Wild Hogs

Dec. 10, 2012

The next few days on Ko Pha-Ngan provided a few little adventures, but nothing as serious as the Full Moon Party. One of the days we decided to go out to the island that was just a couple hundred meters off shore. There was a sand bar between our islands, so when the tides were not too high, we could walk and swim across without too much difficulty. In the middle, waves were crashing on us from both sides. Although nothing had led us to believe that the island was inhabited in any way, we immediately saw signs of life when we got there. There were a couple of little Buddhist shrines in a grassy clearing. As we walked further in, we saw a couple of small shacks. As we got closer, one of them appeared to be an abandoned bar. It started to get a little creepier as we weren’t sure whether anyone might be around or not. We started to follow a trail and it took us up to a few wooden bungalows that also looked abandoned. It looked like this had been something of a guesthouse at some point. It was hard to tell how long it had been since it was used. It wasn’t listed in any of the guidebooks, so it was probably built fairly recently. Decay in the tropics happens quickly. We went inside one of the bungalows. The mattress was off the bed and covered in mold. Even some of the wood seemed to be rotting. We found a magazine that seemed to be the Thai equivalent of Maxim. It was dated just six months earlier. The trail petered out shortly after passing the few bungalows so we turned back around. Although it was incredibly creepy to walk around this little ghost hostel, it seemed like it would have been an awesome place when or if it had ever been open. I thought it would be fun to come back out here during the lowest tide and bring things to camp and have a bonfire. Nobody else was that interested, plus it would have been difficult to get our things across without getting them wet.

A couple of the days we rented motorbikes to explore the island. We rode to a trail to a waterfall that was not all that impressive (dry season), but it had great views. We stopped for noodle soups, conquered steep hills, found a rope swing and enjoyed the green scenery. One thing that I did not like about the island was that the tourists seemed to greatly outnumber the Thais. I have a hard time with that dynamic. Although we had come for the beach and the island atmosphere, I feel that I travel because of the people I meet. The fact that we were a big group on a touristy island meant that we would not be interacting much with locals. However, after riding around a bit, I was glad that we had chosen to stay at the place that we had. We were secluded from the towns that were just overrun with tourists, guesthouses, trinket shops and bad western restaurants. At one point in our ride, we stopped at a place suspiciously called “Lady Bar”. We had not taken much notice in that detail though. Other than a young white couple playing pool, we were the only people there. A woman in her thirties served us our drinks and tried to chat us up. I had a hunch where it was going and kept my distance. She told Henry, with a smile and a wink, “You are so handsome.” We later suspected that this lady may have been a boy. This was lost on Henry, and after we left he gloated, saying, “Did you hear? She thought I was the most handsome out of all of us.” I responded, “No, she thought you were the most likely out of all of us to pay for sex.”

I enjoyed Ko Pha-Ngan and I guess it was a fitting way to finish this long travel. It was not as rugged and far more mainstream than most of what I had done in the previous fifteen months, but perhaps it would make for a more normal transition back to America. Going back after a traipsing around obscure Indian states or a river in Mali would be a lot more difficult than a traditional beach holiday where I was surrounded by westerners anyway.

After a healthy dose of the island, we took the ferry back to the mainland. We encountered a strange phenomenon during our transit. It was the backpacker that is stuck in a tube. We realized that most of the people we were around had paid for package deal all the way back in Bangkok, where all of their transport was arranged and paid for in advance. And even those who have not signed onto a package trip are steered into this tourist tube and don’t bother trying to get out. When our minivan got to Surat Thani, the main town and transit hub not far from the ferry, we were dropped off on a random street near a tour company office. All the other passengers were herded off the van and into the office to wait for their connecting mode of transport to either their next island or back to Bangkok. We tried to ask where the main bus station, but nobody would give us a straight answer. They asked where we were going. I knew they just wanted to get us onto one of their buses that would be inevitably more expensive, and, as far as I’m concerned, carried a higher risk for theft or scams.  We knew there was a bus station in the city that had connections to Bangkok, but nobody wanted us to find it. We walked away from the tour office and tried to find somebody who spoke English to help us out. It wasn’t long before we had some reliable information, but it wasn’t the best news. It sounded like the bus station had moved and was no longer centrally located, and that the odds of catching a bus to Bangkok at this time were not very good. We decided to relax and have a night in this mostly ignored town. This was probably one of the few good decisions we made so far in Thailand.

