Thailand Journal

June 14. I rode a bus from Siam Reap to Bangkok, coming the other direction into Cambodia its known as the “scam bus”, but here it was no problem. I took an uncomfortable mini bus from Siam Reap to the border, walked through customs (they did not ask for ticket proof of departure from Thailand, theoretically a requirement), and all I had to do was show a ticket stub and I was let on the luxury bus going the remainder of the way to Bangkok. Crossing the border was a shockingly disparate view of the two countries, from a dusty wasteland in Cambodia to a paved four lane highway lined with trim timber plantations in Thailand. Bangkok was amusing, it seems everyone who has ever been on an airplane has gone or will go to Bangkok sometime in their life and return with strong feelings, so here are mine. Its an amusing city, the food is superb and the temples are wondrous, all gauchely draped in gold and decoration at every possible turn. Anybody driving a wheeled vehicle will try to scam you, and they can lie like its their job. Distances multiply, temples close, and buses vanish in the tales of these gypsies.

June 19. I’m on the way from the beach back to Bangkok, it wasn’t easy but I managed to find the bus station in Surat Thani after someone tried to take me to a private bus, and then they city bus passed by the long distance bus station while I wasn’t paying attention. Taking buses in countries where I couldn’t speak the language, I almost always got by with stating the name of my destination only once when I got on the bus; it didn’t work this time. In Thailand there are foreigner tourist buses and then there are local buses; its nice to travel with locals, but the foreigner buses are more comfortable and infinitely easier for about the same price. It’s a no brainer. I arrived in a dark neighborhood of Bangkok around midnight in a grumpy mood, too proud to pay overpriced taxi fares, and ended up walking a few blocks through blackened streets until I finally got a ride. Probably not the safest thing, in retrospect. For our last night in Ko Samui we found a local restaurant (amazingly) for dinner; it was stupendous. Ko Samui is decidedly upmarket and geared for older tourists who don’t want to see much of real Thailand. The other day we took a tour to Ang something marine park, the tour was brief and dumbed down, full of soft drinks and corny jokes. You’re better off just finding a boat that can drop you off at the park headquarters, where you can rent a tent, borrow kayaks, and explore to your hearts content. On a twenty minute hike from the HQ I saw a troupe of langurs. Wow. I dove at Sail Rock, one of the most famous spots around Ko Tao, it was murky and the coral was sparse, there were tons of pelagic fish though. We rode elephants on Koh Phanang, they were slow and sad beasts, reluctant to move. On Phanang we stayed at the Full Moon Party beach when it was not full moon, thinking this might make it relaxing. There were few people, but the bars seemed to ignore this fact, pumping out dance music across the beach to scores of empty tables. Our best times were spent drinking at our cliff top sunset view bungalow and playing euchre.

June 22: Ayuthaya, ancient capital of Thailand, a park of brick ruins scattered across a flat river island. I rode a bicycle around the park for the day, the ruins are frequent but scattered, there are more than anyone would ever need to visit. The temples must have been impressive in their day, filled with shiny Buddhist images, but in the 21^st century, mere brick ruins in a park of mowed grass and evenly spaced trees just makes me feel like I’m walking around an abandoned school yard. I was amazed how few tourist there were; most were Japanese. A woman walked up to me offereing a copper medallion engraved with the Buddha, it looked like it came from the machine where you insert a penny and a dollar and your penny comes out elongated and engraved in the coat of arms of some fishing club. She was the only person who really tried to sell me anything in this town, and her persistence made her seem like some kind of a messenger. I saw a giant snake swimming through a pond of lotus at the park; maybe it was a salamander.

June 25, near Chiang Mai. I tried going to Doi Inthanon National Park, but I arrived in the border town Chomthong too late. While I was realizing this, a kid offered to take me into the park on his moto. I had been unhappy with the lack of hospitality and forwardness in the random strangers of Thailand, and when this guy came up to me, spitting out fragments of poor English and offering help, I grinned and thought, yes, that’s what I’m talking about! After waiting around for little while, we decided it was too late to try to go into the park, and then searched to no avail for hotels in the town. He offered to take me to his house, and I said sure, thinking it was just some little flat down the road, as he said he was a college student. I hop on the back of his moto and he proceeds to drive into the jungle, through two other National Parks, for about an hour, to his tribal village deep in the mountains. His family and village are Karin people, an extremely large ethnic group that lives in the rural areas of Northern Thailand and Burma. The village holds maybe 200 people, many have pickup tricks and solar panels, but there were few lights on when we arrived not long after dusk. All the women wear exactly the same dress, and the babies have clothes and usually even shoes. It would be a good stop on a trek. The kid brought me to Doi Inthanon NP the next day and seemed to want to take me on to Chiang Mai with him, but I let him leave me at the park headquarters. Before I began my travels, I remember reading in several guidebooks and websites that when you are traveling, especially alone, basically every local person who is nice to you is trying to rip you off. Well, after traveling for several months in Asia, often alone, I can confidently say this is profoundly wrong. Sure, if they are a tuk tuk driver and live in Bangkok, Saigon, etc, this is true, but there were countless occasions where my faith in the fellow man was met with help and friendliness.

