A Thai Smile: Falling in Love with a Country

"You must go to Thailand," she told me after returning from there for the third time that year. I had already heard her next sentence; "Why," I asked, fond of my European trips and not planning to travel eastwards.

"I can’t explain, just go and you’ll see."

Suddenly my peace of mind was more important than Paris. "OK, I’ll go," I said and bought a ticket for a three weeks trip. Enough was enough.

A week later I was on a plane that stopped for refueling in Mumbai; it was a terrifying experience. The runway borders were being used as toilets by people who lived nearby in what seemed to be piled matchboxes. Was that waiting for me in Thailand?

Shortly after, a country painted in electric green appeared below. Rice fields filled the land and casual orange green pagodas created a feast of colors. The last seemed to belong to an oversized – country-sized – theme park. The plane landed among them.

Before my passport was stamped, I was already sweating. The heat was overwhelming; only the humidity could compete against it. My friend had recommended two addresses: "Go to Khaosan Road and stay at the Khaosan Palace," she had ordered. In that heat I could manage to deal with just one name; something more complex would not have worked, so that her instructions were just fine.

While approaching the terminal main exit, I noticed a taxis booth. "How much is to Khaosan Road?" I asked. The clerk seemed surprised and quoted something around fifteen dollars. Used to European prices, that seemed a bargain and it would save me searching for other options outside. Moreover, her smile was captivating, how could I say no? Only later I learned that she quoted a price a hundred and fifty times higher than the regular bus fare there and that the address I gave was in a cheap backpackers’ zone.

A driver in an elegant uniform appeared and led me to a black limousine. He held the door open for me while I carefully put my humble backpack so that it would not spoil the sumptuous interior.

When we entered Khaosan, I began to appreciate the joke. The street was packed with what seemed to be beggars – backpackers I learned later – from all over the world that were clearing space for the limo. They stared at the pretentious movie star. The car stopped at the Khaosan Palace – before its restoration – and the joke was complete; the decrepit building looked as barely able to survive the next night. Entering the crowded street with such a large vehicle justified a decent tip, and then it was my turn to shock the driver. Too tired to search for anything else, I took a room.

The first cockroach almost sent me running to the nearest travel agency to re-schedule my flight back. In the morning, I moved to a better place telling myself that I should make the best out of the situation. The heat kept hitting and in the next three days I rarely left my beloved air-conditioner. But it was obvious that in such a fashion I was wasting the trip. Hence, I booked a trip to Chiang Mai – in the cooler north – and continued from there to Mae Hong Son in the border with Myanmar, took a short look at the southern islands and returned to Bangkok to find that I was fully acclimatized.

I began to enjoy and discovered a magical city. Wonderful temples competed fiercely with modern shopping malls, amazing restaurants and wonderful oriental markets for my attention. "The Land of the Smiles" turned out to be not a superlative, but an accurate – even understating – statement. The kindest people on earth; the Thai turned out to be among those rare people owning copious amounts of self-humor, and answering to them in the same fashion easily earned friends.

By far, the most impressive among the first sights was Bangkok’s Grand Palace. It was not so due to its opulence or vastness, but because its alien symmetry. Not even one of its buildings behaved in a recognizable fashion and deciphering their intended functions seemed impossible. Towers ended in sharp spikes, their thinning bodies resembling elegant logarithmic functions. Wherever there was a roof, it ended in weird "spirits’ exits," exquisitely curved wood sticks aimed to guide the endless spirits occupying the Thai world out of the buildings. Faithful to anti-ascetic doctrines in which "more-is-more," everything was decorated in endless colors; the myriad of contradictions to my own values created an attractive cultural hook. Comparing opposites is a wonderful way of sharpening up basic values; it makes easier differentiating between things that really matter and ornamental nonsense. "Tomorrow we will shock you even more," the semi-obscene structures seemed to be saying. What message could be more powerful for a traveler?

A friend was waiting for me at my – back then – home airport.

"You must go to Thailand," I said.

"Why?"

"I can’t explain, just go and you’ll see."

Learning to travel in Thailand was not easy. One of the biggest barriers was the tonal language; it took me several months to distinguish between the curiously rising and dropping sounds. Even learning the letters was a challenge, since the vowels could be placed above, below, before or after the relevant consonant. Moreover, knowing how to read was not enough because some words kept their traditional Sanskrit spelling while they were pronounced in modern Thai. To make the confusion complete, some names had several versions; for example, Thais refer to "Bangkok" as "Krung Thep," or the "City of Angels."

