A portion of an E-mail written by Patrick Martino…
Subject: Update #5 Siberut, KL, Southern Thailand, Bangkok
From: “Patrick Martino”
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 10:25:26 -0500 (EST)
Happy Thanksgiving
I’m in Bangkok near the infamous Khaosan road having a great time in Thailand. It is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I had a good Thanksgiving dinner at Burger King. I had two whoppers, a large fry, a small order of onion rings, and a large soda. I normally don’t like fast food but I didn’t want to eat rice or noodles. I am bummed, however. I had sent an email to the US embassy asking if they knew where to get a nice Thanksgiving feast. There was one at a restaurant in the downtown area with Turkey and all the trimmings but I missed it because I didn’t check my email on Thanksgiving day.
To the relief of my mother I finally got out of Indonesia. My last few days in the country lets just say were very interesting. I spent them on the island of Siberut on the Eastern coast of Sumatra.
I have received lots of email from people saying they enjoy my reports and pictures so I have decided to keep doing them. I enjoy writing and describing things in detail. My reports are long, I know, but people seem to like the detail. Give me a shout if you think my reports have too much in them and need to be shorter. I have broken my report into sections again so you can skip around and chose what you want to read about if you so choose. I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes, computer time is expensive. I pull these reports out of my journal and type them as fast as I possibly can. I hope you enjoy.
Siberut
Siberut was once known as the island of good fortune because a ship which lost its rigging in a storm and had been sent adrift off the coast of Sumatra safely came ashore on the island, saving the sailors. Without the island the ship would have drifted into the Indian ocean.
Siberut is one of the largest islands in the Mentawai archipelago. The archipelago of islands 500,000 years ago were connected to Sumatra. They drifted apart. Because of the separation Siberut has several endemic species of primates, flora and fauna found no where else in the world. The island’s white sand beaches, palm trees, and jungles however were not the main lure for me to search out and travel to such a remote island. The opportunity to see the Mentawai people was the main reason I decided to make the journey.
The Mentawai are almost like the people time forgot. Siberut is not an easy island to get to. It is still without many modern resources. Being so isolated has kept The Mentawai and their culture protected. Slowly their culture is being eroded as more people discover the island and its coasts are slowly being developed but deep in the jungles several families of Mentawai cling to their ancient ways.
The Mentawai of the deep jungles still practice animism, conduct elaborate rituals, and hunt with poison tipped arrows.
They have chiseled teeth, painfully sharpened to points at a young age. The Mentawai’s dark skin is tattooed with ornate deep black lines. They are a beautiful people with thousands of years of culture. Unfortunately I did not get to visit any Mentawai families deep in the jungle Getting to and off of Siberut however proved to be adventure enough.
Padang, a dirty city on the West coast of Central Sumatra, is the jumping off point for reaching the Mentawai islands. I had to wait two days in the city before there was a ferry to the Siberut. Padang even though it is a large costal city with a long history of shipping does not have a deep-water port. All the ships anchored in the Arau river must leave early in the morning or early in the evening with high tide.
I left on a ferry on a Monday evening. It had a hold and an upper deck. It was at least a 100 feet long. On it I was trapped with I would estimate 200 to 250 other people. There were only two circular round life buoys for the entire wooden boat. The hold was packed with tanned wrinkled faced old women in sarongs sitting on mats next to bales of rice, chickens, and cases of drinking water. Younger women held crying babies and the men gambled with cards and chain smoked under the weak electric light of the hold. The ship smelled like fish and acrid cigarettes.
Above the hold, the main deck was made into cabins which offered only slightly more privacy than the hold. The small wooden cabins had wooden bunks on which women reclined in the heat. The only air came from crude portholes cut directly into the hull of the ship.
I rode out the journey at the stern of the ship. The chugging engine was below and it spit bituomous (not sure I spelled that right) black smoke, which choked the air and make me sea sick.
I, along with a French couple and a German woman were the only westerners on the trip. The ferry was slow and the ride to the island would last 10 hours.
I slept on a wooden pallet near the benches, raised just a few inches off the deck. Rubbish was near my feet, a green glass Bintang beer bottle and cast off plastic bags and straws.
Sea sick on a rocking ship in the Indian Ocean, filled to the gills with humanity I did not sleep well. I thought how my own predicament must have been very similar to what it was like to come to America for my relatives from Italy at the turn of the century, confined to a stinking rotting hulk for weeks. Luckily I was only on my ship for a few hours but still I could not wait to hit land. And we did quite literally.
