life moves at a different pace in little pala-u, and it has been a bit of an adjustment. I am trying to teach myself to enter each new day with as few expectations as possible, because when i do, they are generally shattered. This is not to say that our time here has been disappointing, just surprising and sometimes disorienting. there can be very little preparation on our part, because we rarely know what we're doing for the day until just prior to the event, or as we are being carted off to some undisclosed location.
this was the case last wednesday. kyle and i had finished our chores for the morning, and so we twiddled our thumbs, awaiting instructions. around 10:00am, an older, well-dressed thai couple arrived in dockers and conspicuously branded sunglasses, and wat announced that we would be accompanying them in their swank suv back to their farm to collect firewood: not an exciting day, but at least we had an activity.
after roughly two hours of hauling felled tree limbs in the increasingly oppressive heat, wat went to ask the land owner a question, and a young thai man who'd been helping us load his truck with the firewood motioned for us to hop in.
brief aside: both of our mothers have cautioned us as to the dangers of entering the vehicle of a perfect stranger who beckons in your general direction. this did not turn out to be the sort of disaster they were likely envisioning, but i still might think twice next time before nodding like an idiot and opening the door.
after snaking down some country roads, between fields of pineapple, cotton, and maple trees, our driver turned to me, expectantly. it quickly became clear that one: he spoke no english, two: he expected us (the clueless white people) to navigate, and three: we were completely, absurdly lost in the thai countryside with a truck full of firewood.
for the next hour, we wove through a dense agricultural labyrinth, in a navigation style embarrassingly similar to my own; the driver would take random turns until we dead-ended on someone's property, surrounded by chickens and pendulously-balled bulls, before either asking for vague directions (lots of pointing, waving, and shoulder-shrugging) or backing up and randomly trying another road. kyle tried to get a vantage point from the roof of the truck to orient us, but we didn't really know what to look for, and couldn't have communicated much if we did, so we weren't very much help.
finally, we arrived victorious and thirsty in the back yard of wat's friend. kyle and i expected, if not a hero's welcome complete with trumpet fanfare, then at least a "where the hell have you two been?" and a glass of water. alas, none was forthcoming, and no one seemed impressed by the ordeal: it was as if the hour-long joy ride had been what everyone was planning for us from the beginning. i wonder if we were justified in feeling confused and somewhat indignant, or if this was just a product of our western self-centered sense of entitlement. i guess at the end of the day, it's hard to argue with the fact that no matter how confused we get here, things tend to work themselves out with a little time and perseverance. to travel with the notion that you can plan for everything and be in control at all times is unrealistic. our best memories so far from this vacation have come from the moments that took us by surprise. i think we'll both try to do a better job of embracing the chaos.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
1/26 -- Holy Shit...That's an Elephant!
I made a decision Monday morning to leave the camera in Audrey's care, thinking that she'd have a more interesting day than I. I'm gonna go ahead and chalk that decision up in the Big Ol' Fail column.
After Wat and I left his friend Paul's place, we sped back to the highway, racing the fading sun home so Audrey wouldn't worry or succumb to a boredom coma. As soon as we blew by the Hua Hin district police station, Wat gleefully removed the helmet and passed it back to me for my discomfort/safety. Even though I'd gotten more comfortable on the bike and had discovered a solid grip on the rear cargo grille, I was hoping to happy to have the helmet as Wat gunned the bike down the windy two-lane highway, the bike rattling along over-worn pavement and bucking like an unpenned bull as we hit sudden bumps and dips at 80 and 100 kmh.
We returned to the Tibetan temple, but Wat's friend was busy again--praying and/or chanting in the tepee. And so we rode: up the curvy hill, past the Buddhist road outpost, past (quite improbably) another bovine-laden pickup truck. Then, when we were maybe 12 or 15 km outside Pala-U, Wat said, "Oohh...look." Spaced out and looking into the jungle at our left, I drowsily replied, "What, is it the monkey?" (referring to the red-faced baboon Aud had seen when we arrived). I craned my head around to the other side of Wat's shoulders, and as the bike slowed to a stop I exclaimed, "Holy shit...that's an elephant!"
Walking down the centerline, gray and comically flabby--almost amorophous, even--was an elephant. Its portly body merged with its tree-thick legs amid folds of gray flesh, and its head swung from side to side boldly as its trunk flailed from side to side with an air of triumph.
My first impression was that it was cute: the beady eyes and hint of pink from the front of its trunk gave it a charming, cartoonish appeal. And the sheer novelty of its motions--the very idea that something of this scale was alive and moveable--reminded me of the dozens of animatronic creatures I've seen at theme parks and museums. But this wasn't Dumbo, and Jim Henson wasn't playing pupetteer from behind the thick curtain of jungle at the roadside. This was a real, legit, three-meter, one-ton, no-joke elephant with 18" horns and, evidently, a chip on its shoulder.
I guess we stopped the bike because the elephant's position on the road and aggressive posturing threatened our ability to pass it safely...but then again, maybe Wat was just curious. We stepped off the bike to our left: a barrier on a kickstand. With the elephant about five yards away now, I figured it would just amble on past us and I cursed my decision to leave the camera with Aud. But then Wat started motioning for me to head down the road toward Pala-U. "You go, you go," he urged.
There was a quiet urgency in his voice, and I obeyed--mechanically more than consciously. I strafed along the roadway to the elephant's right, my burden now occupying my mind instead of the camera's absence. I began to consider my escape options and came to the unsettling realization that I would be up a creek if the elephant charged. Wearing ill-fitting Chacos I'd found abandoned at Pomona and strapped to the 10-pound bag of rice inside Wat's backpack, I had to admit that running wouldn't be a good bet. [Frankly, even naked and wearing only track spikes I'd probably still be screwed unless I could take cover in the jungle--outrunning an elephant is probably NOT an option.) Maybe I could bash it in the face with the helmet, now gripped in my white knuckles? (Umm...no, Dumbass. The only thing worse than an aggressive elephant is an angry one.)
As I mulled over these moronic options, Wat's situtation was getting worse. Only abou eight feet separated Wat from the elephant, and it was no longer moving toward Hua Hin but rather toward Wat. Over the next few minutes, the situation escalated from worrisome to scary. I made my way ten, then forty yards down the road as Wat shooed me farther. Wat and the elephant began a dangerous dance: Wat would take three cautious steps to the right of the bike, and the elephant would cut him off in a single thunderous stride. Three steps left, cut off. By this point, traffic had backed up two or three cars in each direction. Somehow Wat strafed around the bike and got across the road, but the elephant followed. The same dance continued, now at a faster tempo. The elephant closed in on Wat, swiping at him with its tusks and narrowly missing, the spinning around as its hips swayed threateningly* at Wat. With swipes and spins and loud exhaling, it pinned Wat down in a flurry of tusks and hips.
