Here's the deal: as actors are wont to tell, we're resting between times of work, we haven't been away together for a long break for... well, for as long as I can remember and we have both the means and the opportunity. So we're off visiting a few places in South East Asia we have yet to see: no itinerary!
We're starting in Bangkok with two nights in the secluded little Baan Chantra hotel just around the corner from the Pratanam market and Thanon Petchaburi Road. From there who knows!
The intention right now is one blog each day -strictly things noteworthy and interesting. It will not be a catalogue of transport and departure times. And please add your comments about anything written or shown.
Bangkok is one of the biggest, noisiest and dirtiest of cities on the planet. It's inconvenient, annoying and hot. It is also undoubtedly one of the most charming and exciting. Each time I come here I get to see another side of life lead by the fun-loving, friendly Khon Krungthep. More often than not, despite their obvious political and economic difficulties of the oppressed or the very poor, I come away thinking theirs is generally a fairly good life and that they all have a good time of it. Maybe this says more about the fact that I'm just happy to be here, that I don't have to drive in this place and why so many other Farangs (people of European ancestry) decide this is the right place to relocate. La-la-la...
Most modern hotels in Bangkok, like modern airports and modern shopping malls throughout the world, are so boringly predictable and so unutterably dull and formulaic that the only way one can deduce if one has awoken in London, Dubai or Rio is from the pictures on the wall. Their only virtues are that their cleanliness is close to sterility.
The Baan Chantra Hotel, however, is not modern -writes he using one of the hotel's guest-only iMacs. It is a very modest venture situated on the busy Samsen Road (isn't every road in Bangkok busy?) in Dusit near the Old City. Quite simply, it is a charm: an old family house with creaky teak floorboards and where the owners have linked past and present, traveller's amenities with traditional Thai values –we feel like honoured guests!
So, before we have even taken one step outside we already know we were in the beautiful city of Little Bangkok, the city where the hard-working Khon Krungthep exude a genuine, smiley warmth and hospitality, where the tinny kitchen radio plays Simon Bates "Our Tune" (the theme from Zeffirelli's Romeo & Juliet, by the way) and where the green curry Thai breakfast may be as spicy as a spicy green curry can be! The city growls into life, but here is Little Bangkok -the intimate, soft underbelly.
Modesty is, of course, beguiling and despite being surrounded by the ubiquitous tin-roofed homes that characterise much of this City of Angels (see this Youtube on pronouncing the full ceremonial name –most just use Bangkok or Krung Thep), the owners of the Baan Chantra have done a wonderful job of staying in touch with the reality of this city's crazy life by being supremely self-assured and calm. Oh, I don't know -blame Buddhism or something...
It feels like we've been put up in someone's home (it's an official no-smoking hotel, cor-blimey!) and the lovely owner even got up at half-past midnight to welcome us personally -bless. One of the loveliest features are the dated, sepia photos on the stairway that show proud family moments now all gone. All-told, staying here's not a bad start.
Thais do this massage thing -you know, where they try to kill you whilst laughing and you're supposed to call it pleasure. If you havn't had one then I suggest you try it. Me and the Memsahib have just had one from Wat Pho, the massive temple complex in central Bangkok (they have a massage school, ya know). I'm afraid that for me it wasn't that good this time. But the effects of a good massage can be amazing and make you feel ten feet tall! So how do you go about getting a decent massage?
Step 1. Find the right place. This is notoriously difficult. Unless you are introduced to a place by someone else then you might have to wander around town, march up and down stairs, in and out of shop doors looking for that... that place that is just right for you. In the same way that one eatery couldn't hope to meet every demand, so one massage place could not be equally suitable for all. And they should be dedicated to what they do in order to do it well. This links nicely to...
Step 2. How much do you want to spend? If you go on holiday to a Thai resort packed with Russians and Arabs then the likelihood is you'll be paying more than US$100 for an hour of prodding and poking, sniffing patchouli and ylang-ylang and feel no better (and maybe even worse for it). Think of what you consider the right price for someone to spend their good time working out the weariness of your flabby muscles: in Thailand something in the region of ฿200-400 (US$6-12) for an hour's work might be pretty good going, whereas in Hong Kong HK$200 is nice and cheap. You might, however, not like the surroundings much. And this brings us nicely to...
