Tap into Thailand

It’s 10pm but the heat is invasive. The streets of Bangkok are wide-awake and the crowd wriggles its way through the thousands of stalls. We carve out a path through the masses. I still have a blocked ear from my pen-ultimate NZ surf so my hearing is muffling out the nasal Thai exchanges and picking up mostly the ‘doof-doof’ of the music and the crunching of the fried cricket I’m eating to impress the missus. My eye is caught by a poster advertising fake degrees and NZ driving licences when another sound is added to the mix- ‘pup pup... pup pup’- middle-aged Thai men smacking their lips- onomatopoeias of the Live Ping-Pong Sex Shows they present to you on comprehensive portable menus. Like Imams calling the faithful to prayer. Hannah and I clasp to our puritan upbringing and, with much cultural insensitivity, carry on our way despite these mouth watering invitations to truly- as the Intrepid package states- Tap into Thailand.

Bangkok offered some nice Pad-Thai, temples, and boat trips but it was just a transit for us. We soon caught the overnight train (picture Darjeeling Limited) to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand with our guide, Sanit, and a team of amiable Ozzies in their early thirties.

Chiang Mai is a cosy city with a nice groove and the Pad Thai Kai (Thai for ‘chicken’) kept me busy at $1.50 a meal. We continued north to trek up into the hill-tribe villages where Sanit comes from. The hiking was a solid quad-wobbling affair through the mountainous dry forest. We reached Sanit’s village just before sunset. It was breathtaking. As I looked down into the little valley, I couldn’t help but think it was a scene out of the Last Samurai- that kind of glamourized rural setting where everything is peaceful and abundant. The dry rice fields, carved like a Pa site, stagger down into a crisp stream. Water buffalo stare at you knowingly; pigs root around with bra like slings around their torso; chicks hop around with bare buttocks and dogs lie around in the hottest spots they can find. Bamboo is the chief living ingredient, at the core of houses, bridges, cups, rafts, walking sticks, et cetera.

The local peoples offered us Tea and sticky rice wrapped in Banana leaves (tastes like berries- very niice). My previous experience of food dressed up in a banana leaf had been in Vanuatu. The food in Vanuatu is poos, so it was a delightful surprise. This place felt much more intact than Vanuatu also. The Karen people speak their own language, practice animism, smoke their own tobacco, and are effectively living as they were a hundred years ago (apart from the disintegration of opium market and growth of the tourist trade).

Kids are sent to school in another village during the week, where they learn all the basics- including Thai language. We got to visit the school and play a game of soccer with the young men on a dust-field that I left intact but seemingly absorbed most of into my lungs.

We rode Elephants around windy hills on narrow paths. This feels like a slow rodeo on a gentle giant (It’s similar to being carried by an Ent).

We then bamboo rafted down the river past the nonchalant water buffalo and bobbing elephant dung, crashing into the odd rocks and then swimming around the bobbing water buffalo and nonchalant elephant dung. We dragged our feet back to the city and consoled ourselves with $5 Mojitos and Thai covers bands playing classic Rock: “Sweeee Hooo Alabama”.

It was everything I’d hoped for: a nice experience of Thailand- urban and rural; a nice team to travel around with; a good local guide; a kind-of tour with no blardy schedules; an exquisite array of sensorial experiences and close encounters with local flora and fauna. Yes. Lovely.

Thailand- we tapped it.