Suddenly, the elephant concluded that it had made its point. It gave Wat some distance and then spun to eye me. At something between a walk and a trot, it approached. At a quite intentionally faster pace, I moved toward Pala-U. This gave Wat space to move to the bike. Wat drove wide of the elephant as it moved toward me, and I hopped on as he rolled slowly by me. I didn't look back.
Silence reigned as we sped away, the sky a quilt of tangerine skins laid together in a pattern with clouds. We passed a sloppy mound of dung that interrupted the highway's monotonous pavement like a manhole cover. A concrete highway marker lay in two pieces--"the elephant," Wat murmured with a dry throat, pointing toward the damage. I asked if he'd ever had an experience like that, and he said that he hadn't, that he'd never seen an elephant so aggressive.
We stopped at a store in the village to buy something to cook for dinner; the conversation about what to buy was quiet and sober. We added a bag of dried tofu to my grain-laden bag and I tucked a loaf of white bread between my legs. As we turned onto the road home, Wat broke the silence. "When the elephant come at me with its head, I think I am going to die," he said flatly, "and all I can think about is Chabaa...the baby...if I am gone, who is taking care of them?"
I clapped my hand on his shoulder and muttered something uninspired about how he'd saved himself by staying calm and alert. But seeing Wat--who in all things Thai and jungle seems adept and imperturbable--so evidently spooked, I felt uneasy too. We rode home without another word, the light awash in lavender at our backs.
-Kyle
*If you think that the phrase "hips swayed threateningly" is incongruous or nonsensical, I invite you to piss off an elephant and see for yourself.
After Wat and I left his friend Paul's place, we sped back to the highway, racing the fading sun home so Audrey wouldn't worry or succumb to a boredom coma. As soon as we blew by the Hua Hin district police station, Wat gleefully removed the helmet and passed it back to me for my discomfort/safety. Even though I'd gotten more comfortable on the bike and had discovered a solid grip on the rear cargo grille, I was hoping to happy to have the helmet as Wat gunned the bike down the windy two-lane highway, the bike rattling along over-worn pavement and bucking like an unpenned bull as we hit sudden bumps and dips at 80 and 100 kmh.
We returned to the Tibetan temple, but Wat's friend was busy again--praying and/or chanting in the tepee. And so we rode: up the curvy hill, past the Buddhist road outpost, past (quite improbably) another bovine-laden pickup truck. Then, when we were maybe 12 or 15 km outside Pala-U, Wat said, "Oohh...look." Spaced out and looking into the jungle at our left, I drowsily replied, "What, is it the monkey?" (referring to the red-faced baboon Aud had seen when we arrived). I craned my head around to the other side of Wat's shoulders, and as the bike slowed to a stop I exclaimed, "Holy shit...that's an elephant!"
Walking down the centerline, gray and comically flabby--almost amorophous, even--was an elephant. Its portly body merged with its tree-thick legs amid folds of gray flesh, and its head swung from side to side boldly as its trunk flailed from side to side with an air of triumph.
My first impression was that it was cute: the beady eyes and hint of pink from the front of its trunk gave it a charming, cartoonish appeal. And the sheer novelty of its motions--the very idea that something of this scale was alive and moveable--reminded me of the dozens of animatronic creatures I've seen at theme parks and museums. But this wasn't Dumbo, and Jim Henson wasn't playing pupetteer from behind the thick curtain of jungle at the roadside. This was a real, legit, three-meter, one-ton, no-joke elephant with 18" horns and, evidently, a chip on its shoulder.
I guess we stopped the bike because the elephant's position on the road and aggressive posturing threatened our ability to pass it safely...but then again, maybe Wat was just curious. We stepped off the bike to our left: a barrier on a kickstand. With the elephant about five yards away now, I figured it would just amble on past us and I cursed my decision to leave the camera with Aud. But then Wat started motioning for me to head down the road toward Pala-U. "You go, you go," he urged.
There was a quiet urgency in his voice, and I obeyed--mechanically more than consciously. I strafed along the roadway to the elephant's right, my burden now occupying my mind instead of the camera's absence. I began to consider my escape options and came to the unsettling realization that I would be up a creek if the elephant charged. Wearing ill-fitting Chacos I'd found abandoned at Pomona and strapped to the 10-pound bag of rice inside Wat's backpack, I had to admit that running wouldn't be a good bet. [Frankly, even naked and wearing only track spikes I'd probably still be screwed unless I could take cover in the jungle--outrunning an elephant is probably NOT an option.) Maybe I could bash it in the face with the helmet, now gripped in my white knuckles? (Umm...no, Dumbass. The only thing worse than an aggressive elephant is an angry one.)
As I mulled over these moronic options, Wat's situtation was getting worse. Only abou eight feet separated Wat from the elephant, and it was no longer moving toward Hua Hin but rather toward Wat. Over the next few minutes, the situation escalated from worrisome to scary. I made my way ten, then forty yards down the road as Wat shooed me farther. Wat and the elephant began a dangerous dance: Wat would take three cautious steps to the right of the bike, and the elephant would cut him off in a single thunderous stride. Three steps left, cut off. By this point, traffic had backed up two or three cars in each direction. Somehow Wat strafed around the bike and got across the road, but the elephant followed. The same dance continued, now at a faster tempo. The elephant closed in on Wat, swiping at him with its tusks and narrowly missing, the spinning around as its hips swayed threateningly* at Wat. With swipes and spins and loud exhaling, it pinned Wat down in a flurry of tusks and hips.
Suddenly, the elephant concluded that it had made its point. It gave Wat some distance and then spun to eye me. At something between a walk and a trot, it approached. At a quite intentionally faster pace, I moved toward Pala-U. This gave Wat space to move to the bike. Wat drove wide of the elephant as it moved toward me, and I hopped on as he rolled slowly by me. I didn't look back.
Silence reigned as we sped away, the sky a quilt of tangerine skins laid together in a pattern with clouds. We passed a sloppy mound of dung that interrupted the highway's monotonous pavement like a manhole cover. A concrete highway marker lay in two pieces--"the elephant," Wat murmured with a dry throat, pointing toward the damage. I asked if he'd ever had an experience like that, and he said that he hadn't, that he'd never seen an elephant so aggressive.
We stopped at a store in the village to buy something to cook for dinner; the conversation about what to buy was quiet and sober. We added a bag of dried tofu to my grain-laden bag and I tucked a loaf of white bread between my legs. As we turned onto the road home, Wat broke the silence. "When the elephant come at me with its head, I think I am going to die," he said flatly, "and all I can think about is Chabaa...the baby...if I am gone, who is taking care of them?"
I clapped my hand on his shoulder and muttered something uninspired about how he'd saved himself by staying calm and alert. But seeing Wat--who in all things Thai and jungle seems adept and imperturbable--so evidently spooked, I felt uneasy too. We rode home without another word, the light awash in lavender at our backs.
