[November, 1995] When you first arrive in Southeast Asia you're likely to think that there are a lot of lazy people there judging by the way they walk. It's so rare to see someone rushing down the street as they do in New York, Tokyo, or Seoul. After you've been to a Southeast Asian location for a few days, you start to realize that you've unwittingly adopted this tropical crawl yourself. The climate requires you to slow your movements when outdoors so you begin to walk, to pace your movements, in a natural way. Suddenly your criticism of the locals seems misplaced and perhaps you begin to look a little less odd to them as well.

Bangkok

Thailand, and Bangkok in particular, is a place where the Third World meets the First: we stayed at a guesthouse for about $10.00 a night, a traveler from Canada we met was only paying $4, but saw hotel rooms listed in our guidebook in the 3000-4000baht ($120-160) range before the additional 17% service and tax surcharge for more expensive lodgings was added; we generally rode in taxis for about 70baht (less than $3.00), or rode on a Chao Phraya River boat-bus for 4-6baht, but saw an S-Class and E-Class Mercedes Benz at a dealership with the sticker prices of 8,100,000baht ($324,000) and 2,550,000baht respectively; and my wife, Karen, had a manicure, pedicure, and the dead skin on her legs sloughed off for the equivalent of $3.20, or about what she would tip someone who provided the same service in the U.S. and her $3.20 already included a 33% tip.

I knew we were back in Thailand when smoke from a sidewalk vendor's spicy cooking greeted my eyes with a burning sensation. We had paid the equivalent of $16 to get from the airport to our guesthouse, where we paid that $10 for a clean room with a large bed and a private shower/toilet. The countless wats which give Thailand so much character often have numerous cats or dogs lounging about as if they are afraid that any movement in the hot, hot sun will be their last. Mirroring these wat scenes, a dozen or so young Thai women lounged about or dragged their thongs as they walked, conserving every bit of energy, while tending to the restaurant dining room with its vinyl floor and open front - looking as if it were one large covered verandah. It's this image more than anything that is exotic. The women themselves aren't exotic to the Western eye. They wear Western style shirts, long pants and have rubber sandals on their feet. We couldn't figure out if they were some sort of bonded labor or not. One of the workers said that all the young women spent the evening at the guesthouse because their homes were too far away to return to; and a taxi driver told us these type of guesthouse workers were from Northern Thailand. They seemed so unhappy with their work no matter how simple it appeared to us guests. The restaurant patrons typically staying at the attached guesthouse. There are no wealthy international travelers or families on their accrued vacation for the year at this guesthouse, there are many nationalities, nearly all Western, but invariably backpackers, a few English men and women, many Australians, some with short cropped hair, many Israelis, with much, much more hair and a little bit more nose too. All of these backpackers are economizing that's why they stay at guesthouses when other, more expensive houses are available. Some look as if they have economized too much on personal hygiene and fashion as they go to and fro with uncombed hair, and formless, almost colorless, loose fitting clothing they probably picked up at some tourist oriented shop on the subcontinent before their journey led them to Thailand. By contrast, much poorer Thai people look as if they take much better care of themselves even if they don't have the money for more expensive clothes or accessories.

At 4:30 a.m. we awoke to the sound of a rooster crowing. Just before 5:00 a.m. a monk's voice came over a loudspeaker outside at some wat as he began praying. The rooster seemed to accompany him. They continued this duet for five minutes and then both ceased simultaneously. At first I wasn't sure if the monk's prayers had had an affect on the rooster or if someone had gagged it, but then it started up again about fifteen minutes later. After we got out of bed, we saw monks in their saffron robes walking along the street of our guesthouse. It seemed that they walked with the top of their large black bowl against their chest before they had received any donations. After they had received enough donations, and were walking in the opposite direction, their bowls secreted beneath a length of their robe. The bowls, being fairly large, were traditionally sufficient to satiate a monk's daily need, but with the advent of the plastic bag monks can carry what will fit in their bowl, a couple of plastic bags, and maybe a couple of lotus flowers as well. Some of the older monks had an awful lot of food, and they always seemed to be able to return before the novices. It was after seeing this procession that I realized why Bangkok's wat dogs hang out where they do and why they seem to be so friendly if not entirely because they are trying to conserve their energy.

Before we had arrived in Bangkok, international newspapers had been reporting that the city's transportation system was at a near standstill and had even prompted the soft-spoken King to comment on the problem. A comment from the King on a political issue, these articles had mentioned, was a rare even in itself. Perhaps because the king had expressed his displeasure, the Thai government has begun to expend an inordinate amount of man-power on traffic concerns in Bangkok from merely talking about the traffic problem to having uniformed traffic police wave it along. There are numerous busses running through Bangkok, and judging by the advice given us by numerous Thai people, this was the transport of choice amongst them even it if was slow and there was no air conditioning. There were signs that the construction of an elevated mass-rail system was being constructed. We could see supports for such an elevated system being constructed and saw a few posters with a politician's face plastered on them to remind the people he was doing something. I've yet to see an effective elevated rail system that compares with some of the subway systems and Bangkok's problems are more acute than most, but only time can be the judge of such things.

