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    How to Get to Bangkok A South East Asian Travelogue
    How to Get to Bangkok A South East Asian Travelogue
    How to Get to Bangkok A South East Asian Travelogue
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    How to Get to Bangkok A South East Asian Travelogue

    By Barry Pomeroy

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    How to Get to Bangkok details the more than six months I spent in South East Asia. I traveled with several people, met dozens of locals in different countries and under different circumstances, and observed both fantastical behaviour and solemn rituals, indiscriminate malice and profound kindness.
    I kept a record of that journey and now that it has receded into the near past and I can be honest about the challenges, the embarrassing revelations, and the troubling conclusions, I’ve revitalized it here. My friend and I went to Thailand and traveled into the north and floated down the river in Laos on a boat loaded with tourists, went over the mountains to the capital, Vientiane, and then by train to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
    Once my friend left, I went south through the contested regions of Thailand on the Malay border, and then into Malaysia and to Sumatra in Indonesia by boat across the Malacca Strait. I returned along the same route only to meander into the north of Thailand at the height of dry season. There I traveled by motorcycle through the backcountry, crossed the border into Myanmar or Burma a few times, and went south to join friends who wanted me to show them the Thailand I’d found on my trek.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarry Pomeroy
    Release dateDec 4, 2015
    ISBN9781987922301
    How to Get to Bangkok A South East Asian Travelogue
    Author

    Barry Pomeroy

    Barry Pomeroy is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, academic, essayist, travel writer, and editor. He is primarily interested in science fiction, speculative science fiction, dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, although he has also written travelogues, poetry, book-length academic treatments, and more literary novels. His other interests range from astrophysics to materials science, from child-rearing to construction, from cognitive therapy to paleoanthropology.

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      How to Get to Bangkok A South East Asian Travelogue - Barry Pomeroy

      How to Get to Bangkok

      A South East Asian Travelogue

      2005 - 2006

      by

      Barry Pomeroy

      © 2006 by Barry Pomeroy

      All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author, although people generally do what they please.

      For more information about my books, go to barrypomeroy.com

      ISBN 13: 978-1987922356

      ISBN 10: 1987922352

      Table of Contents

      Oct 26 - Our Flight

      Nov 14 - Crossing the Border

      Nov 23 - Back to Thailand

      Nov 30 - Back in Thailand

      Dec 8 - Traveling Alone and Pantip Plaza

      Dec 29 - By Bus and Train to Malaysia

      Jan 1 - Bedbug Hell

      Jan 4 - Going to Indonesia

      Jan 21 - Crossing the Andaman Sea to Malaysia

      Jan 23 - Leaving Malaysia

      Mar 9 - Getting Ready for Going North

      Mar 22 - Karen’s First Day

      April 14 - Songkran with Nette in Bangkok

      Oct 26 - Our Flight

      When Tara and I finally boarded our plane, it was very early in the morning, and we were both exhausted. Our plans had gone through without a hitch, but now we had to spend twelve hours on the plane, and then switch in Taipei to a flight to Bangkok.

      In line-up, we talked to a Chinese woman in front of us, who had connections and was therefore able to take extra bags. She wasn’t complacent about it, but it was hard to tell how the connections worked. We also talked to a man behind us, who supposedly had a Thai girlfriend. Smirking, he told us that was the best way to learn Thai. We began the obligatory discussion about how some countries pursue a foreign policy of diplomacy, economic pressure, war and bombing and after that he scarcely spoke to us.

      On the plane, we tried chatting with the primarily Filipino people around us, slept, ate the weird airline food, and then stumbled through our connection in Taipei. Once on the plane to Taipei, we were served an even stranger meal: Tara’s dessert(?) was a wiggly upturned viscous substance, and my main course sweet potato with soft rice.

      In the Taipei terminal, we spoke with another man who was chatting with people on our plane and initially seemed friendly enough. He told us about trying to sneak democracy and Christianity into Burma ten years earlier. He’d been following the vision of a Christian man who claimed to know what was best for Burma and was prepared to risk people’s lives for it. I said that I think that one of the problems with us in the west is that we think we know what is best for everyone. We might want to mind our own business, I suggested. The world could use less of our style of democracy, since that is why they are poor now. As we conversed, I couldn’t help but wonder, is this who we’re going to meet here? We’re looking forward to meeting Thais.

