Palm-Fringed Paradise

I strolled around the island of Ko Samui, leisurely mind you, for two days trying to figure out it’s appeal. It’s a more than attractive island, don’t get me wrong, and it has all the amenities you want in an island paradise. Sandy beaches, blue waters, and a rugged, mountainous interior cloaked in palm trees - all of which are drenched in sunshine and cooled by a light offshore breeze. There is an array of accommodation to suit any traveler with luxury resorts, cheap backpacker huts and moderately priced beachfront villas. It features a main street lined with stores, restaurants and bars to accommodate a wide range of tastes. But, it didn’t strike me as anything distinctly different or more captivating from islands found closer to home such as those in Hawaii or the Caribbean.

From Ko Samui '07

Then it finally dawned on me after a couple nights stretched out in my king size room with the large walk-in shower and beach facing patio for $40 a night and filling my tummy on a mere $10 a day. Ko Samui provides everything you want in an island paradise at dirt cheap prices. I knew it was inexpensive going in, but it really hit home once I was there for a few nights. Not just because I was saving money, but what I was getting for what little money I was spending.

Working out all the stress built up over the last thirty-five years via an hour-long, beachfront, full-body Thai massage was a splurge that set me back a whopping eight dollars. Sitting on the beach having dinner under the stars, I thought nothing of spending an extra buck for another Jack & Coke to extend my star-gazing a little longer. Tired of the style of sunglasses I've been wearing for the last four months, I engaged in a few rounds of haggling and walked away with a new pair of Ray-Bans (at least they looked like it) for all of $10. Even better, sleeping in until 9 a.m. and spending six to eight hours a day basking in the sun cost me nothing. It's no wonder people flock to Ko Samui, or similar Thai islands like Phuket or Kp Phi Phi with great regularity. Plus, it has a little more exotic cache than Hawaii or the Bahamas.

But, the bargain basement prices and sublime setting doesn’t come without a few downsides. While not overly crowded, the beaches are certainly well attended. Hawkers pushing fruit, ice cream, temporary tattoos, and sea-shell necklaces (and, if you listen to closely, more illicit options whispered under their breath), trod up and down the beach frequently interrupting my efforts to turn my typically pasty skin a few shades darker. But, my carefully honed furrowed brow accompanied by a shake of my head and a periodic dismissing wave of my hand seemed to keep them mostly at bay.

The main street is overdeveloped in a rather underdeveloped sort of way. While there is already a Starbucks and McDonald’s, the rest of the retail offerings are comprised of a series of densely packed basic stores fronts which lose their charm after just a few days time. Although, on the other end of the spectrum, there is evidence of burgeoning gentrification as new luxury resorts take the place of backpacker beach huts and develop accompanying shopping centers alongside their resort property. Hopefully Ko Samui’s future lies somewhere in the middle, retaining it’s laid-back, something for everyone atmosphere while upgrading facilities just a bit. Otherwise, Ko Samui, in ten to fifteen years time, could join the ranks of other high priced island hot spots.





But, regardless of those minor detractions, Ko Samui provides an ideal palm-fringed paradise that for eight days beckoned me to do nothing more than just relax and enjoy myself. And, my wallet got a bit of a vacation as well.



KO SAMUI PHOTO ALBUM: http://picasaweb.google.com/gscottie/KoSamui07

Watch Your Step

On one of my few nights in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, I walked the small city’s streets at a rather brisk pace focused on making quick work of the twenty minute walk to my intended dinner destination for the evening. Making my best effort to avoid the touts along the way, I perfected weaving in and out of people lining the streets and sidewalks in my pursuit of a little sustenance.

About halfway into my speedy stroll, I came upon a group of three men heading my direction who spanned the width of the sidewalk. They seemed preoccupied with talking to each other and didn't seem likely to move so as to make a little room for me to pass by. Just as I neared them, I noticed a lamp post about halfway between us and decided to use it to veer around them as we all passed by it. As expected, once we all reached the lamppost, they veered to their right and I stepped in the opposite direction allowing me to successfully clear them and continue on my path. But, as I curled around the lamp post and prepared to step back into the middle of the sidewalk, I reared back in shock when I nearly ran into an elephant! In the dimly lit street, and my narrowly focused attention, I’d somehow managed to fail to see the substantial pachyderm trailing directly behind the three men.

