Experiences

Walkabout

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Yesterday morning I walked to the Post Office around the corner and down the street and then slowly swung a wide path through the city…dawdling in used book stores, Jonesing for all the quality crafts and household items in shop windows and reading pithy doggeral on t-shirts. By 4 in the afternoon I was hot and wet with sweat as I passed an old woman in a big floppy straw hat watering off the sidewalk. She didn’t see me until after she had managed to hose my sandaled feet and my ankles…sorry, sorry she begged. Oh no, no, I laughed. “Good big,” I said as I gave her the thumbs up. Then she laughed big, tickled at my enjoyment. Sanook!

This morning, tired of my guesthouse rice soup with pork for breakfast, I walked to a nearby hotel that offered an inexpensive buffet breakfast (with heart-shaped fried eggs) and spent the morning comparing travel notes and our respective country’s politics with a young Aussie couple at the table next to mine. I recounted that a couple years ago when returning to Bangkok after a month in India I would never have guessed that it would feel like heaven in the taxi traveling into the city from the airport. They both threw their heads back with a belly-laugh…saying that is exactly how they felt a week ago when they flew in after five weeks in India! Then we all had a good laugh remembering the way Bush limply muttered that he “had never been in India before,” when what he really meant was that he had never been anywhere before!

British Humor

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Ending the BBC news report today on the Oscar winners, the anchor noticed that the Icelandic singer Bjork was nowhere to be seen. “She was wearing the white feathered swan dress she wore her Oscar year,” he said, “and Dick Cheney shot her!”

International Night On Koh Samui

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We’re back on Samui and I have rented a brand new furnished one bedroom house for $12.00 a night at “Solitude Resort” on a mountainside about a mile from Doug and Luk’s bungalow.

The first evening we were welcomed by our next door neighbors, a hilarious 55 year old skinny Austrian jewelry maker, Stefan, with a shaved head except for a very long salt and pepper pony-tail in back, and his flirty 30 year old Mongolian wife. He was escaping the extremely harsh European winter, he said. The owner of the simple “resort” with six houses and a swimming pool is a youngish Brit, Mark, from Yorkshire, and I understand only about half his English. His wife is a pretty young Hmong tribal woman from Lao. (I confess I can remember the names of neither woman.)

The Austrian and his wife were pretty well oiled by the time we arrived about 6 in the evening…Doug, and Luk and I opting for juice. The 7 of us sat on the front porch fighting mosquitos while the two guys regaled us with stories about how they met their wives (Stefan and his wife were both working in “Czecki” and Mark met his wife in Vientiane, Lao while on a post university year of travel) and about the difficulties in getting married when there are no consolates (Austrian or British) in the respective countries they are trying to get permission to marry in (Mongolia and Lao).

The women, with minimal English, gave up on trying to follow the hurried conversation and lapsed into a smaller discussion between themselves about how they had been married for 5 and 7 years and still had no children. To get married, Stefan had to go through the Australian Embassy in Beijing…Mark the Australian Embassy in Britain. Stefan was told he had to pay $125 for something but that it was “impossible to do!” (We all laughed having heard similar injunctions many times before!) Mark had to pay off officials all the way up the bureaucratic chain to the tune of $1500 to get the usual year waiting period reduced to three months. He had to fill out 25 forms that had to be translated in four different languages (the fourth because Mark’s father is from Mauritius off the coast of Africa). One of the forms Mark had to sign was an affadavit saying he had never slept with his prospective bride…if he had refused he could have been hauled off to jail…it being against the law to sleep with a woman in Lao if you are not married! I thought to myself that the pressure from the local families, probably financial as well as cultural, for these couples to be married must have been pretty strong to get these guys to go through all this rigamarole. Or maybe I have just become cynical!

Then, as usual between expats, the discussion turned to the lack of local efficiency…Mark lamenting about how any tools made in Thailand were sure to break or fall apart as soon as they were purchased…make sure anything you buy is made in China or the west he advises. And Stefan had stories about how gems were glass, earrings made of tin infected his wife’s pierced ears, and the gold he tried to make jewelry with broke apart because the 24 carot gold was so soft. (The Thais won’t have anything but pure gold. It’s a status thing.) This we already know of course. The evening’s black humor produced a lot of much needed comic relief. But, Mark says, even so, every place in the world having it’s ups and downs he would never choose to give up living in “Paradise.” We are all learning to live “mai pen rai!” loosely translated meaning “no worries’ or “never mind!”

