Exploring Thailand

Even having been blessed to have been based in a place where there’s so much to see and where other people pay to visit, I couldn’t completely do justice to Thailand. But I made a pretty good effort, I feel.

It all started with a couple of weekend trips to beaches south of Bangkok. My first foray was to Hua Hin, around three hours’ drive away. There I found a holiday resort complete with skyscrapers but with a cute town in its own right. The beach was large and pleasant, although the sea was by no means clean – Bangkok is such a huge city and inevitably the ocean is massively polluted. There are a couple of good markets including the eclectic Cicada night market bursting with handicrafts, and lots of lovely bars and places to eat, and overall it’s a perfectly nice place for a weekend escape.

Pattaya was a different kettle of fish entirely. I’d been here 30 years ago and found it depressing beyond belief. I’m not entirely sure why I went back. Possibly it was the proximity to Bangkok, a mere two hours by minibus. I was staying in the quieter end of the resort, Jomtien, and unfortunately I didn’t realise that my bargain public minibus dropped folk off on demand on the main expressway rather than the beachfront road, and that Jomtien was by no means the final stop.  By the time I did, I was some distance beyond my destination, which meant I had to first traverse an enormous dual carriageway, then traipse along a very long road with not a taxi in sight, flanked either side by building sites spawning new condos and resorts until I finally reached the coast. Despite this I actually rather liked Jomtien, not only because I could sit on the grubby beach for a couple of hours – the water here is an even muddier brown than at Hua Hin. I did however make the error of venturing into Pattaya to become depressed at the blank faced prostitutes, at least five deep, on the shoreline road.

My third sojourn to the beach, however, hit the jackpot. Koh Samet, which is more or less the closest island to Bangkok, a mere hour or so past Pattaya, did not raise my expectations as I was expecting more brown water, ugly developments and sex tourists. As a result I’d deliberately chosen what appeared to be the quietest part of the island, the very southern tip. We were staying at Ao Pakarang beach, a tiny bay flanked by bungalow type accommodation and a restaurant. I’m not sure if anything else is within easy reach, because in the three days that we were there we never moved from this blissful spot. To get there, we caught a public bus from Bangkok to Rayong followed by a speedboat which zoomed its exhilarating way through crystal blue waters straight from a holiday brochure past a succession of cute cottage-style resorts perched on tiny beaches. This was more like it! It reminded me of Koh Samui, where I’d stayed in 1989 in a rustic thatched beachfront cottage.

The speedboat dropped us off on a floating platform, complete with seats and a parasol, where we were winched into shore like Lord and Lady Muck. It was a little part of paradise, just us, the brightly-coloured lizards, fruit bats, cute zebra doves and a pacific reef heron for company, along with a mere couple of other holidaymakers. It was blissful indeed, with very little to do apart from watch the rise and fall of the tide, drink beer and eat food.

Closer to Bangkok, accessible as we did in a single day trip, is Amphawa train market. Admittedly, it’s a bit of a tourist trap, but I loved it. It’s basically your average, bustling local Thai market, selling mostly fruit and vegetables, fish, cooked foods but also clothing, material and so on. Except for reasons best known to the people who planned the commuter railway line running from Bangkok to this bustling community, the train tracks run straight through the middle of the market. Thus, several times a day, a huge train slowly edges its way towards the station. Shortly before it arrives, the stallholders, with an admirable lack of haste, pull back their wares which are displayed on trollies on their own little tracks enabling them to glide safely out of the way of the oncoming train, whilst pulling back their tarpaulin canopies like so many umbrellas. No sooner than the train has passed, mere inches from the produce and the spectators, then the little trollies get pushed back and the awnings unfolded again and all is swiftly as if the train had never been.

Slightly further afield is Kanchanaburi, towards the west of Thailand and close to the border with Burma. This quaint little town, perched on the Mae Klong river, is the site of the very famous bridge over the river Kwai. The bridge and the railway beyond it, the so-called ‘Death Railway’, were constructed by Prisoners of War, mainly from the UK, Australia and USA in 1942 when Japanese forces wanted to open up a supply chain into Burma. As many as 12,000 POWs died during the construction period and, staggeringly, it’s calculated that 90,000 local paid labourers also perished. The death railway itself is still functional, and we caught a clickety clackety train that trundles over several impressive viaducts and bridges. At Hellfire pass, there’s a lovely – if sweaty – walk on the old railbed, with chisel marks in the rocks at either side of the track speaking of the blood, sweat and lives that went into the making of the railway.

My final foray out of Bangkok involved a flight, as I was returning to Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand, after another gap of 30 years. Chiang Mai has not changed a great deal. The relaxed atmosphere, low-rise buildings, markets and funky restaurants were much as I remembered them. The main reason I came to Chiang Mai was not, however, for retail or food therapy, but because I wanted to see elephants.  After a lot of research, I’d chosen the Elephant Nature Park, run by Save Elephant Foundation, which acts as a retirement home for abused elephants. The sad side of the elephant circus shows and elephant painters which tragically still attract visitors is the shockingly cruel way in which the elephants are forced to perform tricks totally contrary to their natural behaviour. It’s worth remembering too, that it’s pretty damaging to an elephant’s spine to carry a human on its back, so any park worth its salt will not offer elephant rides. Aside from visiting and supporting the park itself, the Elephant Nature Park has begun branching out into the community, offering local tribespeople a good income from tourists, providing their elephants are treated with respect. In turn this puts in motion an education process that teaches that ethical elephant ownership can reap rewards. Otherwise, elephants will often be hired out to unscrupulous circuses and the like.

The five elephants we interacted with – feeding them vast quantities of bananas and sugar cane, bathing them, slapping mud on them and walking them down to the river to wash it all off – had come to the tribe from the circus, in the case of the younger elephants, or from the logging industry, in the case of the older ones. It was a great privilege to spend time with these magnificent and sensitive creatures, which despite the horrors they had endured, were still gentle and trusting. It was a privilege to spend some time with these noble creatures.