Thailand

After Lombok, it was time to head back and do Thailand.

But first back to to Singapore, for a couple days with friends. It’s always great to get back to a place where you can have adult conversations in English, and have great food as well! Now normally I gorge on all the pan-Asian stuff, but since I had been doing Asian for a couple months, we totally indulged and went to Mozza, the Mario Batali pizzeria — best pizza ever!!

From there, it was back to Thailand. I had been in Thailand three times in recent months, but my experiences there have been pretty limited to catching a flight, getting a visa and seeing a temple. I also wasn’t too concerned while i was there, as I knew I would need more time to see everything, and that I planned to come back at some point and spend three weeks here, which is what I am detailing in this report.

I made it to Bangkok and had planned to spend some time beginning a tourist review of the major sites, but I suffered from my first minor cold-like event since I started traveling. Nothing major, just a slight fever and some coughing, but enough to make me take it easy amid the 97 degree temps and stifling humidity. The fact that I could also watch the Oscars live, that I was close to my new favorite mall and that I went to the movies was fun enough for my two days in Bangkok.

I then went to see two Khmer temples in the east that I had missed last time. They were great, but it required almost five days of travel to see them. I dislike buses, and choose trains whenever possible, but in Thailand they are slower. Since I knew there was a decent hotel in Korat with an ex-pat restaurant next door, I took my time. The temples were nice, both Khmer, so reminiscent of Angkor Wat. Their remoteness was part of the draw, and one rests on top of a dead volcano, offering nice views. It also was the type of place I would have never gone had I been on a tighter schedule though.

Now, I’m going to mention something here against my better judgment, as I expect proclamations of shock and horror from the relatives and friends, but it plays a prominent role in the story of my time in Thailand. So here goes. Ever since India, I have been eating a vegetarian diet, specifically an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet, as I am eating eggs and cheese. Now please note that I did NOT say that I have become a vegetarian. (I’m metaphorically underlining that for those of you who have fainted or chuckled in disbelief). I am not a vegetarian, I just have been eating like one. It started innocently enough – in India there are significant concerns about the quality of meats, and I expected that vegetables would just be “safer”. Given that, and the broad range of tasty veggie options in Indian cuisine, it was easy.

Thailand is a whole different issue though. Salad menus are often fish salad, chicken salad, beef salad, ham salad, and shrimp salad. In trying to get to these Khmer temples, I stayed in Nang Rong, which is pretty far off the grid. No English at the hotel, so I Google translated “Vegetarian and Eggs OK”. The chef read it and smiled. I even went into the kitchen and pointed to green beans, said “spicy” and “rice” and we all smiled. Twenty minutes later they delivered a few green beans, a pile of rice, a fried egg and mounds of chicken! Here were my “veggie” rice noodles the next night, with shrimp and wieners. LOL. It’s kinda the same everywhere in Thailand.

From there, I went north, to slowly meander down from Chiang Rai, through Chiang Mai then Sukhothai and Ayutthaya.

Of all the sites, I was most impressed by Sukhothai, which is a UNESCO world heritage site and capital of a once-powerful empire. The ruins and ground are compact and well-maintained, separated from the city in a rather tranquil oasis. They are large enough to never feel crowded, and though the supporting structures have been lost to time, there are some very impressive Buddhas, stupas and sculpture still to be seen.

I stayed an extra day in Chiang Mai so that I could take yet another Cessna Grand Caravan flight, this time from Chiang Mai to Phitsanulok. The best is that there are two decommissioned 747s flanking the terminal in Phitsanulok. It literally dwarfed our little Cessna. Still a great ride though.

Overall, Thailand is great, with an extensive infrastructure, great sights,  excellent beaches, and incredibly friendly people. It truly is the Land of Smiles. Bangkok is a world-class city and it is a great hub for the region. All that said though, I also believe there are places with which we find that we have a natural affinity. It doesn’t always make cultural or linguistic sense — i.e. why do I like Sweden so much? — but there it is. I generally thoroughly enjoy SE Asia – even just walking the streets is good for me. But Thailand, despite all its plusses, didn’t really “click” with me.