At one in the morning a man apologized for tripping over my feet and spilling hot water, for a cup of tea, on my leg. Even later in the evening a man playing cards in the aisle between the cabins came running towards the stern to throw up over the side. He didn’t make it. He didn’t throw up on me, thank goodness. He stepped over me and projectile vomited hitting the legs of the Frnechman asleep sitting on one of the benches. It was a good thing it hit the Frenchman, feet as my backback was stored below the bench. He saved it from being stained.
If having hot water poured on you, nearly having someone puke on you and sleeping on a wooden pallet weren’t enough to make an interesting night the ship ran aground.
It was 5:30 and still dark. An approaching storm with its flashes of purple lightening cast the island of Siberut as a dark black hulking shadow on the horizon. Abruptly and suddenly as we approached the island at full speed, everything stopped. With a large crash the boat lost all momentum. It then rocked violently to port and then to starboard before righting itself.
Women screamed and everyone was shocked and terrified. The French quickly grabbed one of the only two life bowies and the last was grabbed by an Indonesian. The boat again rocked and listed. The engine was hurting, wounded and coughing smoke. Men looked overboard with flashlights and it was determined amongst much consternation and truculent words we had hit a reef.
You can imagine the thoughts running through my head. .Just great you are on a wooden boat still a half mile from shore with hundreds of people on board, in the dark with no life preservers. I am glad I can swim-kind of.
Dawn came and we were still stuck. The boat would rock and list violently with each undulating wave. The captain revved the engines and they clunked and clattered as they strained to free us from the reef. A small rowboat, the only one on board, was launched from the boat with the anchor in tow. The idea was to row to deeper water deposit the anchor in the deeper water and then use the ships crank to pull us off the reef. It didn’t work. The anchor’s rusty chains broke. We continued to list and sway back and forth with the rolling force of the waves.
We must have destroyed a lot of coral but we eventually freed ourselves from the reef after two hours using the power of the engine. Like an ice breaker the captain zigzagged his way off the reef using the weight of the ship to crush the imposing coral until at last we were free. Maurasiberut a small town on Siberut was situated on the mouth of a river. Most of the townsfolk are not Mentawai but are instead Sumatrans who had moved to the island. It held the only guesthouse on the island, or so I was told. It was a dirty town where the raw sewage from the guesthouse ran out into the mudflats of the river.
I paled up with the French couple and began to ask around how we could gain transport up the river into the jungle to visit the Mentawai. We ran into problems. Everyone wanted to be our guide and they asked tremendous prices. To charter a boat to go up the river the locals of Maurasiberut wanted 200,000 rupiah nearly $200. To go on a five day trek the guides wanted close to $20 a day, $100 in total. And this in a country where I was spending less than five dollars a day to live.
We balked at the constant inquiries from guides to take us jungle trekking. I wanted to visit the Mentawai but I wanted it to be on my own terms. I didn’t want to be part of a guided group intruding on their life and taking pictures like they were zoo animals. I simply wanted to meet them just for a few minutes even, perhaps share a meal and then leave.
It wasn’t possible the townsfolk all told us. You have to go with a guide. If this weren’t enough several people told us there would be no ferry for at least two weeks, possibly three. The ship’s engine had been damaged when it had hit the coral I was told. .Engine bad , Engine Bad. No ferry.. I was told. We would be stuck on the island. When I heard this news I wasn.t pleased. I didn.t have enough money to last three weeks! I was told I might be able to get a fishing boat off of the island but that might be a long shot. The French couple and I decided to hike to a small village five kilometers from Maurasiberut where the harbor was and most of the fishing boats arrived. We wanted to investigate possible ways to get off the island. We got to the harbor and was told there was a ferry the next morning. I don.t know if the people in Maurasiberut were ignorant of the truth or if they were just leading us astray to keep us in Maurasiberut so we would keep spending money. I think it was the later.
I did get to spend at least one day on one of the gorgeous beaches of Siberut. It was the day before Ramadan and a muslim family took me for a day of feasting. They stuffed me silly with cake, fish, spicy rice and other delights while I got to enjoy the most beautiful and secluded beach I have ever seen. It had white sand, crystal blue water, and palm trees which stretched for half a mile. It was paradise. It was absolutely wonderful and I would have returned by myself if it didn’t cost $200 to charter a launch to get there.
I left Siberut on the morning ferry, disappointed I didn’t get to meet the Mentawai of the jungle. I did get to meet a few who lived close to Maurasiberut and see some of their long houses. One man even offered to sell me his old bow and a quiver full of poison tipped arrows. The Mentawai of the costal villages however no longer kept many of their older traditions. I was just glad though to get off of the island.
I was tired of Indonesia after Siberut. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Sumatra but I was tired of the constant calls of children “Hello Mister. Where are you going. Where you come from…” I was tired of the dirt, the filth, and the constant chain smoking of the men. I was sick of the lack of mosquito nets or screens in any guest room I stayed in and the annoying buzzing of the beasts in my ears at night.