-Kyle
*If you think that the phrase "hips swayed threateningly" is incongruous or nonsensical, I invite you to piss off an elephant and see for yourself.
1/26 -- Easy Rider
Motorcycles are not popular in my family. I probably have a natural fear of them linked to my clumsiness and general predilection for stable four-wheeled craft, but a tragic piece of family history rendered motorcycles virtually off-limits, psychologically if not by decree. Several years before I was born, my mother's twin sisters were in a car accident with a man on a motorcycle. One aunt was killed and the other needed several steel plates and surgeries.
So it is quite surprising to reflect that after nearly 23 years of diligently avoiding motorcycles, I traveled over 100 km on one in a single day: in a strange country, whose language is alien to me (or is it the other way around?), seated behind a man Ive known for two weeks, and helmetless for more than half the journey.
On Monday I put on my nicest outfit (which is to say, still quite goofy)--white waterproof pants and a green long-sleeved golf shirt--shaved my neard (neck-beard, for the uninitiated), and set out for Hua Hin with Wat to pitch his kaffir lime shampoo to some of the swank spa-resorts in the area, hoping they would begin selling it in their gift shops. We bade Audrey adieu and walked to the covered garage area. Wat mounted the bike as I stared at the lone helmet he owns, an unconvincing shell of silver plastic made by V-Tech (of cheap-o cordless phone fame?) with a flimsy visor. I pointed at the helmet and asked, "Aren't you going to wear that?" hoping to bring it to his attention without revealing my fervent desire to wear it. "Oh, yes," he replied, and began to bungee-cord it into place in the bike's front basket. With bigger eyes than I'd intended, I said, "If you're not going to wear it, I will," as if I were doing him a favor.
As we drove through the gray morning mist, Wat encouraged me to relax and move with the bike's motions. After we strayed far from the vertical on a turn, he asked how much I weigh. I told him that it fluctuates but is probably 85-95 kg. He laughed in surprise and I explained that I thought perhaps it would be better for me to stay upright rather than leaning into each turn along with him; he agreed.
We stopped briefly for hemispherical rice pancake things from a roadside stand. Once Wat explained to the woman serving them that his farang friend was not, in fact, interested in buying any land in the area, we began our journey in earnest. The road toward Hua Hin is a hilly, curvaceous pavement scar through a jungle so thick that visibility seldom extends 15' beyond the roadside power lines. At one point, we were passed by a pickup truck that swayed as it shifted from one lane to the next, probably because it was weighed down with not one but two fully grown cows, held in by nothing more than the tailgate and a thin aluminum guard rail. Yikes!
As we rode--through Pala-U's entrance arch, past where Audrey spotted a red-faced baboon, up the hill to the Buddhist shrine at the apex, down the hill to the flatlands--Wat filled me in on some of the gossip about the Thai Royal Family. While the Royal Family has no de jure policy authority, the king is generally respected and has some de facto political influence. Further, it is a crime to criticize the Royal Family. Sulak Sivaraksa, who edits a Buddhist political commentary magazine called "Seeds of Peace," has been jailed several times for his criticisms. [It is not clear where this prohibition rests on a continuum of speech control ranging from, say, libel/slander law to something like the early American Alien and Sedition Acts. It seems like it might be more like the latter, though.] At risk of my own imprisonment, here is some of the dirt: one prince is a sex addict and polygamist, another got a model arrested in the UK for pushing drugs for him, and another (?) pays for favors not with cash, but with winning lottery numbers in various combinations that would pay various sums; the queen is some kind of Manipulator Par Excellence.
We stopped at the Thousand Stars Foundation to visit a friend of Wat's, a woman who was so deeply moved by the Tibetan plight that she resigned her teaching position at the University of Bangkok to begin the first Tibetan Buddhist temple in Thailand. (FYI: Thailand is roughly 95% Buddhist, but Wat tells me that the difference between Thai Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism is something like that between Catholics and Protestants.) One of this woman's feats was performing some kind of prayer-walk (a prostrating series of five or so moves for each step forward) for 80 km. The Foundation's land is a sprawling campus of shady fruit trees and vegetable gardens, bordered with the flying Tibetan flags and centered around a large, multicolored tepee that is some kind of a prayer area. Wat's friend was not around, so we left.
The countryside is a patchwork of tropical fruit monocrops and small homesteads, all set against mountains that rise jut suddenly upward from the flatlands in purple, mirthful contours as if penned by an illustrator for a Dr. Seuss book. Our first stop was at the "quite posh" (Wat's words) Dhevan Dara spa resort, an oasis of manicured lawns and palms protected from the squalid environs by forty foot white walls. We smoothed out our highway hair and walked to talk to the gift shop purchasing manager, a Thai woman who was more interested in the farm as a project than in the shampoo as a product. She treated us amicably and accepted a bottle to show to her boss. We got back on the bike.
Upon reaching the remotest outskirts of Hua Hin, Wat stopped for gas and asked for the helmet, explaining that the police presence from now on was too high to break the law and drive the bike without one. Hua Hin came into view as we descended a final hill, the edifices of its grandest hotels barely blocking a clear view of the beach. Hua Hin's has Bangkok's blend of mostly three- and four-story buildings, interspersed with taller structures and lined with vendors' stalls. But something here is different. Maybe it is the relative infrequency of hustler taxi drivers and souvenir peddlers, or maybe it is just that the sea breeze clears the air better. Whatever it is, I find it less oppressive than Bangkok.
Once we hit the city, Wat's driving reached a new tier. As I soaked in the aesthetic--power lines two dozen thick running along storefronts on each side of the road, decorated every half-block by the orange sphere of a paper lantern--Wat bobbed and weaved through creeping traffic, maneuvering the sleek, azure Honda Dream 125 through moving cars like a Bangkok pizza boy on a 20-minute deadline.
We headed for an allegedly world-class spa/therapy/resort, where we were curtly told that our product's packaging was hokey and would only be considered in bulk, packaged in the resort's bottles. Dejected, we grabbed lunch. I had something called sue-key that is basically a seafood surprise soup, and Wat read the newspaper while I eavesdropped (if you can call it that with the language barrier...) on the Thai youth behind me, the three of them loud and gregarious and sporting a slightly outdated "punk" look. Two cats lazed in the shade of the food stand: one napped under the table on the chair next to mine, and the other was sprawled sloppily over the soda display case with its mangy tail and legs dangling part-way off the top. We visited a 24-hour all-organic food store that is somehow linked to the Royal Family to see if they would carry our shampoo. Here Wat came face to face with the marketplace--there are two or three competing brands, all produced at lower cost and more homogenously. Moreover, they aptly market their products as a hair treatment (Aud and I had suggested the language "hair remedy"), since the stuff works more like an intense conditioner than a daily cleansing shampoo. Wat spent a long time scrutinzing the competition as I looked on, not knowing quite what to say.
