Terrific in Thailand

I was sad to leave Chiang Mai and to leave the people I had met there, but also the prospect of seeing new places and venturing into new territory thrilled me as it always does, fueling my wanderlust, which seems to increase rather than decrease in intensity as I travel. My next destination was Sukhothai, which is the site of the most ancient Thai capital of the 13th and 14th centuries. After getting onto the bus, I noticed that another farang—the Thai word for foreigner that encapsulates anyone who is not Thai and most generally those who are white—get on the same bus, so I figured we would be able to share a tuk tuk into town, you know save some money and some time. (I have developed a very sensitive white radar, assuming that when I see white skin that the person is also a backpacker and friendly. Most of the time this is the case, and I have yet to have a bad experience with a white traveler.) Turns out he ended up being a really great British guy and going in the same direction as me. We stayed at the same place and took a bike ride out to a temple about five miles outside of town. The bikes we rented were hilarious with big baskets in the front, no gears, bad pedals that fell off or broke on the ride, flat tires and big handlebars. It was a blessing to be with someone because it made the journey much more interesting. The fact that we were pedaling about five miles an hour didn’t seem to bother us because we were chatting about all sorts of things. That’s what’s great about meeting other solo travelers: they are so willing to open up and talk, mostly about travels and friendly matters although throughout the day and evening we talked about the whole gamut of things.
Unlike the guy I traveled with in Ko Mook, this guy was super fascinating, good looking, really outgoing and well traveled, making him a confident traveling companion. I learned a couple lessons about traveling with a seasoned solo traveler through several minor mistakes I made: never assume that you are actually together in terms of meeting up for a meal, particularly breakfast, which tends to be a personal thing that people have whenever they are personally ready. Don’t feel like you have to remain in close proximity with the person. It is nice to wait for the person or be conscious of where he or she is, but the person’s choice of pace and wandering should not majorly affect your movements. Once you have established that you are traveling together for whatever period, you kind of have a way of maintaining the loose ties, but maintain autonomy at all times. You are never obligated to go with the person or feel like you need to change your normal pattern although forcibly one’s pattern for solo traveling is adapted. Also, don’t feel ashamed to borrow money to cover a small item if you only have big bills or forgot to grab your money from the room or something. It is a normal thing to have someone cover you when you are in an inconvenient situation. It was really great for me to meet someone whose experiences had rendered him an expert on striking up relationships along the road and he had a lot of traveling advice on where to go and what to see. What a fortuitous connection!
Sukhothai is divided into two parts, the new city where everyone lives and where we stayed and the historical park where all the ruins are located and which is connected to the new city by designated songthaews serving that specific route. We took a late morning songthaew into the city and rented bicyles, which are recommended because it is a much quicker and more enjoyable way to see the fairly expansive campus of ruins—chedis (the bell-shaped towers that house remains of monks and some are even said to house some of the remains of Buddha), columns, an immense number of stone Buddha statues that have a distinct Sukhothai look and resemble one another. The park is divided into zones and you have to pay for each zone. We both agreed that the main zone was sufficient and that the others would be superfluous and a waste of money. The day was hot, but it ended up raining a little, which is when we had lunch at a little noodle shop on the side of the road outside of the city—good and cheap!
My traveling companion was fortunate to be going back to Chiang Mai, which has more regular buses than the Bangkok route, which is what I planned to take. I waited around at the guesthouse for a few hours, grabbing a first-class bus bound for Bangkok. I decided to just stop over in Ayutthaya, another ancient capital that directly preceded Bangkok, so I could avoid trying to search for a place to stay in a big place like Bangkok at midnight. The bus dropped me off on the side of the road, and I was just praising God for taking care of me when a motorbike taxi driver came out of a hovel and told me it was 100 baht to get to town. I didn’t care how much it cost as long it got me where I needed to go. He dropped me off at the guesthouse at which I had planned to stay, but it was closed. It had benches outside and I was about to just plop down on the benches and sleep there, but fortunately, I turned the corner and some people called out to me and said a room for 100 baht! Thank you, Lord! Simple and slightly creepy, it was perfect for the amount of time for which I needed it. I have found that the Lord always provides for my needs, sometimes grandly and sometimes basically, but the important thing is that I always have provisions.
Ayutthaya
It was actually quite okay that I got into the city that late at night. I mean, honestly, the only thing one can do at night is drink or read, so in my sleep leaden state, I was prime for the best activity one can engage in at night: sleep :) After having a really slow morning, which I have come to value and seek, I rented a bicycle to tour around the old city. In two days, I saw the two old capitals of Thailand, which are currently as varied as they were historically. Whereas Sukhothai was only in power for around 200 years, the capital of Ayutthaya was in power for almost 500. Now, the modern city has grown around the old ruins, which is quite fascinating. Like in modern day Rome, you have the old and the new jutting up against the other in a peaceful repose that makes for an illuminating bike ride. I got so burnt! I have no idea why in that town the sun is so much more vicious than in other places. I mean, from people I have talked to, it seems like everyone got burnt to a crisp riding around on the town bikes. I fell prey to the seductive powers of the sun and was faint with redden skin after my tour. There is nothing better than a simple bike ride around a historical town, so much to see and to keep the mind busy while exercising the body.