      Oct 27 - Bangkok

      When we arrived in Bangkok, our prepared story about our respectable relationship and jobs turned out to be unnecessary. Our passports were just stamped. We picked up our packs, exchanged some Canadian cash for Thai Baht, and got a handy map from the tourist people. After they wondered aloud whether we’d been in Thailand before, I told them no and asked them where people like us regularly go. We were directed to Khao San Road, an express bus ride away for 100 Baht or three dollars Canadian. Once we were on that busy and noisy street, we sought food, for Tara was famished. Although it was hot in our pants and heavy shirts, we sat in a restaurant and ate Thai curry and rice while the street flowed around us.

      By the time we were really sweating, Tara asked the servers if they knew a place to stay. They gave us a card for Marco Polo guesthouse, but as soon as we were in the street and heading in that direction, I stopped a man who looked like he had a permanent tan. He thought a moment, no doubt remembering his own arrival, and then walked us to Peachy Guest House, where we found cheaper rates and reasonably decent rooms. We are paying 160 Baht, or 4.80 Canadian for a double occupancy room, with a fan and shared bathrooms. We showered and crashed almost immediately, even though it was merely seven in the evening or so, and slept like logs in a clear-cut.

      Oct 28 - A Tour of Wats

      We woke considerably refreshed, and went out for 100B worth of pancakes at a local restaurant. Food here is cheap. While we were walking around the neighbourhood we were approached by a man who we only gradually discovered must work for the taxi drivers driving the three wheeled taxis, or tuk-tuks. That was the beginning of our first adventure in Bangkok.

      He gave us many apparently helpful suggestions about the city and advised us about what we should see. Then he beckoned to a tuk-tuk driver and, after asking if we knew Thai, quickly explained what we were interested in although we couldn’t understand a word. As far as I could tell at the time, the scam worked this way. He told us that the driver’s gas is subsidized by the government, so their travel time is free, especially because today was a holiday. They make their money from the fare, which the government keeps cheap in order to encourage tourism. Then they take tourists to clothing and gem and jewellery shops to pretend to buy, and no doubt many of them buy something, and the driver theoretically gets a coupon which ensures their commission.

      We negotiated the fare down to 20B and then our driver took us to the sitting Buddha, or black Buddha, where we met a guy who told us some cursory history, and then we were on our way to a place selling suits. We looked over their wares, feeling like posers. After another temple with a huge, fifty metre standing Buddha, we were taken to a jewellery store where we were encouraged to pretend to be interested. We looked around, but when our driver immediately suggested another shop, we told him no and reminded him of the original agreement. He insisted that we suddenly owed him 200B. I told him to forget it.

      We denied him again when he drove to another shop and instead we insisted on the Marble Temple. When we arrived, he claimed it was closed, which was a lie for we could see people milling around, but he didn’t even slow down. Then he took us to the Golden Mount, where he told us, through sign language, that we had five minutes. We climbed the mountain, which gives as great view of the city, and gained free entrance by virtue of not noticing the 10B admission charge. There we met an Italian guy, who allowed me to practice my Spanish and him his English. I was relieved to see I understood almost everything he said.

      By the time we were back down the mountain, our tuk-tuk driver was gone and we drifted around for a while amongst the others, who insisted they could drive us to Khao San Road for 200B and then 100B, or for 50B, but that we’d have to visit a merchant. Using our map, we finally walked back to our hostel, which wasn’t any more than ten minutes’ walk away.

      We survived the scamming fairly well, although we felt bad we hadn’t given the scammer driver his 20B. We were to find out later how the scam actually worked and we even met a few people who’d been taken in.

      Oct 29 - The Giant Swing

      We both woke at 3:30am the next morning, although we felt weird about it, and after just hanging around chatting, we went out for breakfast, then strolled around all day, following names on our map that looked interesting enough to visit.

      We walked past the Giant Swing on our trip to look for a TAT, or Thailand tourism authority. The swing apparently exists to perform the part in some festival. They mound rice on the swing and then set it into motion. This blesses the rice, or improved the harvest for another year. The tourist information office proved to be impossible to find, although we were able to attend a festival at a park which seemed to be associated with a local school.

      If Bangkok is any indication, Thailand is a place of extremes. The temperature is sweat-dripping hot and combined with the humidity, ensures you are dripping right after a shower. Also, the blatting of tuk-tuks, blaring of horns and rattle or trucks and buses make a cacophony that blankets the city. When we cut through markets we saw pieces of fish alongside strange fruits and more than once we coughed at chilies being scorched in a wok. The air is heavy and hangs over the huge city, keeping the noise below the clouds, as around us millions of people rush to and fro in their own busy day.

