Monuments and natural wonders can be fascinating, but they don't stay with you in the same way that people do. When I look at my photos of past travel I often only glance at the ones which don't contain people, choosing instead to dwell on those which do. Although Thailand is a place of wondrous landscapes, its people effortlessly outshine them.
November 1998 | April 1999 |
At the bus station I found the nearly empty bus that goes from Chiang Rai to Mae Sai, took a seat, and read my travel guide while waiting for the bus to fill and depart. I wondered who would sit next to me, whether people would avoid sitting next to a farang, whether the seat next to me would be the last seat taken. It reminded me of being the last child chosen when ball teams were picked. But before the bus was even half full I felt someone sit next to me, and I looked up to see onyx hair draped down over a long-sleeved sweater and youthful hands holding a bag of peanuts.
I looked down into my book, but didn't read. I was relieved that I hadn't been considered a pariah, and I was anxious to know if we would make an attempt to communicate at some point on the 1.5 hour trip.
As the bus rolled out of the station she offered me her peanuts, and I accepted. I would have accepted even if I had just finished eating several small animals and a large serving of durian, or if my seat mate had been someone other than an attractive young woman. I was interested in what would be said or not said. I only glanced at her on occasion because I didn't want to appear too forward, and our glances only occasionally met. Yet I detected some interest in her face.
I motioned with the guidebook that she could take a look at it if she wanted, and she did, looking at the pictures and the short language section. She pointed to the words that read, "What is your name?" I said, "Jack," and she said, "Nitim." That brief exchange brought smiles and dismissed some uncertainty. Soon she was teasing me about how the hair on my forearm was blowing in the wind from the window, and I lowered my shirt's long sleeves in mock modesty. In situations such as this it always surprises me how much communication can be conducted without a shared language.
As we were nearing the Mae Sai bus station I tried to construct some Thai sentence to keep us together, and I think I managed to ask her if there is a restaurant here. She was way ahead of me, and got us into a songthaew to the northern end of town where we walked up to the border checkpoint. I hadn't planned one way or another to go into Myanmar, but she had, so I followed. She got me through customs and hired a samlor for us, and we rode off into Tachilek.
I began to think of the possibility that I would be taken to some dark corner of the city in which I'd meet her brothers and wake up destitute and undocumented. In Myanmar, no less. After all, why would a beautiful woman take an unknown farang with her to tour Tachilek? But I didn't really care, or rather I was willing to take my chances. When she was distracted I gently collected strands of her hair in my hand and felt its crisp texture as it flowed between the sensitive tips of my fingers. In so doing I may have violated her head/soul space, though I don't know exactly where that line is drawn. I certainly didn't think about it at the time; I only felt an enchanting mixture of doom, attraction, and amity.
Nitim was quite attentive with me, yet independent and decisive, and it was a pleasure and an honor to be with her. We visited many places -- temples, a monastery whose yard ornament is a gigantic sleeping pig, the market near the border -- but I really didn't see much beyond Nitim.
I paid the samlor driver and we walked back across the border, dropping a few coins into the hands of beggars. After some brief exploring in Mae Sai we retraced our path to Chiang Rai, and on the way back we exchanged addresses and phone numbers. I'm not sure what value the phone numbers hold since communication would be virtually impossible without body language and drawing materials.
She told me that she would be taking the next bus to Chiang Mai, her home town. I stuck out my lower lip and gave her my best sorrowful look, and she laughed. As we said goodbye at the station I began to wish that I might still be her intended victim so that I might once again see her. I'm still waiting.
A few days later, I asked the people who work at the guest house if they could translate my thank-you letter to Nitim. The four of us had a fun time translating it from English to Lahu to Thai, and one of my translators was a young Lahu man. He understands spoken English quite well and writes a little Thai, though his native language is Lahu. He works at the guest house taking care of miscellaneous tasks, but his home is far away by the Lao border, a day's travel. Though he only returns home every couple of months, he still talks as if he lives there. When I was in my late teens, I would have been quite content to declare my home to be anywhere but where my parents lived.
I offered to pay him for the translation service, but he refused. He said that sometime when he needed something somebody would help him, and that I should help somebody else. The karma thing. A few years ago the main water pipe to my house broke, and the Guatamalan guy who mowed my lawn helped me dig up the pipe for diagnosis. He also refused pay, saying that because it was an emergency he shouldn't be paid. I don't know what they call karma in Guatamala, but they believe in it.
