our way or the thai way

We heard Highway 12, west out of Phitsanulok toward Lom Sok, was a pretty drive along the Lam Nam Khek (river). So we swung by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) office in Phitsanulok and got ourselves (for free) the handy graphic map of the drive, featuring the places worth stopping. We also got the business card of a motorbike rental place.

The next morning we found ourselves at the rental place right when it opened and for 220 Baht (and a 300 B deposit, as well as holding my passport) we had ourselves a Honda Wave 110cc motorbike, and two helmets, for the day. The woman running the place gave us her thorough tour of the bike. How to turn the ignition on and off, as well as how to turn it to the locked position. She showed us the fuel gauge was at half, and that’s how we should return it. She showed us how to open the seat to get to the fuel tank, and at the same time pointed out that there was a chain and lock in there for our use as well, and that it should go through the back tire. Then she said bye and started going into her office.

We, however, felt a bit slighted by the explanation. We thought she should have included how to start the bike, how to go faster or slower, and as it turned out, how to shift gears. Of course, it was at that point that if I were running the place I may have asked to see a driver’s license. Or perhaps even refused rental. This lady? She started the bike, put it in first, and told me to drive around.

Welcome to Thailand.

Things are a bit different here than in North America. All of the rules of the road are identical, except they drive on the opposite side of the road, but roughly none of them are enforced. Eggs are never refrigerated. And if you order a drink “to go,” chances are that it will be in a plastic bag.

After my little test drive, I came back to the shop for rIAm, who climbed on board. I started going toward the highway, rIAm started screaming “you aren’t practicing anymore?!” We settled on getting across the main road to the gas station.

Gas is sold by the liter here, naturally, and it goes for 25-27 B/liter, or about 74 cents US. That would be about $2.67 per gallon. Not so different from North America, surprisingly. But there is no such thing as self service, and “pay at the pump” means you give your money to the attendant who filled your tank.

With a full tank of gas, rIAm’s hands clenched firmly around my waist, we got back on the highway (think 2-lane country highway with fairly wide shoulders), headed toward our first waterfall of the day. We decided to limit ourselves to the 72km from Phitsanulok to Kaeng Sopha (a purportedly beautiful falls with an area to swim), and to start we’d go all the way to the 72km mark and work our way home at our leisure. One stop, 90 minutes or so, and two sore (numb) butts later, we found ourselves at the turnoff for the falls. Where they wanted 400B each as the foreigner entry fee! Almost $12 per person. Most every place that has an entry fee in Thailand is under 50B. Nowhere else had we encountered such a rip off of foreigners. And every other waterfall, they said, was free.

Since that first day on the motorbike, we have ridden hundreds more kilometers, in Sukothai around ancient ruins and all over Chiang Mai. All I know about motorcycles I’ve pretty much learned in the last week or so. Basically, I know starting the bike, accelerating, shifting gears, stopping, using the turn signals and headlight, and how to lay on the horn. Everybody kind of just does their own thing on the road, and sometimes that means you need to get their attention with the horn. But mostly, I feel safer riding the bike here in Thailand, on the wrong side of the road (as far as I’m concerned), than I would back home. Because here, everybody rides a motorcycle. And most roads have a wide shoulder or a motorcycle lane. And every driver on the road is used to having loads of motorbikes riding around too. So cars pass at will, but do so with a wide berth.

So there we were at marker 72, the heat of the day building, and we still hadn’t seen a waterfall. But we sure as heck weren’t paying as much as we paid for the Grand freakin’ Canyon (and that ticket was good for a week!) at this waterfall. We started back toward town, knowing we weren’t far from the next falls. As we cruised down a big hill, rIAm noticed a cluster of photogenic Buddha houses, so we made a stop. But it was hard to stop going down that hill; I was still learning to ride and we were going at a pretty good clip. We got stopped on the side of the road just before a guard rail (no worries, not that close), and rIAm went up the hill to get her pictures. I stayed with the bike, and worked on turning it around. Unfortunately, it also fell over, and, unbeknown to myself or rIAm, our plastic ziploc bag with the camera case, a spare battery, our Thai phrasebook and our mobile phone fell out. I got the bike back upright, by the side of the road, and rIAm came back to the bike and we were on our way again. Poi Waterfall was only 11 clicks from our first, failed, waterfall visit, and it offered us a scenic stop and a place for a tasty lunch.