      Oct 30 - Khao San Road

      We slept early again, and then went on a tour of the national museum. That took most of the day and made us both tired. It was mostly concerned with largely stone and broken images of the Buddha, weapons from a bygone era, and many displays of texts and tools that were difficult to tell the purpose of. Tara’s been buying water for 5B a bottle, but I’ve been drinking out of the local water system, which apparently even the locals don’t do, so at the museum I was happy to get some free water there to add to my supply. Another highlight was our first glimpse of a western toilet, a low porcelain bowl sitting on a slightly raised shelf and flushed by water poured from dippers.

      We have mainly be orienting ourselves to the city and drinking on the sights and smells of Bangkok. We spent the evening wandering the strip, as we call it, which is Khao San Road where all the backpackers go. At night it is hopping and crowded with backpackers and locals who want to sell something or just be seen. Collections of carts sell everything from crepes with banana to sliced fruit, shirts and keychains. Mixed in the crowd are women who don’t look Thai and are dressed in brightly coloured outfits. They usually are selling goods from a tray they carry and they make a frog-like chirp with carved wooden frogs that they stroke with a stick along their ridged back. Many of the backpackers strolling and drinking in the many bars are young, although we saw a few suspect couples, old white guys with pretty young Thai women. Strange.

      Oct 31 - Seeing Sak

      We decided to go to the train station and get real info, instead of the drivel we were being fed by ticket agencies, and then try to find Sak at Chulalongkorn University. Sak is my friend from Canada, where he studied at my university. He’s now a professor here. I had sent him emails over the years, threatening that I was going to come, and now I am here.

      Outside the railway station, which was a long hot walk, we ran into tourism people who at first seemed to be legitimate, but when we went to the TAT, or tourist information they recommended, we found they were just fronts for another fake ticket agency. We went inside, drank the bottled water they offered, then just kind of joked around and tried to get information. I told the woman who dealt with us that I would come back, but when we left to go to the train station, we found a real TAT, finally. Although the man behind the counter was brusque, we got a map of Thailand and a train schedule.

      We sat in the middle of the crowded station, which reminded me of Grand Central Station in New York, and looked at our map and debated enough to get some more questions for the TAT. Then we went to the university which proved to be huge and difficult to make our way around. Although classes are ostensibly taught in English, the student’s knowledge of the language is rudimentary, to say the least, as we found when we asked friendly students questions about the location of Sak’s building.

      We found a guy who looked like a graduate student, and he advised where the building was. When we asked some information people whose English was excellent at another building, they told us more exactly.

      The guard at the building pointed us to the sixth floor and some graduate students told us which office was Sak’s. Disappointedly, he wasn’t around, for I looked forward to the look on his face when we arrived. We were in the process of leaving a note when Sak arrived, having come back from lunch with his Canadian advisor, who teaches part time in Bangkok.

      Sak invited us out for lunch, where he bought us tasty snacks. It was great to catch up with him after nearly ten years; he is so friendly and genuine. He gave us some information about the language, which added to my confusion, and we told him about the tuk-tuks. He was surprised, and said the government does not subsidise them, but rather they are paid by the shops where they insisted on taking us.

      He flagged a tuk-tuk, or sarmlor [sarm 3, lor wheel] to take us home and rejected the guy’s original proposal of what sounded like a 100B in order to ask another one behind him who, sensing tourist money, had pulled in like a shark. He bargained for 60B to go home, which would be less than a dollar each for a three hour walk, or twenty-five minute ride home. Because Sak was firm about how we didn’t want to visit any shops we were driven straight home. We immediately went out to the strip to pick up Tara’s laundry, which was washed for 35B a kilo, or three dollars a wash. I’m doing mine in the sink for free, for it dries quickly in our room’s window and I’d rather avoid the hassle of waiting for it to be done.

      On the strip we paused to watch some fundamentalist yelling at the crowd to repent. He was red-faced with expostulation about how the people on the strip were all going to hell, so I took a picture. That made a young Australian smile, so we approached him and found he was eager to talk. At nineteen years old he was becoming lonely with all the solitary travelling. Like us, he’d been in Thailand for just a few days, although when he’d been approached by the tuk-tuk drivers and driven around to the shops, he’d bought a ring. We commiserated, but said little when he claimed that he could make a lot of money selling the ring back home. It sounded more like sales talk than fact. I think he just had a hard time admitting that he’d been scammed.

      The conversation went better when we were comparing notes on Bangkok, but when our conversation drifted onto the topic of racism in Australia, he told us they hate the Chinese because there are so many of them. Australia should be for Australians, he said definitively. His attitude toward Aborigines was similar strangely, but that inspired him to tell us that the Aborigines, were—although he was careful to exclude the few he knew from this stereotype—generally resentful. I told him I guessed they had something to be resentful about and he agreed.