That afternoon as I was riding in a samlor back to the guest house, we came across a motorbike accident in which a very young boy had hurt his knee. As the samlor driver turned off the street to avoid the traffic I remembered that I had my first aid kit with me. I showed it to the driver and asked him to return to the accident, but just as we were getting there an ambulance came. I wonder if good intentions alone fulfill karmaic obligation. Probably not; intentions are rather Christian while acts are more of an Eastern thing.
I have to admit that I have gone to go-go bars, even though the nude dancing is no big deal, the acts are quite silly, and I've never bought sex from them. I like them because I can stroll in and share a drink or two with a stranger who will try to communicate with me and laugh and joke with me. Or at me, I don't mind. If I were to meet people like Nitim whenever my heart desires, go-go bars would hold zero interest for me. Well, I do think body painting is pretty cool.
I walked into one in Chiang Rai and was escorted to a table by a woman (not a girl) with strong, wide cheek bones, an attenuated nose bridge, shoulder-length hair with long waves, and a nice figure under jeans, a cropped t-shirt, and a plaid flannel shirt. Shortly after we introduced ourselves, Ma-luan noticed that my thigh bone is about 15 cm longer than hers, and she was so amused that she called her friend over to see. Dtao and I matched hips in the bench seat and, sure enough, mine was entertainingly longer.
It was Dtao's turn to take the stage, and throughout her performance Ma-luan and I did our best to destroy her composure and make her laugh, ironically cheering her on with cat-calls and commentary. Dtao couldn't help but laugh along with us from the stage. When it was Ma-luan's turn on stage Dtao and I enjoyed doing the same to her.
Soon I felt close to Ma-luan. As I touched her arm I felt her scars. I had seen them earlier and had briefly wondered about their cause, but now becoming aware of them through my sense of touch I was deeply affected by them. Four straight 5 cm lines, one on each forearm and each upper arm, each midway and transverse. They in no way detracted from her appearance in my opinion, and I made sure not to express any awareness of them. But their symmetry made me imagine possible causes that could be other than accidental, and there arose in me not a sympathy for the long past pain from the wounds, but rather a compassion for a life that would be exposed to such infliction. I guess I dwelled for some time on Ma-luan's possible pasts and on my own somewhat irrational compassion for her, and through my empathy I reflected on my own disastrous love life. I wept on her shoulder.
Ma-luan quickly cheered me back to the present and got me another Singha. But 15 minutes later her cheeks were wet with her own tears. I have absolutely no idea why. Later I wondered if her tears were generated on command for affect, and then I chastised myself for the thought. But even now I wonder. Is she a consummate manipulator? Or did my own tears stir something in her? Is Ma-luan's heart sensitive and irrepressible, or hardened and calculating? I did my best to return my enigmatic friend to good spirits, but I think she got there mostly on her own.
Later I violated Ma-luan's head/soul space, though I didn't realize it until writing this. To me a woman's hair is a fundamental source of beauty, and touching it is almost irresistable. It's like running my fingers through polished shell fragments on a coral beach, or through water that peacefully cascades over stones in a stream. I touched Ma-luan's hair like that, all the way to the roots, and though she did nothing that would remind me of the Thai taboo, I am now remorseful.
I left early to get some sleep before my trek began the next day. I did ask Ma-luan about leaving the bar with me, but she said that she had to stay until closing, after 3:30AM. On the evening that I returned from the trek I headed back to the bar, though I should have rested instead. I was escorted to a seat--by a total stranger, disturbingly--whom I sent off as soon as I found Ma-luan.
We picked up where we had left off before my trek. But after Ma-luan did her act she did not return to my table. She walked, distraught, head down, and tearful I think, to a corner of the bar where Dtao and another girl talked to her. Dtao returned, but she wouldn't tell me what was wrong. Ma-luan soon returned to my table with a smile and without an explanation. I find the whole event quite puzzling, as indeed Ma-luan herself is.