More than a little taken off guard, I jumped back about two feet and right back into the same lamp post. Despite a now aching back, all I could manage to do was stand and stare in bewilderment at the baby elephant now passing me by. Transfixed, I simply watched in awe at the hulking pachyderm meandering down the narrow strip of bars and restaurants accompanied by the three men who were oblivious to the fact that I’d nearly stumbled into their seemingly prized possession. Although I'm not sure how much they might have noticed had that happened. While I was a foot taller than the baby elephant, it outweighed me by a good half ton. It goes without saying that I would’ve lost that battle and I don't know how much the men or the elephant would've noticed as my body crumpled under it's feet. Perhaps the child-like shrieking would've given me away.

I nearly forgot my hunger pains as I kept watching the elephant amble out of sight down the other end of the road. As I started again towards my dinner destination - but at a slightly slower pace, with my eyes scanning every inch of the sidewalk - I tried to fathom why the men might be taking their elephant out for a night on the town. I'm sure there were a myriad of reason from tourist bait to local culture and customs. In the end, I just decided to be thankful for a well placed, and well timed, lamp post that proved to be the difference that kept me one step shy of being trampled by a half ton pachyderm.

Visa Issues

After I arrived in Bangkok I needed to take care of some official business, namely securing visas for Vietnam and India, countries I planned to visit in the next few weeks and who didn’t provide the more convenient on-arrival visa stamp.

Obtaining a Vietnam visa went surprisingly smoothly. I dropped off my passport at the Vietnam embassy one afternoon, paid twice the normal fee for overnight service, and twenty-four hours later picked up my passport with a shiny new Vietnam visa pasted onto one of the pages.

The next day I headed over to the Indian embassy expecting a similar experience. I walked into the embassy and checked the wall that outlined the visa process. Reassuringly, it indicated that visas were processed within 24 hours. So, I picked up the appropriate paperwork and waited for my number to be called. About thirty minutes later, I made my way up to the visa counter where the expectantly smooth process began to fall apart.

Here I encountered my first instance where a language barrier, or accent barrier in this case, caused a few road bumps in my travels. The clerk spoke broken English that I struggled to understand, catching only the general theme of what he was telling me. He explained that the instructions I read on the wall applied only to citizens of Thailand, of which I obviously was not. As a foreigner applying outside my own country, the process would actually take five days. Further, he indicated - or so I thought - that I would have to leave my passport for that duration and could pick it up once the process was completed.

Insert road bump. I'd already made plans to travel to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand and Ko Samui in Southern Thailand during that time with plans beyond that which didn't leave a lot of room for change. I wasn't quite prepared to forego the hill country of Chiang Mai or beaches of Ko Samui to spend another week in congested Bangkok just for a sticker in my passport.

I left the embassy without submitting my application and headed back to my hotel to regroup. A quick search on the internet revealed an Indian consulate in Chiang Mai, my next destination, so I quickly devised a plan to extend my stay there another day and drop my passport off immediately at the consulate to pick up on my way out of that city. Afterall, I was going to spend my time in Chiang Mai in the hill country riding elephants and visiting indigenous hill tribes where I was fairly certain I wouldn't need a passport for much of anything.

After twelve hours on a grungy train, I arrived in Chiang Mai eager to set my plan in motion. I should've realized after spending forty-five minutes walking to a consulate that was supposed to be a quick ten minute jaunt, that things wouldn't be going as planned here either.

I pushed my sweaty body through the consulate doors, picked up the now-familiar application, and dropped it on the clerk's desk thinking I was almost home-free. The clerk took my passport, then a few minutes later handed it back to me. She explained that I could keep my passport with me until I had to return for my visa. Things seemed to be better already. She then advised that I could return for said visa in nine days. Insert road bump. After explaining my issues over the last 24 hours, she kindly clarified that both the embassy and consulate do NOT actually require that you surrender your passport for the time it takes to process the visa. They just scan it initially then ask that you hand it in for a few minutes on the day your visa is ready. Seems in my haste to obtain a visa, I'd misunderstood the embassy clerk and hadn't taken the time to clarify things. She also explained that while the processing only requires five days, it doesn't account for weekends and holidays, of which there were both in the upcoming few days. Hence, nine days until I could have my visa.

Elephants or not, I wasn't ready to spend nine days in Chiang Mai and the prospects for 'swinging through' to pick up my visa were nonexistent. Bangkok was my obvious choice, so I opted to forgo the elephants and booked a return flight to Bangkok for the next morning.

The next afternoon, I found myself in the Indian Embassy in Bangkok once more. More keenly aware of the process, I surrendered my passport again, retrieved it a short while later and prepared to return nine days later for my visa, something I could've had one or two days from that moment had I took the time to understand the process initially.