We experienced our share of frustration riding in Bangkok's taxis. We learned early to look at the meters when we got into a cab or we might have to pay for a ride that began long before we got into the car. One taxi's fare was higher when we got in, before we asked the driver to reset it, than when we got out of the car at our destination. Taxi drivers often did not know of places we asked them to take us to even if we had checked and recheck our pronunciation of a place name with a native Thai speaker before setting out. When we were on one of the main streets traversing East-West through Bangkok during rush-hour we noticed that taxi drivers were turning off their meters and demanding 200%-300% of the metered fair from both Thai and tourist riders. We took a detour for a fraction of the cost.

One of our most frustrating experiences as travelers, naive to intra-city travel in Bangkok was getting to a location without the complete address. We were looking for a location give as 2 Lard Phrao, Choke Chai City. After taking two separate taxis, being assisted with a phone call by one friendly Thai stranger, a second Thai stranger who wrote out a number (unbeknownst to us) in Thai, and walking a few miles in the heat of midday we found the shop we were looking for was on Soi 53, which branched off at Chok (not Choke) Chai from a five-plus mile long 2 Lat (not Lard) Phrao. Our education taught us that Soi are alleyways or streets that branch off from boulevards, and that the "Choke Chai City" in this case was more distinctive than 2 Lard Phrao - Travelers beware!

Thai Theravada Buddhism & Bangkok's Wats

Wat Phra Kaew

When you travel your experience is often affected by the knowledge of a place you carry with you. Of course knowing the language of the area would probably make traveling to any foreign destination the most rewarding because you can then seek out people to learn things about the places you visit, but this unfortunately is not always feasible. On our first visit to Thailand, we were entranced by the wats of Chiang Mai. I had taken a university course about Thailand, but what I learned was so far removed from such an introductory visit that it didn't seem to aid our experience very much. On this second visit to Thailand we did learn a little bit more about the country and one of the more useful things we learned was that Thailand was also a recipient of Hinduism which still lingers on if mostly superficially yet alongside the dominant practice of Buddhism in this host country. Hinduism, particularly in the image of the state symbol of a garuda, the Ramakien (the Thai version of the Hindu epic of the Ramayana written by the first king of the Chakri dynasty, Rama I), and images at wats, can be seen throughout Thailand. In Bangkok, it was also common to see statues throughout much of the wats of Chinese gods and zodiacal animals. We saw a fertility shrine that had at its center a spirit house-we had mistakenly identified spirit houses in our first visit to Thailand as alters, but they are more symbols of pre-Buddhist nativistic beliefs than anything. There is even a temple in Bangkok which symbolizes the center of Thailand. The center of this complex is a chedi, Buddhist, and the concept of the center of power is Hindu. This fluidity of the practice of Buddhism in Thailand, as religious practice in general throughout East Asia, is an interesting contrast with the apparent rigidity of religious practice in the West where wars have been fought over variants of the same religion.

Wat Pho's Reclining Buddha

Outdoors on a mountain in Lantau Island, Hong Kong, we saw the awesome 26-meter high bronze seated Buddha (the world's largest). At the Lama Temple in Beijing, we saw the 18-meter high sandalwood standing Maitreya Buddha which was certainly amazing in its own right. In Kyoto we saw the 24-meter high ferro-concrete seated Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Kannon) which was a beautiful sight at a distance, the tan colored statue standing out against the greenery of the mountain location; in Nara we viewed the 16-meter high bronze Daibatsu Buddha; and in Kamakura we saw the 13th century, 11.4-meter tall bronze Daibutsu Buddha that had a more colorful past and was more beautiful than its cousin in Nara. Next to these, the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho in Bangkok was probably the most impressive large Buddha image we have seen. This one is so spectacular due to its relatively unique position, with the head being supported by an upraised hand; gold leaf in square inch strips covers a plaster body underneath; and the bottom of the immense feet are black and covered with religious scenes in mother-of-pearl inlay. It probably helps that it is housed in a relatively small building and yet there was still ample room for us to walk around this image so we could appreciate the different views offered of it.

Wat Ratchabopit

The temple and a portion of the grounds at Wat Ratchabophit (also spelled Rajabophit) were closed for the holiday when we visited it, but it was jus as well. Thai wats typically have a feel of tranquility and casualness even in their reverence. This is in part why I think that Buddhism is more suffused into everyday life of the Thai than the practice of religion we have seen elsewhere, except perhaps the of Catholicism in the Philippines. The feeling of tranquility that I so liked about Thai wats was especially strong at Wat Ratchabophit, and I felt more comfortable than I usually do when I visit religious sights. Usually I have to be on my guard that I don't offend somebody's beliefs with my own lack of understanding and sometimes oafish manners, but since there were almost no people at the wat, I could wonder with Karen and admire the Buddhist sculptures representing a wide range of styles in one yard. There were several, perhaps fifteen or more, large sitting Buddha sculptures representing a wide range of styles in one yard of the compound. These Buddha sculptures were all about five feet high while in the sitting position and were proportional to this in thickness. They looked as if they had been placed their haphazardly in anticipation of the completion of construction for their permanent home. Ironically, the arrangement could not have been better had it been conceived by some master artist for the effect that was reached of the statues in such close proximity to each other made clear the similarities and dissimilarities of the statues. The lack of crowds, needless to say, made the viewing (or inspection) of the statues even more intimate.