Doi Inthanon sucked. I finally found the park headquarters, I assumed that I would be able to find everything I needed there: lodges, restaurants, and trails; parks like this are often developed around the HQ. The highway runs northwest into the park and towards the summit, the HQ is located at km 30 from Chumthon, immediately after the turnoff for Siriphum waterfall. But there is nothing at the headquarters. They have food, but camping or luxury guesthouses are a kilometer away. I ask for a ride to the campsite, they say no, I have to carry it. It is summer; all of the trails are closed except for a 300 meter nature loop at the summit, 17 km away. What the hell, I stay, and let my hill tribe friend continue on while secretly paying for his lunch while he was away making a phone call (I was unable to pay for any other food or gas). I lug the tent and the Walmart sized sleeping pad down the highway to the campsite, and I spend the rest of the afternoon looking for the closed trails, assuming there should at least be a sign in Thai leading to a closed trailhead. I found nothing. I would ask farmers and point to the trail on the map and they would just shake their head no. Even in the winter a guide would be crucial in order to find the trails. I did manage to find some greenhouses full of ornamental mums. Now I’m drinking in coffee in the restaurant, a true National Park cafeteria begging for tour buses and windshield tourists. My waiter (there are currently no fewer than nine staff serving zero customers) squelches in Thai at the women in the kitchen and walks with the feminine hip shuffle found in countless Thai men.

There are forested mountains all around me that must be dripping with monkeys, I just can’t reach them. Instead there’s a big highway through the park scattering farms and villages almost all the way to the summit of the mountain. I’m starting to feel like the demanding tourist who has an agenda and wants it met; earlier I was happy with just seeing what appeared around me. The other night at the river lodge was quality, I passed the hours eating snake soup and getting drunk on something awful with the Thai – Karin raft guides. They could speak some English, but the night ended with me listening to them sing old folk songs. I can be happy with that anywhere: guitar at night in the countryside. I’ve learned that doing tourist things is tons easier and often even a little cheaper; doing something off the beaten path means less English, more money, and more difficulty, probably requiring guides and greater distances.

I had made it this far into the park, and didn’t want it all to go to naught, so the next day I hitchhiked up the mountain. The first ride I got was with construction workers chewing something that looked like glue. They were building a Buddhist temple in the mist near the top of the mountain. I get the rest of the way to the top, cruise the 300 meter nature trail through the cloud forest, and hitch hike my way back out.

June 25: trekking, Salawin River, Burma border. At the border town of Mae Sam Lop I met some Babtist missionaries going to Karin villages. They were from Virginia, and seemed really excited to meet another foreigner. My guide’s name is Cha. The river is enormous; the boat dropped us at a tiny beach and we hiked up through the jungle, passing a few huts lying on tiny rice fields. We find our village to spend the night, and it rains on and off most of the afternoon and night. The village is full of chickens and pigs running around under the houses. All cooking is done on woodfire, and everyone sleeps on thin reed mats. I dreamt about Nova and some word starting with the sound nia…; it means lazy. All of the old folks chew betel nut and smoke pipes; their mouths are hideous. Betel nut is mildly narcotic, flaming red seed that makes your teeth fall out. Imagine a wrinkled face that has seen several years, smiling a toothless grin with bright fat red gums. The rainy season is beginning and we see them transplanting the seedlings into the fields. We walk around the terraces and up through the cracks, passing giant teak trees and jungle covered in vine. The jungle is remarkably thick, and the dwellings are few. Its raining hard now, we are about to have breakfast. I imagined “hill tribes” being only one small tribe living by themseslves, but in Northern Thailand they all seem to be Karin, a large ethnic group numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The other day in Burma some Karin rebels blew up a bus. Maybe not a place to go on vacation (in September 2007 the world was shocked by an uprising of monks against the Myanmar government). In this village, all the women wear beautiful red quilted drapes for all kinds of clothing, hats, shawls, and dresses, sometimes concealing babies underneath, often while the women are working in the fields. I keep seeing amazing snails, butterflies, and dragonflies.

June 27. We walked most of the day through the jungle and along ridge tops. Along the ridge line the jungle was not thick, but there were very few rice patties along the entire route. On the valley bottoms it was thick, the trees were massive, and birds sounded the air all day long. It didn’t even rain during the afternoon. We stay in a village along the creek; modest homes line the stepp hillsides, all with straw roofs and a few with solar panels. I’m sure that the solar panels are provided by the government or an NGO, and I’ve read that in rural areas far from power lines, solar panels can be cheaper than the cost of building power lines. The babies here seem to have slightly bloated bellies, but food seems adequate. While smoking pipes, the family we are staying with ask me how much was my plane ticket to come from America to Thailand. I try to evade the question by telling them that I didn’t really come directly from America, but they mention how much a waste of money it is compared to what the money could provide in the village. In the morning the mother husks rice. I can’t walk to the toilet without slipping on the muddy slopes: it would be so easy to build a few steps, but I guess they don’t need them.

July 2. I wake up to the sounds of chickens in a village in the Salween river jungle in Northern Thailand. I hike back to town, hop on a bike to the next town, and then onto a long bus ride back to Bangkok. I watch the sun rise over the Chao Phraya river as I sit atop an elephant of Wat Arurm. Ate breakfast with a dude from Iceland having beer and cigarettes for his meal, bought souvenirs and dress clothes for my upcoming adventure, and was definitely ready to leave. I did enjoy eating one last final meal in an alley. Thirty six hours in Bangkok and I’m on to Beijing, ready to turn a new chapter.