I think it may be for a few reasons. First, it may just be a question of timing. I’ve reached a middle point of sorts on my travels, as I’ve been roving for three months now, and expect to get back to the states in July, maybe August at the latest. (I know, you’re thinking, “three more months of this?!”). What started as a planned six-week trip to Asia has slowly morphed into more. And at the mid-way point I do find my experience to be changing a bit. I stayed in several really nice hotels in Thailand, and really just enjoyed the amenities. After a while, every night market starts to look the same, you can see too many Buddhas, and the luxury of a club lounge can seem like the greatest thing ever created.

Compare that to the flourishes that many of the budget hotels impose on you. In most cases, I wish they wouldn’t bother. I’d strongly prefer a pod hotel over the design elements that seem incongruous at best and sometimes downright bizarre. This was the bed and toilet paper holder in one of my “finer” establishments. The bed, by the way, was about as hard as the bathroom tile floor.

Second, architecturally, the Thai temples are glorious and effusive, but may be a bit much for me. Every door is gilded or carved, every roof eave is given an extension, everything appears to be endlessly repeated. It can be hard without a proper understanding to differentiate them stylistically. I consider them going too far in the ornamentation and expressiveness. Seen individually, elements are often amazing, but piled on top of one another can become too much. Think of it as the difference between Baroque — expressive, lavish, ornamented yet balanced — and Rococo — twee.

This expresses itself in ways both ancient and modern. Many of the fabled temples are explosions of ornamentation, intricate designs and sculpture. But equally, some modern artists have delivered their own approach. One of the best examples is in Chiang Rai, home of the White Temple and Black Temple. Both are created by modern artists. The White takes ornamentation to an extreme, giving us a temple site that is a riot of mirrored mosaic and dramatic figures.

The Black strives for a verticality and austerity that places animal conquest at the center. The interior of the buildings in this complex are chock full of jaw bones, horns, animal skins and the like.

Third, Thailand may have too many Westerners to my taste. I don’t mean it as a blanket criticism, though we do inalterably change the places that we choose to visit. And it’s not the number so much as the type — seems to be either hippies with kids, young English teachers and the ubiquitous older guys with “girlfriends”, though in Thailand it’s also often wives, as many of the relationships appear to be long-term. Whatever the case, all three appear to have reached an agreement that Thailand is the best spot to just “hang out”. It means that there are myriad  coffeeshops and open-air massage parlors, bars with drink specials and way too many ladies offering you a special massage — it comes across as somewhat seedy for me. I think this photo, taken from a portrait studio, sums it up well – isn’t it everyone’s dream to have your young daughter marry Colonel Sanders?

And lastly, I may have just had a bit of bad luck with the timing and the weather. The north in particular, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai are in the midst of an ugly season, as rice fields are burned off to prepare for another planting. The air is thick and hazy – kinda like Beijing in October, so many of the mountain vistas are meaningless. It wasn’t until my third day in Chiang Mai that I realized the city rests against a mountain backdrop and that my hotel room had a great view! Also, I realized that because it’s a natural transit point and because Bangkok hotels are VERY cheap by international standards, I’ll end up spending a month in Thailand. That’s a long time for any one place. I may have overdone it a bit.

That said, Bangkok is still a fascinating place, and is really multiple cities all in one. I indulged in the more Western-style malls and movie theaters, and also sweat my way through the royal palace area and its lovely boulevards. I spent some days merely going up and down the thankfully meat locker-like air conditioned skytrain, but also spent several days along the river, seeing the sights by using myriad boats and ferries.

And for those who have seen The Hangover Part II, I also went to that rooftop bar they visited at the end of the movie. I’ve been to hundreds of observation decks, but this was special – open air, with a theatrical staircase leading you to the bar area that juts out “into” the Bangkok skyline. Outstanding.

I am now am off to Laos – hope all is well. It’s getting hot(ter) here in Asia – all the best.