The big story: Thailand Published:Mar 09, 2008
LET’S KEEP AN UGLY LITTLE SECRET
Don’t say it too loud or the tourists will pinch it: Thailand has much more to offer than shopping and sex. Andrew Unsworth tried it all, and got wet for his efforts
‘Oooh, what an ugly baby,” is a common comment when you view a newborn baby in Thailand. This is apparently done so that the spirits do not hear any compliments which might inspire them to whip the gorgeous baby away.
Similarly, the ornate little spirit houses complete with flowers, food and drink that are to be seen outside almost every Thai house, hotel and shop: they are there as disguised bribes to persuade the spirits to live in them because you don’t want the little buggers shacking up in your house.
Thailand is an overwhelmingly Buddhist country and, like South Africa, it is a beguiling mix of first and third worlds, so it is not difficult to find the alternative and the interesting.
Even Bangkok, terrifyingly vast, modern and complex for someone from a city as small as Johannesburg, has its mystery. The Grand Palace complex houses the Wat Phra Kaeo temple packed with strange beasts and figures, the climax of which is the hall housing the tiny Emerald Budha, the very symbol of Thailand to which wayward politicians rush to proclaim their innocence in front of TV cameras when caught. Would that we had one, or more, here.
The Chatuchak Weekend Market is as exotic and thrilling a shopping experience as you will find anywhere, but so was a suburban market in the Tiwanon suburb north of the city, where, as the only farang in sight, I went to buy ready-made meals and exotic fruit for dinner while staying nearby with a friend.
Crystal spring rolls, deep-fried chicken, and vegetable fritters were all welcomed, but a lovely soup with chicken livers and intestines was binned by my host. Still, markets remain the best place to eat in Thailand, far more fun than restaurants.
That friend also took me to Koh Kred, a roadless island created when a canal was cut to short-cut a long loop in the Chao Phraya river. He proclaimed it one of the few remaining bits of “old Bangkok”, and we roamed its single riverside pathway lined with potters making and selling the intricately incised terracotta pots they are famous for.
Thailand charms you because of its people, warm friendly and seductively innocent. Tax avoidance, I was told, is a national pastime, so much so that authorities monitor how much electricity small hotels use to try to establish how many guests they have: they’re not telling. But it’s all innocent corruption of a naughty kind and there is hope: the country seems to run efficiently on it.
Even the nightmare traffic jams of Bangkok seemed charming when my friend told me they are called, in Thai, rot tit (car, stick > sticky cars).
But these are private observations of a holiday; I went to Thailand on a media trip to see the Thailand less familiar to South Africans, and God knows we flock there for affordable fun.
Ancient (founded 1296) Chiang Mai, about 700km north of Bangkok, is far more approachable than the capital, and some say the shopping in the night market is even better. It has temples mixed into the heart — a 1.5km² moated old city — of a typically chaotic Asian city; it’s small, yet has a vibrant nightlife.
Being taken to an orchid farm in the Mae Sa Valley outside the city was torture: they hang in serried ranks, roots dangling and flowers of disgusting opulence everywhere: you can’t bring them home, and mine back home just sit there and look at me.
Elephants are the symbol of Thailand and you can’t go without being lured into a park (in this case the Mae Taeng Elephant Park) to watch them paint pictures, dance, and play football better than Bafana bafana.
Some in our group found it offensive and said the elephants were maltreated in training; I loved it and thought I sensed a real bond of affection between Mahouts and their elephants, particularly when they all went into the river to bathe and play: I may be wrong.
On the grounds that you have to do it once, I went on the hour-long elephant ride in drizzle: it turned out to be a masterclass in handling an umbrella, a camera, a Camel and a video recorder while fumbling for another 20 baht note every few hundred metres to buy yet more bananas and sugar-cane for the “hungry elephant”: a sort of oriental version of the Stations of the Cross. Out of the rainforest and onto the paved road we picked up speed but still got into a sticky elephant situation. I loved it all.
As if that was not wet enough, it was followed by a far more tranquil bamboo raft down the Tang river, probably a more balanced affair than it appears but a little nerve-wracking at first when, again, handling a good R20000 worth of cameras. Even the animated chatter of journalists soon died down as we glided silently through more drizzle and forest-covered hillsides, mist curling occasionally through the trees or waterfalls tumbling down the bank. Tourist trap or magic moment? I decided on the latter.
We moved on and southeast to Koh Chang, the second-largest island in Thailand, set in a marine park including 51 other islands. It’s in the Bay of Thailand close to Cambodia, making trips to Ankgor Wat easy. But we were there to see the islands less visited — less than the millions who rush to Phuket.
You reach Koh Chang by ferry from the provincial capital of Trat, which has a open- air game-reserve type airport, and get round the island on its one coastal road, often a bit dusty what with the many construction sites peppering the island.
Still, it’s primitive compared to Phuket and far quieter: nightlife is concentrated on Hat Sai Khao (White Sand Beach), there are some luxury hotels but also a host of others down to pretty basic Thai bungalows nestling under forest trees. Here nightlife is in roadside bars roofed with palm fronds with dated Western music, fairy lights and gorgeous girls inviting you in for a drink: all much like Phuket 20 years ago, I suspect (before it added the boys in white Jockeys and Calvin Kleins inviting you in for a drink.)
Our brief excursions here included sea and forest: a day trip to smaller islands glorying in names such as Nook, Yak and Rang, where those who had not forgotten contact lenses, like me, could snorkel and swim, before tucking into an on-board lunch whipped up in a tiny galley by chef Ying, despite his copious bangles and scarf.
These trips leave from the fishing village of Bang Bau, not much more than a very long jetty lined with souvenir shops and restaurants, in one of which I left an old Nike cap, only to reclaim it the next day from the head of a young waiter — I promptly gave it back after buying myself another from a tourist shop, because Thailand’s just like that.
I needed it the next day for a 6km hike through the Kongi Forest on the south of the island (most of the mountainous interior is clad in virgin forest).
For me this really was a magical moment, or many of them, as we encountered rubber trees, spiny palms, coiling creepers, thickets of massive bamboo, and a bewildering density of trees thriving in the humidity and heat. As lush as it is, much of Thailand’s forest has disappeared, including all its ancient teak trees, inspiring a campaign to plant 80 million trees to mark the King’s 80th birthday last December.
Lunch was carried by our guide and miraculously produced from his backpack when we paused at a mountain waterfall to rest and swim.
We sat on rocks, eating, again in silence, isolated and content, a very far cry away from the partying, the ornate temples, the shopping and the perfect beaches that have made Thailand famous. South Africans have had a long love affair with Thailand and this was my first visit.
I will go back to explore the Khmer ruins in the east, and to play more as I went on to do with another friend who lives in Phuket.
But that, as they coyly say, is another story.