(Another wat, Wat Benchamabophit, had a more numerous array of Buddhist sculptures cast in bronze that were arranged - rather than placed haphazardly - complete with explanations in Thai and English explaining which era of Thai Buddhist art each represented and the significance of the poses of the Buddhas; unfortunately you cannot walk around these latter group because they are placed traditionally with their backs against a wall.)

Wat Arun

Wat Arun could equally be name the "Wat of Views." Its principal and ancillary chedis are picturesque in silhouette when viewed by boat on the Chao Phraya. The views of Bangkok, where at least two other wats fill in the skyline, across the Chao Phraya from the Wat Arun, in the Thonburi, are as impressive as most wats themselves. This wat, more than any other we had seen in Thailand, is a classic example of the admixture of styles of architecture in Thai Buddhism. The chedis are distinguished by colorful ceramic demons of the Thai epic, the Ramakien. Like several other wats in Bangkok, Wat Arun reveals the presence of Chinese immigrants in Thailand most obviously in the three-foot high unmistakably Chinese stone sculptures which are placed around the bots and in long rows in the temple grounds which most visitors seem to ignore. Another important symbol of the Thai approach to religion is the sight of foreigners (especially those from Buddhist countries) taking photos of interiors of religious buildings and statues of Buddha, these same foreigners would often consider it extremely irreverent to photograph such sacred images back home.

Wat Traimit

Wat Traimit is an unimpressive wat, but draws visitors who want their picture taken with its most famous resident, a three-meter, five and a half ton solid gold sitting Buddha. This Buddha was hidden within a larger, plaster Buddha figure until the less impressive exterior was shattered a few decades ago after being dropped by a crane while it was being moved. Had this particular image been housed somewhere in Europe or the United States there would undoutedly be thousands of dollars spent every year just to protect it. At Wat Traimit there wasn't so much as a guard looking on or a glass enclosure to protect it from the visitors.

The King

One night, as I walked to the Democracy Monument near the Grand Palace in Bangkok, I lived a sentence in a children's storybook. A policeman politely asked me to wait a few feet from an intersection and then added a word of explanation, "the King." A few moments later a motorcade led by police motorcycles and followed up in the rear by police cars drove past. There was a team of cream-colored Mercedes Benzes and a few vans in the King's entourage. I didn't see the King, but I did see a group of military officials who were certainly important because they were fat and highly decorated. I thought about taking my video camera out of its bag to record the scene, but worried that the quick movement to grab something as big as my video camera might cause some equally quick reaction by those protecting the King so I erred on the side of prudence.

Viewing the Eclipse

There was a partial, nearly total, solar eclipse in Bangkok on October 24, 1995 (the total eclipse was visible further north). The Thai people used a broad spectrum of eye protection for viewing the event ranging from crude to sophisticated, high-tech improvisation: glass or plastic sheets with black paint sprayed on them, two pairs of sunglasses, cardboard made-for-the-event sun glasses, 35mm negatives, exposed x-ray film, a welding mask, and the exposed disk from a floppy diskette. To be fair, our approach was just as crude and perhaps dangerous to our vision had we not limited to a few brief seconds our viewing of the eclipse: the darkened window of a shopping mall.

Chulalongkorn's Revenge

Most Americans refer to the affliction we came down with one night as Montezuma's Revenge because they get it in Mexico. Our experience in Thailand gave diarrhea new meaning. It felt like somebody was wringing the water our of our body like you would a rag. The only difference between our "stools" and urine was that our "stools" were tinted yellowish-brown instead of light yellow (get the picture!?). Well since we got the pee-through-your-butthole syndrome in Bangkok we thought it appropriate to call it Chulalongkorn's Revenge. Of course we never did so publicly.

Poor Thai people often beg for money near touristy markets, but I also saw a group of individuals in and around a Thai market whose customers were mostly locals. Sometimes we could see single women with a child or two, but there were often men begging as well. The men were unique in that they all seemed to have serious physical afflictions ranging from large open sores to missing digits or limbs. We saw a couple of these men pushing their way through the crowded path of shoppers in the market. It is sights like these that make you wonder what excuse most beggars in the U.S. have, and reflect that had they seen these people for themselves they would be ashamed. There is no clear right or wrong to giving Thai beggars money. As a tourist it certainly makes more sense to give your cash that would otherwise go towards souvenirs on bettering the lives of a few in desperate need, but as a visitor you realize that you can not even approach the panacea to a Thai problem that needs to be addressed by the Thai. For some reason, I am more inclined to give money to poor children than adults even if the adults seem to be suffering more than the children we have seen. I like to think I do so because they are more innocent than adults, but whom am I kidding anyway. Children are simply cuter no matter how you rationalize it.