      The conversation rapidly descended from that point. He decided he should describe a pad pong show, or sex show, that he’d attended, where local women put various objects in their vagina. The description was quite gross and I was uncertain how he thought Tara would benefit from this. In a similar vein, he told us, from his perspective as a nineteen year old who’d done the vegetarian thing, about animal rights. We realised the conversation was spiraling so we went our separate ways. For our own part, we went to a cafe and street vendors of fried banana pancakes and fruit, and a taro/yam/rice dinner.

      Nov 1 - The Movies

      Today we had meant to go to the floating market in the west of the city, but we only made it to our first stop, the Cineplex, where we watched a Thai movie, Puen Sa Nit, or as I translate it, friend or girlfriend.

      The advertisements, which were considerable before the movie started, were interesting. For instance, at least two of them featured a guy going through the stages of life, which included having a wife and child, and how the product, such as Honda, was there for him all along the way.

      After the commercials and the un-subtitled trailers were done, the strangest moment of all began. Another commercial began and I heard a rustling around us and looked back to see everyone was standing. I elbowed Tara, pointed behind us, and we stood as well apparently, we were giving thanks to the King while the short patriotic film played an anthem we came to associate with him. We stood as well, for it was nearly a religious experience. The King’s face is on the money, peers from billboards around town, features huge in the history, and is a reincarnation of a god, apparently. We only were to learn later how profound the respect for the King is in Thai culture.

      The film, Puen Sa Nit, was a standard love story: shy boy, cute girl, love doesn’t work out, he goes away to Ko Pha Ngan, where he has accident, meets a nurse who is also cute as a button, and falls in love.

      The language lesson was great, for I felt like I finally was able to get a grip, through subtitles, on how it sounds. I need to check what I wrote in the dark, but we’re getting there. If I can remember it all so far, I have twenty or so words, a beginning to language.

      After the film we leisurely made our way back to the strip and tried to get food from the street vendors along the way. By the way we were stared at I would guess we were in an area that westerners, or farang, don’t go. We saw very few of them on the way, that’s for sure.

      From the bridge across the river, you can see how massive and crazy Bangkok is; motorcycles are generally in the forefront of every tide of traffic and drive like crazy. People operate cell phones from motorcycles in heavy traffic and buses don’t stop to let people off; instead, the people jump when the bus slows. Luckily the traffic jams are common enough that there is always time to jump off.

      After getting back I ate a lot from the street vendors, finding deep fried bananas, fresh fruit or grapefruit variety, and then finally a cafe, where we sat on the street at tables and ate fried rice with garlic.

      The crowd watching is good here, and fun, although the urgency of the crowds makes me periodically wish for our trip north to Lopburi where, Sak had told us, the town was overrun with monkeys.

      We saw the nineteen year old Australian again, just as he was catching his airport express, and said goodbye to him on this last venture. He was nice enough, although a bit of a boludo.

      Nov 2 - Going out to Dinner with Sak

      Today we were up by 8:30, and ready to do whatever the city gave us. I’m getting used to the climate, and it doesn’t seem nearly as hot now. Last night was a bit chilly under the fan.

      We spent the day wandering around the shops and Tara even bought a couple of bracelets; mostly however, we just looked and chatted with people who tried to sell us suits. One said that my girlfriend [Tara] was beautiful, and that she would look even better in a suit. I told him that she wasn’t that beautiful and he was shocked, even though Tara laughed. Another said I should buy her a suit since I had told him I didn’t wear a suit to work, and I told him she didn’t work so didn’t need one. They seemed to puzzle at the relationship, especially when I was joking around.

      It was very hot so we stayed in the shade as much as possible and came back to shower before going to meet Sak. We went in front of the hostel to flag a tuk-tuk to the university but when I heard 150B and he heard 60B we realised we were operating under different suppositions. I flagged a taxi and we went to the University for 69B, with an 11B tip. I made the mistake of giving the driver a 100B note, and he just packed it away, saying tip. The first English he had spoken. I said no, and beckoned, then he gave me back 20B. Not sure who he hangs with, but a 40 percent tip’s a bit much.

      We got to the University just as Sak was running around his floor, and we hung with him until his wife came by, who turned out to be a beautiful and delightfully friendly woman. Sak gave me a commemorative coin and a big memo pad for notes when I told him I needed to make a book. He also gave me some sheets of paper so I would have something to write on. I need to keep track of my words as well as keep a paper journal when I’m away from a computer. Funny that I’m closer to a computer here than I am on my boat, where I drifted aimlessly off the coast of my own country.