Over time, the barriers began to collapse and I found it easier to use the local transport. Thailand has an extensive network of trains and planes, but the trains are slow and old while the aircrafts take out the fun of traveling. However, for historical reasons, Thailand has maybe the best highways network in South East Asia, which is complemented by buses of extraordinary quality. Many are scheduled so (sometimes at the price of forced stops along the way) that they leave at the first hours of darkness and reach their final destination early in the morning. Arriving around 8am – following a comfortable night – is a good way to begin a visit at a new place. Moreover, the bus would usually stop along its way at places that otherwise I would not have visited.

In certain occasion I planned to reach Chiang Mai – in the far north – with such a bus. I arrived at the Mo Chit Terminal in Bangkok early in the morning and bought a ticket for Chiang Mai for the evening, checked the bay number with the clerk, left my luggage there and returned to downtown for a few more hours of fun.

A few minutes before the departure time I returned to the terminal, picked up my luggage and arrived to the foretold bay just on time. I knew the huge terminal well, so everything went smoothly, except for the sad fact that the bus was not there and there were no people waiting. I immediately dismissed the possibility of an early departure; buses always leave on time in Thailand. I decided to wait. In any case there were hourly buses to Chiang Mai and I was confident to be re-scheduled to the next one if some unexpected problem existed.

Twenty minutes later, nothing had changed. Feeling uncomfortable, I went to the booth where I had purchased the ticket. Before I reached it, the clerk saw me and smiled as wide as she possibly could. She welcomed me as if I was her lost son and speaking quickly in Thai left the booth, took my arm possessively and walked me through the terminal to a different bay. There, a bus was waiting for its last passenger. In a typical Thai carelessness, the bus had been re-assigned to a different bay and there was no way to tell me that during the day. Showing the best of Thai kindness, the bus waited almost forty minutes to its lost son. Nobody complained; nobody was angry. There were just relieved smiles. Another crisis had been resolved in a satisfactory way – minimizing damages to all the involved. And for Thais that is an imperative.

I returned home from my first trip to South East Asia; the following year was a dull one. I managed to squeeze-in two trips to Europe, but Thailand was in my mind. It was as big as France, yet I had visited only two cities, an island and two mountain resorts. I had barely stepped on Laos and Myanmar – two colorful neighbors – and did not get even close to Cambodia. I have not seen Angkor. Good Morning South Vietnam!

For some time these thoughts were not followed by any specific plan, but then I realized that from August onwards I would be relatively free since I was about to finish one of my academic degrees. Moreover, the budget of my typical weeklong European trip would last at least a month in Asia. Thinking big, I bought a ticket for a two-month long trip and began planning my return to a foreign land. This time instead of stopping in Mumbai, I preferred Athens and it proved to be a good decision; it added a bit of European spice to the whole trip.

Enjoying the knowledge gained in the first trip, I packed light. Clothes were cheap enough there (and scarce as well due to the heat), so that buying new ones whenever needed was not difficult. The ubiquitous internet kiosks would allow writing directly into memory cards, so that no notebooks were needed. A tiny digital camera took similar care of the pictures issues.

Choosing the itinerary was difficult. I had a strong desire to return to the places I enjoyed in the past, but also to see new ones. "Returning" was the key term for this trip. Was the foreign land slowly transforming itself into home? Was I longing for a foreign culture that in its pacifism made ten times more sense than my own one?

I chose to compromise. The plan was to draw a big loop on the map, beginning in Bangkok and continuing through Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and back into Thailand – through its north.

Cambodia turned out to be a difficult country for travelers. The roads were not good and the Mekong River – Tonle Sap Lake system roughly divided the country in three almost unconnected areas. Hence, my first visit was quite limited. I entered through Poipet and explored Angkor’s temples for a couple of days before continuing south to Phnom Penh.

Rising above an emerald jungle, the temples were a fascinating view. Not due to their size or the dense forest in which they were incrusted like a jewel in a crown, but for their diversity and richness. Beyond the central temple – a masterpiece itself – there were many other unforgettable sights, like the Bayon – with its wide Khmer faces watching in all directions – and Tha Prom, where majestic trees grew on ancient temples and almost reached the skies.

Blending a French colonial past with the scars of its recent past, Phnom Penh – Cambodia’s capital – provided many unique sights. Despite being practically abandoned during the Khmer Rouge period, no other place in the country offered such a rich testimony to that era. Tuol Sleng – an interrogation center in the city’s outskirts was especially shocking.