We checked into a comfortable and surprisingly cheap hotel room. It even felt luxurious compared to our rustic beach huts. We proceeded directly to the nearby night market. The food on Koh Pha-Ngan had been expensive and mediocre at best. Now we were back in actual Southeast Asia, where the night market, rather than the hostel, feeds the hungry masses and fried noodles, curry and steamed dumplings, rather than banana pancakes, reign king. Even in Bangkok we hadn’t eaten as well as we did in our two hours in the Surat Thani night market. We ate ourselves silly. We didn’t know most of what we were eating. We just walked around, saw what looked good and put it in our mouths. The night in Surat Thani was actually a far better final memory of Thailand than our time on Ko Pha-Ngan.

The next morning we were up early enough to see the monks walking around collecting alms. We made our way to the bus station and quickly found ourselves heading back toward Bangkok. The bus was surprisingly fast, especially compared to the train, and we were back in the capitol before dark. This time we chose to stay near the horrid and infamous Khao San Road. When we had first been in Bangkok, it had given the Cameroon crew the biggest culture shock of the trip. Nobody actually wanted to go back there. Unfortunately, though, its cheap prices and other convenient amenities lured us in anyway. It always happens to me.

As much as we were against the idea of Khao San Road, we managed to enjoy ourselves. We met some other travelers at a street side bar, and hung out with them. They were typical Southeast Asia backpackers. Nice company, but not so interesting. Then we met a couple guys from Togo. They were far more interesting to talk to, so Harly, Paul and I spent an hour or two hanging out with them, practicing our French and talking about Africa. I had always seen the occasional African in Bangkok, Kolkata and Phnom Phenh, and always wondered what their story was. This guy explained that many of them originally come to play soccer. Maybe they have been recruited by a team or perhaps figured they could get on a team on arrival. This explained why all the Africans in Kolkata said they were soccer players. Unfortunately one of the Togolese guys told us, things don’t work out for most of them as they plan. And since most of them have obligations to a family back home, who expect them to come back with big soccer money, they turn to various forms of crime to support themselves and their families. This explained the reputation the Africans, specifically Nigerians, had in India and Thailand. I had heard that Nigerians ran the cocaine trade in India and various other unsavory activities in Thailand. I was glad to be finally getting a little more of the whole story. I’m sure there is a lot to learn about the African Diaspora in Asia. Perhaps that will be worth another trip this direction.

The next day we languidly departed our filthy flophouse and went back to the guesthouse we had stayed at the previous week. This was simply to pick up some bags we had left there. It was my last stop before heading to the airport. My flight was at 5:30, so it was time for me to start making my way to the airport. As I said my goodbyes, I mentioned how I was always paranoid that I would screw up the 24-hour time that is always on international plane tickets and confuse a 15:30 time with a 5:30 PM time. This was something that I really did worry about every time I headed to the airport. However, this was the only time where I actually did make the mistake. When I got to the airport, I found a bench and an outlet before even checking in, and opened my laptop. The first thing I did was double check my ticket. That was when I realized that my flight was leaving at 3:30 (15:30), not 5:30. I looked at the clock. 2:50. I grabbed my things and ran to the Korean Air check-in, half-expecting them to tell me that it was too late to make the flight. Then began a long series of events that seemed constructed to help me miss my flight. I got to the counter, and as luck would have it, they decided to have a trainee help me. The trainer sat patiently behind them as they slowly asked me all the necessary questions. They made plenty of mistakes, and the trainee calmly, but slowly, helped them along. My urgency was completely lost on them. When I tried to check my bag, they said it was overweight. I started throwing my things all over the place, shoving heavy items into my carryon bag and into my pockets. I got my boarding pass and ran toward security. Then I was blindsided by the customs line I had to get through first. The shortest line had ten people in it. I found myself behind a couple of French girls who looked like backpackers. I started speaking to them in French, explaining that my plane was leaving soon and if it would be at all possible if I could cut. They were more than understanding, and even encouraged me to go right to the front. Everyone was surprisingly happy to let me go ahead of them. I needed it desperately, and finally felt like I was catching a break. On the other side, the security line looked long, but it moved fast. I hustled through and found myself in the terminal with about fifteen minutes before takeoff. I had just enough time to get to my gate, and check my email. I was heading to South Korea and had plans to meet up with a friend during my 18-hour layover. The only problem was that I had not done a good job of getting in touch with her about our plans to meet up. The logistics of how I would get into Seoul had not been laid out. Checking the email didn’t help much either. Either way, I was just grateful to make it onto the plane in time. Peace out, again, Thailand.

I Can't Believe I Went to a Full Moon Party...Thailand. Again.