I cannot say which city I liked better—Sukhothai or Ayutthaya—because they were so different. I liked the serene pathos of the historical park in which the ruins were encased in Sukhothai, but I really enjoyed and was mesmerized by the fact that such a modern Asian city had so well preserved the ruins of an age gone by while hurtling forward in the name of progress. Needless to say, I am very glad I had the opportunity to experience both and in different traveling circumstances as well—one with a very nice traveling companion and the other on my own in my normal wander-where-the-heart-takes-you fashion, which I have come to love about myself!
Back to Bangkok but immediately out again
I traveled from Ayutthaya back to Bangkok by train, which was my first experience on the State Railway of Thailand. Come to find out, the railway is actually free for Thai people, but foreigners have to pay about 50 percent of what a coach bus ticket would cost depending on the line one takes. Well, I met some nice Americans—only the second and third I have met thus far—who had been teaching English in Vietnam for a year and a half. The girl of the couple was actually planning to go to the University of WI Madison in the fall, so we had lots to discuss and I enjoyed hearing from them their impressions of Vietnam since I am traveling there on Friday. I have really come to enjoy the brief encounters I have with travelers—other people who have decided to take some time off of the societal reality we must all face and engage in another reality that affords the partakers some very interesting situations to which attention must be given. We parted ways at the railway station; they went off to the backpacker’s ghetto known as Khaosans and I went with Yummy, the nanny of the daughter of the woman who stayed with my stepdad’s family in the 60’s! I stayed at her house for the night and she was a consummate host, worried that I would not be able to understand her or do what I wanted to do safely and without getting hungry. (Those are the two concerns for the Thais, I have remarked: one, will she be safe? Two, will she get hungry on her way there? It makes me laugh, but is appreciated.)
Kanchanaburi: The Death Railway and Hellfire Pass
The next morning I went with Yummy to the railway station, a different line going west rather than north, so I could catch the train to Nam Tok, a portion of which is known as the Death Railway (explanation to follow later). The train was not air-conditioned, but I have found that air-conditioning is not really necessary when there are electric fans—which there always are—and especially when the vehicle is moving. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, turning on my iPod and allowing my mind to wander over my trip in Thailand and the future. When I reached Kanchanaburi—the place where I would spend two nights—the train picked up a lot of tourists, as it is the start of the most famous part of the track known as the Death Railway and place where the train treks over the infamous Bridge over the River Kwai . I thought that maybe I would meet another farang—foreigners—but instead I was greeted by a ton, at least 100 male Thai tourists, in bright pink polo shirts. I have no idea why they were all wearing pink shirts because the writing was in Thai; all I know is that they were loud and were drinking a lot of beer.
Thankfully, for the first part of the journey with these pink shirts, two women who were occupying the seats next to me protected me, but as soon as they left, the men descended on me like lightening. I thought that with the shield of my iPod and my iron and unemotional look of “don’t touch me” would have been enough to thwart their untoward advances. Well, I was wrong because the playboy of the group sat right in front of me, and I had noticed that before he had obtained the number of a Thai girl and was smug with his victory. I think he wanted to prove he could do the same with a farang. I would not countenance his advances, but I did not want to be mean, so as much as possible, I ignored his antics, allowing him to take a picture of me when he asked and even when he didn’t ask but simply aimed his camera at me. I have to say, it is very bizarre to have your picture taken by a complete stranger. It was definitely good to be on the other side of the camera, knowing that I have pointed my camera many a time at people in villages, etc., which is basically the same thing.
Anyway, enough about the pink shirts! The best part about the journey of course was the scenery and the history, which is a fascinating if not grotesque account of human suffering and exploitation. Remember me talking about the Bridge over the River Kwai, well, this was one of some 10 plus bridges that were constructed over the various rivers in between Thailand and Burma where this “Death Railway” was built to aid in the transportation of Japanese supplies to sustain the WWII conquest they had commenced at the end of 1941. Why is the railway called the Death Railway? More than 60,000 POWs and 200,000 indentured laborers were conscripted into the effort of building a railway line the British estimated would have taken five years to complete, and which the Japanese built in 14 months! More than 19,000 POWs died and more than 90,000 Asian laborers perished in the effort!