Further south, Sihanoukville beaches were the ideal beach-resort. It had beaches as beautiful as the Thai ones along the adjacent gulf, but in sharp contrast they were almost empty and certainly underdeveloped. Young women walked along the beaches with a bamboo pole across their shoulders, fresh sea fruits on one of the pole sides and a small stove with glowing coals on the other. A steaming crab cost a quarter and got me the company of a friendly dog looking for its share.

As with Cambodia, my first visit to Vietnam was a partial one. It was a three-week fast tour aimed to flag the interesting spots for the next visit. Ho Chi Minh City – which its central district is still known as Saigon – was my first stop. Like Phnom Penh in Cambodia, Saigon was the best place in the country to appreciate recent historical events. Here the war was still a reality, the old government palace, the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels were the most touching monuments. Moreover, every rickshaw driver seemed to have personal memories of the period and provided significant insights.

Further north, Dalat was a refreshing mountain resort and Nha Trang provided misty beaches and the beautiful Cham Towers. Lushly tropical, all southern Vietnam was almost buried under prodigious quantities of exotic fruits. Hoi An took me into medieval Vietnam, with its Japanese Bridge, Chinese Temples and the ubiquitous tailors. It was the perfect departure point for a visit to the DMZ – the demilitarized zone that separated between the north and the south. There, extraordinary natural beauty was combined with the horrors of war, which were still evident despite the time passed.

However, Vietnam’s epitome was Hanoi, a magnificent city in which the quasi-Chinese Thirty-Six Streets Market shared the space with grandiose French and Communist structures. It was city of placid lakes amidst green gardens, where vertiginous moto-taxi drivers tried hard to avoid elders practicing Tai-Chi.

The next leg took me across the Annamite Mountains to Laos. Vientiane, the capital, was placed on a calm curve of the Mekong River and there my plans went awry. Once there I found myself unable to leave. Only in future visits I explored the rest of the country. I was charmed at first sight, or to be more accurate, at first sip. As soon as I tasted my first coffee at the Morning Market I was captivated by one of the best – and rarest – coffees in the world. If that was not enough, the sleepy – but magnificent – town was a paradise for travelers. Splendidly exotic temples had enough free space around them to be appropriately appreciated. Low, unobtrusive colonial buildings delimited wide avenues with lush trees. The river promenade was full of life during the evening and the restaurants provided fine Parisian dinners at Laotian prices.

I gave up my plan to explore northern Thailand as well and stayed for as long as I could until a week before my planned flight. Then I returned to Bangkok – a wonderful city amidst awesome cultures and sights – and felt more as returning home that while on the flight to my country. Isn’t such a change a testimony to the usefulness of the experience? Isn’t that the horizons’ broadening what we – travelers – are seeking for? Once on the plane I began planning my third trip to the area.

"Fy Bah! Fy Bah!" the children running behind me shout incomprehensibly.

"Massa, Massa!" women shout at me. This one made sense. The word means "travel" in my language and indeed I was a traveler. However, it was not clear why would Thai women use a Hebrew word.

"Pok oui rye," I was told in one market. "Rye" was in English. "Oui" was French. "Pok" seemed to belong to the third (and unknown) language used in a three words sentence. I was impressed.

Obviously, speaking in a foreign land was not going to be an easy task. Listening to a tonal language for the first time in my life was a confusing experience; each time the tone changed – and it happened several times in each word – I lost track of the preceding consonants and vowels.

It took some time to begin understanding the idiosyncrasies of the local tongue and the ways it played games with the English. First, I learned to discern between people that were taught English by a native speaker and those taught by a fellow Thai. The first had a reasonable English, while the second group added tones to the English words. For a Thai ear, words must have a well-defined tone; otherwise it is unclear how to pronounce it. On the other hand, Western languages use tones to denote emotions and other sub textual information. The result was that they pronounced each word in English while intoning in each a different – and often contradicting – emotion. For example, the word "happy" would always be pronounced in a rising tone resembling an exclamation mark and accompanied by a comic enlightening of the face expression. "YOU!" they rudely shouted at me in a rising tone while in fact they were translating the very polite Thai word "khun."

Once this issue was understood, it was easy to deal with it, but further difficulties arose. While speaking fast, Thai people tend to omit the last consonant in a word. The local money – the Baht – becomes "Bah." "Five Baht" is sometimes pronounced "fy bah," and "rice" may be pronounced "rye." That could be confusing but keeping in mind the context of the conversation helped to sort things out. "Oui Rye" was then easily transformed into "with rice."