I was sick of Ramadan. Ramadan is a holy month during which Muslim.s fast during the day refraining from food, water, and cigarettes. They only eat at night.
This creates the unique problem of trying to find food during the day. Choices are extremely limited as just about everything from restaurants to shops shut down during the day to observe the holiday. Finding food isn’t the only difficulty. The entire population wakes at around 4:00 A.M. to get in breakfast before the sun rises. This wouldn’t be so bad if the caliphs from the minarets and menara of the mosque feel its their devote duty to wake everybody up. Every morning it was the same annoying and loud banshee wailing of Arabic from loud speakers. “AHHH Bala Bal ula Akbard Alha”. I needed to get out of Indonesia because I couldn’t sleep.
I reached Padang after an extremely long ferry ride. It was 20 hours back from Siberut. The ferry was not a direct run. We had to stop at the northern tip of Siberut before then heading back for Padang. I slept on the deck again. There were no incidents this time however. I lay on the deck and watched the stars shining brightly, like pin pricks of light, glitter on a black mat board.
It took me close to another two days to leave Sumatra. I took a bus to Bukit Tinggi and then a night bus to Dumai.
The night bus to Dumai was one of the worst I have ever been on. If there is a hell it could possibly resemble an Indonesian night bus. Imagine a rusting school bus with ripped seats; orange peels, plastic bottles, and other trash on the floor. Then imagine the smokiest most crowded and packed black hellhole of a bar you have ever been in. Combined the two and subtract the alcohol and you have a rough idea of what the bus was like.
The bus was packed and every man on board was chain smoking. I watched one man smoke five cigarettes in less than an hour. It was raining out so the windows were shut. Annoying Indonesian love songs blared over the speakers.
The bus driver was a maniac and took every corner at full speed. It was a nightmare. I didn’t sleep. The good thing was it was cheap, less than $3 to go on a 12 hour bus ride.
Back to Malaysia-Melaka and Kuala Lumpur
As legend has it a Malay prince from Palembang named Parameswara was resting besides a Maelaka tree when his dog began to chase after a mouse deer. The tiny mouse deer kicked the dog into a nearby stream. The prince saw the victory of the smaller mouse deer as a good omen. He decided to settle then on the mouth of the Melaka river and made his capital on what was then just a small fishing village. He named the village after the tree he had been resting on.
I visited the Malaysian city of Melaka as one of my very first stops on my travels. I believe during one of my first reports I outlined the long and important history of Melaka so I won.t do it again. In my first report I remember also describing the city as dirty, with little of interest to see. Wow what a difference a trip to Indonesia will have on one’s standards of what is clean and dirty.
I stepped off the ferry, which took an hour and a half from Dumai across the sraights of Melaka, and thought I had landed in heaven. Melaka had trash cans!!! And people actually used them. There weren’t piles of trash on the curbs and dogs rooting through the refuse. There were stop lights 711’s and order. It was amazing.
I didn’t do any sight seeing in Melaka as I had already seen everything I had wanted to see in what I realize now is actually a quaint very nice city, with a good China town and a few buildings which reflect its colonial past. I booked a bus for KL, Kuala Lumpur, and as I waited for the bus had my first real beer in over a month, a Tiger. I couldn’t handle the Indonesian Bintang-it tasted terrible, like toothpaste.
My bus was new. It had a seat for every passenger. It was comfortable, and safe. The driver wore a uniform. I did not need to haggle for a bus ticket and smoking was not allowed. Heaven.
I was awed by the beauty of KL as we approached along the highway. It is a city of lights. It was raining and black but the Petronas towers stood out against the dark. I saw the twin spires of the towers shaped like twin prangs of an ancient Khmer temple. I was awed by their beauty and the way their refracted light shown and sparkled through the beads of water on my window.
KL is a cosmopolitan. It is modern, sophisticated, fast pasted and on equal par with the modern metropolises of the world with sky scrapers which kiss the sky and a sky train which ferries commuters to work with speed.
History of KL
- Skip this if your not interested in the history. I didn’t write this section. I found it on a web site and thought it was very well written concise and interesting.