By our fourth day in Bangkok, we had been approached by half a dozen men wanting to know where we were from, how long we had been in Bangkok, what we thought of Thailand, and additional dressing questions before convincing us that we should go shop for jewels and gold at the Thai Export Promotion Center. Walking with a camera around my neck, I guess I was an easy target even if it was already obvious that I was a foreigner. One man approached me with the usual questions, and I tried to let him know in as polite a way as possible that I wanted to be left alone. In less than a minute, another Thai man asked me where I was from and said he had been to Boston, Massachusetts, where his friend lives, before he started talking about a billboard I was walking past which advertised Thailand's drive for technological growth. He never mentioned the Thai Export Promotion Center and I walked on thinking that maybe everyone wasn't trying to pull a scam. Then a young man in his mid-twenties seemed to be walking past me as he said something about the fact that I probably wasn't wearing trousers because the river was "fat" (I was wearing shorts because it was hot). He was friendly, and at first seemed to be walking past me, but the direction of our discussion - more ingenious than the rest - eventually led to the Thai Export Promotion Center. His tactic was to say that he was a student at the school a few hundred feet past where we were and that he had traveled outside of Thailand a bit even though he was the son of poor parents. He said that the Thai government, which had a monopoly on the gems sold wholesale in Thailand, would sell these same gems to Thai people like him who could then sell them abroad for a profit. He also said that the government would sell to foreigners for one week in the year and that the last day had been the previous day, but they had kept it open one more day because of demand. Whenever I tried to ask him a question that he didn't have a clear answer to, his English skills became weaker, but he was smooth and I was falling for his scam. He convinced me that the center would only be open for a little more than an hour and that I should go straight there, adding that I should use a credit card to make my purchase because that way I would have a longer period of time to pay for the purchase. He was such a nice guy that he helped me arrange for a tuk-tuk ride there. When I insisted that I had to get my wife (the more rational consumer in our marriage) he first tried to convince me that I didn't have time, but when he realized that I wouldn't budge on this he continued his soft-sale approach. I was almost completely convinced by the time I was about to get into the tuk-tuk because he said that he would accompany me if he could, but that he unfortunately could not.

I took the tuk-tuk to our guesthouse and convinced Karen to come with me without an explanation, "I'll explain everything on the way." Her judgement was often more conservative than mine and often times more accurate as well. I had finished my explanation by the time we reached our destination and we both reached the same conclusion. We were dropped off on the curb in front of a small shop named Lucky Lapidary which had a sign made out of very unofficial looking white tape on the glass front doors that read "Export Center". We walked a few feet away from the shop and hailed a taxi, but not before some man walked "casually" past advising us not to cross the street illegally then asking us why we didn't go into the shop.

When we got back to our guesthouse and were walking up to our room, I looked more carefully at a poster that the management had hung on a wall which I had passed numerous times without ever stopping to read:

---

ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD

In 1991, travelers lodged several hundred complaints at the Tourism Authority of Thailand involving rigged jewelry purchase [sic] in Bangkok that averaged almost a case a day, not to mention those that went unreported or were handled by other agencies.

The following are valuable pointers for your protection:

-Be wary of any encounter with strangers that ends up requiring your presence at a gem shop. ...

Thai Women

Thailand seemed to me a contradictory place for women. We never saw bus-, taxi-, tuk-tuk-, or motorcycle taxi- drivers, but we saw women and girls driving scooters and motorcycles everywhere we'd been in Thailand. Women office workers often wore uniforms that didn't seem to change much from office to office in cut or the lack of variety of colors (this I have only observed from banking transactions and on the street). Thailand is also the one place in the world where it seems that it is common for women to perform construction work. Then we saw a story as it unfolded in Bangkok newspapers.

This story that unfolded in Bangkok's newspapers during our stay goes further than any of our observations to explain the contemporary position of women in Thai society. A young woman described as a "street girl" was in search of three policemen who had forced her to have sex with her boyfriend in a train car while the three looked on at Bangkok's Hualampung Train Station. One of the newspaper stories featured a photo of the Prime Minister Banharn's wife and daughter at a table with the girl as they tried to convince her that her search for the suspects was "futile". There was never an official explanation how such a search could possibly be futile, but this had consistently been the official viewpoint nevertheless. Several days later, the girl identified one of the suspects but only after receiving the assistance of a non-government agency which works for women's rights. Another few days past and she was able to identify a second suspect. After the second suspect was identified, some official decided that it was no longer considered futile to search for the third suspect and he announced that his capture was imminent.

