Thailand Overview

The mere mention of Thailand conjures images of the Far East, of markets on rivers, of trading posts that predate Marco Polo, and of modern day manufacturing, skyscrapers, and commerce. It brings out visions of smiling children playing in fields, elderly grandparents in cultural wardrobe, and immense golden statues of Buddha in ornate compounds of architecture that could only be Thai. It brings forth smells; lemongrass, lime, coconut milk, and diesel smoke. If you are one who is fortunate to have fallen in love with Thailand, the name brings on a smile. For those of you who have fostered the wish to know this kingdom, it brings forth an immediate widening of the eyes in anticipation. It brings a desire to the surface, a desire to see a Thai Immigration Officer look up with a slight smile while reaching for the approval stamp, to hear the metallic cling of the stamp housing as it strikes your passport page. The desire is fulfilled, the gate is open and the experience of a lifetime fans out before you. Thailand. The name evokes images that are as varied as life can produce. It is impossible, in this day and age, to hear the name and not have preconceived notions of that land. Your mind creates what you want it to be.

A vision of terraced rice paddies solid in chlorophyll green that stretch out, jostled, as if dropped from the sky to land as they will. They rise, step by step, with the glimmer of water cascading from one level to the other until they are stopped by mountainside, dense with trees. Your vision is capped with an azure blue sky and the colors of the scene are straight from a pallet, without dilution.

Perhaps the thought of interaction with an elderly lady comes to your imagination. Her lips and teeth stained with red betel as she grins from ear to ear and laughs at your early ventures into the Thai language. She knows you tried to say “Nee Tow Lai” while pointing at the bags of chopped pineapple but your abuse of the phonetics makes it worthy of sharing with her fellow vendors on the street and soon you are all laughing as you reciprocate and teach them to abuse the pronunciation of “How much is this?” The language class may feel hopeless for all of you, but the bond is priceless as is the pineapple she gives you as a gift for trying to speak her language. They wave you on with calls of “Chok Dee”, “Good Luck” and more laughter.

In your mind you see trash and oil covering the surface of a small canal right behind ramshackle homes that rise straight from the water. The smell of sewage fills the air. Babies cry from somewhere in the structures. You shake your head to get the smell out of your nose but it is pervasive like the heat.

Maybe your mind drifts to the noise and frenetic pace of bus travel within the maze of Bangkok. The night is filled with lights and noise and diesel smoke and the bus throws you left and right in your seat as the driver flies into another small backstreet turn while paying more attention to his conversation with his friend than the pedestrians jumping out of his way. You are exchanging coins from your home country, coins that have had so little meaning to you in the past, other than face value, with an 10 year old Thai school girl on her way home with her mother. The three of you crowd your heads in close to hear what the other is saying. You tell her all you know, which is not much, about Thomas Jefferson while cleaning the nickel between your fingers and for the first time in your life you lament not paying attention in the fourth grade. Her mother brings out a Thai coin and tells the young girl to explain the history to you. Far too soon the bus stops and they must flee. They jump down the exit stairs and, in the streetlight glow the young girl turns from her mother, looks back up into the bus and shows you the nickel. With absolute composure in the heat, chaos, and crowd, she folds her hands in front of her mouth clasping the nickel and bows in the Thai wai. When she looks up, her smile is worth all the coins in the world.

You can imagine the empty feeling in your stomach when you realize that you should have been forceful with the cab driver that the fare was for both of you before you got into the vehicle. Now there is a discussion emerging that you will inevitably lose that increases a reasonable fare two fold.

You might fantasize about sitting in an open air restaurant in an old market area of Bangkok. The scene you have painted could be this year, it could be from the 1930’s. There are no telling features to date what you see. You imagine the rusty tin roof doing its best to keep the monsoon deluge at bay. The sound is deafening. The water falls from the edge of the roof in a solid cascade so thick it is difficult to see the brightly colored Tuk Tuks parked across the street. A plate arrives of steaming vegetables on a bed of noodles and the smell is as thick as the humidity and heat. You lean back in your cane chair and look around at the scene and feel absolutely no schedule whatsoever. At the table next to you, Thai businessmen are rapidly slurping large bowls of soup and not missing a beat of their conversation with ten other jabbering compatriots all focused on how to make money. Laughter erupts from their table and spoons clatter as they fall into the bowls and they motion to the owner for the bill and lottery tickets. Just behind them two young men chop meat and fish as fast as knives can fly while children run between and under the tables. The noise of the rain on the roof is overtaken from time to time with children yelling, the wok exploding into flame 4 feet away from you, and a smile from a young Thai couple trying to figure out how you found this back alley restaurant and why you are here. The entire street life of the neighborhood has come under cover from the rain and brought with it the energy of daily life that is normally spread out across blocks of the city. Nature has brought it all under one roof. But just as quickly as it started, the rain ends and life returns to the street leaving you with your meal, journal, and no place to be.

Sometimes even your visions can be covered in apprehension. You picture yourself walking along a dusty street in a town with a friend, talking about life when you are approached by a middle aged Thai man who professes he would like to buy you tea if you would only help him with his English for a while. Your mind courses through all of the stories you have heard about travelers being conned. With your thoughts spread out, you are caught off guard, unable to rapidly explain why you can’t take the time, and you find yourself ushered to the side of the road to a food stall. Your new Thai acquaintance speaks rapidly to the man behind a counter, motions to the three of you, and bowls of soup and cups of tea appear out of nowhere. You look to your traveling partner for reassurance but the same look of reluctance comes right back at you. Your concerns of being involved in some gem scam, or somehow becoming the victim of pick-pocketing or worse run through your mind and you orient yourself to the direction you came in from in case you need to make a quick exit. But as time goes on the conversations take over your attention. The questions being asked; where you come from and what you do require concentration. You wonder if this is part of the scam. You are not quite halfway done with your soup when your Thai interrogator looks at his watch, stands up, lightly tips his head to you, and says, “I thank you so much for you time to help me with my studies. I must go now.” He speaks to the man behind the counter in rapid Thai as he motions for the bill. The owner waves him on his way in dismissal of payment. He turns and waves when he reaches the next corner. Now you realize the scam. It was not an insidious plan to steal thousands of dollars from you while you fill your mouth, but rather a way for that man to get a free meal that you will now have to pay for. Clearly the owner was in on this too. You feel stupid and taken for not having seen it coming but you smile at your friend as your faces indicate the understanding of your newness to the road less traveled. You both reach for your wallets anticipating the radically inflated bill. The owner shakes his head no, points in the direct the man left and says, “No, he pay later.” You were wrong on all accounts. There was no plan, no scam, no deceit, just an English lesson that you were well paid for.

The imagination runs to quick scenes inspiring you to head in the direction of Thailand. You build visions of standing in the open doorway of a train clanking along the tracks. People at crossroads hold their children up high to wave to the passing train and you find yourself anxiously waving back as if it was of great importance that those feelings be returned.

Your mind slowly creates the scene of your return home. A return to the airport you left from. A return to the work or friends you temporarily set aside in order to see the world. A return to your life from before Thailand. You look at your old surroundings as if they are new. You find yourself missing the things that were difficult from your journeys like the heat or humidity, the communication gaps, the mystery of seeing what you ordered, or of discovering new friends each and every day. You stand and look at your life and feel the pull to hear the clang of the immigration stamp once again.

These are not creations of imagination, they are memories. They are real and recalled, not fantasies, and they are but a drop in the bucket from life on the road in Thailand. There are hundreds of quality guide books and historical texts that can help you begin to know Thailand, but there is only one way to convert imagination to memory. Thailand is a country that will never let you leave, no matter where you end up.