Step 3. Luxury. There have been times where I have thought I was going to get a decent, indulgent massage only to find out the place stinks or is tawdry or in other ways the experience becomes more of an endurance. I suppose the proof of the pudding is only in the eating and the price should match the delivery. Do you want to feel like a prince/princess, then consider paying royal prices. Otherwise don't moan if you're paying bottom dollar.
Step 4. Therapy. A few years ago I put my back out picking up a particularly heavy shop till receipt. I had to fly back to Hong Kong that day and was in sciatic agony for days. I plucked up the courage to go to Sara's Thai in Sai Kung (+852 27923172). She instantly knew where the problem was, beat the crap outta me (that's how it felt) whilst laughing a lot at my discomfiture and demanded I return for more within two days. Getting up off the table I instantly felt 50% of the back pain had subsided and within a week it had completely gone –hallelujah! The moral of this story is that massage bloody works, but only if done by someone who clearly knows what they're doing. Within the first minute it should be possible to tell if you are about to waste your money on a meaningless sleepytime or come out en-crippled. The Greeks considered that a doctor didn't know doodly-squat if he didn't also know the art of massage and Hippocrites, who wrote a lot about it, thought this could only be properly developed over time –the longer the better. Barring darts players, it would be difficult to imagine an athlete being successful without a full-time masseuse? Even animals like it as this Youtube footage clearly proves.
Oh, and one last thing –don't piss them off. I had a massage in Bangkok a few years ago, quibbled about over-charging and before I left was provided with a little drink of hot, yellow salty tea -or was it wee-wee? Certainly smelt like wee-wee: I mean, I couldn't finish it...
Getting around Bangkok is very simple -so simple even we can do it! You don't need no Thai lingo nor nuffink (although it helps if you have a few key words).
The Tuk-tuk
The most obvious form of transport for those with Thai leanings is the humble tuk-tuk. These machines can go anywhere at any speed, against the traffic, on sidewalks, across red lights up the side of buildings and through the air, no doubt. Of course, tuk-tuks are not exclusive to Bangkok -they must be found in practically every city west of Suez (and many South American countries). Even Gaza has them. I hesitate, however, to get into these things because they're bloody dangerous. Cheap they may be, but there's not much other than a bit of tin sheeting and tubular aluminium between you and whatever the tuk-tuk was hurtling towards.
The Taxi
There are a lot of taxis in Bangkok. Most of the are legit. They may be a little more expensive than other forms of transport, but you're paying for your own private air-conditioned transport to take you directly from a to b -that is if he knows where you want to go. Sometimes an Ozzy green and yellow, sometimes blue or white or purple, most times a barbie pink, the taxis are usually owned by reliable blokes who just want to make enough money to live in this town. They don't even give you the typical London cabby, "You know what's wrong with this country, mate...?" If they did it would be a Thai, "Bloody Farangs"! Having said nice things about them, I should also add that if you're not careful you may end up finishing your journey without noticing that the meter wasn't running. Oh dear, sir. It's a case of passenger beware: you'll only need to do it once.
The Bus
All the buses are cheap -really cheap. You will, however, need a Thai guide with you because the destinations are all written in the fourty-four consonent and fifteen voweled Thai alphabet. You can go pretty much anywhere in Bangkok by bus and be dropped anywhere on the route as long as you don't mind the lack of air conditioning, sitting in the heat, the fumes, the length of time it takes to get anywhere...
The Motorbike
This is, quite simply, the quickest way to get anywhere in Bangkok. The city is full of them and all you need to hire and sit on the back of one is testicles made of steel and a desire to die painfully in an road traffic accident. Watch the scary video above.
The Skytrain
An Ambitious project designed to lighten the load off the road, it took a while for the Bangkokians to wake up to realise just how quick these trains above ground could be. It was simply more expensive. But as the people have become incrementally more wealthy so they have taken to it and now it's full at peak times. It doesn't go everywhere, but it's quicker than the bus, safer than a bike and you arrive less sweaty and nasty than walking.