However, I spent the interim eight days sunning myself on the beaches of Ko Samui where any angst my visa procurement situation caused quickly vanished with each crashing wave on the island's soft sand beaches. Nine days later I returned to the embassy and picked up my Indian visa as well as my first lesson in international communications: listen very carefully.


CHIANG MAI PHOTO ALBUM: http://picasaweb.google.com/gscottie/ChiangMai07

Bustling Bangkok

I went to Bangkok expecting a chaotic, slightly seedy city with rampant signs of a struggling economy and a government in the midst of upheaval. Instead, I found myself surprised by Bangkok’s rampant modernity including massive mega malls, a state-of-the-art subway and elevated train system, and a Starbucks or McDonald’s on almost every corner. It was almost disappointing in its familiarity, although it did provide for a more comfortable transition into Southeast Asia after a few months in Australia.

From Bangkok '07

Bangkok is far from the exotic national capital it often seems to be made out to be. It certainly retains touches of its old world reputation with a bit of scruffiness at street level, a slew of ’hostess bars’ (i.e. strip clubs and brothels), and smoggy, smoky air due in large part to the plethora of motorbikes churning out seemingly unrestricted exhaust emissions on the fairly well packed city streets. But, I almost had to go out of my way to experience the grungy fringe of an otherwise decidedly modern city that’s a heady mix of second world (unlike other parts of Thailand, it’d be tough to describe many parts of Bangkok as truly third world) meets first world.




Bangkok is a sprawling city that spreads itself out unencumbered on an expansive, flat stretch of landscape. It’s built more out than up and a handful of sleek, modest skyscrapers pepper the low skyline providing reference points for the various business and neighborhood clusters around the city. Those clusters are connected by a grid of wide, almost airy (if not for the constant churning of exhaust fumes) main streets packed with late model cars (mostly Toyotas of some sort) and an equal number of motorbikes.

Motorbikes, in fact, seem to be the preferred mode of transportation, likely for their affordability to the average Thai family. While the roads are normally well-packed, they typically fall short of locking up completely thanks in large part to the number of motorbikes that obviously take up less room on the asphalt they share with their larger counterparts. The compact size of the motorbike allows them to deftly, often with seeming disregard for personal safety, swerve in and out of their larger counterparts which ultimately serves to keep traffic moving at a moderate pace. Another factor that seems to foster traffic progressing with some regularity is the little regard given to traffic signs and road rules. It’s a look-out-for-yourself mentality with everyone switching lanes so often that lane markings seem a waste of paint.

I got a chance to experience the organized chaos in many modes of transportation, including on a three-wheeled tuk-tuk, but riding on the back of a motorbike taxi provided the most unique and hair raising experiences by far. Motorbike taxis are as prevalent as automobile taxis on the streets of Bangkok and can often be seen hauling multiple people as well as large packages or deliveries that seem like they should’ve caused the motorbike to tip over or spin out of control miles earlier. I hailed a motorbike taxi on one of my last days in Bangkok, taking that long to work up the nerve. As my driver careened between paper-thin openings between other motorbikes, cars and even large trucks I think I dug a few new fingernail marks into his shoulders hanging on for dear life. But, it was as exhilarating as it was terrifying and I nearly peed my pants for both reasons.


I found more sedate experiences just walking daily around the streets of Bangkok. While it’s office buildings and shopping malls may be ultra-modern retail palaces, the streets themselves are lined with thousands or rudimentary carts and tents offering a glut of offerings from food to handmade trinkets to clothes to the latest theatrical release mysteriously already on dvd. While far from lacking during the daytime, the number of street vendors seems to increase exponentially when the sun goes down resulting in crowded street bazaars that, once you’re amongst them, block out all evidence of the surrounding bricks and mortar retail outlets whose sidewalks they line.

While the vendors hawking wares (t-shirts, shoes, electronics, handmade trinkets) are unquestionably geared toward tourists, the food vendors seem to play more of a role with the locals. Offering a wide array of options - fresh, cut-as-you-wait fruit, a variety of noodle and soup dishes, and just about anything fried or barbecued - the food merchants provide inexpensive dining options for locals looking for a reason to get out of their homes. The food carts also seem to serve as the de facto epicenter of the nightly social scene in many neighborhoods with the sidewalks packed with friends and family partaking of the local cuisine as they catch up on each others’ lives.

The multitude of carts also provide one of Bangkok’s most distinctive characteristics. The city air is permeated by a kaleidoscope of pungent aromas, sometimes parading as pungent odors, emitted from the thousands of food vendors lined up along its sidewalks. A walk along its city streets provides an olfactory assault that becomes as much an experience of the city as any visual stimuli.