We returned to good spirits, but my trek had tired me. Late that night I actually dozed off, waking up as the bar was closing. How terribly embarrassing. Ma-luan, Dtao, and some of their friends took me with them to a restaurant, but I was so exhausted I simply laid my head on the table. I was definitely no fun. And I began to think that maybe I was there to pay for the meals. I left 100 baht on the table -- much more than enough for the coffee they ordered for me -- and told them tersely that I was just too sleepy, and I started walking back to my room. Ma-luan caught up to me on the empty street and pleadingly spoke to me, but I couldn't understand her through my exhausted state of mind. I reiterated that I was tired, wrongly accused her of not treating me fairly, hugged her, and went to my room. She turned away. That was the last I saw of her.
On the following evening, my last in Chiang Rai, I stopped at the bar hoping to find out where we stood, and whether or not I had been a jerk. Dtao was sitting outside and I approached her, but she refused even to look at me. I didn't want to see Ma-luan do that to me, so I left without searching for her.
A little consultation with Chan Joon Yee made me realize that I offended Ma-luan. I suppose buying sex from her would have been less wrong than what I had done. Charles Darwin once remarked that those memories which stay with us longest and haunt us most are the memories of our own social blunders and wrongdoings. I'd rather like to remember the fun we had, so with Wasant's help in translating a letter of apology I'm doing what I can to receive forgiveness from my mysterious Ma-luan.
My two British trek mates and I met Anan ("Nan") Kodo on the bank of the Kok River as we disembarked -- or perhaps dismounted -- the narrow long-tail boat. He would be our guide, interpreter, sociologist, naturalist, and cook for the next three days. He's a Karen villager who speaks several Hill Tribe languages as well as Thai and English. He is somewhat tall, pleasantly soft spoken, and his moves are so fluid and graceful that he appears to be in slow motion.
But his most remarkable quality is his deep compassion and concern for the Hill Tribes, his trekkers, and mankind in general. Instead of the otherwise ubiquitous Thai smile, Nan's face expresses an eternal will to understand the humanity around him. His knowledge of various cultures and ways of life is totally without judgement, except to judge against others' judgement, and so his ability and willingness to discuss any particular taboo is untainted and unimpeded.
The simultaneous softness, frankness, and sincerity in his speech often surprised me. Along the trail we all discussed cigarette prices and smoking habits, and Nan directly informed us without hesitation that the Akha tribe routinely smokes opium, and "tomorrow you can try it if you like." In a Lahu village my trek mate announced that he really liked the marijuana sample that a villager gave him in exchange for a cigarette, and Nan casually said, "I'm glad you liked it. Would you like another?" (No, I did not partake.) Elsewhere along the trail I described Ma-luan to him, and asked him what he thought of her. He was mostly positive, and in case I didn't know, he added, "If you want, you can have sex with her." I took this as thoughfulness on his part, though I would not act on his information. He described some villages' housing segregation by sex with the precision and candor of a documentary, and described religious beliefs and Christian missionary intrigue in great detail.
I can't imagine a better guide than Nan, or a more caring ambassador between any two cultures, and I have never met a more understanding, compassionate man than Nan. If he were to ask me for my soul, I would consider giving it to him. If I had one.
I knew the return boat trip from Ko Phi Phi would be rough because there was no apparent wind on the trip out, even though we did about 15 knots. I stowed my dive gear but remained in my swim suit and lycra rash guard, expecting to get wet on the exposed deck as all seats in the interior were occupied. As soon as we left the lee of Phi Phi the boat crashed through a swell and soaked everybody on the bow. The crew managed to serve pineapple slices to everybody through the salty splashes and building rain. I would have been content if not for the strong wind which chilled my soaked body. I went aft and got into a mostly horizontal position in the stern near the crew members, my head resting on a fender that was once a truck tire. Now out of the wind, I enjoyed feeling the rain drops strike my face while my sunglasses protected my eyes from the bombardment.
The crew members seemed to take a liking to me for some reason. Perhaps I was the only farang who seemed not to mind the weather. Everyone else was either stowed away in the cabin or huddled beneath towels.
One of the crew invited me to lie on the gigantic ice chest that sat on the very edge of the stern. Ahead of it was a large plastic tub of leftover pineapple slices. Though I feared invading the crew's territory I accepted the position, and for a good laugh I stretched out and took up a pineapple slice with great panache and mocking privilege. I was apparently quite entertaining. In my new position as honorary crew member, I watched my mates playfully torment each other, and happily accepted the teasing about my hairy forearms and legs. One crew member camouflaged a smile with a look of disgust as she made motions that indicated that I should shave my forearms.