Near the center of Kuala Lumpur, the Klang and Gombak rivers flow quietly together, their confluence barely noticed amid the dwarfing skyline of gleaming new hotels and office buildings. A few feet from the place where the rivers meet, the Jame Mosque rests in the middle of it all like a piece of beautiful antique furniture, curiously left behind in a living room renovated for the space age. Walk to the rear of the mosque, and you will come to a small grassy field; walk to the southernmost edge of the field, and you can stand at the exact point where the rivers join. It is a strange place to stand. Overshadowed by the crowded skyline, the spot feels improbably humble and empty. It seems impossible that the entire city sprung from this one spot. Yet in 1857, this is where it all began. A group of 87 miners, all of them Chinese, poled their way up the Klang in search of tin. At that time, tin was in huge demand, especially by America and the British Empire, which needed the durable, lightweight metal to help fuel their industrial revolutions. In Ampang, few miles to the east, there were huge reserves of it, and this spot was the highest point where the prospectors could land their supplies. They named it “muddy confluence,” built a ramshackle, thatched-roof village, and within a month all but 17 of them had died of malaria. It was a devastating beginning to what would become one of Asia's richest cities. More tin prospectors, however, soon followed, and within a few years the village thrived. Like all mining boom-towns, it was raucous place, populated almost exclusively by men. They spent their days in grueling labor, crouching over tin pans or digging the earth, returning to the town at dusk to console their loneliness in bars, gambling halls, and brothels. Few got rich, but throughout the peninsula the mania for tin inspired fierce rivalries and claim disputes. As they did in the gold fields of California, the Chinese miners organized themselves into clans and warring factions called “secret societies.” Without a centralized Chinese authority keeping peace, order in the mining areas was nearly impossible. Whole clans could be swept up in fights that started over little more than a drunken dispute between two men. In 1868, needing a solution to the chaos, the headmen of the local clans elected a man named Yap ah Loy as “Kapitan China,” or leader of the Chinese community. Wi! th the support of the local sultan, he built prisons and quelched revolts, quickly establishing an infamous reign over the entire Kuala Lumpur mining area. If KL has a “founding father,” it is Loy. Loy had barely established control, however, when the Malay Civil War broke out a few years later. Local sultans were fighting for the throne of Perak, and KL, swept up in the conflict, burned to the ground. The merchants of the Straits Settlements, concerned that the war would ruin their prosperity, asked Britain to intervene. Britain was initially reluctant to get involved with internal politics, but rumors that the merchants would turn to Germany instead sparked a fear in London that Britain could lose its tin interests in Malaya. London sent in a new territorial governor, Andrew Clarke, to apprise the situation. Clarke gathered the feuding princes aboard his ship off the island of Pangkor, and convinced them to sign a document known as the Pangkor Agreement. The Agreement ended the war, established a new Sultan of Perak, and — most significantly — called for the presence of a British Resident “who must be asked and acted upon on all questions other than those touching ! Malay religion and custom.” This was the beginning of a dramatically increased British involvement in Malaya, one that would eventually place Kuala Lumpur at center of history. The British residential system quickly spread. Frank Swettenham, the Resident of Selangor, chose Kuala Lumpur as his administrative center and oversaw the rebirth of the city, ordering the construction of new buildings using brick. In 1896, Swettenham convinced the Sultans of four states to unite under the umbrella of the Federated Malay States (FMS), and Kuala Lumpur was chosen as the capital. The city became a classic center of British colonialism. Sharply uniformed officers and bureaucrats administered the FMS from beneath the distinctive copper domes of the Sultan Abdul Samad Building. In the off-hours, they played cricket on the field of the Padang and sought liquid comfort in the Selangor Club, where only whites were allowed. Unsurprisingly, the club became a symbol of British imperialism and oppression and fueled the ever-growing dreams of independence. At midnight on August 30, 1957, amidst a crowd of tens of thousands, British soldiers finally lowered the Union Jack! for the last time in front of the Selangor Club. Interestingly, the old British watering hole would become the meeting place of the new Malaysian elite.
With independence, KL was poised for its greatest transformation ever. One of the city’s darkest days came in 1969, when civil unrest — spawned by racial tensions — swept through the city, sparking a state of emergency that would last for two years. Bolstered by a growing economy and a sincere desire for cooperation between Malaysia's ethnic groups, the tensions subsided, and in 1974 the city was given the status of Federal Territory. The last 10 years have seen Kuala Lumpur undergo phenomenal growth, with a population explosion of almost 50 percent, not to mention development on a monumental scale. The world’s tallest buildings, the Petronas Towers, now rise above the city of 2 million. If those 87 Chinese miners could have poled their way 140 years up the river of time, they probably wouldn’t recognize the legacy that began where the two muddy rivers met.
My visit in KL
The rivers are indeed muddy but their presence is dwarfed in this city of giant modern buildings. Near the confluence of the two rivers stands the largest flag poll in the world in Freedom square, the location where the first Malaysian flag was raised in 1957. It is a huge flag the size of half a basketball court but I don’t think it’s the tallest flagpole. I think the spire at Great America outdoes it by far.
I stayed in a hostel near the Puduraya bus station. It was expensive but worth it. The hostel had hot water, a clean room and a lobby with cable TV. It was great to be back in a modern city where I could get my laundry done by a machine and sit down to a computer that didn’t take two minutes to log onto the internet.