      Sak and his wife took us out for dinner, and it took us at least a half hour to get a few kilometres in the famous Bangkok traffic jams. On the way, when traffic was at a standstill, he remarked on the time, and although we didn’t know it at the time, it was six o’clock and that’s significant in Thailand. We had a good time chatting though, and when we arrived they bought us a sumptuous dinner or vegetarian rice/ kaset, tofu, fruit, and lotus seed dessert.

      The prices here at that over-air-conditioned place were three times what we pay on the strip, but the food was at least as good and in some cases, better. Also the company was great. Both of them speak excellent English, and they were kind enough to teach me a few words, like farang-toi-ya, which means big fat foreigner.

      Then we all strolled around the night market, which is right off the major road, Rama 4, after which they drove us home. We crashed almost immediately upon arrival so that we would be ready for our new adventure. We’re going north to Lopburi, ling capital: Monkey town

      Nov 3 - Lopburi

      We didn’t rise early to catch the train out of Bangkok, but rather slept in a bit and went out onto the strip to get breakfast and then get a cab. We took Sak’s advice and looked for numbers inside the cab doors; the first two cabs didn’t have any posted, and sure enough they said, no meter. They claimed they would take us to the station for 100B, but it is a shorter trip than that and Sak had warned us that tourists have been robbed in cabs pretending to be official. We hailed a cab beside the strip on Samsen Road and this driver had numbers and used his meter. The fare came to 51B, but he insisted on 50B when he saw me digging for change. That’s the first time that someone willingly took less money from a farang.

      Once at the station we got approached by a representative of the ticket sellers, who offered to take us to where we could buy a ticket, but I told him we were going inside to buy one. We bought a third class ticket for 28B (84 cents) each to go to Lopburi, three hrs away, and we rushed onto the carriage with everyone else when the train pulled in.

      We managed to get seating although it was stuffy and we couldn’t see out the window we were facing away from. We arrived in Lopburi, or monkey town as we came to call it, around five in the evening, only to discover guesthouses didn’t seem to exist, although there were hotels. The first hotel we came to, by wandering around the small town, the Nett hotel, turned out to have better rooms than Peachy down south, and just as cheap at 160B for a double. This price includes a shower in the room and toilet paper, as well as one jug of bottled water a day.

      We checked in, then went out to explore and eat in town. We walked down what we called monkey alley, and although Tara hesitated when she saw monkeys literally hanging from the buildings and the wires around us, and jumping onto the street, she walked down the sidewalk, albeit cautiously. They didn’t attack and that emboldened us. Finding a restaurant in which someone could speak English was a challenge, so we took our phrase book from the TAT, and I pointed to the phrase in Thai that meant vegetarian. Neither tofu nor Kaset, which is vegetable protein, or more literally, agricultural product, were comprehensible words. We persevered, however, until meaning was arrived at and soon we had a fine dinner of Thai noodles and tofu as well as roasted peanuts.

      On the way home we had our first incident. We had gone by the 7-eleven, a chain that has done well in Thailand, for they apparently have 2000 stores in the country, and Tara had bought two brownie muffin style snacks. On the way home we went past monkey alley for the entertainment value, and although I had put away the remaining watermelon we had bought into my bag, remembering the proclivities of monkeys, I had forgotten Tara’s plastic snack bag until a monkey jumped off a post and ran off with it. Rather helplessly, I threw the sticks I’d been eating watermelon with at him, and we cursed him, but there was nothing for it but to buy another couple of snacks. At 25B, it was a cheap lesson, although it might have been a slightly scary one.

      Nov 4 - Lopburi and Monkey attacks

      We strolled around town for breakfast, and finally ate a doughnut style snack in the street from a vendor who cooked them on the spot. They turned out to be filled with bean paste and were filling if slightly rich. We also bought some bananas. At the same market they were selling huge water insects, which I think I have seen in Canada, although we typically don’t fry them and offer them as a snack. We then went to the TAT, where I told them we had just arrived into town and asked them what we should do. They pointed to the old palace, now in ruins, but still costing 30B each to get in. We went by and strolled the grounds, alone for the first time outdoors since we’d been here. We looked at more images of the Buddha in the museum, and then went on to the wats.

      We went back to the hotel, and while we showered from the heat, a torrential downpour came and then persisted. When we finally left the hotel, we used an umbrella we had borrowed from the desk clerk, who, once he saw our insane intention, pressed it into our hands. The sidewalks were crowded with locals waiting out the storm. The local form of transport is principally motorcycles, and rain was compounded by the streams gushing from the buildings.