This morning as I was leaving the house on the back of Doug’s bike, Mark was cleaning the pool. A 60ish year old Italian guy was animatedly trying to teach Mark Italian…in Italian…Mark patiently nodding and smiling all the while. Mark caught my eye and we had a good laugh!

These experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything.

“11 Minutes” Outranks Mao

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On my way to my BTS Skytrain station, I stop for lunch at The Emporium, an upscale indoor shopping mall where there is a variety of restaurants on the 5th floor. A young Asian woman sitting next to me at a sushi counter is reading an English language travel guide. I wonder if she is from Singapore but to my surprise she is from Beijing. She is here with her “fat” Texas boyfriend, but “he is rich,” she says. I am impressed by the command of spoken and written English by this 26 year old woman.

Fascinated to find a mainland Chinese traveling outside the country, I said that I was told by many Chinese that the only way to get a passport was via an organized holiday tour or a business trip with associates. Her business card reads that she is manager of the contacting department of a cultural communications company but I never did understand what her job is.

We met the next morning for coffee…talking intensely for four hours. One of my questions related to the fact that even after everything that happened during the cultural revolution, I still see statues and big portraits of Mao everywhere in China. She said her mother thought Mao was a hero for China. I told her I thought Mao was worse than Hitler. She bristled and said that that wasn’t true. I told her that I thought that many people in China don’t really know what happened for the ten years of Mao’s campaigns in the countrysides where it is estimated that anywhere from 30 to 80 million people died.

Then we visited an English language bookstore where I recommended the shocking biography of Mao written after Mao’s death by his personal physician of 25 years, “Wild Swans,” a story of three generations of a Chinese family, “11 Minutes” by Paulo Coelho-a book that I think is being read by every traveler from Europe to Asia, and “Soul Mountain” by Chinese author Gao Xingjian who was the first Chinese to win the Nobel prize for literature. I have since received an email from her telling me she was moved down to her soul by “11 Minutes,” the true story of a prostitute who discovers love.

Stories Of The Bangkok Street

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Ten baht (25 cents) for a motorcycle taxi gets me to the American educated dentist down the soi and around the corner in little more than a minute…scared to death that the trucks, cars, motorcycles, light poles, garbage bins and food stands we swerve past will take off my long western legs. Have been in and out of Bangkok several months and have seen just about every specialist (all women) in the dental office…implants, crowns, surgery, cleaning….the cost about 1/20 of the cost at home. Have only have one root canal to go before flying home on July 27th.

A walk up the street past the food stalls, fruit markets, massage shops and Indian tailors…into the big expensive air conditioned Park Queen Hotel, through it’s busloads of Japanese tourists and out the back door into the hot air again takes me through a lovely park on my way to the Sky Train. If I pass through about 6:00 in the evening I stop and watch relaxing rows of Thais and farangs (foreigners) alike practicing Tai Chi to slow meditative flute music. People with their children lie on the grass asleep…catching a cool breeze wafting off the pond. Sometimes a small group of little ones can be seen sitting on the grass with their parents listening to a story teller.

Have walked up the steps to the BTS sky train above busy Suhkumvit Rd so many times I don’t even get out of breath anymore. I can either catch the clean comfortable air conditioned train in the direction of Mo Chit at the end of the line or the other way to On Nut or I can walk across and down some steps to the other side of the street where I can buy some unsweetened yogurt, swiss meusli and eggs in the Villa Market. I can take my used books to the Elite Book Shop next to the market and exchange them for others and then stop in the Starbucks on the way back to read the English language newspapers…Bangkok Post or The Nation with almost daily coverage of corruption in Prime Minister Thaksin’s government and criticism of the way the PM is handling the violence in the south. Government authorities finally admit in today’s paper that they have found Bird Flu in 25 provinces. I am glad we are leaving soon.