The Trains
There's also the other trains of the underground and overground variety. The new underground network, the MRT, is nice, as anything new should be, but like the skytrain it doesn't go far. It will be extended. If you get the wrong train, the Airport Rail Link seems to take longer than a taxi from the airport which makes you wonder why they put all the stops in at all. And then there's the commuter trains which you never really notice until the traffic stops and everyone curses as it slowly rattles across a level crossing. Like the buses, you've also got to know where you're going unless you're a hardcore traveller and can ask for tickets in Thai. We're off on the overnight express train from Bangkok to Trang tomorrow -first class, of course.
The Elephant
I dare say you could get one if you asked around, but they are pitiful things in the city. They've been banned from the Metropolis for many years, but they crop up from time to time sporting little red lights on their bums so that weary drivers can avoid them. On our way to the gorgeous teak Vimanmek Palace, we went to the Royal Elephant Museum today, full of wonderful things about how the sighting of white elephants (which look like ordinary elephants to me) is a sign of divine pleasure when it comes to sanctioning Kings of Thailand.
So there you have it. To finish today, I've included a marvellous picture of a manneqin sporting graduation robes. Dashing chap!
We've been here a few times now. It's always worth it because it's just the most chic place in Bangkok, featuring charm, beauty, finesse, local flavour and mystery (where/how did he disappear in 1967).
Jim Thompson arrived in Thailand during the war and fell in love with the people, the culture and the crafts. He made lots of money selling Thai silks back in New York, but instead of returning home decided to make a home for himself here by literally building a home -from combining old Thai teak houses. The result is beautiful.
Sadly his shop now seems to have turned almost exclusively towards the tastes reserved for mainland Chinese tourists. We didn't buy anything this time.
I'm sure we've all experienced something like this: rush to get plane - arrive at destination - get through immigration - beat queue for best taxi - get stuck in traffic - begin fuming.
In a way, it doesn't matter the destination, or the cause for the trip (holiday/convention/expropriating charity funds), we can't help taking our mind-sets with us and if our mind-sets live within a rushed, panicky 21st-century city then we see our destination through these ridiculous glasses.
So when the rattly overnight train from Bangkok took an hour and three-quarters longer to arrive than scheduled, or that the minibus driver from Trang was 27.39% more over-cautious than I would be on the country roads to Satun, or that the speedboat broke down as we left the harbour making us return to the quayside where we occupied the next hour with offerings of fruit juice not made from fruit, or that the remainder of the cramped hour -and-a-half journey, or that the resort is still under construction, or that the wi-fi is intolerably and excruciatingly slow, then... I have to remember, we're on Thai Time.
Thai Time, like Emirates Time, Mexican Time or Kenyan Time, is when the request/task takes twice or even three-times as long than it would in London, New York, Tokyo or Hong Kong. It's about frustrated, tutting consumers for whom time is money and for whom the wasting of it is nearly as criminal an act as beastiality or treason (these, of course, can be thoroughly justified given enough money).
Actually, the litany of woes above and any other complaint normally associated with an -insert country here- Time is nothing more a perceptual thing. Yes, it may take a little longer to get all these things done, but they will get done - eventually. So Thai Time is really an unhelpful imaginative comparison between expectations of time.
Here I am sat on a beautiful beach on a 'difficult-to-get-to' island in a 'difficult' country, but these difficulties are only mine. Everyone else seems perfectly contented with the way things are. That's not to say things couldn't be improved, but it's their business. I'm not here to 'save time', but to spend it.
And if it takes the magic fingers of the wi-fi that wrap around my i-Phone hours and hours to transport this simple bloggy nonsense to the world beyond these shores, then maybe that's a good thing.
Once in the Land of Thighs it is possible to see that many of the more obvious things on public display have deeper significances. The ubiquitous presence of His Divine Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyade in posters and beautifully framed pictures, for example, is not merely a reminder of who's in charge, matey, but is a link with the wider shared Tai heritage, a confirmation of Buddhisty philosophical values in a Thai version of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, and a current and potent adherent political statement all wrapped up in one. It seems that one of the worst insults round these parts is to question a chap's patriotism and love for all things regal.
Another symbolic Thai reference with philosophical depth that is perhaps identified more obviously by most visitors, is the religious iconography. Buddha images are everywhere; for worship and for the obtaining of merit, for teaching and reinforcing of central cosmological ideas within the Thai mind, and to justify social harmony within a clearly inequitous society. That religious symbolic art is so pervasive is symptomatic of its philosophical adoption. That mythical Garuda half-man-half-birds and Singha lions appear everywhere signifies that these creatures are ever-present links to that greater, more mystical reality - the one that transcends the here and now, the mediocre ups and downs of life, the mundane self-doubting of the individual and the vulgar vagaries of politics and society.