      The monkey Wat was perhaps the most interesting. The grounds of the Wat are right in town, and although traffic streams around the Wat, the monkeys stay more or less on the grass, around the stone building, or on the surrounding buildings. We did see one persistent monkey on a truck, apparently hitching a ride, but he let go when it drove away. We paid another 30B to enter the Wat, which was literally crawling with monkeys. There are supposedly over three hundred of them in total. They eyed us for possessions but we kept our bags close at hand, as if we were surrounded by pickpockets. When a local woman who was part of the restoration or construction crew gave Tara a stick to keep them at bay, we realised, from her motions, that unlike common thieves, they will also take your glasses or even rip your earrings from your ears. Tara put her glasses in my bag and we walked in. I went onto the grounds of the Wat, near the Buddha, and one enterprising monkey leapt onto my leg, hoping I would blanch from fear, I suppose. I told him to piss off, and stamped my foot in warning when he looked like was going to try again. We are a much bigger animal, so he got the message.

      We walked around the Wat, and watched the workers scare the monkeys away with slingshots when they approached them. We were just leaving when the ticket-taker mentioned that we could enter the Wat, for there were no monkeys inside. I presumed that the gates were locked, but they were not. Inside was redolent with the smell of a zoo, but as we realised from the squeaking in the main chamber of the Wat, it was from bats hanging from the ceiling. That was a bad moment for Tara, and she wasn’t eager to proceed, but she braved it enough to go right through to the other side. The bats were big, perhaps five inches in length, but seemed harmless enough.

      We left the monkey Wat to stroll around town across the tracks, to another Wat tourists don’t seem to visit, and then to the train station to stare blankly at the Thai information boards. The only sign that made sense was the one which featured two boys throwing a rock at the train to hit another boy in the head. It was very graphic in its warning against vandalising or assaulting people on the train.

      We went back to our restaurant after trying to make do without our phrase book at another place, with no more luck than we’d had for breakfast. We retrieved our phrase book, worked our way through tofu again, and apparently ordered four dishes, instead of the three we thought we’d asked for.

      The day cooled off after the rain so the evening became pleasant, and the walk to the internet cafe short. We are thinking of going north to Phitsanulok, some long name that sounds like that, tomorrow, which is apparently four hours by train.

      Nov 5 - The Train to Phitsanulok

      We took the train north to Phitsanulok and in and of itself it was an interesting ride. We woke a bit later so we could only get the 10am train, but I did manage to get to the market and get pictures of the water bugs for sale as food. Then we rushed on board with our 78B tickets in our hand, and sat across from a younger woman and beside an older woman; when the conductor came along he made sure we were on the right train and also forced the older woman to join her friend and give us more room; a bizarre show of respect for us. We felt a bit strange and they seemed somewhat resentful, but then the older woman went across the carriage and a child, a boy about six came to sit across from us. He proved to be disorderly and both the younger woman and I had to reprove him for sticking his hands and head out the window. The fences and bridges and posts here are near the train, and trees may take off your head.

      We bought some peanuts, which were soaked in salt water, and maybe roasted, and they were a hit with the boy, although he forgot to thank us and had to be reproved by the other woman. It was good to have seating facing the other direction though, for we could actually see what was happening around us. When people got off, we had more space and lounged about. We started to pass through a rice paddy area, which made we wonder about the word paddy, is it pha-di, perhaps, an englishification of a Thai word. The land has flattened out, although there are mountains in the distance, and we are surrounded by rice fields with raised platforms with roofs for workers.

      When we arrived in Phitsanulok, we were approached by a tuk-tuk, but rather than take it to a guesthouse, we went across the street from the train station to a hotel that turned out to be fairly cheap. For 180B, we had our own bathroom, although it had an Asian toilet, which is a low porcelain bowl that had a wide lip for your feet so you can crouch on it. It is nearly always flushed with a dipperful of water. Tara disliked them at first, but now she’s getting attached to them. We strolled around the town and walked to a fairly expansive night market.

      Nov 6 - Sukothai

      Today’s plan involved getting up early get some grapes at the market before we caught the local bus, which may or may not have been air-conditioned, to Sukothai, the new city. Sukothai is divided into the historical city and the newer, or more corporate one. We bussed the one hour into town for 25B each, and got a tuk-tuk for what turned out to be less than a kilometre drive, although he said it was four km, for 50B. In other words, we were gently ripped off. We got him to drop us at Garden guest house though, and that only cost 150B per night. Once we settled in, we walked around town to get Tara the food for which she was sorely desperate.