Outside of town, a spa ca led Aka agreed to carry ten bottles of our stuff on consignment, which excited me more than Wat. The country roads that took us to Aka were also home to several new housing developments intended for ex-pats. Serviced by narrow roads and neighbored by dusty rural squalor, the siting choice seems likely to be motivated by cheap land rather than attractive location. Construction crews in face masks put he finishing touches on concrete border walls and grand archways, while landscapers transplanted palms and unrolled long mats of sod in a desperate attempt to offset the desolate, stony mountains all around. We passed developments named with all the inventiveness of a planned community of McMansions: Sunshine Mountain, Jungle Garden, Summerland. But they lack even the shallow "community" structures such developments provide with clubhouses and parks--row upon row of identical villas, perhaps 1000 sq ft each, fill all the space with no sign of communal areas. Attached garages provide protection from outgoing neighbors. As we rode by these $100K vacation homes colored in popsicle pastels--lemon-lime for the brick walls, mixed berry on the vaguely "Oriental" roof--I failed to see the appeal.
We returned to town to buy two 5kg bags of brown jasmine rice, because the village in Pala-U seldom carries anything besides white rice due to (ill-informed?) consumer demand. Wat's normal vendor was out of rice, so we headed to the Tesco-Lotus store in the large Market Village shopping mall. Three stories tall and perhaps a quarter mile in length, it is like many American malls except that in place of a parking lot it is lined on either side by large corrals that store motorbikes four-wide. Another difference is that while most American malls seek some kind of manicured aesthetic and are designed to include lounge spaces and wide aisles, every nook and cranny of Market Village--in front of entrances, encroaching on storefronts, beneath escalators--are kiosks peddling everything from belt buckles to body soaps to real estate. Oh, and you get one shopping cart for the whole mall...kind weird. We entered the Tesco-Lotus market, a sprawling complex occupying one end of the mall that is almost definitely the Thai equivalent of a Wal-Mart. I made a bit of a scene insisting that we put the rice in our backpack rather than in another plastic bag, but other than that the visit ended without incident and we headed home.
The sun was fierce as it began its descent toward late afternoon, and we stopped for a cold drink. Wat chugged a Sprite and I luxuriated in a cold bottle of soymilk--it was so good that I couldn't help smiling when I finished it, like after a little too much red wine. Wat made a phone call in English, and soon we swung down another highway a few kilometers to see Wat's friend Paul. This entry has dragged on enough already, so I'll be brief: Paul is a white South African ex-pat, who changed majors from philosophy to sociology/anthropology and then worked most of his life as a computer programmer working on user-interface software. He's married a Thai woman and they are going to begin a homestead as farmers, leaving the rhythms of industrial employment behind. He has about two acres of land and intends to build a home out of shipping containers and employ permaculture techniques to his land. That may sound weird or awesome depending on your opinion and background...I'm inclined to think the latter. I hope to write more about Paul later...
-Kyle
So it is quite surprising to reflect that after nearly 23 years of diligently avoiding motorcycles, I traveled over 100 km on one in a single day: in a strange country, whose language is alien to me (or is it the other way around?), seated behind a man Ive known for two weeks, and helmetless for more than half the journey.
On Monday I put on my nicest outfit (which is to say, still quite goofy)--white waterproof pants and a green long-sleeved golf shirt--shaved my neard (neck-beard, for the uninitiated), and set out for Hua Hin with Wat to pitch his kaffir lime shampoo to some of the swank spa-resorts in the area, hoping they would begin selling it in their gift shops. We bade Audrey adieu and walked to the covered garage area. Wat mounted the bike as I stared at the lone helmet he owns, an unconvincing shell of silver plastic made by V-Tech (of cheap-o cordless phone fame?) with a flimsy visor. I pointed at the helmet and asked, "Aren't you going to wear that?" hoping to bring it to his attention without revealing my fervent desire to wear it. "Oh, yes," he replied, and began to bungee-cord it into place in the bike's front basket. With bigger eyes than I'd intended, I said, "If you're not going to wear it, I will," as if I were doing him a favor.
As we drove through the gray morning mist, Wat encouraged me to relax and move with the bike's motions. After we strayed far from the vertical on a turn, he asked how much I weigh. I told him that it fluctuates but is probably 85-95 kg. He laughed in surprise and I explained that I thought perhaps it would be better for me to stay upright rather than leaning into each turn along with him; he agreed.
We stopped briefly for hemispherical rice pancake things from a roadside stand. Once Wat explained to the woman serving them that his farang friend was not, in fact, interested in buying any land in the area, we began our journey in earnest. The road toward Hua Hin is a hilly, curvaceous pavement scar through a jungle so thick that visibility seldom extends 15' beyond the roadside power lines. At one point, we were passed by a pickup truck that swayed as it shifted from one lane to the next, probably because it was weighed down with not one but two fully grown cows, held in by nothing more than the tailgate and a thin aluminum guard rail. Yikes!
As we rode--through Pala-U's entrance arch, past where Audrey spotted a red-faced baboon, up the hill to the Buddhist shrine at the apex, down the hill to the flatlands--Wat filled me in on some of the gossip about the Thai Royal Family. While the Royal Family has no de jure policy authority, the king is generally respected and has some de facto political influence. Further, it is a crime to criticize the Royal Family. Sulak Sivaraksa, who edits a Buddhist political commentary magazine called "Seeds of Peace," has been jailed several times for his criticisms. [It is not clear where this prohibition rests on a continuum of speech control ranging from, say, libel/slander law to something like the early American Alien and Sedition Acts. It seems like it might be more like the latter, though.] At risk of my own imprisonment, here is some of the dirt: one prince is a sex addict and polygamist, another got a model arrested in the UK for pushing drugs for him, and another (?) pays for favors not with cash, but with winning lottery numbers in various combinations that would pay various sums; the queen is some kind of Manipulator Par Excellence.
We stopped at the Thousand Stars Foundation to visit a friend of Wat's, a woman who was so deeply moved by the Tibetan plight that she resigned her teaching position at the University of Bangkok to begin the first Tibetan Buddhist temple in Thailand. (FYI: Thailand is roughly 95% Buddhist, but Wat tells me that the difference between Thai Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism is something like that between Catholics and Protestants.) One of this woman's feats was performing some kind of prayer-walk (a prostrating series of five or so moves for each step forward) for 80 km. The Foundation's land is a sprawling campus of shady fruit trees and vegetable gardens, bordered with the flying Tibetan flags and centered around a large, multicolored tepee that is some kind of a prayer area. Wat's friend was not around, so we left.
