On the flight from Doha to Bangkok I get to sit near the emergency exit with lots of legroom. The seat next to me is vacant, the aisle seat taken by a gentleman from Kuwait who happens to be a former captain and is now into import/export. Of what, I ask, orchids? turbines? Anything, he says. As soon as we reach our cruising altitude, an Asian man sits down on the middle seat. The captain complains to the air hostess who tells the Asian man to vacate the seat. A few minutes later, an Englishman asks whether the seat is free whereupon the captain tells him that it is not. The Englishman gets furious, the Maître de Cabine appears and after some arguments by the captain (he regularly flies with this airline, he pays a higher fare than the regular customer), the seat remains vacant. I'm impressed by his negotiating skills and let him know that I foresee a future career as a diplomat ...
After landing at Suvarnabhumi Airport, I take the train to Phaya Thai and then the Skytrain to Soi Nana from where it is a fifteen minute walk to my hotel on Petchburi Road. The sky is grey and it drizzles and where my hotel once was I see a construction pit. I feel slightly shocked and decide to go to a place nearby where, many years ago, I very often stayed ... and there is another construction pit! It seems definitely not a good idea to re-visit old neighbourhoods.
Starting in 1988, I spent on and off around four and a half years inThailand, mostly in Bangkok. I loved it, I then felt that there is no better place. My notes from that time might explain it …
Ever sat in a taxi, the traffic light was green, and then red, and then green again but there wasn't any movement to be seen or felt for quite some time (and I do not mean minutes)? That is rush hour in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2009, although it didn't feel much different in 1989 (around that time, a Thai politician suggested to keep all traffic lights in the city permanently on green) when a taxi driver, who had picked me up at the airport, on approaching Sukhumvit Road said: welcome to Bangkok parking. Now memories come back and among these a joke I had once heard: Want a lift? shouted a car driver to a friend he had spotted on the sidewalk. No, thanks, but I'm in a hurry, the friend replied.
In
Chiang Mai, I saw a billboard that said: "Fruit Juice, 100
percent artificial, guaranteed no natural ingredients added."
"Are
they handmade?" I asked the street vendor who had traditional
garments on display. "No, no, machine, very better", she
replied. It took me a while to understand what she meant: that the
machine had made her work easier.
There was no taxi at the
airport in Pitsanoluk. "How can I get to town?" I asked the
young lady at the information booth. "My master will drive you",
she said. The master turned out to be the director of the airport.
"And how do you plan to go to Mae Hong Son?" he inquired.
"I guess by bus" I said. "Bus no good" he
replied. "You should do it like the Thais do it". "Aha,
and how do they do it?" "Take it easy, fly." I
flew.
Prachuap Khiri Khan. I explored this small town and the
beaches on the back of a motorbyke. "Here eat drink", my
driver said while pointing to a restaurant. "Here sing a song"
- that was a disco. After a while, I felt I should also make a
contribution. "Look at this beautiful bird", I shouted.
"Bird", he shouted back. Thais have quite a remarkable
ability to state the obvious.
In Bangkok, I bought a wallet.
It was a Gucci imitation, plastic, and very cheap. A week later it
broke apart. When I passed by the same shop, I decided to stop for a
chat. "Look at this", I said to the salesgirls. "This
wallet I bought here only a week ago and already it falls apart."
"How much you pay?" the girls asked. "60 Baht", I
smiled. They smiled back: "60 Baht one week, 80 Baht two
weeks."
During a Thai class, somebody mentioned
corruption. Our teacher, a pretty young lady and a gifted
entertainer, the most important qualification for teaching in
Thailand, said: „Corruption? We don't have that here.“ And then,
with a big smile, added: „Well, come to think of it, that is our
system.“ When asked how one should respond to taxi drivers who
shouted at every corner: taxi,
taxi, where you go?,
she replied: „Well, you simply ignore them. If that doesn't help,
you could still say pai
rong pak because
no taxi driver wishes to go there.“ „And, what does that mean?“
„I'm going to the police station“, she smiled. "I
understand", she said on another occasion, "that in America
they have a saying that goes 'Good God its Friday'. It seems to mean
that work is no fun, and that only the weekend can be enjoyed. In
Thailand", she smiled, "we don't know such a saying. In
Thailand, we enjoy every day."
One day, The
Nation,
an English-language newspaper from Bangkok, asked Thai women married
to Americans what they thought their fellow Thai who were about to
marry American men needed, above all, to know: "As amazing as
this may sound but to Americans it is more important to get things
done than to look good at work", they said.
***
While
boarding the plane to Phuket, a short, and rather stocky pilot, who
looks about 23, is running alongside the embarking passengers towards
the plane entrance ... he is my first sweating, out-of-breath pilot;
I've always imagined them tall, somewhat superior, and fully in
control.
Phuket Town seems to be a paradise for dentists. Dent
Center reads a sign, Dental Home Clinic another,
and then there's also the Dental Master.
The tourists that I meet are from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Poland, and the North of Thailand. The Russians of recent years seem to have been gone. The young man who shows me around one of the hotels that I'm checking out says that there are lots of Chinese guests. Loud? I ask for I had seen them storming the buffet at another hotel not so long ago. Yes, he smiles, but they are on the first and the second floor, you would be on the third.
Where do you get off? the Thai woman next to me on the bus wants to know from the woman sitting opposite. I'm not Thai, I'm from the Philippines, she says in Thai (which is about as good as mine - virtually non-existent, that is) and I feel reminded of this: Two young women, one Irish, very white, red hair, fluent in Thai (she grew up in Bangkok), the other a Filipina from Manila, indistinguishable from a Thai, fluent in English but speaks no Thai at all, get into a taxi. The taxi driver addresses the Filipina (he thinks she is Thai) in Thai and gets angry when she responds in English. The Irish girl tries to explain (in Thai) but is cut off by the taxi driver who does not want to be lectured by a Farang. And, above all, he surely does not accept such an arrogant fellow Thai who refuses to speak their common language with him ...
***
In a hotel in the North, I asked the young receptionist whether they offered a discount. Yes, she said. And who gets it? Everybody who asks, she smiled. Since then I always ask. In Lat Krabang, I'm asked back: How much you want to pay? Well, I'm happy with the best rate you can give me, I reply. And get an excellent one ...
Sign here, and here, and here. I'm astonished by the amount of paperwork that is required in order to change a one hundred-dollar bill. You seem to like my signature, I smile to the bank clerk. Not me, she smiles back, the bank!
There is a lightness of being in Thailand that I do not experience elsewhere. I guess this has partly do to with what in Thailand is known as Sanug which stands for fun, joy, something pleasent, it is a cheerful, positive, life-affirming attitude. Anything can be sanug, be it a walk in the rain or enjoying a good meal; if something isn't sanug, a Thai wouldn't even touch it with a stick ...
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