It is also symptomatic of the plain fact that there has not, of course, been a complete reformation of Thai religious thought along the lines of that experienced in Europe in the 16th century and after. This aspect of Thai life and thought has continued through wars, famines, revolutionary sea-changes of Governments, kings and prime ministers. There also appears to have been sufficient freedom of thought for most individuals to fully express themselves in their own style without being coerced into adopting tenets of faith with one fearful eye on the rack or the flames: it's your business.
Which naturally brings me to towels. I've seen some astonishing towelic creations over my years in this place of keenly-adopted iconography and religious philosophy. I'm beginning to think there is something deeper to this towel origami than meets the casual western eye, but no-one has explained this ancient eastern art to me. Please offer your in-depth suggestions into the secret language of meta-towelling.
Take a minute to consider the life in the sea -the vast, limitless and open sea. Think of the fishes, corals, aquatic animals and plants that make life under the waves a wonderland of excitement and discovery. Add a little warmth to the water and proximity to the shore... Heaven!
Of course, the open sea may be vast but it isn't limitless and many of those creatures found in it often have something of a precarious existence. In addition, as well as the constant Darwinian competition with each other for food and space, sea creatures also now have the increasingly demanding human equation to deal with.
I love diving. It's a simple way to experience another semi-alien world where air is absent, but life is abundant. Man's rude impact in every in-shore location, however, now means that delving down onto a celebrated dive site may result in finding (along with a lot of dead coral) the lesser-jagged broken bottle and the ubiquitous floaty plastic bag -objects that have obviously been put there with good reason. With little or no homes to live in, the fish will have buggered off -or been taken, dynamited, poisoned or otherwise decimated. Sometimes, in the really under-protected areas, all that is left is an underwater desert -with a few slimy plastic pieces for good measure, and there's not much fun to be had paying good cash to see an acre of two of that.
Koh Lipe is an Andaman Island 70km from the mainland province of Satun. Granted by the thai royal family to sea gypsies in order to ensure this border region came firmly under the Thai flag, the island has also become a haven for island resorts -cool and trendy, scruffy and dilapidated, genteel and exclusive resorts that have given the place a bit of a laid-back, party atmosphere. Ko Samui and Phuket may have been around longer, and they must have started this way, but there's something a little special about being quite this far out, this far from the rest of the world. And the diving's good, that's for sure.
Out in the Adang-Rawi Archipelago, it's also possible to do your own bit of amateur oceanography by looking at a particular kind of flotsam that ends up on the shores. It seems the lovely Indonesians have thought that the best way to say 'hello -we're a really nice bunch of guys' to people in neighbouring countries is to send them lots and lots of little pieces of pvc plastic, be they drinks bottles, fast-food containers, spoons, toothbrushes, bags and bits of nylon string. So good are they at doing this that the Malays have decided to adopt this happy practice, but they're not as good at it. The Thais have put in a bit of an effort, but they're even worse -perhaps it's the script on their mesages that they know no-one else can read. That hasn't put off the Indians who clearly believe spreading joy and happiness using pieces of plastic covered in Devanagari is the way ahead.
Such it is that even the environmental demi-paradise that is an Andaman island is visited by decidedly un-environmentally friendly calling cards from elsewhere. And such it was that after a recent squall, yours truly had to ask for a bin liner to begin a bit of environmental one-man beach clean-up of these people's trash. It must be said that the Memsahib and meself were quickly joined by the somewhat red-faced workers at the resort, but I'd just seen one-too many of these messages for my liking.
And so at the bottom of the sea this afternoon, with all the big and little fishes, the beautiful sea-horses, flapping rays, vibrant-coloured clams and munching sea slugs living on the spectacular coral, there was also man's pitiful, sun-bleached, toxic, wasteful, plastic contribution.
Heaven is hard: hard to get to, hard to stay there and hard to leave.