However, I failed to work up the courage to sample local fare from any street vendors, even when aromas seemed to be to my liking. Instead, I opted to indulge in the indigenous culinary offerings at more established locales. Luckily, I managed to find equally as authentic and rewarding dishes, even when what I ordered turned out to be a little more than I bargained for. On my very first attempt, I ordered a dish that I seemed a safe initial choice of chicken and noodles to ease into my samplings of authentic Thai cuisine. While I got just what the menu described, it was seasoned with spices that packed a considerable punch leaving my tongue burning, my eyes watering and my nose running. Still, I found it to be a tasty dish and a definite departure from the more sedate Thai food I tried (and still liked) at home prior to leaving. Other samplings proved to be an equal mixture of unexpected tastes and textures and, save for one ill-advised order, I found Thai food generally to my liking.

Outside of eating and walking around downtown Bangkok, I actually did some sight-seeing as well. Most of Bangkok’s main attractions are conveniently located in its historic district, Old Siam, and are easily walkable in a day’s time. The centerpiece is the aptly named Grand Palace which is actually a complex housing numerous official government buildings, sacred temples and the former palace for the country’s venerated monarchs. The current, long-standing monarch, admired with near-deity reverence, now lives in a new, bigger palace a few miles north.





The temples and palaces of the Grand Palace complex are some of the most ornately decorated buildings I’ve ever seen with what must have being painstaking decades of applying the finest minute detailing to every square inch of each building in the complex. It’s a visual feast with every panel of a building revealing a new detail that’s unlike other sections yet congruous to the whole.

The most scared of buildings in the complex is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha which houses a deceivingly (for all the adulation it receives) diminutive sitting Buddha that’s actually carved from jade but looks like emerald, hence the name. Inside the temple is an equally ornate interior with Sistine Chapel-like detail painted on every interior surface and the emerald Buddha seated twenty feet above the temple floor on an elaborate throne. On the floor in front of the sacred Buddha was a temple floor packed with ardent worshippers serenely engaged in prayer and rhythmically bowing their praises toward the country’s most sacred symbol.

A few blocks away from the Grand Palace, I found an equally impressive spectacle in a Buddha that was as big as the Emerald Buddha was small. Measuring at least a hundred feet from head-to-toe and forty feet from arm-to-arm, the Reclining Buddha sits on a huge pedestal lying on its side, propped up on one arm like it‘s spending the day on a lounge next to a pool. It takes a full minute to walk from one end to the other and that’s without stopping for pictures. There’s only about one angle in the whole building where you can capture a photo of the full Buddha thanks to its size. While there’s not much else to see outside of the Reclining Buddha, it remarkable just for its sheer magnitude.



Equally remarkable was another Buddha slightly further away in an unremarkable building in the Chinatown section of Bangkok. The Golden Buddha is so named because it is literally made of gold. It‘s valued at something around $15 million by sheer weight alone although there‘s evidently speculation that it‘d be worth considerably more if melted down. More interesting is the fact that it was almost lost to the world forever. To avoid seizure of the fixture by the invading Burmese armies centuries ago, it was encased in inch-thick stucco clay to cover it’s true golden nature. The golden fixture that lay inside was evidently forgotten until about 50 years ago when it was knocked while being moved and a portion of the stucco chipped away revealing it’s more alluring golden shell.




But, it was a museum dedicated to an American that I found to be one of the most interesting sights in Bangkok. Jim Thompson was a CIA intelligence officer who came to Thailand shortly after World War II. He retired not too long after and opted to remain in Thailand, enamored with the country. The large estate that he built in authentic Thai style and construction - amazingly using no nails in his multi-room house - serves as the museum in his honor. But, Thompson‘s real contribution to Thailand, and the reason for the museum, is that he discovered Thailand‘s dormant and nearly abandoned silk producing artistry. He’s credited throughout Thailand for single-handedly resurrecting and fostering the Thai silk industry into the powerhouse that it remains today.




Unlike Jim Thompson, I don’t know that I’m ready to settle permanently in Bangkok (I can hear my mother sighing in relief). But, Bangkok’s heady mix of first world modernity, third world underpinnings, ornate and intriguing ancient temples and centuries old culture made it a worthy city to explore, especially as an initial entree into Southeast Asia.

BANGKOK PHOTO ALBUM: http://picasaweb.google.com/gscottie/Bangkok07