The countryside is a patchwork of tropical fruit monocrops and small homesteads, all set against mountains that rise jut suddenly upward from the flatlands in purple, mirthful contours as if penned by an illustrator for a Dr. Seuss book. Our first stop was at the "quite posh" (Wat's words) Dhevan Dara spa resort, an oasis of manicured lawns and palms protected from the squalid environs by forty foot white walls. We smoothed out our highway hair and walked to talk to the gift shop purchasing manager, a Thai woman who was more interested in the farm as a project than in the shampoo as a product. She treated us amicably and accepted a bottle to show to her boss. We got back on the bike.
Upon reaching the remotest outskirts of Hua Hin, Wat stopped for gas and asked for the helmet, explaining that the police presence from now on was too high to break the law and drive the bike without one. Hua Hin came into view as we descended a final hill, the edifices of its grandest hotels barely blocking a clear view of the beach. Hua Hin's has Bangkok's blend of mostly three- and four-story buildings, interspersed with taller structures and lined with vendors' stalls. But something here is different. Maybe it is the relative infrequency of hustler taxi drivers and souvenir peddlers, or maybe it is just that the sea breeze clears the air better. Whatever it is, I find it less oppressive than Bangkok.
Once we hit the city, Wat's driving reached a new tier. As I soaked in the aesthetic--power lines two dozen thick running along storefronts on each side of the road, decorated every half-block by the orange sphere of a paper lantern--Wat bobbed and weaved through creeping traffic, maneuvering the sleek, azure Honda Dream 125 through moving cars like a Bangkok pizza boy on a 20-minute deadline.
We headed for an allegedly world-class spa/therapy/resort, where we were curtly told that our product's packaging was hokey and would only be considered in bulk, packaged in the resort's bottles. Dejected, we grabbed lunch. I had something called sue-key that is basically a seafood surprise soup, and Wat read the newspaper while I eavesdropped (if you can call it that with the language barrier...) on the Thai youth behind me, the three of them loud and gregarious and sporting a slightly outdated "punk" look. Two cats lazed in the shade of the food stand: one napped under the table on the chair next to mine, and the other was sprawled sloppily over the soda display case with its mangy tail and legs dangling part-way off the top. We visited a 24-hour all-organic food store that is somehow linked to the Royal Family to see if they would carry our shampoo. Here Wat came face to face with the marketplace--there are two or three competing brands, all produced at lower cost and more homogenously. Moreover, they aptly market their products as a hair treatment (Aud and I had suggested the language "hair remedy"), since the stuff works more like an intense conditioner than a daily cleansing shampoo. Wat spent a long time scrutinzing the competition as I looked on, not knowing quite what to say.
Outside of town, a spa ca led Aka agreed to carry ten bottles of our stuff on consignment, which excited me more than Wat. The country roads that took us to Aka were also home to several new housing developments intended for ex-pats. Serviced by narrow roads and neighbored by dusty rural squalor, the siting choice seems likely to be motivated by cheap land rather than attractive location. Construction crews in face masks put he finishing touches on concrete border walls and grand archways, while landscapers transplanted palms and unrolled long mats of sod in a desperate attempt to offset the desolate, stony mountains all around. We passed developments named with all the inventiveness of a planned community of McMansions: Sunshine Mountain, Jungle Garden, Summerland. But they lack even the shallow "community" structures such developments provide with clubhouses and parks--row upon row of identical villas, perhaps 1000 sq ft each, fill all the space with no sign of communal areas. Attached garages provide protection from outgoing neighbors. As we rode by these $100K vacation homes colored in popsicle pastels--lemon-lime for the brick walls, mixed berry on the vaguely "Oriental" roof--I failed to see the appeal.
We returned to town to buy two 5kg bags of brown jasmine rice, because the village in Pala-U seldom carries anything besides white rice due to (ill-informed?) consumer demand. Wat's normal vendor was out of rice, so we headed to the Tesco-Lotus store in the large Market Village shopping mall. Three stories tall and perhaps a quarter mile in length, it is like many American malls except that in place of a parking lot it is lined on either side by large corrals that store motorbikes four-wide. Another difference is that while most American malls seek some kind of manicured aesthetic and are designed to include lounge spaces and wide aisles, every nook and cranny of Market Village--in front of entrances, encroaching on storefronts, beneath escalators--are kiosks peddling everything from belt buckles to body soaps to real estate. Oh, and you get one shopping cart for the whole mall...kind weird. We entered the Tesco-Lotus market, a sprawling complex occupying one end of the mall that is almost definitely the Thai equivalent of a Wal-Mart. I made a bit of a scene insisting that we put the rice in our backpack rather than in another plastic bag, but other than that the visit ended without incident and we headed home.
The sun was fierce as it began its descent toward late afternoon, and we stopped for a cold drink. Wat chugged a Sprite and I luxuriated in a cold bottle of soymilk--it was so good that I couldn't help smiling when I finished it, like after a little too much red wine. Wat made a phone call in English, and soon we swung down another highway a few kilometers to see Wat's friend Paul. This entry has dragged on enough already, so I'll be brief: Paul is a white South African ex-pat, who changed majors from philosophy to sociology/anthropology and then worked most of his life as a computer programmer working on user-interface software. He's married a Thai woman and they are going to begin a homestead as farmers, leaving the rhythms of industrial employment behind. He has about two acres of land and intends to build a home out of shipping containers and employ permaculture techniques to his land. That may sound weird or awesome depending on your opinion and background...I'm inclined to think the latter. I hope to write more about Paul later...
-Kyle
1/23-1/27 -- Bachelor Pad
Chabaa left on Friday to go to Bangkok so she could spend the weekend leading up to the Chinese New Year with her family. Wat had been joking about how much her cooking would be missed, but we had no idea what we were in for. Friday we ate for the fourth day in a row at Pat's (the mud house), where we had been dining on a combination of restaurant to-go food--pint-bags of steamed rice topped with mystery mixes of meat and veggies that varied widely in flavor, spice, and deliciousness--and Pat's competent but not stellar cooking (timidly seasoned pork, fried eggs, and salty-bland fishball soup). Turns out that we should have been thankful for this Last Supper...
Saturday's breakfast marked an abrupt transition as we tried to fill our bellies with white bread and super-sweet strawberry jam (both store-bought); I probably ate four of our small squlyinder bananas. Ants appeared suddenly and in armies--the bamboo countertops writhed in hues of black and red. Wat's friend from college appeared mid-morning, and we all headed to town for Internet and other errands. Aud and I had agreed to do some research for Wat regarding grant opportunities and attracting a long-term volunteer, so we went into town to do that and check email, etc. Wat and his friend were working on invoices and cover letters for the shampoo, to add a bit of professionalism to their itinerant shampoo-promo activities.