Bangkok Sex

There are two sides to Thailand's commercial sex: the censored and the one behind closed doors. Pornography is illegal in Thailand, but I'm not sure what exactly this means. As best I could find out it means that it is illegal to produce and distribute magazines or videos showing the nipples or pubic hair of Thai women. This rule does not seem to extend to foreigners and the most risqué ads showing profiles of naked women were always, in my brief experience, foreigners.

A young Thai man approaches a single foreign male as he walks along Thanon Silom between Soi Patpong 1 and Soi Patpong 2, Bangkok's red light district as well as a tourist shopping area. The Thai man opens up a laminated card that has about four folds in it so he can easily fit it into his pocket when not displaying his visual aid to prospective customers. The advertisement consists of a group of photos of the interior of a "massage parlor" adorned with several naked women.

Salesman: You want a massage?

Foreign Tourist: No.

Salesman: Look, very pretty.

Foreign Tourist: Yes, they are, but I'm not interested.

Salesman: A full body massage, their body against yours.

Foreign Tourist: No.

Salesman: Come have a look first. We can walk.

Foreign Tourist: No, I'm not interested.

A second salesman a block away gently squeezes the tourist's arm asking him with a word: "massage?" while he holds a similar fold-out in his other hand. The tourist tells him "no" without breaking his stride and the salesman backs off into the shadows.

I was in search of a show, nothing more. Lipstick was described in my guidebook as one of the few Patpong sexotic clubs which consistently "eschews" giving customers hidden charges at the end of their shows. At the entrance to the club, a barker (door salesman who "barks" at the customers to come inside) walks back and forth carrying a sign that lists the menu of vaginal dexterity to be presented during the show with words like bottle, cigarettes, balloon, and razor. Well, it's something to see, once. I go upstairs where I noticed only one other customer (a handful of customers came in after a short while). The stage is raised in the center of the room with a bar encircling it. There are places for customers to sit around the bar and at booths that line the walls. There are three young Thai women reluctantly moving their heals alternately about two inches toward the other and then back again. Sometimes they yawn or hold one of the brass pulls on the stage. This is the extent of their movement because, after all, they are only wearing a strip of cloth around the middle of their torso so their breasts and nicely trimmed pubic hair are visible. [Apparently these women are allowed to be completely naked because they were upstairs behind closed doors, whereas bars on the ground level with doors that open up to the soi only have women stripping down to bathing suits or something a little bit less.] I sit down and order a 75baht beer. Immediately the dancer closest to me on stage motions to me to giver her my 25baht change to show my appreciation for her performance. Another stripper, this one with a strip of clothing covering her stripper's assets comes up to me with a smile and sits next to me, pressing her thigh against mine. She smells of too much cheap perfume and her heavy makeup exaggerates the small wrinkles on her face. She makes small talk before asking me if I need another beer, which I do, and then asks if I would buy her a drink also. Not feeling in particular need of her company, I say, "No, just one beer." I also ask her it there is more to the show. Meanwhile the original "dancers" have been replaced by three new ones, two of which are quite Rubenesque especially when compared with normally lean, younger Thai people. The woman next to me tells me that the show should start in about "five minutes" with balloon blowing or something, and then leaves me with a gentle brush of her hand along my abdomen in as encouragement should I decide to buy her a drink later on. My second beer arrives and after I take a sip, I notice it tastes too salty. I touch the rim with my finger and rub the salt that was put there either to enhance the taste, as a favor to me, or to enhance my thirst and thus the establishments favor. Ten minutes pass and the two fat women swaying back and forth on the stage are still the only show except for a third one they conceal by their girth. There is a side show at the side of the bar where a fat white man sits groping a thin, Thai woman who teases him along. I guess I missed this sexotic show, but at the rate of $6 for two beers and not much of a show in a town where you can ride in a taxi for 40 minutes at the rate of $3, I realized my money was being wasted at least this particular night.

I made a second trip to Lipstick to see if I had been too early for the "show" the first time. When I entered, a woman was on the stage by herself holding onto a long piece of cloth that had apparently been the prop for her show. She was replaced on stage by a group of about seven women who were undressed and moved about much the same as the women I had seen before. A couple of women came up to me on separate occasions and touched my arm before preparing to sit next to me when I said, "I just came to see the show." The third time a woman came up to me, she used a more subtle approach. I felt a naked breast against my arm, and turned to see a face a few inches from mine. Unfortunately she had the same smell of cheap perfume I had noticed before. There was another similarity between this woman and the woman that sat next to me the previous visit. Though they both smiled, they both seemed to have a sad, tired look upon their faces as if to say, "I hate doing this. Just buy me a drink and play along so I can earn my money and get this over with." That was my interpretation. Conversely, some of the other women/girls seemed much more comfortable doing the sort of work they did. Incidentally, they were the youngest of the group who either hadn't burned out yet, were to naive to be sad yet, or were making enough money that it all seemed like a wonderful game.