With no patience for waiting around, Bob has been roaming around the mountains in northern Thailand and Viet Nam. I am in a new serviced apartment down a little soi off Suhkumvit 22. I have a king sized bed, kitchen, satellite TV (that gets knocked out when it rains) and a broadband internet connection in my suite. My Mac laptop is hooked up to some miniature speakers and my iTunes provides plenty of music. The smiling workers at the front desk keep good track of me.

A short walk away and I have my choice of a dozen massage shops…an hour long foot massage which includes legs, arms head and neck costs about $5 while a two hour full-body Thai massage sets me back a whole $7.00. I will miss these when I go home.

On Friday nights I can take a motorcycle taxi through the sois (side streets) to listen to a great blues band at Tokyo Joe’s. And the food is great. The lead singer and guitar player seems American but he says he is Danish! I can get a great beef stew in this bar. The rest of the week features progressive jazz bands…which Thais generally find very uncomfortable to listen to…so it seems odd to see Thai band members wailing away on sax’s and guitars. Most of the patrons are farangs and last Friday I had a great conversation with a young French English-speaking couple who have been in the city almost a year putting together a visitor’s magazine. I envy their courage to strike out on a publishing adventure like this.

A Bus To Trang

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While I was on Koh Samui visiting Luk, while Doug was in Oregon, we decided to hop a bus for Trang where Luk’s family lives. This is my second visit here. We stayed in a nice hotel…Luk trying out the kareoke downstairs with her cousin and some friends…and visiting her mother and grandparents again.

I bought some jewelry in a local shop…had my ears pierced again and visited the Sunday market where we ate some delicious local food which, being in the south of Thailand is a bit different.

At the end of our visit, at the bus station, Luk bought a traditional Thai cake for her friend that was taking care of her dog, Ting Tong on Koh Samui.

On the way back a motorcycle hit the rear of the bus. Watching the bystanders, police and others through the window of the bus for an hour in the heat was more than I could take. There had been many buses passing us to Koh Samui. I left the bus and approached the driver who was just standing by the side of the road and asked if we couldn’t please leave the bus and get on another one…but just then he took his seat behind the wheel on the bus and we were off…aborting my ready attempt to throw a hissy fit and thoroughly embarrass Luk.

After a month on Koh Samui with Luk, I took a flight back to Bangkok on Bangkok Air.

A Talk By Shirin Ebadi

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Bob has been in the north for the last week so I joined the Foreign Correspondents Club the other day as a way of meeting other English speaking people in Bangkok.

Membership is reciprocal with Foreign Correspondents Clubs around the world; I first discovered the club in Phnom Penh, Cambodia a couple years ago. The club provides journalists with a venue and equipment for media activities but also provides memberships for other expats who live abroad or visit often…my category being “retired.” The club, in the penthouse of the Mayeena Building, sponsors activities like talks by visiting personalities like the Dalai Lama, has a bar and restaurant and a collection of English language papers, books and magazines.

So my first visit was to a talk given by Shirin Ebadi, the Muslim activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. The talk was very short…the questions by many of the media seemed designed for making their own statements about other governments like Burma, North Korea, the U.S. and Iraq.

Ms Ebidi is a self declared human rights activist (having once been jailed for her activities) and one of the many attorneys who are working together with many of the nearly 200 journalists who are currently incarcerated in Iran. She said that it is impossible to determine the exact number of people jailed for their human rights work because the statistics are not released by the government and families do not want to tell why their members are in jail for fear of reprisal.

Her most adamant point was that violence and war solves nothing but instead intensifies conflict. She added that Iran is not in a position to pose any danger to any of it’s neighbors. Then she continued by saying that it is left up to various Non-Governmental Organizations in Iran to go into neighboring countries with any messages, eg. human rights workers in Iran “are in agreement with Iraq’s Muslim leader, Sistani, who is adamantly advocating separation of church and state in Iraq.”

In describing her work, Ms Ebidi stressed that “the power of the pen is much stronger than the power of arms…the work of the pen can do more than an entire army,” she said. (Most of the people in attendance clapped in agreement when she commented that now that Saddam Hussein is going to be put on trial, the country must put western governments on trial too for collaborating with Hussein when he gassed the Iranians during the seven-year Iran/Iraq war!)

“So human rights activists are fighting for the freedom of the pen,” she said. “All societies need freedom of expression…the first stepping stone of democracy.” Regarding Burma, she said that the role of mass media is critical and the media should demand that the democratically elected leader and Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, be given her freedom from house arrest.

