Bye Thai

After making friends with the monks Chris is recharged and ready for Bangkok. At the other end of yet another late train experience (this one about 15 hours mmm), he checks into Cherry's sister's guest house once again. Having checked on the Couchsurfing website earlier, Chris is primed for a Canada Day party taking place on another member's apartment roof. This roof turns out to be rather well appointed with a great view and a swimming pool. Beers are drunk, stories exchanged, the Canadian flag hung from a dangerous and inaccessible place. The evening ends with refused invitations to go to Soi Cowboy (see earlier posts about this den of iniquity) and a cab ride home to wait for Lisa's bus to arrive around 4am.

Now that we are reunited, we decide we are well overdue a visit to the Grand Palace, Bangkok's premier tourist attraction (although some would say this is Soi Cowboy...).  We stroll through the city to the palace & it's resident temple (home of the Emerald Buddha) only to find out once we are there that Chris' shorts are not acceptable attire.  While he lines up to borrow some appropriate temple wear, Lisa chats to an Australian who's travelling companion has the same issue.  A few minutes later, both Lisa and her Australian friend discover that they are also unsuitably dressed and have to join the line as well.  Lisa's knees are covered, but apparently they must be covered by a skirt rather than pants, unless those pants also cover your ankles?!?  It's actually impossible to wear the right clothes, I think, because they want us all to dress in their ill-fitting, army green loaner clothes.

Anyways, the Emerald Buddha and his brightly painted home are amazing and well worth all the rules (including a careful way of sitting to ensure your feet aren't pointing at the Buddha, your neighbour, or anything sacred) - of course one of these rules is "no photos".  We also have time for a good wander around the palace grounds, which has a large number of closed buildings (argh), some amazingly detailed murals, a few weird statues, and (to Lisa's amusement) quite a few iPhone-wielding monks.  On our way out we manage to squeeze in a few minutes at the Royal Thai Decorations & Coins Pavilion, where you can admire the Emerald Buddha's off-season clothing (he has 4 different "outfits"; there is a ceremony at each change of season when his robes & accessories are swapped).

Having saved up things on his 'would like to do' list, Chris decides that, due to its reputation, Bangkok is probably the place to accessorize with a tattoo. But what to get? Nothing too pretentious that claims its wearer is some kind of tough biker or chaos cultist. Luckily, a beardy solution had struck him while he should have been meditating. While girlfriend's names may eventually become foolishly out of date, surely an imaginary language would be safer?  He's always loved Lord of the Rings and it'll be hidden under his anorak most of the time anyway!

The night before we head for Cambodia we meet up with Cherry, Suman (an old friend from the school in Nepal) and Snahya, a student friend of Suman's. The venue is the imaginitively named 'Cabbages and Condoms', (kudos to absent friend Lindsay for the recommendation!) which serves lovely Thai food, sells handicrafts made by rural villagers and proceeds go toward the promotion of family planning in rural areas, as well as school-operated vegetable farms. Also, rather than serve mints with the bill we all get a free condom. On the way out we all have a go spinning the 'wheel of fortune' style sexual health wheel: abstinence is worth the most points, with an icky sliding scale of STDs from there.

On the final day of our visa in Thailand, we drag ourselves out of bed to catch a crack-of-dawn train to the border with Cambodia. We have the pleasure of riding in the "monks only" carriage after Lisa is invited in by one of the monks.  Having women aboard this carriage makes for a logistical nightmare though, as the monks are not allowed to touch or be touched by women (or really anyone, but if they cared that much they'd have to stay in the monastery all the time!).  The trip passes quite uneventfully - and miraculously to schedule - and after a few hours we arrive in Aranyaprathet.  We team up with a couple of Portuguese brothers and attempt to find a bus to the border in order to avoid being fleeced by tuk-tuk or taxi drivers.  We have to then refuse the option of being fleeced by a "tour company" who offer to take us to Siem Riep by bus (we have been warned that this service actually just takes you to the border and then hightails it back into Thailand with your money in hand!).  Rather randomly, Lisa spots what might be the world's tackiest dress shop next to the tour office - perhaps there is a dress code for border crossings, as there's no other discernible reason why this tiny town would need such a shop.