Dec. 6, 2012

And it was back to Bangkok. This city really was shaping up to be my own personal crossroads for Asia. Unfortunately I am always passing through this city, only having enough time to take care of the things that need to be done before moving to the next place. My fifth time in Bangkok, and I still wasn’t going to give it the attention it deserves. I had more important plans, though. I was about to meet up with Harley, who I hadn’t seen since he left our house in Arizona over two years earlier. He had just finished his service in the Peace Corps in Cameroon, and was now coming to travel Southeast Asia with a few of his friends that he had served with. Meeting up with Harley was particularly significant since I still felt bad for not visiting him when I had been in West Africa. This was now a chance to partially redeem myself.

It was fun to see what this group of guys were like after 27 months in Cameroon, especially as they arrived in a place as completely different as Bangkok. Their eyes were wide and mouths agape at the futuristic transportation, skyscrapers, women in short shorts and skirts, bright lights and great street food. It was quite the contrast for me too, coming from India, but I had just been here a couple months earlier. One thing that they were used to, though, was lots of beer drinking. Cameroon drinks more beer per capita than anywhere in Africa, so what I was seeing in their thirst was not relief from being done with the Peace Corps, but instead business as usual.

Our first night we found ourselves having dinner and beers at a makeshift restaurant with a dirty old Aussie bloke. He was a perfect stereotype of the old man expat in Thailand. He had a Thai wife, who was not around for whatever reason, but he spoke Thai well. He was a good source of information, and an entertaining character. However, he was still a dirty old man who served as a good warning to anyone wanting to spend too much time in Thailand. Do you really want to end up like him?

Most of our couple days in Bangkok was filled with running errands, chasing down street food and playing cards, with all the gaps in between filled with beer. Although we were not staying in Khao San Road, we started to border on that level of obnoxiousness that comes from the frat boy tourists in that part of town. Luckily we would be heading down to an island soon where we would feel a little more free.

The night before we left Bangkok, a couple of Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Thailand came to meet up with us. One of them was going to take us to an island that she liked. Then, in the morning, something came up and she was not able to go. Now we were on our own to figure out our plans. She had been planning to take us to Koh Chang, an island I had already been to, but instead we decided to head farther south. We went to the train station to find the next train that would be heading that direction. An overnight train would be leaving that evening, so we had the whole day to hang out at the train station.

We had been too cheap to spring for the sleeper car, so it was a pleasant surprise when we found that our third class car was not too packed. A couple of us even had room to stretch out. We had decided to go to Ko Pha-Ngan, one of Thailand’s most popular islands. We had chosen it because it was accessible, had a lot to do and was not as developed for tourism as places like Ko Samui. As I looked through the guidebook, I discovered that Ko Pha-Ngan was the island where Thailand’s notorious full moon parties originated. I knew that we all had mixed feeling about something like that. I asked Patrick if he could see the moon out the window. He said yes. I asked how it looked. “Pretty close to full,” he said. Unless it was full the day before, we would be there in time for the world’s biggest beach party. I think the prospect of this made us all nervous, especially since we were just stumbling into it. Everything I read about it made me question if it was even a good idea to go. The amount of people, the drugs, the abundance of police (corrupt or otherwise), thieves, spring breakers, occasional deaths due to undertows or drugs, are all things that made the Full Mood Party a little intimidating. We just had to wait and see if it was actually in the cards.

None of us got much sleep on the train. I hadn’t gotten the best sleep the previous nights either as I had volunteered to take the floor of our double room. When we arrived at the train station at Phun Phin around 7 AM, we were starving. We found the nearest basic restaurant and ordered a round of noodle soups and beers. Then we grabbed a bus going to Surat Thani, the nearest town to the ferry terminal. When we arrived there, we got into a sawngthaew (pickup truck with bench seats) to take us to a ferry terminal. We agreed on the price of thirty Baht each beforehand. When we got there, though, the driver seemed to be unhappy with the money we gave him. He now said the price was 90 Baht per person. I told him he was trying to cheat us, and that we wouldn’t pay any more. I knew that the other Thai passengers had not paid 90. I also assumed that he usually dealt with tourists that wouldn’t question him. We argued further until he threatened to call the police. I told him to go ahead. He walked to the nearby ferry ticket office. Everyone else said they didn’t want to deal with police and wanted to just pay. It was a difference of two dollars each. I just didn’t want to make it that easy for him to rip people off. I wasn’t going to drag them into my stubbornness so we paid up.

As soon as we got to the ferry, we realized we would indeed be there for a full moon party. People boarding the boat were already sporting shirts that read “Full Moon Party Dec. 9, 2012”. Then I remembered that some hippy in India had mentioned there would be an eclipse on the 9^th. So we were heading straight into a Full Moon Party in Thailand’s highest tourist season with an eclipse in the forecast. Plus we were on a very limited amount of sleep. So what did we do on the ferry ride? Well, we had a few rounds of strong beers to see what would happen. Then there were some Thai guys sitting outside that kept inviting us to rounds of Mekong whiskey. It was already getting scary.