After the woman had sat down next to me, a couple of mats were laid down on the stage and a show started. A young Thai man lay down on his back as a young Thai woman bent over him and took his penis in her mouth. When he was erect, she laid back and her entered her with a condom on and then they went through several positions in a few minutes time. It was obviously carefully choreographed, yet their concentration and ability to ignore the crowd added to the performance.

With a naked breast pushed against my arm, I wasn't so anxious to tell the woman sitting next to me to leave. When she started to brush her hand against my crotch, I began to feel a little uncomfortable. She grabbed one of the coins from the change that was on the bar in front of me and pointed to it saying, "This side, you buy me a drink, and this side you get massage." I interjected, a bit nervously, "I'll buy you a drink." Maybe in a fantasy a massage would have been great, but it wasn't a fantasy. Right after she returned with a 75baht Coke she began touching the coins before me and asking me for them. I reminded her that I had just bought her a drink (which probably saved her from dancing in between acts) and that she would have to wait. She did and even gave me a shoulder massage before she finished her drink and had to go on stage to dance with the others. Before she left, I asked her when the next show was to begin and learned that there was a half hour break in between each show which meant you would have to have some stamina to see all the "sexotic" performances listed on the menu outside of some ten different shows. Thus another night of brief commercial entertainment ended.

We saw a young Thai girl, I guessed she wasn't older than fifteen, Karen guessed sixteen, at a train station. She had makeup, rings, and a special pointed, gold pinkie cap, something like the aristocrats of Qing Dynasty China might have worn, trying to look as if she were ten years older. She was accompanying a white man who was more than twice her age. She possessed the confidence of someone who has triumphed over more than someone her age should have ever confronted. Still, beneath this facade, you could see a hint of childish naiveté in the way she was more concerned with her surroundings than someone as secure as she pretended to be would have been.

When The Chao Phraya Gets Fat

The Chao Phraya River is said to get fat after the rainy season. This season it got fatter than it had in 200 years according to a Bangkok newspaper. We saw the Red Cross delivering bags of rice and other food by boat to people who lived along the flooded banks of Klong Bangkok Noi, one of the canals which branch off from the Chao Phraya. Some of the streets in Bangkok were also flooded (Thonburi was said to be worse), still street vendors continued to ply their trade as they cooked food and sold it to the people who waded through the water. Children played in the middle of the street where the water was deepest and shop owners stepped out in the flooded streets to have their pictures taken in the brown water. Some homes and shops were flooded. Peering into one flooded home, we saw a television set turned on for viewing even though it rested on a desk or cabinet that was nearly covered with water. Down one alley, we saw a snake peeking its head above the water as if trying to figure out how it could climb a wall to some place dry. A commotion broke out as more and more people learned of the snake's presence and it lowered its head beneath the surface of the water as it fled its pursuers. The next day we learned from a taxi driver that it was probably a non-poisonous snake because the only poisonous snakes in Bangkok are cobras and they are very rare. He suggested that the pursuers of the snake were mostly likely looking for a good meal once they captured it!

The Water Market

One interesting illustration of Thailand's development is the demise of one of its most important tourist symbols, the floating market. The historically important Ayuthaya, Thonburi, and Bangkok owe much of their importance to the Chao Phraya River. The Chao Phraya River was historically important to Thailand because it served as an efficient highway, and because it was the source of water for much of Thailand's agricultural based economy. The water-markets of yesteryear have in many cases been paved over and the wooden boats replaced with faster machines of steel. We visited one of the last remaining floating markets near Bangkok at Klong Damnoen Saduak which operates much as a traditional floating market in the early morning hours before the sun's rays touch your feet and then as a tourist sight for busloads of foreigners in the early afternoon. We were part of the latter contingent because we opted for the logistical ease of the tour van. It was almost as interesting to watch tourists who, not unlike ourselves, line up to take photos and video of the more authentic looking vendors. The tourists, for the most part, lined the klong (canal) and vendors raised fruits to them with sticks from their boats. Some vendors even had stilt-ladders attached to the side of the canal either to maintain some illusion that they were part of the water market culture because they still weren't on land or because they weren't allowed to sell their wares from the market buildings. We felt somewhat foolish having paid money to go so far to see a modified reenactment for the benefit of tourists who weren't very discriminating (Disneyland could have done better!).