When asked for her reaction to the Muslim woman in New York City who led a group of Muslim women in prayer over the objections of male Muslim leaders, she said she was not a religious person so she couldn’t comment on religion…but then went on to say that all women should be able to practice their religion the way they want. Islam, like all other religions, can be interpreted differently but any interpretation must be consistent with today’s societies. “What is the true Islam,” she asked? She answered herself by saying that “we all have a small piece of the truth. We must believe in what we are doing and believe in our path and allow the others to follow their own paths.” But then she added that “many use Islam to impose their political will on others.”

The most interesting question was asked by a woman from the BBC. She wanted to know how Ms. Ebidi was able to be critical of Iran, a country, like Thailand, that considers criticism as unpatriotic, without incurring reprisal. Her answer was that sometimes activists are accused of plotting against national security, but that it is impossible for one person to make a complete change in a country and any change must take place through the people. “The world is a mirror that reflects the good and bad in us eventually,” she concluded.

A man at my table was a professor of engineering at a local university. After introducing myself (retired and a traveler) he wondered why I was interested in “this.” I thought it was an interesting question. I was kind of speechless for a moment since the answer seemed so obvious to me. Then I remembered that my son Doug told me that when they got married his Thai wife, Luk, didn’t know who Prime Minister Thaksin was…an example of the lack of general knowledge of and interest in civic affairs. The other person at my table was a woman who worked in the human resources department of an oil company who was going to be doing business with Iran. The man at the table had a slight Indian accent but side-stepped the where are you from question from the woman. I mentioned that I thought the speaker was very “cagey” in her answers…and the guy was delighted with the use of the word “cagey” but I admitted I had no idea how the word came to be used this way! I love this stuff.

Trekking Northern Thailand

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As soon as we returned to Bangkok from Bali Bob took a train to Chiang Mai for a trek in northern Thailand near Mae Son Hong. I stayed in Bangkok to have some dental work done. This entry was written by Bob.

Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second city and the jump-off point for experiencing the northern hill tribes.
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Mae Hong Son is in the trekking area–but quite a ways from Chiang Mai–drove there with several treks en route and spent one night in the town. There are many ethnic tribes–most renowned being the long necked ladies. When I was there not many tourists as it is hard to get to. We subsequently flew back to Chiang Mai–but that was included in the package. Did this on one of my early trips. On that trek we would walk for a day or two, spend nights in tribal villages and the van would pick us up at a designated site. Then onto the next trek–also did a little rafting but no rapids.

These peoples owe allegience to their ethnic group and national boundries are of no signifigance. They originally migrated from China and Tibet and now reside in southern China and in a geographic band across the north of Burma, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
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These tribes have taken taken advantage of the tourist influx and now offer their villages and homes as overnight lodging for trekkers. As they live in the hills there are no roads, autos and access is strictly by foot. So after a couple of days re-exploring Chiang Mai (its growing big time) I joined 5 other farangs (European and half my age) and a Thai guide for a 4-5 hr ride in the back of a pickup to the trailhead for a 3 day trek.

The walking is relatively easy but the heat/humidity combo is a killer. In 5 hrs we reach a Karen village, are given lodging in a bamboo slat hut and offered a “shower” from a barrel of cold water using a laddle to pour water on whichever body part is selected. A simple meal is offered–tasty but usually best not to ask what it is. Market comes to us as the local ladies show up with their handicrafts. The children run about and giggle at/with the strangers. During the night a pig was the victim of a noisy slaughter as the next day was a festival (new years).

On the previous trek along the Burmese border we had been invited to a wake for a child who had died that day (probably from congenital heart disease). But alcohol became the focus of the event and we made a hasty departure out a side door as belligerence unfortunately replaced festivity.

The next day of this trip offered many stream crossings over narrow logs and I was made suddenly aware that balance is one of the skills that diminishes with advancing youth. Oh well! But we made it to the waterfall for a rewarding swim and that night barbequed a suckling pig.

The last day offered a ride on a bamboo raft through several small rapids and the obligatory elephant ride (once is enough). My less than friendly elephant was named Toby with her cute baby following along behind. I kept thinking that I should have a seat belt. Toby, however, was sure footed, enjoyed the sugar cane and bananas that were sold at intervals along the route.