It was certainly a long old way to the delightful archipelago within which Kho Lipe is situated. The speedboat that acts as a ferry got all of a mile out of port in the beautiful full southern Thai sunshine before it broke down. We would have enjoyed this delay had we not been prepared to sit for an hour in that merciless aforesaid sun. The repaired boat then bounced us across the 70 or so bone-shaking kilometres in a gruelling hour and a half. But at least we were in heaven.
We saw a fraction of the island. Of that which we saw it was your usual mixture of Thai sea gypsies and migrant workers, trouser-less babies playing in the soft beach sands and foundation-encrusted ladyboys, like the concert party in It Ain't 'Alf Hot Mum, "Boys to entertain yoooou!"
We were tempted to stay. A special moment was sitting down at the Castaway Resort for dinner and drinks and watching the sky darken over the lapping wavelets around the longtail boats whilst the resort's table-top flickering oil lamps were lit before us -all to tracks by The Orb. A home from home, or just heaven? One look at the bill, however, was convincing enough to realise it was hard to stay in this heaven for any length of time.
And so today we left by a smaller speedboat back to Satun. I can't recall that I've ever been through so much rain out in the water. It was tempting to demand to be taken back, particularly when the rain poured into the boat soaking everyone inside (except for us in our nerdy plastic ponchos). It was more pressing when the lighting began in earnest. Questions filled our minds; 'Should we have been in a speedboat in this heavy squall? Do the tanks of petrol-engined speedboats ignite on first impact? Do fibre glass and wooden boats act as conductors to earth the lightning or do we all fry? And then explode?' Perhaps staying in heaven wouldn't have been quite so expensive after all...
Of course, now we're here in Langkawi it all looks so very quant and fun-filled. But then, we've just taken the Langkawi ferry to this heavenly island and are staying in an empty but heavenly resort in a heavenly colonial house.
It has been raining a bit today. When I say, 'a bit', I mean raining in a tropical way a bit today, which really means a lot because we're in the tropics. So I should have said, it rained a lot today. I should have said, it has been raining a lot ALL day.
Enough
prittle-prattle! We hired a cheap hire car, about as cheap as chips (if
you've ever had expensive chips, that is) and droveded round this
sun-kissed island of Langkawi. Ah, the beautiful bays and beaches, the
green mountain summits, the radiant forest tree blossoms could all have
been seen had it not been bloody raining so hard. We dodged raindrops
between gift shops and mountain stream walks, between a cheap lunch of
Phatprik next to the deserted bay of Black Sand Beach (Pantai Pasir
Hitam) and the unbelievable Galeria Perdana.
I
will have to stop here and rant a bit about this place. You may
question my motives because we didn't actually go inside, but I just
couldn't bring myself to dip into my pocket and pay for the privilege of
seeing the gifts awarded to the Prime Minister Yang Amat Berhormat
Dato' Seri Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamed and his wife.
I've
never met Mahathir and if I did I'd no-doubt be won over my his 87
years of political guile, but I cannot abide this man because of almost
everything he stands for. To have held the position of prime minister
for 22 years alone must make him one of the most corrupt, self-serving
political reptiles on the planet. He did little to avert put
inter-racial conflict in 1969 and once in positions of power promoted
Malay interests over all the other ethnic groups in the country. He used
religion, ie Islam, as a means to maintain power and legitimacy and
smeared or jailed any serious political opponents. He sold off as many
as 50 government-held utilities and firms each year to whoever was
paying and made Malay compulsory in educational institutions, thereby
making Malays largely unemployable outside the country. And then there's
his interference with and jailing of Anwar Ibrahim, which deserves a
whole-other blog.
Yes,
many recent policies and initiations have brought success within the
country, but many would argue that these were achieved largely in spite
of him. He's an anti-Western, anti-Semitic bigot who seems to have acted
on the wider world stage merely to meet his domestic ambitions and stir
the pot.
So, we
did not go to see all the lovely lavish gifts awarded/given to this man.
Having said all that, the attraction was packed with Malays. I presume
they all saw a different side to the man and the motives behind these
lavish expressions of love and admiration. Maybe he really is a darling
who has only the dear, dear love of his country at heart, but I think
not. He's the kind of bastard that makes me want to rant and fume and
uncontrollably swear!
So anyway, I bought a silly hat and two smashing, large coconuts. That's the right sort of gift for a bloke like me...
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