Asia 2000

This was my third trip to the other side of the globe and I feel that Thailand and south asia have become my second home. Bangkok has a new sky train to select local stations. It is clean and air conditioned so it is a great way to travel in town, if you are going where it happens to go. There is an older mode of travel in Bangkok that (like the sky train) moves through rush hour, gets you out of the heat and pollution, but only goes where it goes. They are the water taxis that use the klongs. Of course the motorcycle taxis go anywhere.

After checking with friends and dropping by a few familiar places, I took a bus and ferry to Koh Chang, an island on the far east corner of Thailand. My plans included a possible trip to Myanmar (Burma) but first I wanted my long anticipated hut on the beach experience.

Koh Chang is like other islands off the southern Thai coastline. There are family owned bungalows with fresh fruit and Thai food. I was happy just short of tears. This was after all what I had dreamed of. I could stay there the whole time and it wouldn't be a waste, but I had plans and only two months.

It was fortunate they had a clinic here: The first day I needed ten stitches in my leg from a fall in the dark. Mai Pen Rai (never mind), no problem; I've had bigger injuries. Anyway it never hurt, even to walk on, and eventually healed nicely. But at the clinic they said, "Don't get it wet" and it was the first day I been on a beach in years. Well, I had to get in the water neet noi (a little bit), so I backed in like a crab, and my friend Pen held my leg up, dry and out of the water. It was a sight to see!

Some of you will enjoy reading about Pen. Email me and I'll share the tale of romance.

A waiter here learned my name Kun Ray (Mr. Ray). Actually, he says "Kun Lay". He shows me he understands by holding up a bag of Lays Potato chips!

After a week living on the island and a diversion to meet my friend's family in the countryside of Petchaburi, We went back to Bangkok and planned my train trip to north Thailand.

In all parts of Thailand, people live very simply. Many have only a room with a fan and places for their stuff. Shower and toilet are usually shared, and a kitchen is more trouble that it is worth because most things you need, like food and drink, are sold by vendors close by and at all hours.

And that is even in the country. Back in the big city of Bangkok, there is even more right at my door. The little community of all ages (did I mention the babies) may not see a Farang (foreigner) there all the time, but after a few days I get to be a familiar smiling face.

A non-Asian hears talk peppered with the word Farang. It may have the ring of "Honky" but is not said with malice. I was always told this was an incorrect Asian pronouncement of the word foreigner. This trip I heard an interesting theory: Some places the first non-Asians said they were Fran-Sey (France). Frang-Sey... Far-Ang-Say... it was shortened eventually to Far-ang. Might could be!

I've since read that If you are not a native of the Pacific island of Tonga, then you must be a palange (pronounced pah-lahn-gee).

The word may have been derived from the Thai pronunciation of the name of an early visitor from Greece, Constantine Phaulkon, who figures prominently in Thai history, but The following is credited to John Shaw, an Oxford historian:

The word farang dates back to the time of the Crusades when the Franks from the west attacked the Turks and Saracens, the Moslems - in 1096 they actually captured Jerusalem. The word farangi is used in Afghanistan and elsewhere; farang was used to refer to westerners before the French ever reached Siam in the seventeenth century - a letter to the King from the Governor of the Siamese port of Tenasserim calls the Danes who arrived in 1621, Farang.

I may never really speak Thai, but when I point to items to eat, guessing what they are, and then laugh about how it is pet (spicy), I almost feel like I can. It's just that between food and beautiful babies (dek-deks), I keep having the same conversations (Delicious, Hello, Sweet baby...).

Things change (a great movie, by the way). Burma would have to wait. MY theme of picking up where I left off fit more with going north to Chiang Mai, the old capital of Siam, and maybe back to Mae Hong Son. Both my other trips to Asia put me in Chiang Mai for New Years at the Riverside Restaurant on the Ping River.

On each of my past trips to Northern Thailand, I planned to go to Laos, but did not. This time I will, but this kind of free style travel brings a constant refrain: "You can't go everywhere". There are these forks in the road. When I didn't go to Laos in 1995, I went to Nepal. When I came to this familiar cross in the road in 1998, I chose to go to Vietnam (rather than Laos). Not choices I regret, but this trip Myanmar was being pushed back.

For the last days of the 20th century I returned to Chiang Mai to spend New Year's at the Riverside Restaurant and watch the evening festivities on the Ping River, just as I did 1995-96 and 97-98. I had been a few days in Mae Hong Son, a city in the clouds, and seen that the little town near the Burma border entered the world of the internet. As radical as that is, the town was still about as I found it three years ago.

The family there at the Pen Porn guest house remembered me. In addition to the guest house they run rosegarden-tours. Their three daughters had grown just as I knew they would and we took new photos of them all dressed for school. Like Chiang Mai (and many northern cities), Mae Hong Son has, a beautiful Buddhist temple (Wat Doi Kong Mu) on the top of a mountain that overlooks everything.

But Wat Doi Suthep overlooking Chiang Mai is golden and beautiful. At the Wanasit Guest house we have a panoramic view of Suthep mountain with a small spot of gold that is actually this large structure (called a Chedi) in the center of the temple that is so very large up close. And right next door to us is Wat Phra Singh, founded in 1345. Many of these temples are a mixture of old and new (certainly rustic vs. clean and polished). Monks and other orange clad students go about their business while workers work and tourists pay respects and take photos.

I felt very lucky to spend this historic New Years here. Some of us at the guesthouse bought food and drinks and we set up a full table on the roof. Some guests bought some real fireworks that are sold here. Everyone all over town was setting rockets off. But the neatest things were these (fire resistant) paper balloons with candles underneath. Actually the candles were clumps of sterno that when lit heat the air, filling the sack, and it drifts up like… like a hot air balloon! They vary from two to six feet tall, but soon after launching, they are little fires (lanterns) in the sky.

People walked across the many bridges over the Ping River. We listened to a few tunes of each of the two bands playing at the Riverside Restaurant but settled on the steps of the riverbank to watch the spectacular fireworks. They were very similar to what we all see every July 4th but they were so close to the ground that one felt inside it all. The fireballs of each explosion filled the whole sky, drifted down and seemed to burn out just before hitting us and the ground. It reminded me of when the spaceship jumps to hyperspace in Star Wars.

And when it ended, the paper lanterns launched by individuals were still there floating above it all. They may have been lit at opposite parts of town but the wind took them the same route and they now looked like new constellations that moved around. Read about what Wikipedia says about what they call a Sky Lantern or Khoom Loy (That Paper Lantern link in the beginning of this paragraph is pretty special)... And the next morning I realized it wouldn't be New Years Eve in Amerry- Ka for a few more hours! I get to watch it all on CNN as it happens including the ball at Times Square, but it's the next day! Hurry up, I'm in the next century here...

Except for the islands in the south, I prefer the north in both Thailand and Vietnam. Chiang Mai, which means new city, may be the BIG CITY of the north but it is a slow pace compared to Bangkok. The center of Chiang Mai is the old city, surrounded by parts of the remaining wall and a well maintained, moated area with fountains. The water even has fish in it (try to find anything living in the Klongs of Bangkok).

I didn't know if the Internet would be accessible in Laos. I felt I was about to go back in time. I love it when that happens.