Moreover, realizing that outside Bangkok very few Thais bothered to pronounce the weak Thai "r" (the issue was immortalized in a popular song) helped to translated "pok" into "pork." "Pok oui rye:" I was being offered a tasty dish of pork meat with rice.

Criticizing others is always easier than taking the blame on ourselves. My attempts to speak Thai were by far worse than their attempts to speak English. "Sabai di mei kap" (Are you feeling well please?) I would politely ask mixing up all the tones, only to find a startled, mute face in front of me. Had I insulted my conversation partner? Was the language I used unclear? More often that not – at least during my first months in the country – I never found the answers and after giving an apologizing smile I reverted back to a simple versio of Engli.

The richness and variety of the Thai culture is immediately discernible even to the casual visitor; regardless if beginning the trip by visiting the Grand Palace or a humble market on a side street, the number of attractions is always overwhelming. It takes more time to understand this richness mimics the lush nature surrounding the Thai culture. Few items are more attractive to illustrate this point than the Thai fruits, which apparently are an attempt to quantify the term "infinite." Following are some of them.

Durian: Few things are considered more important for a Thai than the Durian fruit. While most fruits are usually sold in slices, units, or groups of fruits worth ten Baht, Durians can easily reach prices of 400B or more. The customers carefully study them before the transaction is completed, as if their whole future depended on that. There are rumors that a Durian Evaluation career would be shortly opened in one of Bangkok’s main universities. What’s all the noise about? Simply, the Durian features a rare combination of tastes: pungent and sweet. Resembling a dusty green watermelon with huge, thick thorns, once opened several semi-circular, yellow units are exposed. The smell emanating from them is so strong that it is prohibited to enter with the opened fruit into public buildings. The smell strongly reminds of excrements; for most tourists the first bite is a traumatic experience. However, once in the mouth, the smell is replaced by a sweet taste and a pleasantly smooth texture.

Jack Fruit: Able to reach a length of more than one meter, this prodigious fruit is a must. Street stalls selling it usually keep only one fruit, selling its interior in small amounts. Its exterior is somewhat similar to the durian, though short, rounded cups replace the thorns. The interior is divided into a myriad of units the size of plums. The shiny yellow flesh of each unit is quite thin, crispy, has no odor and a pleasantly sweet taste.

Anona: The local name for the custard apple, this tasty fruit is usually consumed as a juice, due to the many stones scattered along and across its sweet, sandy flesh.

Tamarind: Popular as a juice, few realize that the regular Thai coffee contains grounded tamarind as a flavor enhancing ingredient.

Papayas and Pineapples: These two were successfully introduced in the past and have become two of the most popular fruits in the kingdom, and can be found practically on every street corner.

Green and Red Rose Apple: Shaped as small pears, these two sweet, crispy fruits are a bit hard to find, but are worth the effort.

Guava: Sadly, Thais eat this sensually odorous fruit while green and unripe. I commented that to a local friend and managed to clearly annoy a Thai for the first time. Unripe and covered with a mixture of sugar and chili is the obviously correct way to eat a guava. It is called Farang in Thai, a term also used toward western tourists.

Mango: two varieties of this fruit exist in Thailand, the sweet and the sour mango. Each can be eaten in one of three ways: unripe, ripe and pickled. The unripe is the most common and is coated with sugar, and chili before eating it. The ripe one can be found only during the season and is exclusively used for a dish in which it is served together with sticky rice and coconut cream; it is one of those rare, purely sweet dishes in the Thai cuisine. The pickled mango taste is above my powers of description, but after trying it I defined the experience as "once in a lifetime."

Lakam: a rare, dark red, spiky and small oval fruit, the lakam can be defined as a bittersweet experience, an irresistible combination for the soap operas loving Thais.

Pomelo: the only citrus growing in the kingdom, this sweet, oversized fruit can provide enough entertainment peeling it for a whole afternoon.

The last three fruits in this review have a similar flesh – semi-transparent, soft and sweet – despite bearing substantially different appearances. Clusters of Longan resembling overgrown; dark yellow grapes can be easily spotted during the season. Rambutan has a striking look; its strongly red skin is covered by long, thick, green hairs. Mangosteen is bigger than the other two and adds a citric twinge to the basic taste. Violet with short and wide green leaves around its top, it is considered by Thais – and with a good reason – as one of their best fruits, second only to the out-worldly durian.

Bon Appetite!