The boat ride was soon completed, we waved simple goodbyes, and I wish I could have said, "Thanks for sharing your 'sanuk' with me."
I had two hours to kill before my flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok departed, so I walked around the airport terminals and witnessed a fascinating collection of cultures. When I returned to the Thai Airways terminal I was the last to board. As I took my seat my neighbor welcomed me with a politeness that rivalled that of the flight attendants and with a sincerity that far exceeded theirs. He alternated between chatting in Thai with his five mates seated nearby and chatting in English with me. When he asked me where I was going I took the opportunity to try to speak in Thai, my first attempt other than talking to my Thai language CD. "Bpai thiao Chiang Mai." With pleasure in his face he taught me a few words, mostly while we judged the relative beauty of the flight attendants. He sportingly tried to get me to flirt with one of them, confidentially telling me that farang men have good chances with Thai women. When I didn't flirt as recommended he asked me if I would be meeting a girl in Chiang Mai. I told him that the girl is just a friend, but he didn't believe me.
His mates didn't speak English, so Khun Kitti translated for us as we exchanged Singhas and cognacs. They are all sailors for the Maersk shipping line, Kitti being their crew leader. Expressing pride in being a member of a world class company, he told me about all of the ports they visited on the three-month voyage from which they were returning. He answered my question about his duties with no hesitation and only a little embarrassment: "Chipping and painting. Not a good job, but..."
He was on his way home to Nong Khai where his wife and three children awaited him. Vientienne is only about 15 km from Nong Khai, but he has never been there. "I'm too poor." Yet it seems to me that bus fare would be very cheap. I suppose the difficulty lies in what a poor man would do after getting there.
Upon landing, the sailors and I deplaned and walked together through the halls of the airport, and I received a few glances of curiosity from other farangs. That felt so good. Eventually our final destinations forced us to say goodbye.
The taxi ride out of Chiang Mai's airport was quite peaceful since it was near midnight, but my anticipation ratcheted up as I was taken through a seemingly circuitous route of one-way streets to the Chiang Inn. Just as the taxi was pulling up to the hotel we passed an accretion of casual, inviting, diminutive outdoor bars furnished in wicker, dark wood, and palm thatch. After working the week in Taiwan I looked forward to a peaceful gin and tonic, and these quaint places looked cozy, even though they are so exposed. I kept an eye on them as I climbed the steps to the hotel lobby. I checked in, unpacked a few things, promptly returned to the street, and strolled between the bars looking for the most comfortable spot, politely declining the invitations from groups of bar girls.
A corner bar was virtually empty, and as I walked by I met eyes with a girl who was half standing, half sitting on a stool, one elbow on the bar. She is unusually tall, and her long black slacks accentuated her height. Her wavy, auburn hair is darker and much less harsh than the trendy "tea hair" of the rebellious Asian kids in the USA, and a wavy strand sometimes circles around to meet her cheeks. Though she is probably in her mid twenties, she has a hint of baby fat on her cheekbones that mutes their sharpness.
She asked me something with a voice so soft that I couldn't hear her words. It was, of course, an invitation to have a drink. I paused, partly for fear of wasting her time on someone who would, in fact, simply have a drink. I took a seat next to her, asked for a "jinTOHneek," and we introduced ourselves. I asked her to write "Ankhanaak" on a bar napkin so that I could try out my nascent ability to pronounce Thai script, but I could only identify a few characters in her handwriting. Worse, after later pondering weak and weary on that damned bar napkin, I discovered that she had written "chan cheu Ankhanaak," not simply "Ankhanaak." Handwriting in Thailand can be so frustrating. When I told her I was from California she told me that her boyfriend also lives in California, but she couldn't recall what city he lives in.