The SLORC's Burma

Shortly after Ne Win ostensibly gave up power in Burma (renamed Myanmar by the military coup leadership), Aung San Suu Kyi won the first democratic election the country had. Then the military calling themselves something with the acronym SLORC took power away from the people again and put the elected leader under house arrest. This year Aung San Suu Kyi was released, probably as a preemptive move for the benefit of the U.S. Congress who was set to strengthen restrictions against Burma. The military had until recently only allowed foreigners to visit Myanmar as part of a tour that could be closely monitored. They later realized the importance of the foreign currency derived from foreign tourist visits and loosened restrictions, sort of. At the time we wanted to visit the country, individuals could fly to Myanmar either in a package or by themselves, pay for a seventy-minute airplane ride from Bangkok to Rangoon (now Yangon) that costs more than a flight form Bangkok to India; and, if you chose not to visit Myanmar as part of a tour package, exchange $300.00 at the fantasy official rate of 6 kyats to the U.S. dollar when the unofficial rate was 110 kyats to the U.S. dollar. In summary, this means that you can pay about $1100.00 for a 10-day tour of Myanmar, $1200.00 for an 8-day tour (!?), or pay about $550 for a round-trip ticket from Bangkok to Yangon and 30 kyats of spending money once you get to a hotel in a country stuck in the nineteenth century (less the colonial administration of England and after nearly a half century of dilapidation) at the cost that no normal Burmese (Myanmarese) could ever hope to afford. Trip aborted.

Thai Peanut

We then decided to go to Malaysia, but when our train was delayed over a half hour because of an "accident" and "flood", we decided it might be more prudent to go in the opposite direction, Northern Thailand, first. Because it was late in the day, we also decided to stay at a guesthouse for the evening but didn't stay at the same one we had been at because we had tired of it. When we sat down for dinner at this new guesthouse I got an uncomfortable feeling from the waiter whose eyes lingered on me longer than is typical of a heterosexual. Looking around the restaurant, I noticed that we had gone from a guesthouse staffed entirely by young Thai women with attitudes to a guesthouse where the employees were almost exclusively young, gay Thai men (at least they were more effeminate that the average Thai male we had seen).

I had ordered a Thai dish simply described as "peanut" on the menu. The waiter returned shortly after we ordered saying, "I'm sorry sir, but we have no peanut. We have cashew nut." When the surprise dish arrived, it was a small plate of freshly roated cashew nuts.

Mae Sot

A new bridge for heavy traffic connecting the border of Thailand near Mae Sot and the Burmese border town of Myawaddy had been completed recently. A merchant we spoke with implied that the SLORC was blackmailing Thailand because they knew the Thai wanted to increase trade with Myanmar. Since the bridge was built the SLORC said they wouldn't open the border where the bridge was built until the river was dredged, but then that was not enough. This merchant, whose shop is filled with lacquerware from Pagan, Myanmar explained that the Burmese (meaning the SLORC) have made visiting Myanmar very unpleasant since they are trying to get as much money as they can from anyone they have contact with. She explained this by saying that many people whom she had met had told her they felt uncomfortable and had a difficult time relaxing on their on their vacations because the tension was so high. The portion of Myawady just on the Myanmar side of the border looks a older and poorer than the Thai side, but the difference is more striking a couple of hundred yards away and is becoming more striking by the day. Just north of the bridge, on the Myanmar side, is a fenced-in village of thatched roof homes while on the Thais side there are many tourist oriented buildings and many more structures currently being constructed. The border is closed, presumably because when it was open the economic drain on the Burmese side of the border was too great. We saw some young Burmese men and a youth strip off their longyis and swim to the other side of the narrow river. There was also a long, thin boat that ferried Burmese passengers across the river. Since the border is closed, at least to Thai and other non-Burmese wanting to go into Burma, there has been fighting in the area between separatists Karen peoples and the Burmese army which caused many Burmese residents of Myawaddy to flee to the Thai side of the river, but we don't know if the Burmese we saw throughout Mae Sot were refugees from this conflict or earlier arrivals. Mae Sot has a few wats which symbolize the Burmese presence in the area because they are said to be Burmese in style and Burmese writing can be seen there as well.

Mae Sot is a small town, but with a multinational flavor to it. We met one woman who had lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for five years, but returned to her home in Mae Sot because she was lonely for home. We met another man across from the mosque in Mae Sot who had lived in New York for seventeen years. He didn't offer why he had gone to Mae Sot and we didn't pry. There are Thai, Burmese, Karen, and some hilltribe peoples walking through the streets of Mae Sot as well and we saw a truck at our hotel with United Nations Relief Fund stenciled on it that may have been related to the relief efforts for the Karen refugee camps that are not too far from Mae Sot. We asked a man who spoke English if there was any fighting going on in the area between the Burmese military and the Karen. He said that the fighting ended with the rainy season. The Hmong were distinguishable by their baggy black silk, or silk looking pants which had colorful embroidery at the bottom. We also saw some little hilltribe women that we would have mistaken for little girls had I not taken a closer look because they were carrying children, but we couldn't identify which group they represented.

As in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, motorized bicycles and motorcycles are popular in Mae Sot. Even if the wildness wasn't apparent to us, it's still easy to see why Mae Sot was referred to as a Wild East town in our guidebook. The metaphorically rich sight of motorbikes parked in front of a small store, and a customer riding up on another motorbike to add to the small line out front nudged you to stretch your imagination. It is no stretch of the imagination though to compare the sight of motorcycle shops throughout the city of Mae Sot with the abundance of bicycle repair stands in the cities of China, including Beijing, that we visited. It is also symbolic of the disparate economic level of the two nations.