I visited KL’s many and very well maintained museums and saw costumes of Malaysia’s various ethic groups, ancient weapons, the countries original first flag on display, a bicycle used by the Japanese during WWII to conquer Malaysia, and many other artifacts of interest.
By far the most interesting sight for me however were the Petronas towers. They were fascinating and so tall you had to strain your neck to see them. Inside the towers at the base was the largest mall I have ever been in. There were stores selling everything, all of the name brands-Nike Gucci, Prada, Timberline and get this Oshkosh B. Gosh.
I thought it was hilarious to see an Oshkosh B. Gosh store in Malaysia of all places. They weren’t selling blue overalls, just kids cloths. I walked in and just started laughing. The employees thought I was nuts and asked me if they could do anything to help me. I told them no but I thought it was interesting to find an Oshkosh B. gosh store in KL. I told them I had grown up near Oshkosh, which isn’t exactly true but I have visited the city several times while I was working for Brunswick, MotoTron a division I helped out with is there. I asked the employees if they knew where Oshkosh was. They had no clue.
Just a word to my friends back at Life Fitness where I used to work. I went into a health store in the mall. It was named Fitness Concept. They have 14 stores in Malaysia, all in the KL Valley. They are charging insane prices for inferior quality treadmills. They were selling a Reebok 190 RS with a one-year warranty for 4,950 ringgit, which is about $1,337 for what I would consider an inferior piece of junk. The salesman told me he sells 5-6 of these treadmills or ones similar to it a month. There is money to be made in Malaysia.
The food in KL was wonderful. Again similar to Singapore and Penang I found a mix of Indian, Chinese and Malaysian cultures and with those cultures their foods. It was great to get out of the routine of eating nasi goring, fried rice with egg, and mie goring, fried noodles, which seem to be the exclusive foods of Indonesian food hawkers.
For breakfast I indulged in Indian style pancakes with a flat unleavened crisp bread covered with curry. And for lunch and dinner I walked amongst the food stalls selecting curries, fried chicken and other delights. (you can get an idea of what some of the foods like in the next batch of pictures I send).
KL impressed me. It had a feeling, a pulse of progress, as if Malaysia and its people were gung ho to succeed and develop themselves as a powerhouse economically. The city was clean, efficient and a delight to visit with great food and tremendous buildings at which to gawk.
Southern Thailand (didn’t write the below history. You can skip if you like but its concise and interesting).
The earliest people to appear in Thailand were most likely the Mons, who came into Southeast Asia from Central China two millennia ago. The Mons settled along various rivers in Burma and Thailand, building cities and rapidly developing a civilized culture. Within a few centuries they were confronted by other groups coming out of the north. As the region filled with people and villages, local kingdoms emerged and vied for supremacy over each other, giving rise to Thailand’s earliest empires. The first of these were the Davaravati of Central Thailand and the Srivijaya, whose empire extended from Sumatra up the Malay peninsula to southern Thailand. Both kingdoms practiced Buddhism, which had spread from India during the time of the Mons. Eventually, the Davaravati fell to the westward expansion of the Khmers from Cambodia. The next Thai kingdom to arise was Siam, which had its origins in the military expansion of the Mongols under Kublai Khan. As the Mongols pressed south through China, the peoples of the northwestern mountains and the Shan Plateau fled south and east. In 1220, the Thai lords founded their first capital at [link]Sukhothai[link], in the Nan River valley. Soon afterward, two other Thai kingdoms were established: Lanna Thai (million Thai rice fields) at Chiang Mai in the north, and Ayuthaya, upriver from present day Bangkok. In the mid-14th century, Ayuthaya had entered its golden age, dominating the other kingdoms and driving the Khmers out of the region entirely. For the next few centuries the Thai kingdoms faced a stronger threat, not from the east or north, but from their neighbors to the west—the Burmese. In 1556 the Burmese captured Chiang Mai, and then Ayuthaya in 1569. The Thais rallied and recaptured both cities in the following decades, but the antagonism between the two peoples continued. The Burmese attacked Ayuthaya once more in 1767, this time practically erasing the city after a particularly bloody and protracted battle. Although the Thais managed to expel the Burmese shortly after, a new capital had to be constructed around what is now Bangkok. This chapter in Thai history marks the establishment of the Chakri Dynasty under Rama I, whose descendants have reigned in unbroken succession until the present day. Unlike most of the other countries of Southeast Asia, Thailand (or Siam, as it was known at the time) never felt the yoke of direct European colonialism. As early as the 17th century, the Thai kings were set upon maintaining independence, having executed a French emissary to underscore their determination. As the French, British, and Dutch carved up the entire region over the next hundred years, the Kings of Siam shrewdly played the competing Europeans against each other, ensuring that no one power would gain a dominant presence. The strategy paid off handsomely, as Siam remained autonomous while reaping most of whatever benefits the colonial system had to offer. After a peaceful coup in 1932, Siam’s powerful monarchy became constitutional, and in 1939 the country officially adopted the name Thailand. Over the next several decades, Thailand was governed primarily by military dictatorships, which drew much of their support from collaboration with more powerful nations. They supported the Japanese occupation army in WW2 and later provided bases and men for the United States’ efforts in Vietnam. Since that time, Thailand has weathered several coups, a number of border clashes with neighbouring communist regimes, and violent student demonstrations, finally emerging in the last decade as a remarkably stable and economically successful nation. Today Thailand has a population of 54 million people, the vast majority of whom are of Thai ethnicity. Significant minorities of Chinese, Malay, Khmer, Mons, and various hill tribes also reside in Thailand, in addition to tens of thousands of refugees in border camps from the more troubled countries of South-East Asia. Buddhism is the dominant religion in Thailand, although a variety of tribal religions continue to be practiced. Thailand's people regard their royal family with a respect bordering on awe. The main language in Thailand is Thai, although Lao, Chinese, Malay and English are also spoken by significant numbers of people.