She offered to play a parlor game with me. The players each have discs like poker chips which are dropped in turn into a vertical plastic matrix. The object is to assemble a row of four of your own chips while confounding your opponent's efforts. (I bought one after returning home; it's called, "Connect Four.") I thought to myself, "Heh. I got a near perfect score on my GRE exams, I have a master's degree in laser engineering, and now I'm going to play a game of skill against a bar girl. I won't even need to think." The first game I lost. Well, of course; it was my first exposure. But now I knew the game, so as we played the second I felt confident enough to watch the alley traffic and glance around at the other bars. I lost again. OK, this time I'm going to focus. I won. With a smile of encouragement Khun Ankhanaak very softly exclaimed, "Geng maak!"
That's when I noticed that her voice is amazingly expressive. Without raising her volume and while speaking her tonal language, which is mostly opaque to me, she could knock me over with her vocal expression. Through the phrases that I did understand I learned that tonal languages don't preclude emotional expression in any significant way because the latter is slowly varying while the tones are more quickly varying.
After a few more games which were evenly won, we switched to a game that's called, "Jenga," I think. Each player in turn tries to remove a wooden brick from a tall stack without bringing the whole structure down. My favorite part was sitting back with my gin and tonic and watching intensity, focus, and structural analysis become incarnate in her face. I could have studied her expressions and movements and listened to the soft ebb and flow of her voice until morning, but she wanted to go dancing with her friends and I needed some sleep. Besides, it doesn't work to just sit back and watch, and I was running out of ways to coax expression out of her.
A night or two later I was playing the matrix game with Khun Ankhanaak again. This time I wasn't quite so absorbed in her, and I played hard and well. She still won, though I managed to take a game or two. I realized that she had given me my victories on the first night. Such generosity.
Ankhanaak had earlier seen me arrive at the hotel after dining and partying with my friend, so she asked me why I was at the bar now. Simple: I wasn't sleepy yet. I don't know why I had such little need for sleep, but I wasn't going to just sit there in my room. Ankhanaak must have thought I was being less than honest with my friend, and I faintly felt her disapproval. Turning the questioning around, I asked her if she sleeps with customers. With an even quieter voice than usual she told me that she usually refuses requests, but yes, she accepts on occasion. Continuing my line of questioning, I asked her if she would sleep with me if I were to make such a request. She said she would refuse me because she wouldn't want to make an enemy of my friend in case they were ever to meet again. That was logical. However, I'm convinced that she just didn't want to have a hand in my apparent disloyalty. Or maybe she just thinks I'm ugly. It's all quite entertaining to me.
The midafternoon weather was terribly hot. I took another shower to cool off and to prepare to meet my friend, then went to wait at the nearby open-air bar. Khun Jackie made me a gin and tonic; Khun Ankhanaak wouldn't be around for quite some time. Jackie has a girlish figure, a narrow chin, an angular face, and a light complexion. When she smiles her nose scrunches up a little, her eyes close slightly, and her lips slide over her teeth with memorable ease. She often keeps her lips pursed while smiling as if to prevent too much joviality from escaping.
She returned to writing on a tablet behind the counter. When I asked her what she was doing, she told me in very clear English that she was keeping the books for the bar. She is an accountant by profession, but she lost her job when the Thai economy lost its footing. So until she can find another accounting position she mixes drinks, chats up the customers, and does what little bookkeeping there is to do in the bar. She volunteered that she never "goes" with the customers. I'm sure many other bar girls have similar stories right now.
Nong was my tuk-tuk driver for the week. He is in all likelihood the least professional driver I have ever come across, but also the most entertaining.
As we were returning from Doi Suthep, Nong turned off his motor at a particularly slow traffic light. When the light turned green, he turned the key. Nothing happened. The only noise we heard was the horns from the cars impatiently waiting behind us. So all of us-- Nong, myself, and my two female friends--climbed out and pushed the tuk-tuk around the corner. We took a quick breather, then push-started the wreck. It must have been a comical sight, two girls and a farang pushing a tuk-tuk and its driver down a side street. I jokingly said something about the tuk-tuk's age and condition, and my friend looked at me askance. Nong is apparently more attached to that pile of junk than I thought.
Nong joined us in whatever the day's activity was, and one day we went to a lake where there was good fishing. Two types of fishing gear were available for rent: a simple bamboo pole with fishing line tied to the end, and a modern rod-and-reel rig. We opted for the local flavor, and some live shrimp for bait. Nong tried the pole, baiting the hook with one shrimp and popping another into his mouth. Yuck! Later, after he had eaten half the bait, he got a bite, and he jerked the pole so hard that it broke. While everyone laughed at him he said, "I need a farang pole."