The four of us shared a lunch of papaya salad with sticky rice and some pork-kidney dish, and as Aud and I finished the strange wafer-and-vanilla-ice-cream dessert she had picked out, Wat asked what our plans were for the rest of the day. Perplexed and with mouths full of cardboard-wafer, we shrugged. Normally Saturdays are work days, so we figured the morning was Internet-research time and that the afternoon would involve some kind of physical work. But Wat said that he and his friend had plans, so Aud and I wandered around town and enjoyed our unexpected extra Sunday.
We hitchhiked home, and Wat and his friend returned at dusk. We ate an early dinner of instant ramen noodles, friend egg, and some canned fish, a salty hodgepodge or dormitory-grade cooking that did not bode well for the next few days. Chabaa was not returning until Tuesday.
Sunday was more of the same--bananas and white bread for breakfast, lunch in town, and a lackluster dinner. Noodle soup went awry and was more like a salty, watery noodle dish, but it was filling along with the sauteed eggplant. Dishwashing was now a daily skirmish against endless phalanxes of six-legged invaders, but we held our ground. Our ammunition was running low, however: since Chabaa had left the plumbing had also dried up, so every cistern from the kitchen to the latrine had to be rationed carefully. Aud started bathing in the stream.
Monday I went to Hua Hin with Wat, leaving Aud alone to contend with our suddenly inhospitable conditions. When we returned for dinner, Wat was able to whip up a tasty though simple noodled mass of re-hydrated tofu, egg, and every seasoning we could find inside the kitchen as well as out. It wasn't Rachel Ray, but it worked.
All weekend, Wat (to use Audrey's phrasing) had been counting the minutes until Chabaa's return, and Tuesday he brought several updates of her precise ETA. He was even nonplussed by our efforts to end the breakfast monotony with some improvised French toast, but he was practically salivating when he left to retrieve her from the mini-bus stop. His enthusiasm made it seem as though he expected that she'd schlepped a picnic in her bag from Bangkok. Sure enough, she announced upon returning that she was a bit tired after ten-plus hours of transit and did not feel like cooking. Wat was disappointed but understanding, and he returned to the village to get three packets of instant ramen noodles, which we ate along with some Chinese steamed desserts and gelatinous rice cakes filled with dry, yellow bean paste that Chabaa had brought actually brought from Bangkok.
[An aside about ramen: this Thai stuff is WAY better than the Top Ramen we have in the states. The noodles are actually food, complete with color, texture, and perhaps even some nutritional value. And rather than a foil-wrapped sodium bomb, the seasoning that is included is actually, well...seasoning. Like, it has granules of herbs and some chili seeds and so forth. The one drawback, which Wat gleefully informed us of after we'd eaten but before Audrey's headache had set in, is that it is chock-full of MSG. Go figure.]
And so my sob-story comes to a close. Chabaa is back, bringing life back to the kitchen and filling the cabin with pleasant cooking aromas all day long. Vegetables and herbs have materialized out of thin air, and Chabaa's quiet singing has supplanted the sounds of frustration and growling tummies. And, as if by some strange housewife voodoo, the ants have abdicated and the water has returned to the pipes. It makes one wonder what we'd do without her...
--Kyle
Saturday's breakfast marked an abrupt transition as we tried to fill our bellies with white bread and super-sweet strawberry jam (both store-bought); I probably ate four of our small squlyinder bananas. Ants appeared suddenly and in armies--the bamboo countertops writhed in hues of black and red. Wat's friend from college appeared mid-morning, and we all headed to town for Internet and other errands. Aud and I had agreed to do some research for Wat regarding grant opportunities and attracting a long-term volunteer, so we went into town to do that and check email, etc. Wat and his friend were working on invoices and cover letters for the shampoo, to add a bit of professionalism to their itinerant shampoo-promo activities.
The four of us shared a lunch of papaya salad with sticky rice and some pork-kidney dish, and as Aud and I finished the strange wafer-and-vanilla-ice-cream dessert she had picked out, Wat asked what our plans were for the rest of the day. Perplexed and with mouths full of cardboard-wafer, we shrugged. Normally Saturdays are work days, so we figured the morning was Internet-research time and that the afternoon would involve some kind of physical work. But Wat said that he and his friend had plans, so Aud and I wandered around town and enjoyed our unexpected extra Sunday.
We hitchhiked home, and Wat and his friend returned at dusk. We ate an early dinner of instant ramen noodles, friend egg, and some canned fish, a salty hodgepodge or dormitory-grade cooking that did not bode well for the next few days. Chabaa was not returning until Tuesday.
Sunday was more of the same--bananas and white bread for breakfast, lunch in town, and a lackluster dinner. Noodle soup went awry and was more like a salty, watery noodle dish, but it was filling along with the sauteed eggplant. Dishwashing was now a daily skirmish against endless phalanxes of six-legged invaders, but we held our ground. Our ammunition was running low, however: since Chabaa had left the plumbing had also dried up, so every cistern from the kitchen to the latrine had to be rationed carefully. Aud started bathing in the stream.
Monday I went to Hua Hin with Wat, leaving Aud alone to contend with our suddenly inhospitable conditions. When we returned for dinner, Wat was able to whip up a tasty though simple noodled mass of re-hydrated tofu, egg, and every seasoning we could find inside the kitchen as well as out. It wasn't Rachel Ray, but it worked.
All weekend, Wat (to use Audrey's phrasing) had been counting the minutes until Chabaa's return, and Tuesday he brought several updates of her precise ETA. He was even nonplussed by our efforts to end the breakfast monotony with some improvised French toast, but he was practically salivating when he left to retrieve her from the mini-bus stop. His enthusiasm made it seem as though he expected that she'd schlepped a picnic in her bag from Bangkok. Sure enough, she announced upon returning that she was a bit tired after ten-plus hours of transit and did not feel like cooking. Wat was disappointed but understanding, and he returned to the village to get three packets of instant ramen noodles, which we ate along with some Chinese steamed desserts and gelatinous rice cakes filled with dry, yellow bean paste that Chabaa had brought actually brought from Bangkok.
[An aside about ramen: this Thai stuff is WAY better than the Top Ramen we have in the states. The noodles are actually food, complete with color, texture, and perhaps even some nutritional value. And rather than a foil-wrapped sodium bomb, the seasoning that is included is actually, well...seasoning. Like, it has granules of herbs and some chili seeds and so forth. The one drawback, which Wat gleefully informed us of after we'd eaten but before Audrey's headache had set in, is that it is chock-full of MSG. Go figure.]
And so my sob-story comes to a close. Chabaa is back, bringing life back to the kitchen and filling the cabin with pleasant cooking aromas all day long. Vegetables and herbs have materialized out of thin air, and Chabaa's quiet singing has supplanted the sounds of frustration and growling tummies. And, as if by some strange housewife voodoo, the ants have abdicated and the water has returned to the pipes. It makes one wonder what we'd do without her...