The Australian government made a memorial to these people in one of the most harrowing portions of construction on the Thailand side, called Hellfire Pass or the Konyu Cutting. The POWs dubbed it Hellfire Pass because they worked around the clock in 12-hour shifts, so at night time the glow and smoke from the lanterns created an otherworldly appearance of hell. The memorial was really beautifully constructed and I wished that I could have spent more time there, but I didn’t realize how fabulously full of good and accessible information it would be and did not leave myself enough time to roam and absorb. After having obtained a free audio guide (I thought of you, Mom, and you are right that a historical place like this means very little without the dramatic narrative) to take me through the pass and along the actually site of the formal railway, I enjoyed meandering through the original path. (The railway was actually dug up, I think in the 70’s or 80’s because it had fallen into disrepair. Now, the railway ends in Nam Tok, which is where I had ended my own trip the day before. The audio guide was the best guide I have ever listened to. It even beats the audio narrative on Alcatraz, which comes in a close second. I really felt like I got a glimpse into the hardships they encountered in terms of the shoeless labor, ever-ridden and pervasive diseases, tap-and-hammer removal of the mountain, and all the other horrors with which they were daily confronted, on such a frighteningly regular basis that it became second nature to deal with what no living creature should ever undergo.
Making it through the majority of the detailed narrative, which was so much better than the Thai version in Kanchanburi that had been haphazardly arranged in an old Thai-Burma War Museum. (If you ever visit Thailand and make it here, which I would highly recommend, don’t even waste your time in the Thai museums in Kanchanaburi. The town is only good for their amazing raft houses, which are hostels and nice hotels build on top of pontoons that rest on the River Kwai. I stayed at a place called Nita’s Raft House, which was a simple place with a great ambience along the lines of Waterworld or something.) Since the bus is irregular in its service, I wanted to try to get back as early as possible so I could make a safe connection to Bangkok, knowing that Bangkok was a little squirrelly at the moment. I ended up waiting for more than an hour, which was disappointing mostly because of the fact that I could have enjoyed the trail a little longer and not rushed as much as I had. Oh, well! It started to rain and still no sign of the bus. Finally, a fan bus, meaning no air-conditioning and only rickety ceiling fans that spread the air better than I would have thought, came along honking its horn and slowing down only long enough to pick me up almost mid-stride.
In Search of a Thai Massage
I was thankful to be on the bus back to Kanchanaburi, but I decided to stay one more night at Nita’s to preclude any possible danger or carelessness coming my way. I have learned that when you rush, which I would have really had to hurry to make a bus, you tend to make serious mistakes, so sometimes the best thing is to remain calm and change even your well-laid plans. With my rented bicycle, I rode around some more, buying delicious tropical fruit, which is so cheap right now, and going on a journey to find a massage. I thought I had seen a bunch of places on my way to the train station, which I had, but on the other side of the road. I ended up taking my default method of traveling—inefficiently roundabout—and eventually arrived at a place that offered super cheap massages. Against what should have been my better judgment, I decided to stop for what would be my final Thai massage. It was the most backwater experience I had in Thailand. She laid out a mattress that had been leaning against her living room wall, and she gave me polyester boys’ shorts that clenched my stomach and thighs, which is quite uncomfortable compared to the loose fisherman’s pants made from soft cotton that they usually give you. She kept the door open, permitting all the traffic sounds to permeate the setting, plus she talked with one of her friends in relatively loud sounds for the first third of the massage! Anyway, the reason I am making such a big deal out of this is that now I know what the extra 50 baht is for :) It’s for the ambience and the cleanliness and comfort. I guess I learned my lesson that sometimes it is well worth it to pay a little more for what you want.
Back to Bustling Bangkok
I left on the 7 am bus back to Bangkok, but unfortunately got off at the wrong bus station, which inconvenienced my hosts, again the family of the adopted daughter of my step-dad’s family, but they were genial in changing their plans for me. I am continually amazed at how nice they have been to me just because of this somewhat obscure contact. They have truly blessed me. Tuy took me to her place where I stayed for my last night in Thailand, and we went to a nice restaurant eating all sorts of good Thai food. Then as an added blessing I was able to meet up once again with Paige, but this time we added to our company her brother and his friend from college who I know from my visits to Wyoming. What fun it was to see them! It was surreal to see them in Thailand, and we had a great time together, chilling out at Paige’s apartment then going to the guys’ hotel where they had a pool, which was absolutely peaceful at the end of the day in the cool of the dusk. Nighttime is the best in Thailand because the temperature is no longer searing and hot and there is always so much activity in terms of night markets and people who stroll around placidly enjoying the smells and the occasionally odd sights.
So that was Thailand! I hope you enjoyed reading about the ups and downs (mostly ups) of my journey through the land of the Thai people. What a sojourn! What a chapter! I have seen the Lord’s faithfulness manifest in my life and I have learned lessons about people inhabiting a completely different space of earth than we in the US, and I was captivated. In terms of the stops on my Around the World pass, this is stop FOUR, and in terms of the number of countries I have visited, this is number 20! Off I am again, and this time to Vietnam.