Mae Sai is just a border town in the far north I went to on another trip. Across the bridge is Burma. It is not a primary trekking destination. Used more for visa stamp-outs and Thais purchase stuff (primarily pornography I think that they cannot get in Thailand–or at any rate saw much of it being confiscated by Thai immigration.) From Chiang Mai it is part of a day trip –in a van–that also includes the Golden Triangle (people stand and have their picture taken under a Golden Triangle sign) and Mekong River/Laos border area. A boring trip.

Tip: The trips out of ChiangMai have become a bit too packaged and westernized–now include the obligatory elephant ride and a raft trip which is a token overcrowded experience. Ok if one has never done it but better if you are able to get off the beaten track like the trip to Mae Hong Son.

Jazz In Familiar Old Quarter Hanoi

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I had to check out of Thailand…thought my visa was 90 days that I got in Kunming in December but it was only 60 days. So at the end of March I had to pay a hefty fine at the airport to get out of the country…almost 10 a day!

I hopped a flight to Hanoi and stayed at the Classic Street Hotel again…this time thoroughly enjoying the Old Quarter with a minimum of running around.

Found a jazz club and while enjoying the free WiFi on my laptop had a great conversation with an American woman who, having been out-stationed in Hanoi for several years with Ford Motor Company, met and married the sax player and owner of the club. Even bought a T-shirt with an orange sax and name of the club that I have now forgotten!

At the end of a month at the Classic Street Hotel I flew back to Bangkok.

Keeping Body and Soul Together

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In Bangkok we got a good deal for a month in a beautiful completely furnished apartment on a dead-end street in the upscale Saladaeng area…close to the Skytrain and the new subway that is running again after a recent accident.

Many delicious food vendors just outside the front door were well-placed for the two towers of business offices at the end of the street. After a week Bob took off for northern Thailand and I stayed in Bangkok…taxiing back and forth to my Tufts university-trained dentist who employs a group of specialists…all women…on Sukhumvit 24. With two new porcelain caps and a root planing, I will return in a month for prep work on two implants that will be completed in another 4 months…all for about a 7th of what it would cost with no dental insurance at home.

Doug and Luk took an overnight train from Krabi and stayed with me for a few days while a friend babysat their dog Ting-Tong at their house. They eat very small meals many times during the day…Thai food being what it is…so it seemed like we were eating constantly. One evening Doug took us up to the top of one of the tallest towers in Bangkok where we looked down from an outdoor bar/restaurant sitting on the very edge of the building…refreshing cool breezes blowing our hair…jaw-dropping night lights of the city down below. But mostly Doug and Luk just hung out in the air-con apartment with me…dreading the return to their “fan-cooled” (a uphemism if ever there was one) house in Krabi.

Bought a 20 hour wireless card I use with my Mac computer in any of the many Starbucks around town…handy for uploading blog notes and updating software…visiting with other computer users like the young guy from London who just moved here for a two-year tour with his company…paying as much for the freight on his furniture as it all cost in the first place. Our visit ended when a Thai-boy sat down at the Brit’s table…shooting me a look that could kill. Apparently I was interfering with their date.

Visited the six floors of Panthip Computer Shopping Mall several times where you can buy any high-tech item you could ever want. There are hundreds of stalls selling CD’s and DVD’s and at one I spoke to a rough-looking character standing next to me. “I come here often for R&R,” he says looking at the Thai girl standing next to him. (One in 30 Thai women have said to be working as prostitutes although they don’t call themselves that…they just want an ATM guy to exchange sex with.) “Most things are cheaper if you order over the net,” he says, apparently except for the handfulls of games and software he is buying for his employees in his computer center in Iraq.

Checked out the Foreign Correspondents Club, one of many around the world (I used the one in Phnom Penh Cambodia) that honor each other’s members. In the penthouse of a Bangkok tower you will find the club with a bar/restaurant that hosts speakers from around the world…recently the Dalai Lama spoke there…has a state of the art media center for journalists, jazz on Friday nights…and expats to speak English to! The night we were there ASEAN was hosting an open conference regarding Burma.