Getting to Thailand wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. I had to hithchike to the border and it took me about 4 hours for someone to give me a ride.
Thailand is the only country in South East Asia, which was never colonized by a European power. It has a rich, proud, and beautiful culture.
The people look slightly different than Malays. Their skin is often lighter and they have to my eye narrower faces than their Malay neighbors. The most drastic and noticeable change between Malaysia and Thailand is the language. Crossing the border standard Latin characters disappeared to be replaced by funny almost Arabic looking script.
While Malay/Indonesian ( the two languages are virtually identical) was easy to pick up and learn( It was cool I could actually hold a simple conversation about where I was from and how old I was after two months in Malaysian and Indonesia) all I know how to say in Thai is thank you. Thai is difficult because I don.t know the alphabet. I can’t sound things out like I could in Malaysia. Secondly Thai is a tonal language. Like Chinese it has a middle tone high tone, low tone, rising tone and a falling tone. Depending on your tone you can speak the exact same word but it could have a completely different meaning. It is very difficult to communicate and very frustrating at times but thankfully many Thais understand a little bit of English. This is primarily because Thailand is inundated with tourists.
In Indonesia I traveled for days sometimes without seeing another tourist. Now there are more than I can count. More than 8 million tourists visit Thailand each year. The Thais call us farangs, which is derived originally form a word to describe Frenchman who along with the British were powers in the area and who the Thais successfully although with many land concessions deterred from taking over Thailand.
Tourism effects can be seen immediately upon entering the country. Every town has posh tourist maps with ads advertising tailor shops, go go bars, and seafood restaurants. Large modern hotels have been built to cater to the tourists. The tourist towns are filled with travel agents, hawkers selling t-shirts, and the inevitable sleazy massage parlors.
Thailand.s population is predominately Buddhist not Muslim like in Indonesia or Malaysia. It is not overly pervasive in sections of cities not frequented by tourists but where there are tourists you see them, young 18 or 19 year old demure Thai women being led by the disgusting likes of 60 and 70 year old Italian and German men.
The Thai people in the countryside are wonderful, extremely friendly and helpful even if it is difficult to understand them. In the cities however I have found myself prey for the tourist hunters, the scammers. There are so many of us tourists and so many tourists who come for short periods of time and are willing to spend anything that the prices are ridiculous in some locations.
You may ask the price of something and the vendor will tell you 2,000 baht close to $50. After your initial shock you will have to haggle vigorously to work the price down. It makes you mean. It makes you angry and untrusting of people because you know from experience if you aren’t you are going to get screwed and end up paying three times the going rate for a hotel room or a simple banana. I feel bad then because I know I may be acting like a jerk with a merchant who may be telling me the truth and giving me the real price.
The food is wonderful. There are spicy soups and red hot noodle dishes. The names unfortunately I do not know. I just point and eat whatever they give me. Unfortunately for some reason the spicy foods have not sat well with my stomach. I like spicy food but I haven’t been able to deal with the thai food. I threw up in Trang in the gutter of a back alley after eating a dish of fried rice and chicken. Ever since then my stomach has been queasy. I have kept it simple and tried to just eat noodle soup like dishes. These are very good and usually have vegetables like cabbage or lettuce leaves, chives, fish balls which look like small meatballs except they are made from fish, and of course noodles.