Partywear suitable for a border

We are contemplating hitch-hiking (note to moms:  this was the Portuguese talking, we would never  ;-)  ) when a tuk-tuk who's clearly having a slow day stops to barter with us.  We manage to talk him down to an affordable price (helped by the fact that the brothers have very limited funds) and also to balance four packs and four people in the tiny space.

We've been told about the various border scams that exist but it's still amusing when our tuk-tuk driver pulls up to a house nowhere near the border and says we have to get a stamp there. It is an official-looking place but also deserted and all advice has told us that all the business takes place at the border itself so we politely ask him to "GO TO THE BORDER," in our best loud English. Once we get there we are dropped off at an office just before the border where we get our stamps etc. Afterward, we find that we were still mini-scammed as this was not 'the' office but they were nice, had a toilet and gave us some free tourist information.  We still had enough change in our pockets to buy a bag of chips, a handful of assorted sweets & a big bottle of water for our walk across the border....but none left over to visit the casinos that dotted "no man's land".

For posterity, the correct way to cross the border at Aranyprathet/Poipet is to IGNORE all offers of help/visa assistance (including the office with the official-looking signs) and instead, stroll casually past the row of snack stalls to the actual border.  You'll pass through a wide immigration office (which hilariously is covered in signs that say "don't stand here" that are hardly readable due to the number of people standing in front of them!) and get stamped out of Thailand (free, assuming you haven't overstayed).  Then you'll walk for a while past some casinos, and on your right side you'll see a small immigration office which is the CORRECT place to buy your Cambodian visa.  Note that the ones we purchased just prior to the Thai border crossing were perfectly valid, but cost about $5 more.  Walk a bit more, and again on the right is a long thin office with undoubtedly a line of people waiting to be stamped into Cambodia - a process that takes a mysteriously long time.  This gives you plenty of time to admire the large tree/shrine growing up one side of the (indoor) office, and also to reunite with people you met at the train station in Aranyaprathet (hello, Portuguese brothers - see you in the next blog post!).

So that was Thailand, and Lisa feels compelled to write a little about her personal impressions.  Although we enjoyed our time there and the majority of Thai people were smiling & friendly, we definitely felt like "farang".  In fact, it seems like you could live in Thailand for 20 years and still be farang.  It felt nearly impossible to actually get to know anyone (and not simply because of the language barrier).

Also, the prevalance of both scams and sex tourism were rather astonishing.  Especially in Bangkok there were many warning signs about different scams currently in operation, and we met a few people who'd been victims of one of the most well-known - theft from luggage during "tourist bus" journeys.  Apparently someone hides in the luggage area & rifles through all the bags while you travel.  Since this doesn't happen on government buses, it seems likely that the thieves are in cahoots with the drivers of the tourist buses....nice.   But if this (and many other) scams are recognised, then why is nothing being done to stop them?  There can't be much attempt at catching the culprits, or any significant punishment when you do get caught.

Sex tourism is obviously a money-maker for many people so it's understandable why it would be hard to bring it to a complete halt (not unlike the tobacco industry...?).  But the image of Thai women as sex objects is constantly perpetuated, not least by the beer companies who issue tiny, tight hostess dresses branded with their logos to any bar or restaurant who serves their products.  It was quite a shock to see family-oriented restaurants and hotels with these scantily-clad hostesses out front.  Not to mention the sad sight of pale, fat, middle-aged men with beautiful young Thai women on their arm.  Of course, some of these women may make a conscious choice to be in that situation, but the overall objectification of women in Thai society makes me wonder what other choices they feel they really have.

I must reiterate that we DID enjoy Thailand, and also that these are just my own impressions.  I'd be the first person to say that you can't judge without seeing it for yourself.  In our case, these factors make it a little less likely that we'd hurry to visit Thailand again, especially with so many countries yet unvisited, and others that just felt like a "better fit".