      We tried to nap in the afternoon, but the rooms are terribly hot, for the fan merely stirs the air heated by the nearby roof and the hot sun. In the evening, when it was cooler, we tried going downtown, but the bugs are not to be believed. They don’t bite like mosquitoes, although they bite somewhat, but their ubiquitous nature is the most amazing thing. We got some banana pancakes and went back to your room, afraid to turn on our light for fear of bugs. I told Tara Glooscap stories to pass the time and we talked about our past lives.

      Nov 7 - Old Sukothai

      Today was Sukothai old town day. We got up reasonably early, caught the local bus for 10B into old town and then walked around looking at wats. We’ve decided that man Thais feel that their country has little more to offer the tourist than wats, or temples, so the tourists are always directed there. To be fair to Sukothai, however, it is the site of the old capital, so it is justly famous for its ruins. Who knows how you get beyond that wat barrier.

      We were walking to an especially nice and distant wat, one that featured a huge sitting Buddha, when we got picked up by a British woman I had talked to earlier. Her and her German husband were both really crazy but they drove us to the wats and then hung out until we left. She was an extreme backseat driver and they both had a very poor attitude towards the locals. For instance, when they decided to ask directions of two men on the side of the road—she called them boys—but changed her mind when she decided they wouldn’t know. Afterwards they both joked that no one in this country knows anything about their own country. They made the wat trip, for it gave insight into why tourists are tolerated and disliked. On the way home on the local bus, I began a chat with a rather nice German woman; she agreed that as a group, farangs are not very friendly, but she showed little interest in changing that.

      Nov 8 - The Bus trip to Chiang-Mai

      After I devoured some fruit and Tara had a breakfast downstairs we checked out, fairly happy to see the last of the buggy town and the extremely hot room. We were leaving when a tuk-tuk offered us a drive for 40B, but soon another stopped and we talked him down to the same price as the bus. For 30B and we hopped in and went to the bus station where we instantly bought a 203B ticket to Chiang Mai.

      The trip was not uneventful itself though, for about ten minutes out of Tak, we blew a piston rod and drained the bus’s oil over the road. I got off and got a photo and chatted with a Canadian from London Ont. about Thailand. When the next bus came along, in a half hour, the Canadian, John, regaled us with stories of Thailand and Laos, all of them slightly tinted with how foolish the local people were, and for the first time someone said that Thai people in general don’t like farangs. He claims that they think they are above us. That is so counter the impression that we get that Tara and I discussed it with him. He tried to teach me some Thai, but I was suspect of his accent and that he had lived here for eight months on a previous trip and had learned so little.

      Our bus dropped him in Lampang and then finally brought us into Chiang Mai. I am getting wary of tuk-tuks, so I suggested we take our time, go to the tourist office in the station and get another way into town to just west of the city, where most of the guesthouses are. We ended up waiting for a local bus, and taking a red cab, for bus fare, 30B total, as versus the 60B/50B the tuk-tuks offer. As well, we didn’t have to stand any of their lies about where to stay, for they get a commission and are not likely to get you to a good place.

      Now we are in Tae Pae Hotel on Tae Pae Road for 180B and have our own bath, the free bottle of water we’ve grown to expect from hotels, towels, toilet paper—in short, all the amenities. We even have a bathroom in our room.

      We came out for dinner and although it was a good meal, I unfortunately broke my tooth and now I have to figure out whether to go to the dentist clinic down the street or just suffer through until I get back to Canada where less talented people will fix my tooth for undoubtedly much more money.

      Nov 9 - Americans in Thailand

      We woke a bit later today; it was nice to sleep in. I went out immediately to look for the dentist we’d seen on the way into town, but I couldn’t find them. Strangely this office, which seemed so obvious when we came in, which was alongside a medical office, was invisible in the light of morning. When Tara and I had breakfast and we felt up for the search, we looked for the office again with no luck and it was only in the evening that we found it again.

      We spent today walking around Chiang Mai. I’ve taken to lying about how long we’ve been in Thailand, which seems to make things easier. The tuk-tuks as well as tour guide people are less inclined to harass if they think we know the ropes. We nod sagely and try to appear clever. Have you seen this Wat?

      Oh yes.

      And that one?

      Maybe. Not sure. We’re getting watted out, we told him," but the English joke doesn’t work in Thai.

      We went back to the hotel and I napped while Tara read until this evening when we went to the night market and ate Banana pancake and found a food place which served a great sweet and sour tofu.