I initially thought Thais would eat with chopsticks like the Chinese but they don’t. They eat primarily with spoons and forks, no knives. The fork is not used to eat with however. The spoon is the primary tool used to shovel food. The fork is just there to help pick apart meat. Using the fork to eat with would be like using a knife to spear your food and eat with back home. Thais used to eat with their hands but his was discouraged after King Rama V returned from Europe and encourage his citizens to adopt Western utensils. I thought Thailand would be rural and undeveloped similar to Indonesia but its not. Our world is becoming homogenized and I fear it will all look the same one day. It is increasingly modern. There are modern gas stations, large shopping malls, WalMart like stores called Big C.s and 711s on every corner. I even saw an office depot the other day. The Highways are large and efficient. The busses easy to use. Thailand is wonderfully clean when compared to Indonesia and is a great place to travel in if you don’t mind doing it with gaggles of other camera toting tourists.
After I crossed the border into Thailand I went to Hat Yai and from Hat Yai I traveled to a small island off the Western coast of Thailand called Ko Bulon near Ko Tarutao. It was an island paradise like all of the islands I have been on. Crystal blue waters, palm trees, white sand, the waves gently lapping on the shores and the bright light of the sun warming all.
If you want a few restful days on an island paradise Thailand is the pale to come. I have grown tired of islands however. You can’t do much more on an island except read a book and go swimming. Its not that their great or beautiful I am just bored of them.
I thought the most interesting thing about the islands wasn’t their beauty but the boats the Thais use. Thais use long 30-40 foot narrow boats called long tails. They are often richly painted in North Carolina blue, deep reds, or bright greens. Cloth ribbons like scarves are wrapped about the prows. What makes the boats unique is their unusual engines. They don.t use outboards which one would think their narrow length and size would dictate but instead have stern drives with a long shaft leading to the propeller. That’s not unusual you might say except that the stern drives with large truck sizes engines are mounted to the transom of the boat like an outboard. It the darnest thing. The boat driver has a long pole attached to the engine, with which he struggles with and moves to move the engine and the hence the course of the boat. The large engines which are never muffled scream with power. There must be some reason why they mount the engines the way they do but I don’t see! why they don’t stick the engine in the bottom of the boat and add a rudder instead of trying to steer with a huge unwieldy engine and a long inefficient angled shaft.
After The Ko Bulon I left and headed north. In Trang, a small city, I rented a motorbike and got a chance to visit some of Thailand’s beautiful countryside. I passed acres of rubber plantations and saw jungles still clinging to the hills. I passed through small villages, waved to the children and honked my horn to warn ideal dogs lounging in the road of my approach.
I saw several waterfalls around Trang. At the falls I finally rid myself of the tourist crowds. I found myself alone, the only one lucky enough to hear the falls lullaby roar and soporific call. I listened and watched the passing butterflies flirt in the mist and the dragon flys hover near the pools of frothing foam.
Phuket was next and in this tourist mecca I took an organized and expensive boat trip to see .James bond island. where the 1974 film the man with the golden gun was shot. The small island was crowded with tourists but the sight of the island and the surrounding islands made up for the crowds. The islands were incredible, like green gum drops rising from the water. They were made of limestone which had been carved by the force of water and time so they looked like castle turrets, rooks on a chessboard of the sea.
In Phuket I was lucky enough to experience a large Thai festival, Loy Krathong. Loy Krathong is held during the full moon of the 12th lunar month. The festival originated in ancient Thailand when a banana leaf float was designed for the king to pay homage to the goddess of the water.
Today people celebrate by buying or building floats to be set into waterways to give thanks to the water for its usefulness, to apologize for polluting the water, to cast away misfortunes or to make a wish. The festival is almost a kind of a Valentine’s day as young couples you buy or make a kratong together and set it afloat are said to be destined to become lovers.
The kratongs are made of the trunks of banana trees or Styrofoam and are decorated with banana leaves around the base with flowers then in the middle. Candles are lighted in the center of the kratong. And when thousands of them are set afloat they sparkle on the inky black water of the bay and look magical.
Bangkok
Wow what a city. I think you either love it or you hate it. I love it.
No it is not the sleazy dirt place I had imagined. Yes it is polluted with exhaust fumes. Policemen who monitor the traffic and direct its flow in the middle of the street do wear surgeon like masks to protect themselves from the fumes. It is crowded. And you have probably never seen a traffic jam like one in Bangkok where they just got traffic lights and modern skyways less than four years ago but it is a fascinating city. It is alive with life and energy. It has wonderful museums, stunning palaces, golden wats, impressive temples, and great food. It is not a city I would want to live the rest of my life in but it is fascinating to visit and see.
