Feb 13th, 2008
Back to Thailand
Thailand is becoming harder and harder to figure out in this modern age. There was a time when you came here and it was simply a developing country, things were a little backward, the streets of Bangkok were pretty filthy, people didn’t speak a word of English and you struggled to do simple things. Now, it’s a well-oiled machine, there’s very little left of the word developing, it has well and truly developed. Bangkok is a world class city with some of the most apocalyptic shopping malls, wide open boulevards, relatively clean air, fancy cars and plush restaurants.
We arrived into Thailand from Laos at its north-western border over the Mekong river at a town called Huay Xai – a breath of fresh air. Two very kind friends, Hollie and Rob (who we met in the jungle swinging in the trees) let us tag on to their transfer from the border to the city of Chang Mai which took about 3 hours.
I last visited Chang Mai 10 years ago and it was all about the elephant, hill tribe trek. A bit of a farce at the time; the elephant ride was 30 minutes bumbling along on a doped up elephant and the hill tribes were checking out the latest MTV videos on their satellite TVs.
This time we avoided that tourist trick and went for the other one instead – the crafts markets. They were in retrospect excellent. It’s not always that you actually get to see a silkworm growing up, weaving the silk, sprouting some wings, getting lucky with the bug next to it, laying some eggs and then, plonk – dead. The great circle of life continues :)
We visited a whole load of different markets greeted by really lovely Thai people who didn’t hound you at all into buy anything. We moved seamlessly from the gem factory to the diamond and jewelry makers and on to the lacquer craftsmen and women as well as the all too distinctive Thai umbrella makers.
Then there was the rug shop. I don’t know what it is, I can’t put my finger on it exactly but seriously, there must be something built into the genetics of the Indian people that just says, annoy, hound and bleed these tourist dry, NOW! The absolute rubbish that was coming out of this guys mouth trying to flatter the female customers and the total trash about the authenticity of the silk and carpets was incredible. If if he was telling the truth it’s hard to believe it just because of his manner. We felt it every day whilst in India and here it was in a little spot in genial Thailand, I ran out within 5 mins of being in there. Ron, (a friend we were with who we met in Laos) had the temperament to stay longer, as did Helen, good for them :) These guys even switched off the lights when we moved from one room to the other and when we had initially walked up to the entrance a little man quickly switched on the pathetic water fountain just next to the front door, and off again as we left. Incredible!
Chang Mai has come along way in the 10 years since I last visited, the cars and streets are cleaner, the hostel we stayed at was very smart and our guides around town, Ron and Jim made it all the better – particularly the pub quiz on the night before we headed off on a long distance bus to Bangkok.
For all those that don’t know (which is probably very few among you) there is a place in Bangkok where every backpacker and budget traveller has passed through at some point on their round the world trip – the Ko San Road. By the nature of its name it is of course a road, well it used to be, now it’s an entire district with about 10 different streets and alleyways all around the area of Banglaparu, near the river in the north west of Bangkok. I have a wonderful memory of coming off a bus from Changmai at 5am10 years ago and heading for the one place where there was a swimming pool on Ko San Road for a few hours before getting another bus to the islands south. That pool is now gone and taking its place is a shopping arcade with a Starbucks, McDonalds and just up the road a Burger King. WIFI is available on every street corner and in every hotel and restaurant for FREE!!! A lesson the West could learn about how to let people get online :)
There must be 5 hostel/hotels on the Ko San road with swimming pools now. The place is like Piccadilly Circus on a Friday night, but every night! At 3am when everything closes down the road is cleared and cleaned immaculately in preparation for another 24 hours of carnage as all the bars pump out the latest Kylie albums and local bands play classic Red Hot Chilli Peppers tracks on the roof tops.
There was a time when you got your tapes here to play on your Walkman and buy some clunky detachable speakers for your evenings on the beaches in the south, now its counterfeit dvds, ipods, digital cameras and camcorders. The trusty (or not so trusty) tailors are still there promising to replicate that dress that Kate Moss wore to the Brit Awards for £30 – it will fall apart in a week!
Whilst this area of Bangkok has moved on it’s certainly not bad, its just the natural evolution of things. It has lost a little bit of the intimacy from the years before when you could just talk to anyone and feel like you’ve found your kindred spirit in about 10 minutes and there are now plenty of Samsonite cases wheeling around the streets (now the curbs have little slopes up them – no problem) but is a lot of fun.
Bangkok is simply one cool city with everything that anyone would ever want at their fingertips, we loved it.
After our obligatory visit to the most awesome cinema in the world at the Paragon Centre (mega mall) and feasting on trash food, buying a dodgy watch and trying to find the infamous Jim Thompson we booked ourselves in to the the Big Blue Diving centre on Ko Tao off the east coast of Thailand for a week. Blub blub blub….