      There I invited an American to join us, since he was alone, and then his girlfriend and their other friend came and we began the development and peak oil and political will and economics discussion. The friend was a boludo and knew only that America was best and that everything was OK and would be OK. When I called him on his opinion, he claimed it was his philosophy, as if that made it inviolable.

      At one point, for his arguing was American loud, he said that none of the food eaten in America should be grown there, at which point the other guy’s girlfriend couldn’t resist but comment upon. I told him that his arguments had been deteriorating and this was his lowest point. He typified why people hate farangs; we are unendurable.

      I told her that he was just making noise. He took it in good cheer but the difference in our educational background was considerable. She was reading Jared Diamond’s Collapse, interestingly, a book which describes Easter Island as a test case. Small wonder Ronald Wright, who wrote The Short History of Progress, was angry. Someone else pissing on the greatest test case or metaphor for life on earth.

      Nov 10 - A Horror Film in Thai

      After waking, and that was a slow procedure for me today, we went out to find our dentist clinic. It was closed and being cleaned. I may never get this tooth fixed.

      Then we made our way slowly and with a certain lack of surety, to Tara’s movie Cineplex, which is north of the city and west. We took a wrong turn and ended up at a local market, where we saw, and bought, for the first time, banana bread. We bought four small loaves and I gobbled my two on the spot.

      I said a-roy, or that’s delicious, to the seller, and she laughed.

      We wandered back into the city and to the theatre where we ended up watching a horror film in Thai, subtitled in English. Before the film, we stood with the rest of the crowd to praise the King, a procedure I will never get used to, and then sat through the gore of a slasher flicks. Premise: prep school boys and girls go into the bush in the north, and then get killed in various ways, with lots of blood and gory special effects, until nearly all of them are dead. In more ways than I can count, not a highly successful flick. As well, as far as I can tell I learned no Thai, except the expression for who’s there. And I’m not sure in what context using that expression would be useful.

      Afterwards we stumbled into the Taepae Road night market, where we actually bought something. We both bought thin, cheap pants for travelling in a hot climate and fending off sun and mosquitoes. I paid 99B, or three dollars for mine, and Tara paid 55B for hers. We wandered around the night market for a while, and had a great conversation with a woman promoting white water rafting. I told her we weren’t good farangs, and that we didn’t do those kinds of things. I ran the idea past her that I might like to build a bamboo raft and float down the Mekong River to the Gulf of Siam. She thought I was crazy and when she asked Tara if she would accompany, Tara laughed and said no way.

      We were also approached by a northern hill tribe seller of trinkets and jewellery while we were watching some locals selling paper, fire-lifted balloons that you could buy and watch drift out of sight. We estimated that they sailed up at three metres a second, or over a kilometre before they snuffed. I wonder where they come down. When we came back towards home, we saw twelve or so floating around each at different altitudes.

      The hill tribe seller, who spoke no discernible English, sat close to Tara where we sat in the public square and plied her wares. When it was finally obvious that she wasn’t going to make a sale, she gave us a blackened smile, and then dug out a bag of a leaf, some white cheesy substance and a black mush in a different jar, to chew. Maybe this is the stuff that blackens her teeth. Betel nut? Cocoa?

      Nov 11 - Finally a Thai Dentist

      Today is Remembrance Day. Here it seems to mean nothing, but maybe I am missing some subtle aspect of the culture. We are trying to work out a way to get to Laos, which apparently might cause visa problems. I guess it’s the running on the cheap that makes it more difficult, and our unwillingness to join a tour into the neighbouring country.

      We spent the morning using the internet for a dollar or so an hour, and walking north to the market where we could buy more banana cakes. Then we saw a dentist and I paid 550B (or $15ca) to get my tooth repaired, which makes me a lot more comfortable. We dropped into the office on the spur of the moment, but that meant I didn’t have a chance to brush my teeth. I apologized profusely, but is that enough?

      I may get a cleaning there before I leave Thailand as well, for 350B, or 10 dollars. They were very professional and nice, as well as gentle and didn’t cause me any pain at all. Couldn’t ask for more than that: Less pain in pocket than Canada, less pain in the mouth.

      After I was fixed up, we walked around the market downtown for a few hours, and sat in the street and hung and watched people. We saw our friend from last night as well, but she was hustling business for the white water rafting so we left her alone.

      After reading up on Chiang Rai, which is our next stop, we went out again into the night to seek an internet cafe which offered uploading. I want to send as many of my pictures as possible to my friends. That way if I lose the camera, or it is stolen, I still have my pictures. Uploading is a bit slow, but if I do this every time I am at a café, they will get there.

      A strange and simple thing that stands out here in Chiang Mai, that although it may seem minor, I bet it

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