When we got off the ferry we past the hordes of taxi drivers and sawngthaews offering rides to various parts of the island. The fares looked exorbitant and we were sure we could find something better. During our search, I ran into a dread-locked Korean guy named Chris that I had volunteered with in Kolkata. Back in India he was a kind and charming character. In Thailand, he was a sloshed party animal. It was an amazing coincidence, but at the same time, it further proves that Thailand is the crossroads of my universe.

As it turned out, waiting around wasn’t the best idea. We had figured that there might be some sort of public transport around the island that would take us close to our destination. This turned out to be a terribly wrong assumption. As it turned out, though, hiring an entire sawngthaew to ourselves was about the same price as if we had taken the shared ones for tourists to begin with.

Half an hour of driving through jungle covered hills and we were eventually delivered to what turned out to be pretty close to paradise, in the cliché sense of the word. There was a beach (a bit small and rocky) plenty of palm trees, dramatic emerald peaks rising behind us, and a mysterious little island a few hundred meters offshore. We checked into our little wooden bungalows. Paul, Harley and I shared a double, while Henry and Patrick shared the other double. We had a hammock on our little deck, but I ripped straight through it within the first few hours. There were thoughts of napping, but who were we kidding? There was a beach and a beer store nearby.

That evening, we caught a sawngthaew that was leaving our area around 9. There were also some German and French girls riding with us. They all seemed either reserved, unfriendly, or perhaps avoiding a group of obnoxious American guys. By the end of the ride, though, they were at least a little more friendly. We had gone through miles of dark, quiet, and almost empty roads to reach the chaos that was going down at Hat Rin, the beach that hosts the full moon parties. The streets were packed with foreigners heading toward the beach. The proper attire seemed to be some sort of white tank top with lots of glow paint on the shirt, face or body. I felt overdressed in my Kolkata t-shirt. After getting out of the truck, the German girls wandered off somewhere, but the French girls stuck around with us. We grabbed a couple of whiskey bucket kits on the way in, which included a bucket, a medium bottle of Mekong whiskey, and Red Bull. Thailand is the only place I’ve been other than Coeur d’Alene, ID where buckets of booze are standard.

Within thirty minutes of getting to the party, I got separated from Harley, Paul and the French girls. So it was just Henry and I for a while. Getting separated and then searching for each other would be a common theme of the night. But with half a mile of beach, endless clubs and tens of thousands of people, it was almost impossible to find each other. It didn’t matter much anyway. Sometimes we were all together; sometimes I was with Paul and sometimes with Henry. Either way, though, it was always a good time. The crowd was exceptionally Euro-trashy. It was far more of a Scandanavian spring break crowd than the fire-spinning hippie crowd one might expect at this party. Beyond the music and dancing, there were plenty of things to keep us entertained. There was a giant inflatable water slide, food stalls, a flaming jump rope, an ocean, a flaming limbo stick and probably other things that I have forgotten about. As expected, I was killing it on the limbo stick, but didn’t get proper recognition as a limbo master since nobody else had respect for the limbo rules. 

Henry and I were the last two standing when the sun started to come up. At that point, people started to really get into the idea of swimming. I couldn’t resist. I set my things on a wooden platform and asked Henry to watch them while I took a dip. When I got out, I didn’t see Henry, or my blue scarf that I had left on the platform. I saw that my scarf had been knocked off and was rolling around in the water. Then I saw Henry dancing off to the side, not paying attention. Then I noticed my zipper pouch that I had had my money in was gone. I looked around and suddenly saw a Thai guy walking away with it. I approached him and said it was mine, and he just handed it back, apologized and scurried off.

Not long after, Henry and I decided to make our way back home. It was surprisingly easy to find a Sangthaew going in our direction. In the chaos of the night, almost all the people around us had been strangers. Now we were back in a more social context, meeting the people that we had been partying alongside the whole night. It was almost awkward, especially since I did not want to be the same kind of person as those we were riding with. Either way, we could all partake in the camaraderie of having been through a full moon party together.

I woke around 1 PM the next day, which is incredibly late for me no matter the circumstances. I was amazed to find the whole crew already at a table on the beach getting into their first (or third for some) beers. I didn’t want to have anything to do with that, but the peer pressure and the desire to kick around stories from the night before got the better of me. Of course I felt great after a bit. It turned out that three of the four of us that went (forgot to mention that Patrick didn’t want to go to the party) had had thieves try to work their magic on us. Harley, who had left the earliest of all of us, had his phone picked from his pocket. Paul, however, had the best story. At some point in the night, in a crowded area where everyone was dancing, a Thai woman approached Paul. She began to dance with him closely. After a few moments, he realized she was a lady boy. Before he knew it, she had smiled and left. Paul immediately checked his pockets, and realized his wallet was missing. He ran after her and grabbed her shoulder. She turned around, pulled out his wallet, handed it back, smiled, and said, “sorry!” 

