what makes them happy, etc., etc., but gimme a break! The bus dropped us off further than we thought, so we ended up hiking quite aways with frequent stops to ask for directions from locals. It was very frustrating to not speak their language. I felt like quite the ugly American for not knowing their language and expecting everyone to be able to respond to my English inquiries. I kept wanting to apologize to them. I also kept slipping into Russian when I was paying attention. I would say, 'Mohzhna?' (Can I?) or 'Spahsibah' (Thank you) automatically. But the best thing is that it didn't matter! The Thais are so used to dealing with foreign tourists and their questions that you don't even have to speak - just point and sign language is more than enough. General comments on traffic in Thailand. The traffic in Bangkok is crazy! People drive fast, and it is really crowded. On our walk to the guesthouse, just as we had crossed a intersection, there was this loud 'BANG!' and the sound of breaking glass. A car had been broadsided in the intersection by a bus. The car lost. Everyone looked for a few moments, saw that the woman driver was OK and then went on their way. A few days later we saw a scarier sight on the highway. On the way to visit my friend, Ian, who teaches English, on a dark and crowded highway, we passed a scene of an accident. There are lots of motorcycles and scooters here. People ride and drive them in shorts and flip flops (Dad, as a former motorcyclist, this probably would have made you shudder as like it did me). There are motorcycle 'taxis' that will cut through traffic and squeeze between cars. Women passengers in skirts ride them side saddle without holding on to anything. Traffic had stopped in one oncoming lane. As we glided by, all we saw in a glimpse were two motorscooters lying on their sides, a glitter of broken glass, a dark pool of blood, and one ragged, yellow flip flop lying on its side. Ian says that they are quite common, motorcycle accidents. We saw one local man in a park with horrendous scars on his knees, feet and ankles. 'Motorcycle accident,' Ian said. Almost everyone he knows has been in one. People, especially the motorcycle drivers, wear white, surgical masks over their mouths. I even saw one guy wearing a full, 'poison gas attack!' mask. The traffic police, who make it all a little easier and smoother to get around, also wear them. The people appreciate them so much that around New Year's, they buy gifts and leave them for the policeman on his motorcycle or pile them in a prettily wrapped pile nearby. Right, back on task. The Tavee Guesthouse was a good 20-minute walk from where we got dropped off on Kao San road, in the quiet neighborhood of Thewett next to the river whose name I never learned, I just realized. Behind the National Library and down a narrow alley, you would never know it was there expect for the sign attached to an old Banyan tree that was covered with faded ribbons and small offerings - a natural, roadside shrine? We staggered in around nine o'clock and got rooms on the second floor, dark brown wood rooms with a large fan and large bed. The top quarter of all the walls are screened for movement of air, but this means you can hear everything in the hall and rooms on either side. For the two of us, we paid 220 baht (B) a night - about $6; Joe paid 190 B. The exchange rate was about 35 B to the dollar for our trip. Apparently when the Asian crisis was is full swing, it was about 50 B. Meals were usually around 50-60 B (1 to 2 dollars - chow down!). We checked in and got some food. I thought I would never forget what it was I had first in Thailand, but it has been swallowed by the whole stomach experience that I had. I all know is that it was delicious, filling and spicy! They have a pepper here that is used in everything; the translation of it is 'mouse shit pepper' - yow! Joan had a staple that was one of our favorites - 'pahd thai' - a noodle dish with peanuts and tofu that we could not get enough of. Pineapple shakes washed it all down oh so nicely. Oh could I write about the fresh fruit! As in most backpacker places, once you sign in, there is a little book where they keep track of what you eat and drink, and you pay up at the end. While this is very convenient, you have to be careful that you don't get carried away and end up grabbing your wallet in panic when it comes time to leave. In the common, 'hang out' area was a big, freeze standing cooler/fridge full of water, soda and beer. Just open up the door, grab a drink, show it to the lovely lady behind the counter and tell her your room number. Oh so easy, oh so seductive!