The Thailand Trip - part 1

Log date: 12 September.
Location: unknown.
Food poisoning: not yet.

“Helllllllloooooooo,” came the voice from the other side. “How aaaaaaaare you?” it continued. “I’m fine,” I replied, “how are you?” “I’m gooooood,” came the answer, distance, bad cell reception and an adventurous take on English stretching the other’s words as if they were taffy. “Where aaaaaaaare you?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

I’m somewhere in Thailand. To be more specific, I’m somewhere in northern Thailand, “a half hour” (read: at least an hour) outside of Chiang Mai in some town whose name I neither know nor can pronounce. We passed an eternity of town followed by relatively secluded road—still with small shops and occasional restaurants—followed by more town and more road. The shops we passed were reminiscent of small shops in most other countries I’ve been to, selling bits of this and that, or snack food, or drinks, or clothes, narrow in width and in offerings, open ever hopefully well past the time when you would expect business. I wondered if Thailand was—like Europe—more or less completely settled, if the peoples who had been in this area, building towns and destroying others and creating kingdoms at least since the 14th century had managed to cover more or less every square mile with human civilization. I was expecting the familiar interval of town, nothing, town, nothing, town, and instead was rewarded with constant and continuous evidence of human habitation.

We were also rewarded with one dead dog and one motorcycle accident, evidence both that this country is still on the road to modernization (or at least to road safety regulations and crash helmets). Traffic is of the blithely hectic variety, as if everyone is purposefully and happily unaware that riding against traffic on a motorcycle (or on the centerline) might not be a good idea, that twenty people should perhaps not be crammed into a bus, and one would think nothing of blocking six lanes of traffic to eke a tractor trailer through a U-turn. Back forward back forward back forward back forward. Repeat.



As we pass the little shops and the hawker-center style restaurants, the dingy buildings and the scrubby little cars, I realize I am not surprised. I don’t think abject poverty would surprise me much either, and I wonder at my equanimity. Nor am I struck by any feature particularly ‘Thai’ of the arrangement, simply that I am in an area not quite so rich as that to which I am perhaps accustomed – though the signs are identical wherever you go. Both here and in my home town, junked vehicles, bits of trash lying around, overgrown gardens and half-feral animals are signs of less well-off areas.

I sit in the back and chat with my colleague, a Thai friend whom I met when I was an intern at the UN agency where she works in Geneva. And I realize how vastly different our backgrounds are, and how incredible it is for her to have achieved what she has. My circumstances will qualify me for the kind of job I want to have, but for those born of average means in the northern corner of a country like Thailand have a lot longer of a road than mine to get to a place like Geneva. Her English has always been quite good, but the contrast of most of the people we have met—who do not speak much beyond “how are you?”—only underlines her ability.

One week ago I was in Malaysia, one day ago I had just arrived in Thailand from Singapore, and one hour ago I was learning the word for Gecko in Thai and wondering if the shrimps were staring at me.

Upon my arrival in Bangkok, I was whisked away to the home of my colleague’s friends, apparently a well-known Thai singer and movie star, who seems to be enamored of me and was surprised to find that not only am I not married (his son, at 21, is soon to be made a father by his wife of two years), I don’t even have a boyfriend. He thought he might arrange something, but I declined. We dined on lobster, drank wine, swam in the pool, and drank wine _while_ swimming in the pool. He, his wife, his daughter, his son, his son’s pregnant wife, his brother, the brother’s wife and their three children all apparently live in the same massive and labyrinthine house, which I suspect was originally two houses somehow connected together by way of a purple-carpeted, mirrored walkway. There are at least three or four living-room-type-areas I could discern, each with a flatscreen TV, plus winter gardens and kitchens and bars and eating areas. I got lost twice looking for my room. Despite their apparent status they welcomed me warmly, fed me well and tried out their English. The daughter, an 11-year-old budding soap opera star, taught me the words for pool, water, leaf, tree, glass, hand, and other things. Which I have since forgotten. Our morning consisted of breakfast, a massage, curried crab for lunch, and a trip to the airport. Life is horribly hard.

I sat on the plane and forced myself through forty pages on Indonesia’s history and politics, catching up on missed work for a class on the region and its politics. I realize (well, I knew this before but now it is even more apparent) I know nothing about this place, or any other place over here. I knew almost next to nothing about either Suharto or Marcos, about where Mindano was or that Malasyian Borneo was ruled by a white guy for over a hundred years. I feel ignorance should be remedied and not bragged about, and so I attack my readings with at least the intention of fervor (which, alas, was conquered by the confusion of a multiplicity of acronyms and the quiet desperation arising in contemplation of the inch-thick stack remaining to me. But nevertheless, I wonder what kind of place these countries today would be if they had been run not quite so kleptocratically, if the leaders had taken just a little instead of everything. I also wonder what it’s like to be in a place like Indonesia when riots are going on, when police fire on protesters, when protesters attack bystanders, when a coup happens. I can’t imagine that.

We land in Chaing Mai amid a trickle (it would be a flood if the plane had been full but it wasn’t) of slightly grubby backpackers, who were all dutifully collected at the gate by an enthusiastic sign-waver. After our hour or so of winding roads and small villages, we arrived at what would be home for the next few days. My colleague’s family has lived in this house for over fifty years. I wonder how many generations have lived in that house, and how many joys and sorrows that house has seen, silent against the passage of time.

I still don’t speak Thai. My vocabulary consists of about five words, and most of that is passive. Therefore, conversation is difficult. My friend’s father is 82 years old, has to more or less gum things rather than chew them, and apparently when he speaks in Thai he’s not always easily understood. But he and I have learned to communicate: he sees me, holds up whatever it is he’s eating or doing, and announces its name. The only time I ever understand him, however, is when the thing happens to be a banana. “Banana!” he calls happily, and I smile and reply, “banana”. My conversation with the rest of my colleague’s family, however, is more limited, as no one can speak much more than a sentence of two of the “where are you from?” and “how old are you?” variety.


(Coolest kitchen ever)