Bangkok isn’t that old of a city. It was founded n 1782 a few years after the city of Ayuthaya the old capital was sacked and destroyed by Burmese invaders. The word Bangkok comes from bang makok meaning “place of olive plums” and refers to the original sight. Thais call the city Krung Thep which means city of angles.
I was lucky enough to stay with the Lee Family. They are actually Korean. Harold if your reading this back at Brunswick they might be your relatives. Mr. Lee told me his great grandfather or perhaps great great grandfather I can not remember I am not sure which was the last Korean king before the Japanese invaded. Mr. Lee owns a semiconductor business which is based in Bangkok. He met my father on an Alaskan cruise and offered to my dad to put me up for a few days when I came through.
Wow what an incredibly nice family. I was treated like a king. They took me for tea at the Oriental hotel, the nicest most expensive hotel in Bangkok were a glass of Tea cost 185 Baht roughly $4.50 and to dinner at a Chinese restaurant where the Thai royalty frequently come to eat. They took me around to all of the sights and made sure I was well taken care of they were terrific.
My hands are getting tired here typing and you are probably getting tired reading so I will describe only a few of Bangkok’s incredible sights.
Khosan Road
This is where I stayed for a few hours before the Lees came to pick me up.
It is a circus street filled with backpacking young tourists. White skin and blonde hair outnumbers the almond hue and black short hair of Thais. The few Thais who are on the street hawk t-shirts, fake international student ids, pirated CD.s, fruit and hammocks. If you choose to haggle a degree from Harvard will cost you only 200 Baht and a fresh cut pineapple 10, about $5 and 25 cents respectively.
Techno music pumps from bars and cafes where neophytes read their newly acquired Lonely Planet’s and sip their first Chang or Singha beer. Young couples walk by and English blokes with mug like faces leading dainty Thai concubines. Hippy freaks with tattered sandals wait at stalls to have hair extensions woven and weaved into their matted mops.
The shops are varied but familiar. There are 711’s, two right across from one another, internet café’s which boast .overseas calls for 15 baht., tour companies offering worldwide air tickets, and guesthouses above the racket of the street “Khaosan Palace Hotel” and the Isusu hotel where a single room not much larger than a walk in closet will cost you 150 Baht roughly $3.
It is a street for the young. Where the restless lust for beaches and where beer, drugs, women and all the sick fun of Asia can first be had. It is a fascinating place to watch Interestingly little of the rest of Bangkok is anything like it.
The Grand Palace
If there is one thing in Bangkok a visitor should be absolutely required to see it is the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
The palace is not one large building but a series of palaces and a wat(Buddhist temple) all within a 945,00 square meter grounds. The wat is the most impressive and it is in the main bot or hall that the emerald Buddah is held, the most sacred Buddha in Thailand. The Buddha is actually made of jade and it is only 66 centimeters tall. The first recorded reference to the Buddha was in the 15ht century. The emrald Buddha has been all over the place. It was taken by Laos invader to Chiang Mai in the mid 16-th century and then the Thais won it back. It is considered the talisman of the Thai kingdom the legitimator of the Thai sovereignty. It has three sets of robes, one for winter, one for summer, and one for the rainy season which are changed by the king personally on appointed date.
The Buddha itself isn’t much. It is just a Buddha carved form jade. But the bot and the surrounding temples chedis and towers are amazing. Everything is gold. Either painted in gold or inlaid with gold leaf. The walls of every building are encrusted with a mosaic of ceramic tiles, shinny glass and mirrors. Mythical demons two stories tall surround the bot and guard the entrances. Gold statues half woman and half angle adorn the corners of the buildings. In the cloister of the temple which surround the bot of the emerald Buddha magnificent murals form the Ramakian the Thai version of an Indian epic depict battles between monkeys and demons. Golden chedis which look like the fluted bells of trumpets turned upside down rise for the sky. I don’t known enough proper words to describe the architecture. It is amazing.
The places are also spectacular. More gold and steep Thai stylized roofs. There are platforms built where the king could dismount from his elephant and grand halls made of Italian marble from which to receive courtiers. It is opulence to the extreme and I can only imagine what it was like to see a grand procession or the king hold court.
Other wats and palaces in Bangkok are equally as fascinating. There is a temple with a solid gold Buddha, a palace made completely out of rare teak wood, a reclining Buddha nearly as long as half a football filed. Everything is new to me. I am discovering things and seeing objects of which I know nothing about based on a culture and religions I know little of. It is fascinating and mesmerizing and I love it.
I saw a Thai boxing match last night. It was extremely violent but interesting I will have to write about it in my next update however. I have typed far too long and need to get some dinner.
Next I am off either to Laos or possibly Burma.
Sorry dad for the grammar and the spelling but I don’t have the time to check it.
Index of Patrick’s Stories
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Frogtails, Faces you remember
