Village Voice - March, 2006
E-mail from Thailand
Amy Salmon is in Thailand.
This is her final submission as Village Voice
Editor.
I’m leaving tonight on the sleeper train to Chiang
Mai, and
then staying in a guesthouse there for twelve nights.
For three days and two nights I’ll be
trekking in the jungle, including an elephant ride, woo-hoo! It’s all very safe and I’ll be with a group
and a guide, and the guesthouse in Chiang Mai is a nice one, catering
to
tourists. I’m very excited and looking
forward to meeting some fellow travelers.
My first few days in Asia—Bangkok specifically—have been
exciting and
overwhelming. Bangkok is like a very loud sauna—and
unlike
anything I’ve ever seen. It may be even
busier than New York,
and certainly more run down. The
motorcycles never stop, the streets are full of taxis and buses and
passenger
cars and vehicles called tuk-tuks (motorized three-wheeled carts that
are
another kind of passenger taxi). They’re
open to the air and the fumes, and are prone to overcharging tourists,
all
reasons why I’ve avoided them thus far.
But the whole thing together is enough to make you dizzy,
especially
given the ever-present, stifling heat.
I’ve been taking it slow and sticking to air-conditioned metered
taxis,
which are very reasonable and don’t overcharge, and are a nice safe
place from
which to watch the chaos that is the streets of Bangkok.
Yesterday I ventured out for a walk for the first
time and
promptly got lost. I have to admit that
all of the streets look exactly the same to me—a blur of markets and
people and
clothes hanging out to dry or maybe for sale, grimy buildings, stray
dogs and
cats, and shrines to Buddha in incongruous gleaming gold.
As I was finally finding my way back to a main
street, I
passed a group of Buddhist monks in their orange robes, walking in the
same
direction. I frantically tried to
remember the rules regarding women, especially Western women, and
monks, but
just tried to give them a wide berth so as not to do anything
unintentionally
insulting. They left me alone, and no
one else said anything to me or gave me any dirty looks, so I guess I
did all
right. After that, on the main street, I
flagged down a metered taxi, showed him the name of my hotel written in
Thai,
and he took me back safely where I had started, a whole five or maybe
six
blocks away!
Later that day I went to get my vaccine taken care
of at the
Adventist
Hospital; no
problems there. After that I went to the
mall, since I needed
to pick up some things before going out into the jungle—most
importantly sunglasses,
mosquito repellent, sunscreen, a backpack with actual shoulder straps,
and
shorts. The Thai version of the mall is
a lot like those in the U.S.,
only with more kiosks in the middle and the signs in Thai. Most of the signs are also in English, at
least the most helpful words, like Taxi Stand or McDonald’s or
Starbucks, all
of which I saw in the mall. It’s surreal
to see one word in English, usually an American brand name, and the
rest in (to
me) unintelligible Thai.
I’m also working my way up to Thai food…so far
I’ve not
eaten anything not Western! That’ll
change soon enough, I’m sure, because I’ll probably run out of choices. But I’m riding this horse as long as I
can. And so far, no stomach
problems…coincidence? I don’t think so.
I’ll keep Daniel Vestal’s advice in mind, and
depending on
how much longer I’m in Thailand
I may look up the CBF people. I also
still plan on looking up the Peace Corps, maybe when I’m back in
Bangkok for a
couple of weeks. This time I just needed
to crash. When I finally made it to the
hotel after a delayed flight out of Taipei
and two very hot hours in the airport getting through immigration and
customs,
I took a hot shower and slept for at least fifteen hours.
I think I’m still adjusting to Thai time—I’ve
been getting very sleepy in the early evening and then waking up long
before
sunrise.
Expect another short email with the info for
Chiang
Mai. The guesthouse there has internet
access, too, so I’ll be able to keep in contact.
Till later, Amy
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