Thailand Tales
by Jessica Klein
Thailand Tales
By Jessica Klein
When I informed my family of my destination, my grandmother gave me a copy of a video tape put out by a group called “The Discovery Series” that she’d bought twenty years earlier when her second husband took her there on their yearly vacation. She warned me that Bangkok was the most filthy, disgusting place she’d ever been to.
“So much garbage,” she exclaimed, and spoke with horror of the underage prostitutes that she’d seen coming from the room next to theirs on the 23rd floor of the Bangkok Hilton. I don’t picture the escort’s young face as the mask of sadness one might expect. Rather, I see her Thai eyes smiling, her lithe, thin frame slipping across the opulent carpet, watching her reflection in the mirrors that line the top half of the walls. She may even wave to herself before getting on the elevator. I know I would.
The photos from that trip of my grandmother riding an elephant on a narrow path through the jungle mysteriously vanished before they could be developed. To this day, my mother does not believe that roll of film ever existed. I can close my eyes and picture her, twenty years earlier, her hair still naturally red, graying in wisps around her face, eyes obscured by oversized amber-tinted sunglasses. I can almost hear her laughter as the elephant ambles down the trail, kicking up dirt clouds in its path, but I am aware that this is an invented memory, one that probably never happened. One thing’s for certain: my grandmother would never be caught dead riding an elephant now.
* * *
It didn’t hit me that I was leaving until about three weeks before my departure. It was early January, when the snow finally lets you know it’s here to stay and you spend those dreadful freezing moments between your apartment and the metro daydreaming of tropical beaches. One night while on my way somewhere, I stopped dead in my tracks, looked up at the clear black sky and laughed aloud, not caring how crazy I looked. Fucking Thailand, I thought. I wish someone had been there with me to pat me on the back.
* * *
Bangkok seethes and pulses to its own beat. Words fail to describe the chaos that encircles you, wraps its arms around you and pulls you in like an uninvited lover. You have to be there to believe that so much can be happening and that your feet know the steps to the dance. One moment you’re a deer in the headlights of a pink taxicab and the next you’re darting between exhaust-spewing buses like you were born in fisherman’s pants.
There are no rules of the road. Cars, taxis, buses and tuk-tuks drive where they want, when they want, faster than the Autobahn hopped up on amphetamines. Vendors line the sidewalks, selling everything from fresh pineapple to grave-robbed dentures, haggling until the sun comes up for those extra 20 baht. Once, a man tried to persuade me to eat a deep-fried cockroach.
The air is clouded thick with pollution. On the days that are supposed to be clear and sunny the sky looks like a swimming pool after too many kids slathered in sunscreen have taken a dip. I had to wipe my face with a washcloth three times a day to remove the murky brown residue. On my fourth day in Bangkok I coughed up black.
* * *
As I left Bangkok, concrete overpasses dwarfed my minibus, making me feel like a toy on a city-sized play set. The cement there is a more washed-out, savage looking gray, probably on account of all the rain I kept hearing about but saw for myself only once for five minutes while eating breakfast a month into my stay at a bakery in Ko Tao. A woolen sweater in that shade of gray itches till you scratch off all your skin, a dog in that gray, doomed to a life on the street, mangy and feeding out of garbage cans.
The view from the window of a bus is the same no matter where you are. Roads roll past, the horizon dotted with family-run food stands, yellow banners bearing the image of the beloved King, and the occasional road sign in indecipherable curly script. The main roads could almost pass for Canadian ones, near-black asphalt bisected by dotted lines. Some are tar-sticky and smell faintly of saltwater or cheese that’s been left in the sun to rot.
Side roads are another story. Actually, “rough gravel paths” seems more appropriate. The palm leaves that line the path are coated in a layer of sun-brown dust, making them appear brittle, ready to flake into pieces at the slightest touch. Pebbles fly from the wheels of speeding motorcycles. The bus drivers take the curves at such incomprehensible speed that sleep is the only option.
* * *
While camping in a wildlife sanctuary close to the Myanmar border, we have difficulty lighting a fire. Relying on a cheap red lighter purchased at a 7-11 and marsh-soaked kindling, we stare at the two-foot high flames at a nearby campsite with envy. Two shadowy figures approach our campsite, stumbling: Thai men drinking moonshine out of an unmarked glass bottle, slurring their words. They manage to light a roaring fire in the blink of an eye.
We smoke cigarettes and communicate to the best of our ability despite the language barrier. The men bare their toothless grins without shame. I slip off to the tent to get some rest while my two friends remain by the fire.
Hours later, I awake in the middle of the night with a hand creeping up my left leg. Bolting upright, I survey the tent—my friend Beth to my left and her boyfriend Skyler beside her. Shaking Beth awake, I inquire as to who is sleeping in the corner.
“That’s our stuff,” she replies.
“Well, why is there an arm?” I ask, lifting the hairy arm to prove my point. It falls to the ground like a lead weight.
Turns out one of our newfound Thai friends, too drunk to find his own tent, passed out in ours. His feet hang out the door, inviting an array of mosquitoes and flies to invade our sleep nest. Skyler wakes the man and asks him to leave in a gentle yet firm manner, and he complies, vomiting in the bushes before staggering into the night.
* * *
In the northern hills lies a tiny town called Pai, as in apple-a-la-mode. Tree-covered hills encircle the town, quilting it with a feel of tranquility. Little bamboo huts sit by the slow-moving river, woven together by nimble, tanned fingers. At night the cool mountain air refreshes your lungs. People who intend to spend a night in Pai end up spending a week. It’s no coincidence that there are so many hammocks in this small town.
* * *
On Valentine’s Day, the children of Pai roam the dusty streets and stop every foreigner as a member of the city’s “welcoming committee.” They ask a list of predetermined questions, listening intently and scribbling down our answers as we rattle off nicknames, hometowns and occupations. After, they adorn our shirt collars with glittering heart-shaped stickers. I peek at one of the children’s pieces of paper and notice that one girl has given her nickname as “vagina.” I thought this was equally funny and unfair to the poor teacher who would have to explain what this meant.
* * *
I had my first glimpse of the underwater world snorkeling off Ko Tao in the gulf of Thailand, where the seaweed dances to the beat of undulating waves. Coral lines the sandy ocean floor, maze-patterned and glowing green. Schools of fluorescent fish surrounded me, indifferent to my invasion of their waters. I never knew such vibrant colours existed in nature, incandescent greens and pinks like the highlighters I once used in my textbooks.
* * *
I thought it would be more difficult, but after a few days, it gets to be so easy. Meeting other travelers brings out the bragging rights to one’s revered discoveries.
“You’re paying 200 baht and you don’t even have a private shower?”
“You found bottled water for 5 baht? And it was ice cold??”
“Don’t eat at Hemlock… we all got food poisoning from the fish and puked our guts out for three days!”
“Rumour has it that the Pii pii Guesthouse is infested with bedbugs. I saw a girl eating breakfast there whose arms were covered in little red bites, like pinpricks.”
* * *
I watched three monks stand atop the lookout of the Doi Suthep, a temple built into the side of a mountain overlooking the northern city of Chiang Mai. Legend has it that the location of the temple was chosen by a white elephant that collapsed and died at the site where the holy bricks were to be erected, 309 steps up the mountain. The monks stood at the marble railing watching the mist crawl over Chiang Mai while foreigners wearing khaki shorts and carrying elaborate cameras gawked at the golden splendor. But the monks never blinked an eye; their saffron robes unmoving in the breeze.
* * *