Opium country

Follow-up to Drinking lager with a gin & tonic and Baileys chaser from Esprit de l'escalier

Now that I have your attention, I have to admit that opium has not featured heavily in the days since I last wrote. First, a few follow ups (or follows up, if that is the correct grammar, attorneys general style).

I said that one wants to check two things when tail-seeking in Thailand: that the broad in question is not a fella and not a working girl. Given that ladyboys are generally taller than their female compatriots, it follows than one should just go for the short ones. But here one risks entering Gary Glitter territory, so age is one more thing to check. Not that this has happened to me, nor to “my friend”; I’m just providing a public service.

There’s loads of 7-11s here. Like one every 100 metres or something. They’re competing with the King (who has shrines and posters appearing at a similar rate) for brand dominance of the Thai high street. I’m surprised there’s not a law against it.

The funny thing about Bangkok (or one of them; probably not as funny as the other funny things about Bangkok actually but I’m going off on a tangent so I’ll end these parentheses here) is that its nickname is the City of Angels. And it is rather like its nicknamesake in that it’s huge, sprawling, smoggy and you either love it or hate it.

Another day there fail to win me over. I went to the National Museum, where I very nearly fell victim to another stupid scam. Outside tourist attractions smartly dressed men approach approaching farangs and tell them that the sight is closed. It’s usually obvious that it’s actually open so one just ignores them. I expect that the man hopes that the tourist believes him and joins his exorbitant city tour or whatever he’s selling, but I can’t imagine that anyone does. I’m surprised how lame this and the tuk-tuk-tailor alliance are. Or maybe they’re just there to lull the tourist into a false sense of smugness at beating the scam so that they get conned by the meta-scam that the whole country is running. (As an aside, I’m fairly sure that the only people who do the “wai” – the prayer-like gesture of respect – to tourists are those who are trying to scam them. The two guys outside museums and the woman who over-charged me at the left luggage have been it.)

I didn’t buy a camera in Bangkok. I went to the Chatuchak weekend market which is where, according to my dive instructor, “you can buy anything”, only to be told “you can’t buy cameras”. They sold everything else and it was nice to wander about. So I went to Chinatown* which has a district for women’s shoes, one for textiles, one for toys and one for cameras, but for some reason they all shut on a Sunday afternoon the bastards. Long story short I bought one in Chiang Mai, so there may be photos on here soon.

I took the sleeper train up to CM, after one shit overnight bus too many from Chumpon to Bangkok (the “VIP” one broke down and we had to board a crappy one that excelled in sleep deprivation). I had a bed on the train! Crazy. In CM, apart from buying a camera, I signed up for a trek, which seemed to be the done thing. Having already done trekking in Malaysia, I wasn’t that bothered and wanted to just do white-water rafting, but apparently ‘tis not the season (now being the dry season), and CM didn’t seem to have much to offer. Everyone said it’s small, quiet and chilled out, but it’s actually just a big city with traffic and industry and things. Compared to Bangkok though, it is small, quiet and chilled out and its network of alleyways are nice to get lost in but it wasn’t enough to keep me here for several days.

I did catch some muay thai (Thai boxing) on the first night. Most of the 8 fights were between kids, 7 or 8 being the youngest. It was pretty entertaining, though there was only one knockout, no blood, and a couple of fights just involved red kicking blue, blue getting red in a headlock then both of them kneeing each other until they fell down then repeating. We were advised by our waitress (who had rather large hands) not to bet because it was fixed. Imagine school football matches being fixed! They should do that. There was one grown-up fight, female, between an English and a Thai and the English won.

The trek involved getting a converted pickup truck with 11 other farang and our guide, Nikon, an hour out of the city. We trekked up a mountain, stayed at a Lahu (a tribe orginally from Tibet) village for a night, trekked down the mountain via a waterfall and stayed at a rafting camp for a night, then rode elephants and bamboo rafts (again) and white-water rafted. It was a good experience.

The hill tribe wasn’t as primitive as I thought I’d paid for. There were apparently 4 other groups like ours staying in a village of 200 people, and the Lahu were obviously used to the attention. They all wore western clothes, sold us Coca Cola and even had electricity (from government-funded solar panels). The youths were in tracksuits, and because it was the last day of their new year celebrations (we reckoned the guides tell this to every group), were getting hammered, setting off fireworks and fighting, and reminded me a lot of charvers. We stayed in a hut made entirely of bamboo, which was surprisingly sturdy but looked like you’d put your foot through the floor with every step. The celebrations involved a dance that went on for hours, the only accompaniment being three drums and a couple of cymbals beating the same basic rhythm, and an old man singing. When the “music” stopped in the wee hours, the cocks started crowing ‘til mid-morning. All good fun.

Thai kids are the best, even when they aren’t beating the crap out of each other. At the waterfall the next day we’d just finished lunch (Nikon cooked everything – it’s weird that you don’t get sandwiches here) and as if on cue several cute kids appeared and wanted us to play with them, give them piggyback rides and that. Their friendliness and curiosity is obviously a ruse to obtain gifts from the farang that pass through every day. One cheeky bugger asked for my travel journal. That was the place where I saw opium growing. The poppies weren’t up yet but Nikon said it was opium. So that’s my opium experience.

Jeez, I’ve been writing this for ages. The elephant ride was fun, because our one didn’t have a mahood and went off eating trees and didn’t understand our commands (which sound very much like charver: “h’way” for go and “how” to stop). The white-water rafting was cool despite the relative lack of rapids. It was the first time I’d done it anyway and there was just enough to impress me. Bamboo rafting was same-same as Kanchanaburi (where, I forgot to mention, I stayed in a rafthouse on the River Kwai, i.e. it floated) but longer.

And I believe that’s me up to date. Oh, I drank a load of Chang beer last night. It’s 6.7% alcohol. As you know, normally I get anti-hangovers, but not from Chang I discovered to my cost. I might call this a Changover, so bad and unlike anything else it is.

^{*Because all my remaining countries are as poor/unfree or poorer/unfreer than China, and therefore there won’t be any Chinese immigration, I think that will be my last Chinatown experience ‘til Stowell Street. They’re everywhere – America, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia. I feel like I’ve been to China already.}

Daniel Wilson Craw : 02 Feb 2007 06:56 |  Tags: Bangkok Chiang Mai Thailand Travel |  Comments (2) |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem