This is an incredible country - filled with
astonishingly beautiful
sights, friendly people, the most amazing food
we've ever had, and a
sense of peace which permeates even stinky,
sweltering
Bangkok.
Some highlights,
then:
The
food.
This was one of the main
reasons we came to Thailand,believe it or not,
and we were amazed by
how consistently good even the plainest looking
food was. The best
dishes were usually curries, and our favourite
Thai ingredient is probably coconut milk, the true nectar of the
gods.
We ate at fancier
restaurants occasionally, but usually stuck to
little hole in the wall places, mainly because the food they served
was incredibly cheap and delicious. One of our favourite places
served Thai-Muslim food - and we ate like kings and queens (rich
chicken curries, laced with spice, a crisp vegetable salad with
peanut sauce, fresh lemonade, and these little
crunchy rotis, drizzled with condensed milk and sugar for dessert - all
for less than $2 each!) We've been back
there 3 times (5, if
you count the times we went and they were
closed, and we sulked away to another restaurant), and will probably
go again.
The food is spicy, but
not unbearably so. Most of our dishes were
probably toned down for
our 'farang' (foreigner) palates, but still came
with little bowls of
condiments - including 3 different kinds of
chili-laden sauces,
which we added to most of our meals.
The surprise dish for
both of us was a plain noodle soup. This
unasssuming dish
(noodles with some kind of meat - pork, chicken
in little balls, and one or two vegetables) was so delicious
that Paul once ordered two huge bowls in a row.
We had some today, and yesterday, too.
Another highlight
related to food was our cooking course. Only a
day long, we were exposed to the whole cooking process. We went
to the market and found out where all the ingredients come from. We
learnedto cook 6 different dishes - from appetizers to dessert, and
were given a cookbook with about 25 recipes.
Of course, we got to eat all the food, and it was spectacularly
good.
Bangkok. Everywhere we go, we're amazed by
how decent the capital cities are. Bangkok has everything you'd ever
need, and some pretty incredible palace architecture - so far
beyond baroque, and everything dripping
with
gold.
Bangkok's backpacker
ghetto is called Khao San Road. Tourists started
coming to Khao San
several decades ago, and now it has evolved into
a mind-boggling, tourist-only street. Restaurants, bars,
travel agencies, knock-off clothing, bootleg
tapes, fake student cards and stands with
every imaginable type
of souvenir - all side by side for 800
yards.
The
Tuk-Tuk. A chainsaw with three wheels, these are Bangkok's most
efficient and noisiest transport. They spew so
much pollution you'd swear they alone were responsible for the hole in
the ozone layer. They're basically three-wheel motorcycles, with an
awning bolted on top at precisely the right angle to prevent you from
seeing where you're going, or how fast you're going there. These are
both good things.
The
people. So friendly, so generous, so kind you can't even believe it.
Everyone, that is, except the tuk-tuk drivers.
The
train. I've waxed eloquent about the train before, but I'll do it
one last time. The train is so peaceful, and allows you to see a
totally different country than the one seen from the bus. The people
who live and work near train stations are especially interesting -
they still wave madly at each passing train. Train stations are people
magnets - we saw whole, middle-class looking
Thai families right beside the railway tracks, on a
picnic!
The
religion. Buddha is alive and well and
living in Thailand. Monks ride beside you
on the bus (well,
beside me, because Buddhism has this annoying
rule that monks can't touch or make eye contact with women - if a
woman wants to give something to the monk - something I'm not sure how
she's supposed to do if he's not looking at her - she must place
it on his robe, or give it to a man to give to him), and even the
tiniest little speck of a town has an enormous
temple. Drivers take their hands from the wheel and press them together
in a 'wai' whenever they pass an important temple. There are
thousands and thousands and thousands of
Buddha sculptures in
Thailand, and every one is revered. Every
morning, monks roam the streets with their alms bowls, and believers
fill them with food and other offerings. Spirit houses (little houses
built atop a pedestal, for daily food
offerings to the spirits) are in back alleys
and in the middle of
absolutely nowhere. Most men here spend some
time as a monk. Amazing.
The
patriotism. Buddhism has made its mark on most Thais, but the only thing
that affects everyone here is the king. He is as close to a
living deity as you can get. Every house has at
least one flattering picture of his youthful visage (despite the fact
he's almost 72, most of the photos are old, and it's most likely illegal
to publish a bad photo of him). Most of the photos picture him
demonstrating one of his many, many talents -
photography, musical
composition, urban planning, carving, drawing,
etc. It's odd, even though we still have the queen on our money,
to see every coin, stamp and bill with his
face on it, and a nation so unquestioning
of its monarchy.
Everyone is expected to stand for the national
anthem, which plays in most public places in Thailand; it was
written, of course, by the king.
The
pollution. It's as bad or worse than you
imagined. We're here in the hottest season, which makes it worse than
we imagined, too.
Riding on a scooter
to the ruins at Phanom Rung. Sailing blissfully (as blissfully
as one can when one is wearing a bubble-visored helmet from 1972)
along, past water buffalo, green rice paddies and a string of amazed
Thais. Our scooter struggled to take us
to the top of an
extinct volcano, where we gazed with amazement at
the finest restored Khmer-style temple and intricate carving in
Thailand.
The tiny town of
Phrae. The friendliest place on earth. We have never seen so many
genuine smiles.
The bat
cave. No, not where the Batmobile is parked, but a cave outside
Khao Yai national park, where an estimated 3 million bats come
pouring out of the mouth of a cave on their way to
hunt mosquitoes (yay, bats!!!). And you're standing right beside
them, breathing in the unbelievable stench
of bat guano travelling
on a wave of air created by this moving wall of
winged creatures. It's
uncanny how much those rubber bats fly like the
real
thing.
Foreigners. It seems as though you get a
special discount if you have, or get, a
tattoo in Thailand,
because at least half of the foreigners here
have them. Thailand has a very strange group of expatriate and
wanna-be expatriate. Signs everywhere discourage drug use, child
prostitution and a whole host of other undesirable
activities. We met some very nice people despite this,
though.
Air-conditioning. Neither of us understood all the
hoopla about air conditioning. Until we
came to Thailand. While
here, we gravitated to any cool breeze, whether
man-made or not. And
now, our hopes and prayers go out to the
inventor of that urban oasis, the incredible, brilliant,
7-11s...
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