--Kyle
Saturday, January 24, 2009
gung hay full bellies
kyle and i knew something was up when, before making it 500 yards from wat's hill, we were ushered into the home of perfect strangers who spoke no english and were fed chicken, sticky rice treats, and beer. at 8:30 in the morning.
happy chinese new year! it's 2552!
everybody is in a good mood today. everyone driving by waves, and at every house we pass, someone tries to feed us boiled chicken and get us drunk.
to kyle's parents - the noise you heard while skyping with your son was not the thai mafia gunning us down - firecrackers have been exploding randomly since about 6am.
what a fantastic holiday.
<3 audrey
happy chinese new year! it's 2552!
everybody is in a good mood today. everyone driving by waves, and at every house we pass, someone tries to feed us boiled chicken and get us drunk.
to kyle's parents - the noise you heard while skyping with your son was not the thai mafia gunning us down - firecrackers have been exploding randomly since about 6am.
what a fantastic holiday.
<3 audrey
Friday, January 23, 2009
1/23 -- Addiction
Troubling news to report from Thailand: Audrey Bergmann, Slow-Food advocate, critic and enemy of multinational corporations, and coffee afficcionado, is in the grips of a severe addiction to pre-creamed, pre-sugared, 3-in-1 Nescafe instant coffee mix. After a week of subsiding only on (often lukewarm) green tea, her four-day binge on this individually wrapped caffeine fix has reached a frightening degree.
Today, for instance, I turned to her while working, only to find that she'd disappeared. She had abandoned me--her de facto caretaker, transport aide, and sometime lover--hobbled up a serpentine set of half a dozen tall stairs, and installed herself at the table to luxuriate in the steamy, eager arms of her narcotic beau.
I'm asking her friends and family to reach out to her, to help her regain control of her life. My hope is that we can wean her back to sanity with stronger batches of tea, and then get her some therapeutic brewing once we get to Africa. until then, I will be vigilant about checking her pockets and purse for packets she may have ferretted away already.
Hopeful,
Kyle
Today, for instance, I turned to her while working, only to find that she'd disappeared. She had abandoned me--her de facto caretaker, transport aide, and sometime lover--hobbled up a serpentine set of half a dozen tall stairs, and installed herself at the table to luxuriate in the steamy, eager arms of her narcotic beau.
I'm asking her friends and family to reach out to her, to help her regain control of her life. My hope is that we can wean her back to sanity with stronger batches of tea, and then get her some therapeutic brewing once we get to Africa. until then, I will be vigilant about checking her pockets and purse for packets she may have ferretted away already.
Hopeful,
Kyle
1/19 -- Farang
"Farang" is the Thai word for "white/European person," and it is a term that (I believe) has a rich history both as as a pejorative by anti-Western Thais as well as a moniker for self-aware visitors. For this blog entry, the former use seems more appropriate.
After we had some Internet time on Sunday (1/18), I led Audrey through town to show her a coffee shop I'd seen on a ride through town with Wat the day before. I figured she'd appreciate it as another activity on an otherwise lazy Sunday (also, see "Addiction," above). The place I'd had in mind was closed, but right down the street, nestled in the shade of some tall trees and bordered by a wall of neon bouganvilla flowers, was a cafe. Now, from the name, the fully English-language signage, and the manicured facade, we expected Dusita to be touristy. But it exceeded even my cynical expectations.
We walked past a Harley Davidson motorcycle emblazoned with British flag metallic patches, and past a sign advertising "Good Taste / Clean Food" that featured some kind of official-looking seal and a cheery, slanty-eyed, yellow-hued chef. The restaurant's walls were glass from top to bottom, blending the aesthetic of the outdoor gazebos and gardens into the dining area itself and giving the whole room an oasis feel.
Noticing a pair of sandals at the entrance, we bent to remove our shoes (as is customary for entering Thai homes) before stepping onto the glistening aqua-colored tiles. "No, no, no!" cried a woman's voice, and when I looked up I saw a woman hurrying toward us, smiling and admonishing us against removing our shoes. Dressed in an odd hodgepodge of Western (or, at least distinctly non-Thai) clothing (including a fanny pak!), she seated us near a window/wall, triangulated between an old man and another man in his 50s or so, both of them white.
The two men were traveling differently than we were. Whereas they were garbed in Panama Jack's "Third-World Adventure" gear from head to toe, I looked relatively trashy in my goofy utility shoes, white water-resistant pants, and musty France soccer jersey (a Pomona trash-can find, not a signal of any loyalty). [Quick aside: one time we hitched a ride into town and the man, who spoke some but not much English, inquired if I was French. I forget how big soccer is outside of 'Merkuh.]
With our backpack on my shoulders, a week's beard ("getting pubey," Audrey says) and a film of sweat upon my face, and my faithful Mt. Sac Agriculture trucker hat on my head, I looked...well...out of place.
And I felt that way too. At first I figured it was my usual discomfort at looking like a scrub when all my fellows have clearly bathed recently. But before Audrey could even place her order for an iced coffee (MOM ALERT: ICE!), our hostess was at work, self-ingratiating and making me uncomfortable. Spying the small, browning bananas Aud and I had schlepped from Wat's to eat along the way to town, she began to denounce them. "We have good bananas here, you don't have to eat those. Those for cooking...and feed to birds! I bring you good kind!"
Now, I'll spare our readers my lecture on the global Cavendish banana monocrop, but I hope y'all know that there are dozens of varieties of bananas in the world, even though 95% of the supermarkets we shop at sell only the Cavendish that we are used to. The bananas that Wat and his neighbors grow are three to four inches in length, come in bunches of ten or more, and are firmer and more moist than Cavendish bananas, with the sweetness of a slightly underripe Cavendish but without the that-wasn't-ready-yet aftertaste. And we'd gotten used to them. They are different, yes, but not inferior. And just as Wat takes pride in eating foods his neighbors write off as unfit for people, I began to appreciate these little Thai squylinder bananas of ours for being so un-Cavendish.
Torn between this reaction and the obvious determination of our hostess/waitress/Maitre de, I went along for the ride. Aud had her coffee, I a beer, and we shared some fried, extremely un-bold spring rolls. We each also ate one of the Cavendish bananas the woman brought out. They were good, but not superior.
While we sipped our drinks, I began ot soak in the atmosphere and fuel my impression that we'd stumbled upon a hyper-Westernized, ingratiating, almost anti-Thai establishment, geared toward arrogant foreigners who see Thailand as an inexpensive tropical playplace for retirement, rather than a different--but equally valuable--nation and culture, due the respect each connotes. In place of a Buddhist shrine was a tavern-style mahogany bar. Instead of a picture glorifying the Royal Couple, the walls sported posters such as a collage of beer bottles with the caption, "So many hard decisions."
The woman asked where we came from and declared excitedly that she often visits San Francisco, as part of some kind of Asian Royalty Society or something like that, seemingly an association of well-to-do folks from Southeast Asia who relish the opportunity to rub elbows with the mucky-mucks of the West.