At 8:00 a.m., as we were walking down Prasat Withi Road, we heard chimes as if from a grandfather clock but we were sure they were coming from some recording. We looked around to see where the chimes were coming from and noticed a loudspeaker attached to one of the street light poles. Then the national anthem began playing. It was quite a site. The traffic policeman stopped all traffic and made a salute which he held throughout the anthem. Pedestrians, including a sole Burmese man, and bicyclists stopped in place, and men removed their hats until the anthem was over.

We were accosted by more children throwing open their palms in front of us in Mae Sot than we had ever been anywhere else. The children were generally clean and didn't look as poor as children we had seen begging in other places. I saw one young woman, I think she was Burmese, who was talking with her friend when a couple of kids approached her palms outstretched. She looked sternly at them and saying something, slapped the palm of the hand in front of her. The child did not look particularly upset and moved on to us. We told them "no" which they understood. It seems that along with that most internationally well known of English words, "hello", that "no" comes in a close second.

A young man riding a bicycle through a market rode past us and spat out a small puddle of red beetle juice. Later we came across a group of Burmese men who were working on underground sewage pipes and I noticed that their smiles were red. One of them stuck a package of something into his pocket and I asked, by motioning if I could see what it was. He had a small plastic bag with what I suspect were beetle nut mixtures wrapped in leaves. We walked to a poorer area near that edge of Mae Sot and saw many wooden huts with roofs that were made in part of leaves. Since we had not been able to go to Myawaddy we couldn't very well compare the two areas, but this was the poorest looking part of Thailand we had seen outside of the hilltribe villages.

There seemed to be three separate Burmese communities in this one poor area because we saw at least two fenced in areas and a third that was much smaller, consisting merely of there huts and some land. This small compound was the residence of a cow and a newborn calf - portions of the drying afterbirth were still hanging from the cow. There was a group of young men wearing shorts and pants playing volleyball in one of the larger compounds. Most of the Burmese men we saw in this area were wearing longyis and we saw several children with their heads shaved, both boy and girl. There was a large field separating this Burmese residential area from the town proper where still more wooden homes, some on stilts where other Burmese families lived were located. There were numerous water buffalo, cows and a herd of goats in and next to this field. An eatery located next to this field also served as the movie theater for the locals who filled the building viewing some program on television.

There was a cemented creek-canal that ran alongside where we were walking and we saw people there who were washing their clothes and themselves in it. Those washing their clothes made use of the cement along the sides of the canal to beat their clothes. One woman who had on a large longyi was washing her face and other parts of her body when she could. While she was washing her face she could partially open up her longyi as if to wash under it as well but had to be very careful unless she wanted everyone to see her the way only a husband might. There was a mossy looking stretch of water near the canal where a woman was working gathering something. She had a net framed with bamboo or some other wood which had another piece of bamboo attached to two sides of the frame forming an arc that stuck up from the water and allowed her to raise the net out of the water with a pole from up above on dry ground. I motioned that I wanted to see what she was collecting in the three nets and she showed me her buck of this green moss-grass. I later learned that what I could not see from my side of the canal were tiny shrimp common throughout Southeast Asia.

This was most certainly a Burmese residential ghetto, and there was probably a greater concentration of Burmese businesses right alongside Thai-run businesses that were run by the Burmese residents, and it was not an uncommon sight to see signs in both Thai and Burmese.

Sungai Kolok

Sungai Kolok is a border town in the far South of Thailand within walking distance of Malaysia where Muslims and Buddhists live together. One of the more common sights in the town is a wood table in the front of a small store found on most streets with bottles of red and sometimes green liquid. There are no busses for commuting within Sungai Kolok, there are few trishaws, and the taxis are all motorbikes fueled by these bottles of red or green gas. There motorbike taxis are as easy to find as car taxis are in any major city of the world, and we've seen them carry about as much as one of those car taxis would carry in their trunk somewhere, somehow on the bike along with the passenger. Aside from being a stopover between countries, you can't ride on one train from Thailand to Malaysia, Sungai Kolok has one other important feature as a border town. Malaysian men are known to sneak across the border, a small river, at night from their conservative Muslim state for hired couplings with the Thai women. At the end of one street a high density of these professional women who dress more risqué than average women even during their off-hours is one of the most expensive hotels we've seen at the two border areas we visited though the expense did not appear to be match by much else.

Kha-Land

I mean no disrespect to Thailand, the Thai people, or their language by what follows which is merely an observation of one ignorant visitor to that country:

Bangkok, from inside a taxi where Thai is invariably being spoken on the radio, might be better name Kha-land. On several trips in taxis I've heard a female radio hostess repeat the word "kha" more than any word I think I have ever heard in a similar space of time in my life. ("Kha" is the Thai word for "yes" and is used to acknowledge another's monologue).