A Little Temple Adventure

August 22, 2011

We decided not to get too ambitious with our exploration of the Northeast of Thailand, and just base ourselves in Surin for some little excursions. The day after our trip to the elephant farm, we decided to visit the ancient Khmer ruins of Phanom Rung. Built between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, it is the largest of the Khmer era ruins in Thailand.

There wasn’t any direct public transport to the ruins, so once again we relied on hitching to get there. It was another long walk out of town, this time going south. We had gotten an early start, though, so there wasn’t much rush. We walked past a large reservoir surrounded by a relaxing park, where monks wandered around and socialized. At the edge of town were big statues of elephants, typical of Thailand. We got a ride from a family in a truck. They dropped us off 25 km south of Surin, in a town called Prasat. Then we walked through the tiny town, to where the other main road crossed it and we turned east. We got a ride with a man with a truck packed with work supplies. We piled into the cab and moved on our way. The man didn’t seem to speak any English, but we made it the 30 km to our turnoff anyway. When we got out, there were a couple of taxi drivers waiting for the occasional tourist who wanted to go to the ruins. We ignored their questions of “where are you going?” and just walked down the road for a while.

A unique ride followed. A black behemoth of an SUV pulled up. Two young, pretty, women were in the front seats and we told them we were headed to Phanom Rung. They spoke more English than most people in this area. They seemed much more Bangkok than Surin province. They were sassy and funny with an edgy urban style. They came off as a couple of wild girls on a mission to have wild times with their older husbands’ credit cards. They drove fast and aggressively through the rolling and windy roads of the countryside, stopping once to say a prayer at a small roadside shrine. We thanked the young women when we arrived at the entrance to the ruins and made our way in. The temple was on the top of a big hill, which had a great view.

The ruins were well-restored, and the grounds nicely manicured. I always feel, though, that this takes a little away from the atmosphere and gives the ruins more of a museum feel. This was my first time seeing Hindu temples in Southeast Asia. I started to come to understand large swaths of Southeast Asia (especially the Khmer Empire of present day Cambodia) was Hindu, rather than Buddhist.

The ruins we were looking at contained elaborate carvings of scenes from Hindu mythology as well as sculptures of Shiva, Vishnu, and his carnations Rama and Krishna. Being from the same era and empire, it shared a lot of similarities to the famous temples at Angkor Wat.

We had the ruins to ourselves for a while, but when a couple of groups moved in (a French family and a group of loud, rich Thai men) we decided to proceed through the ruins and down the other side.

There were a few food stalls at the other entrance, but everything looked overpriced and uninteresting so we decided to hitchhike instead. We weren’t sure if we could hitchhike in either direction. According to my map we could take the road in either direction, but we decided to go and ask the man at the tourist information booth. We went into the small glass-walled building and there was a security officer sitting behind the desk, fast asleep. I figured he would wake up in a moment or two, but he didn’t. We tried talking louder as we looked through tourist pamphlets. We shuffled along the tile floor loudly. Eventually we made various loud noises, but it did nothing. I wasn’t about to tap this guy on the shoulder or yell at him, so we ended up just walking out of the place.

We took our chance leaving the opposite direction than where we had come from. The man that picked us up in the back of the pickup truck couldn’t tell us where he was going, due to language barriers, but he seemed to know where we were going and would drop us off. It always seems to be backs of pickup trucks in Thailand. Isn’t it glorious? Apparently Thailand has a higher number of pickup trucks per capita than any other country. Take that Texas!

We wound through the well-paved country road, past small villages and vast rice paddies. For a while, we weren’t sure if we were actually going in the right direction. We had twisted and turned so much that we had lost our bearings. Eventually, though, we emerged into a small town intersected by the narrow highway. He dropped us off near the bus station, but we found that there were no buses going to Surin. So as we walked through town, we waded through hoards of students as they got out of their primary, secondary and whatever other schools. Food stalls lined the streets, selling youth-friendly treats. We hadn’t eaten any lunch so we decided to try some after school snacks. One guy had a variety of Fantas and Coke in two-liter bottles that he would serve in cups with ice. One of the snacks was some sort of sweet flat bread, not unlike a pancake with a peanut filling. There were a few fried snacks and some things that were pretty obscure and beyond my memory.