Then the 50s-ish man piped up, making polite smalltalk with us about California and Bush and so forth. Aud and I got quiet, and the conversation disappated, after he declared that the Thai people, "well...they just don't have much culture here." He then launched into a tirade against their uncultivated aesthetic preferences, since his neighbors had not been thrilled that the ex-pat had painted his bungalow in multi-colored patterns of geometric shapes.
Once Aud and I exchanged a big-eyed glance and clammed up, he engaged the geriatric, interrupting the latter's futile, toothless attempts to slurp up some kind of noodle soup. In gloriously stereotypical British accents, they complained about the difficulties and expenses involved in importing their riches and pensions from the UK to this primitive land for their comfort and largesse. I can't say I was all that sympathetic.
This rant has gone on too long already, so I'll wrap it up. It's not that air conditioning and a Western toilet are bad things, but I was just very weirded out by palpable sentiment that West > Thai. My heart tells me that the expression ought to be an equation, not an inequality. (West = Thai, for the math-illiterate). And especially through the lens of anti-consumerism, or environmental consciousness, or what have you, it might be more appropriate to invert the inequality (West < Thai).
This trip keeps throwing us curveballs--our latest one seems to be negotiating our privilege as Americans while also exploiting it to do this learning and searching. It's a frustrating irony.
<3
Kyle
After we had some Internet time on Sunday (1/18), I led Audrey through town to show her a coffee shop I'd seen on a ride through town with Wat the day before. I figured she'd appreciate it as another activity on an otherwise lazy Sunday (also, see "Addiction," above). The place I'd had in mind was closed, but right down the street, nestled in the shade of some tall trees and bordered by a wall of neon bouganvilla flowers, was a cafe. Now, from the name, the fully English-language signage, and the manicured facade, we expected Dusita to be touristy. But it exceeded even my cynical expectations.
We walked past a Harley Davidson motorcycle emblazoned with British flag metallic patches, and past a sign advertising "Good Taste / Clean Food" that featured some kind of official-looking seal and a cheery, slanty-eyed, yellow-hued chef. The restaurant's walls were glass from top to bottom, blending the aesthetic of the outdoor gazebos and gardens into the dining area itself and giving the whole room an oasis feel.
Noticing a pair of sandals at the entrance, we bent to remove our shoes (as is customary for entering Thai homes) before stepping onto the glistening aqua-colored tiles. "No, no, no!" cried a woman's voice, and when I looked up I saw a woman hurrying toward us, smiling and admonishing us against removing our shoes. Dressed in an odd hodgepodge of Western (or, at least distinctly non-Thai) clothing (including a fanny pak!), she seated us near a window/wall, triangulated between an old man and another man in his 50s or so, both of them white.
The two men were traveling differently than we were. Whereas they were garbed in Panama Jack's "Third-World Adventure" gear from head to toe, I looked relatively trashy in my goofy utility shoes, white water-resistant pants, and musty France soccer jersey (a Pomona trash-can find, not a signal of any loyalty). [Quick aside: one time we hitched a ride into town and the man, who spoke some but not much English, inquired if I was French. I forget how big soccer is outside of 'Merkuh.]
With our backpack on my shoulders, a week's beard ("getting pubey," Audrey says) and a film of sweat upon my face, and my faithful Mt. Sac Agriculture trucker hat on my head, I looked...well...out of place. And I felt that way too. At first I figured it was my usual discomfort at looking like a scrub when all my fellows have clearly bathed recently. But before Audrey could even place her order for an iced coffee (MOM ALERT: ICE!), our hostess was at work, self-ingratiating and making me uncomfortable. Spying the small, browning bananas Aud and I had schlepped from Wat's to eat along the way to town, she began to denounce them. "We have good bananas here, you don't have to eat those. Those for cooking...and feed to birds! I bring you good kind!"
Now, I'll spare our readers my lecture on the global Cavendish banana monocrop, but I hope y'all know that there are dozens of varieties of bananas in the world, even though 95% of the supermarkets we shop at sell only the Cavendish that we are used to. The bananas that Wat and his neighbors grow are three to four inches in length, come in bunches of ten or more, and are firmer and more moist than Cavendish bananas, with the sweetness of a slightly underripe Cavendish but without the that-wasn't-ready-yet aftertaste. And we'd gotten used to them. They are different, yes, but not inferior. And just as Wat takes pride in eating foods his neighbors write off as unfit for people, I began to appreciate these little Thai squylinder bananas of ours for being so un-Cavendish.
Torn between this reaction and the obvious determination of our hostess/waitress/Maitre de, I went along for the ride. Aud had her coffee, I a beer, and we shared some fried, extremely un-bold spring rolls. We each also ate one of the Cavendish bananas the woman brought out. They were good, but not superior.
While we sipped our drinks, I began ot soak in the atmosphere and fuel my impression that we'd stumbled upon a hyper-Westernized, ingratiating, almost anti-Thai establishment, geared toward arrogant foreigners who see Thailand as an inexpensive tropical playplace for retirement, rather than a different--but equally valuable--nation and culture, due the respect each connotes. In place of a Buddhist shrine was a tavern-style mahogany bar. Instead of a picture glorifying the Royal Couple, the walls sported posters such as a collage of beer bottles with the caption, "So many hard decisions."
The woman asked where we came from and declared excitedly that she often visits San Francisco, as part of some kind of Asian Royalty Society or something like that, seemingly an association of well-to-do folks from Southeast Asia who relish the opportunity to rub elbows with the mucky-mucks of the West.
Then the 50s-ish man piped up, making polite smalltalk with us about California and Bush and so forth. Aud and I got quiet, and the conversation disappated, after he declared that the Thai people, "well...they just don't have much culture here." He then launched into a tirade against their uncultivated aesthetic preferences, since his neighbors had not been thrilled that the ex-pat had painted his bungalow in multi-colored patterns of geometric shapes.
Once Aud and I exchanged a big-eyed glance and clammed up, he engaged the geriatric, interrupting the latter's futile, toothless attempts to slurp up some kind of noodle soup. In gloriously stereotypical British accents, they complained about the difficulties and expenses involved in importing their riches and pensions from the UK to this primitive land for their comfort and largesse. I can't say I was all that sympathetic.
This rant has gone on too long already, so I'll wrap it up. It's not that air conditioning and a Western toilet are bad things, but I was just very weirded out by palpable sentiment that West > Thai. My heart tells me that the expression ought to be an equation, not an inequality. (West = Thai, for the math-illiterate). And especially through the lens of anti-consumerism, or environmental consciousness, or what have you, it might be more appropriate to invert the inequality (West < Thai).
This trip keeps throwing us curveballs--our latest one seems to be negotiating our privilege as Americans while also exploiting it to do this learning and searching. It's a frustrating irony.
<3
Kyle
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