On another occasion, driving along an empty highway outside of town, Nong unexpectedly turned around. I didn't know why until he stopped in the middle of the road to pick up a small purse or bag. I at first thought that it had fallen out of the tuk-tuk, but no, it was full of money, in fact, 45,000 Baht (about US$1300). Nong drove to a nearby police station and gave the purse to a policeman, who found some identification in the purse. It belonged to an army officer. I wondered to myself how an army officer would come into possession of so much cash. Nong received complements from everyone on his honesty.
One night we went to a bar with a live band, and Nong brought one of his girlfriends. My friend was not pleased that he had two, but she told me that it is not rare. By this time I understood that it was my place and my honor to pay for everyone in attendance. If this had been my first trip to Thailand I would have thought that Nong was impolite, first for assuming to be more than a driver, and second for bringing someone who was not invited. Though the unmentioned deals eventually work out, it's somewhat unsettling for me, being accustomed to very explicit transactions. Nong danced in his chair and made everyone laugh, his face expressing simulated rapture. My friend exclaimed that she likes Nong, and I agreed, overlooking but reflecting upon his unintentional upstaging.
Baa, tae jaidee. (Crazy, but kind-hearted.)
On another late, sleepless night I found myself playing Connect Four with a young but treacherous bar girl who is named Dtaa for good reason. She has the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. It's not her irises or eyelashes or anything like that. It's the shape of her eyebrows, arched high and trailing off to her temples; the sculpting of her upper eyelids borne by the varying thickness of underlying flesh; the smooth variation of skin tone, lightening towards the edge of her face.
Just as she prepared to drop another game piece into the matrix, she ventured, "If I win, 10 baht, OK?" OK, sure. Naturally, the piece she dropped into the game was the winning move. She eventually took a total of 50 baht from me, and she ecstatically displayed her loot to her friend.
We went dancing in the disco under the Porn Ping Tower Hotel. She somehow managed to gain control of the drink coupons, and before I knew it I had bought drinks for her friends. I saw Khun Ankhanaak there and Dtaa gave me permission to visit her. Ankhanaak was quick to inform me that she was waiting for her friends to arrive, meaning, as I understood it, that I should leave our cordial relationship as it was. Apparently she had taken my earlier line of questioning a little too seriously. Or I was still ugly.
Later, Dtaa asked, "Why you dance with katoey?" as if she'd been rejected. I didn't know I had danced with a katoey, but I instantly knew whom she was talking about. Though I knew there was something different about her, I had just assumed it was the intensity in the eyes and the agressiveness in the dancing. I guess Dtaa was disappointed in me or insecure in her womanhood, I don't know which.
Dtaa is a classic bar girl, a manipulating little urchin, and certainly no poorer for having partied with me, but I still think kindly and warmly about her. I'm not sure why.
Against the exterior back wall of the Chiang Mai Night Plaza is a tiny open-air bar owned by Khun Jen, who organizes her business in tidy fashion. She treats her hair similarly--all one length, pulled back and fastened into a waist-length ponytail. Her energy and her alertness do not fit her advancing age. I had a drink at her bar--it's too small to have a drink in. As we talked about her bar she made sure that its name would stay with me: Papillon, the l's being pronounced as if the word were English, not French. When she introduced me to a girl who must have been 17 I laughed at them both.
I spotted Jen one night as I was alone in the Porn Ping Tower disco, so I bought drinks for her and her sidekick. "Americans spend money," she commented with eyes wide open.
"Well, we work really hard, so we spend hard," I replied. But in truth, it's great to buy a round of drinks for less than $7.
While she was off in the bathroom I danced very wickedly with another woman, then returned to our table. Her sidekick informed me that Jen believes that she and I were a unit tonight, and warned me with a stern look that Jen would not have been pleased with my waywardness, but I didn't believe it until Jen returned and put her arm around my waist. I gave a look of enlightenment to the sidekick, but nothing happened beyond that one faint expression of affection. I guess I was supposed to have been more forward with her than I was.
As we said farewell, Jen reminded me yet again that her bar is named Papillon. OK, OK, I think I'll remember that.