Back on the road, we got a ride from some teenagers driving a covered pickup truck. They seemed to pull over without realizing that their truck bed was filled with something like school furniture. Desks, chairs, etc. They didn’t think we would be able to fit, but we eventually wedged ourselves into the mess.

In Surin that night, we did our normal routine of visiting the night market. For our third time, though, it was getting a little boring, and we wanted to sit and have a meal, rather than snacking from various food carts. So we went around the corner to the town’s other, more low key market. This one seems to be an all-hours market. Produce, meats, typical market things by day, and stalls serving noodles, rice, curry, roast meats, etc. by night. We found a spectacular local phad Thai stall (no, that stuff you get at carts on Khao San Road can barely be described as phad Thai) and ordered some cheap beers from an adjacent stall. As we were eating, a small elephant showed up, walking through the market with its trainer. It was remarkably cute because it was small enough to fit through the aisles of the market and wasn’t too tall for the roof.

Lise has a good friend from university who was partially raised in Cambodia. She was spending the summer at her parents’ house there, and had invited us to come for a visit. This was part of the reason that we had come to the part of Thailand that we did. It was not to far from the Cambodian border, so as soon as we were ready to get there, it would only take a couple days.

It was time, so we packed our bags and walked south out of town just like we had done the day before. We easily got a ride to the town of Prasat. Next we were just a quick 30 km jaunt to the border of Cambodia. An upper middle class family with a new king cab truck picked us up. We volunteered to sit in the bed, but they insisted we cram into the cab with them. I like to interact with the people that pick us up, but I also get self-conscious when people pick us up in a gleaming air-conditioned vehicle with leather seats. It was a friendly family, though we could not communicate with them. In some places it seems easy to equate skills in a second language (English, French, Spanish) to increased development or higher education. Relatively developed Thailand, however, having never been colonized, speaks much less English than, for example, the Philippines, which is far poorer. Kerala, one of India’s wealthier and better educated states will have far more English speakers than, say Bihar, India’s poorest state. In Thailand, which is one of the more educated and developed countries that I have traveled in, seems to speak far less English or French than perhaps any other country I have traveled in. It can be surprising since in places like India, I equate wealth with education and therefore with English skills. This is a misleading notion in Thailand.

When we reached the border, we parked the car and continued on foot toward the immigration office. I realized that this family didn’t have any actual business being inside Cambodia. We followed them toward the office. They handed a small wad of cash to the official sitting at the booth and the whole family proceeded through, unbothered. No passports, IDs, stamps or visas were involved. You see, gambling is illegal in Thailand, although it is not in Cambodia. Therefore at any border between the two countries, there are some upscale casinos directly across the border. There were loads of Thais pouring through the gates to get there gamble on, and maybe stay at one of the fancy hotels.

We passed through the Thai immigration office and received our stamps. Then we noticed that the Thais didn’t even need to enter Cambodia to go to the casinos. They were actually right there in the no-man’s land between the two borders. On the other side, it looked like there was nothing even on the Cambodia side of the border, except an empty dirt road.

Northeaster Thailand, huh? Well, seeya later.

August 17, 2011

On our way out of Bangkok in the evening, we took a local bus to the train station. The traffic was horrendous, but it didn’t matter since our train would leave late at night. We joined the other Thais that were waiting in the large open space without chairs. I unfolded my tarp, laid it out and we got a few hours rest before our train departed. The train ride was pleasant, but uneventful.

Surin, at first glance is a depressingly typical Thai town. In fact it seemed like it could have been anywhere in the world. Despite this, though, we knew immediately that we had flung ourselves far from Thailand’s large and well-beaten tourist path. Very few people spoke English and most signs were only in Thai. There were hotels, but not the typical kind that cater to backpackers or foreign tourists. It was a long, hot walk through town before we found our “Sangthong Hotel”. It was huge, and seemed nearly empty. The price was less than we would have paid in Bangkok and we had a much nicer room.

Our forage for a meal turned out to bere far more difficult than anticipated. Perhaps we had bad timing, but it seemed that very little was open and what was open didn’t have much to help out the non-Thai speaker. I realized that I had become spoiled. Since the previous two countries we had been in had been colonized by English-speaking countries, I was used to English being fairly common. Even in West Africa I was able to get by on French almost anywhere. Now we were in a mid-sized town in Thailand, of all places, having a surprisingly difficult time getting a plate of noodles. We eventually settled for a cold bowl of gelatinous noodle soup. It was one of the more boring Thai meals we ever had.

We made up for it in the evening, though, where we discovered Surin’s night market. It had a lively atmosphere and it was interesting to receive so much attention in a country that has so many foreign tourists. We sampled all sorts of small dishes from the different booths before further wandering the city. We went to another area that supposedly had some nightlife. There indeed were a few of bar/restaurants, but they were almost deserted. One of them had “live music”, which was bordering pretty closely on karaoke. A man sat behind a keyboard with a microphone and a laptop. He didn’t seem to do much with the keyboard, but would sing along with the karaoke music coming from the laptop. He was a good singer, but his setup was still a little funny. There was only one person there, and it turned out to be the server. We decided this would be a weird, but maybe fun place to sit with a beer. Since we were really the only customers, we were able to shout a few requests the singer. Eventually, though, he offered us a turn. Since we were already having karaoke withdrawals since leaving the Philippines, we were quick to hop on stage. I sang a Creedence song and Lise sang her specialty, “My Heart Will Go On”. Afterword, as we were sitting at the table close to the open front of the restaurant, an elephant came walking down the street, led by his caretaker. It was a funny sight, and Lise was especially excited. He was making his rounds around town, looking for people that wanted to pay a few Baht to feed the elephant. We handed over a couple coins for sugar cane and bananas. The elephant eagerly stuck out his trunk, greedily grabbing at the snack. We wanted to savor it though, and gave him the bananas and sugar cane sticks one at a time.

We weren’t sure of what our next move would be, but the next morning, we packed our bags and checked out of the hotel. We were planning to go to a village just north of us to see an obscure elephant farm. We had ideas of going on to another town further along, or perhaps camping at a nearby river. Either way, we walked out of town, past the train tracks, moving north along the widening boulevard that stretched out before us. It was hot, and the traffic was moving fast. Not the best hitching conditions, but we eventually made it to a traffic light near the edge of town.

It took less than ten minutes of waiting to get our first ride in the back of a pickup truck. The man drove us to a turnoff that would lead us to Ban Tha Klang, the village with the elephant farm. Our map must have been pretty inaccurate, since we had thought it would be a straight shot on the same road from Surin all the way to Ban Tha Klang. We quickly got a ride down the winding country road in the back of another pickup truck. A middle-aged woman sat in the back with us, with a big, almost devious smile. She tried to speak with us, but there was not much we could communicate to each other, except that we were going to the elephant farm.

We got dropped off right at the gate of the “Elephant Study Centre” in Ban Tha Klang. It was pretty obvious that we were in for a kitschy treat. We were a little bit early for the 2:00 elephant show. Tourists, mostly Thai, trickled in slowly and took seats on the wooden bleachers around the performance space. There were a few pudgy and pasty western tourists, and even that was a little surprising. There are so few major attractions in this region of Thailand that I was surprised that anyone would spend vacation time coming out here.

The elephant show began with a few of the beasts lumbering and shimmying to the rhythm of Thai music into the middle of the performance area. Then they moved into a series of tricks, each a little more impressive than the last. One of the elephants painted a picture with a trunk, while the next one threw darts at a balloon on a target. Between the acts, the trainers would bring the elephants to the audience and sell bananas and sugar cane to be fed to the animals. Then the elephants would dance some more and eventually they got into playing sports! Yes, it was cheesy and kind of awkward, since I wondered how the elephants were treated, but they did indeed make impressive showing in basketball and soccer. Not only could they slam dunk a basketball, they could make the occasional free throw. Not only could they kick a soccer ball with considerable force, a couple of the elephants could play goalie pretty well and make saves with their feet.

After the show, we perused the souvenir stalls. Lise was in the market for some Christmas gifts for her family, and she came up with a couple of decent finds. We also used this to bide our time while the tourists all left in the overpriced shared taxis. We figured we had made it here by hitchhiking, so we could probably get back as well.

As we were waiting by the road, we saw the same grinning woman that had been in the truck on the way there. She seemed to want to get our attention. It was rough communication, but it seemed that she wanted to hook us up with a ride. Her husband came and pointed to his nearby tractor, saying he could take us back to the main road. It didn’t appear that he was going there anyway, meaning we would probably have to pay. We started to sense some opportunism, and figured they were looking to make a little money (not that there’s anything wrong with that), so we declined and kept walking down the road. Soon a truck stopped for us, and we hopped in the back. We had said through the window that we had wanted to go to the main road. They didn’t understand, but they were going in the right direction, so we figured we would just get out when we got there or as far as they were going. After ten minutes, though, we could tell they were driving with less confidence. They had taken some weird turns and eventually had taken us in a circle. They asked for directions from a shopkeeper, and turned back the way we had come. It turned out that they had been in the wrong direction the whole time, so we ended up back at square one by the elephant farm.

A few minutes later, a decrepit old pickup passed by and picked us up. We hopped in the back with the other passenger, an old farming woman. She had red-stained teeth from chewing betel nut, a common practice among the elderly women around here.

When we came across a sangthaew (extended pickup truck with a roof over the back used for public transport) heading all the way to Surin, we were coaxed from one vehicle to the other. The inside was crowded, so I said we would ride on top. They were fine with me climbing up, but when Lise tried, the men in charge protested. For whatever reason, they found it unacceptable for women to ride on top of the truck. Lise insisted, causing a brief conflict, but she won out.

The sunset ride into Surin was relaxing and beautiful. We didn’t accomplish too much in the day, but with so many rides in the open air, we felt at ease and comfortable.

Bangkok: Welcome Back

Our flight to Bangkok arrived just in time to catch the last train to the city. It took us about halfway to the neighborhood around Khao San Road, Bangkok’s notorious backpacker zone. On the train, we met a young French couple, who we assumed were going to the same area, based on their dreadlocks and filthy backpacks. We asked if they wanted to share a taxi. I was glad they said they would rather take the bus, since it showed what kind of travelers they were, but I knew that the buses had actually stopped running at this hour.

It turned out that we were also heading to the same guesthouse, since it is one of the cheapest around. I was surprised that when we arrived that I recognized it. It was the exact same guesthouse that I had stayed in when I first arrived to Thailand on my way to India five years prior. It felt strange to unexpectedly land back here again after such a long time.

We spent a few days lazing around Khao San Road. What can one say about one of the world’s largest backpacker hubs? Well, I can’t say much good about it. It is a bizarre oasis of almost Thai-free culture that gave me the biggest culture shock of my life five years before when I landed there after three months in India. I didn’t consider liking it or hating it the first time I passed through there before India, but on the way back it was utterly dreadful. I was shocked at what tourism had destroyed in a city. I was appalled at the disgusting consumerism and hedonism that prevailed in every corner. Every tourist seemed to have a complete disregard for the fact that there was an incredible city with fascinating culture to explore a few blocks away. This time, however, I knew what to expect, and I was ready to treat it for what it was: a cultural anomaly that had developed some time in the last quarter, maybe half, century. I didn’t have to approve or disapprove of it. With the right approach, I could treat it like any other culture that I come into as an outsider. I don’t have to agree what goes on, but it is interesting to watch nonetheless. I may not approve of the caste system in India, women’s veils in Muslim countries, consumerism in Malaysian malls or anything going on in Vegas, but since I have little to do with these cultures, I can sit back and watch the show.

So we explored the trinket stalls, ate crappy phad thai and banana pancakes, drank beer in the streets, but mostly we just sat and watched it all go by. We hadn’t seen many travelers in our month and a half of travel, and this was a veritable parade of backpackers and tourists ranging from the filthy hippy with meter long dreads, to the frat boy fresh from the beach with a maraschino cherry sunburn, and everyone in between. We were both surprisingly content with just sitting around and watching the diverse hordes of foreigners from all over the world make their way through these crowded streets.

As packed as it was with foreigners, it was interesting how we could randomly stumble upon some local Thai treasures that seemed completely overlooked. Just a couple doors down from our guesthouse there was a row of a quaint bar/cafes, all with local musicians performing. One had jazz, another folk and another had some Thai rock. For some reason, all the foreigners were passing by this bit of easily accessible culture. Although the beer was a bit pricier than we were used to, we decided it would be worth it to listen to some of the music. It was hard to believe that we could be so close to Khao San Road and be the only foreigners at a bar with live music.

We bided our time in the city, deciding on our next move. In the mean time, we did some modest exploration. Bangkok is a lively city with plenty to see and do. Unfortunately, a lot of the most impressive sites cost quite a bit, so we decided we would put those on our list of things to do on another trip to Bangkok when we had more money. It was now my fourth time in the city, although every time seems to just be a couple of nights and I still haven’t seen much of it. One of our little excursions took us onto one of Bangkok’s many canals that streak through the city. It was nice to see that they are still quite popular as a means of transport. The canal stank, and we were fortunate that they pulled up tarps to protect us from the splashing as we hit top speed in our long boat.

Beyond some random wandering though, most of our time in Bangkok was spent regrouping. Lise and I had both been sick just before coming here, and we were still weak. We had some practical errands to run (post office, book store, internet, etc.) as well as the obligation to figure out where we would go next. We had decided to meet a friend of Lise’s in Cambodia, so we planned our trip around that. We didn’t have much desire to hit the famous islands of the south, and didn’t have much desire to go to Chiang Mai, Thailand’s other major hub of tourism. We decided to go to Surin in the northeast, a region that is close to Cambodia and relatively tourist free.