Thai people never think a farang can handle spicy food because so many white-skinned tourists come through who, indeed, cannot handle anything spicy. We’re not those people, however. We came to Thailand to eat real Thai food, the way real Thai people would eat it. And despite the occasional craving for western food, or the desire for a break from spicy, we quickly discovered we need to learn a few certain words:

arroy (mak; mak mak) = (very; extremely) delicious
(mai) pet = (not) spicy

The first is obvious. We love food, and we want to express our satisfaction. The second is useful in a few ways. On those occasions we don’t want spicy, we know how to ask for it. But more importantly, we know to listen for those magic words “mai pet,” which inevitably get uttered, no matter how we’ve ordered, and we can intervene. We can get animated and argue and (hopefully) convince the cook to belay that order. That we do want pet — please leave those chiles in the somtam, don’t change the perfect recipe for those noodles, we want it spicy!

After our pleasant visit at Poi Waterfall, we got back on the road and stopped at a wat – temple – that was doing an ordination of new monks. There was a big festival going on, and the ordination was a part of it. We enjoyed the scene, admired the ceremony, and wished we could understand what the heck the head monk doing the sermon was saying. There was a lot of talking, occasional laughter from the crowd, some singing and not quite enough fans to move around the air, heated by the sun and all the bodies in the open-air sermon hall. We had a good dose of the ordination, amused that outside under a tent there were a few people just as content drinking beer and several kids running around with toy plastic guns, purchased from one of the vendors who set up shop outside the temple. Again, we reminded ourselves, we are in Thailand.

It is remarkable to us to see a country that is Buddhist. There are temples everywhere, as well as Buddha images. It is easy to see how this is very different from the dominant western religions with which we are familiar: Christianity (especially Catholic) and Judaism. But the more we visit wats and see religious life here, the more it seems the same. Thais revere Buddha the way Catholics revere Jesus. Instead of amazing frescos or other images of Jesus and the various important characters from the Bible there are gorgeous (and often enormous) Buddhas. Instead of kneeling at a pew, upright, you kneel on the floor and touch your head to the ground. Instead of using the roasary in a particular way, where each bead has a meaning, you may use a rosary to count beads and help you clear your mind for meditation. Basically, even though the God takes a different form, the way people approach their God feels awfully familiar.

Our next stop was Kaeng Song, a somewhat more impressive waterfall. But more importantly, we could also swim at this waterfall. Upstream from the main falls the river is good for swimming in, and nearer the shore there are some very minor “rapids” you can play in. For 40 Baht we rented two innertubes, got a free mat to set down on some rocks, and before you knew it we were in the river playing around. This whole stretch of road is popular with tourists — Thai tourists — and so we were the only white folks playing in the river. And after we went down one particular fun stretch of rapids, we had caught the attention of a few groups of late teen / early 20s Thais. They all wanted to know where we were from, what we liked in Thailand, and whether they could get their picture taken with us. And in explaining where we were from, rIAm always made sure to say that even though I’m American and she’s Canadian, we are husband and wife. Even though she says it never crossed her mind, it kept the girls off of me I tell ya. After playing around for a while, rIAm went to get the camera to get a few shots of me going down the rapids one more time. It had been in her pocket all day, but at the river we just put it in the bag. But now, having to go into the back for the camera, rIAm realized she couldn’t find the phone anywhere. After I came over to help look, we realized that the bag with the phone, phrasebook, etc was missing. But where could it be?

We know we are in Thailand when we can take off our shoes and leave them outside — at a wat, at a home, at an internet cafe in a city — and they are still there when we leave. Even if that is hours later. Here, it isn’t rude or impolite to ask for the toilet; nobody would understand if you asked for a bathroom or restroom anyway. Refrigeration is a fairly new concept here, so most things just sit out. Some things, like fish, are usually on ice. But eggs are never kept cold, and it would never occur to anybody to keep eggs in the fridge anyway. They also never go bad. On a hot day walking in a city, one of the best things is to walk past an ice shop… a storefront where the guy who sells ice has his huge blocks of ice out. This is so good because everything is open air, and that nice cooled air from the ice sure feels good on the feet.

We are now riverside, packing up, frantically trying to think of where the phone could be. When did we first take out the camera? Some debate, until it’s realized we can look at the first picture of the day in the camera. It was at the Buddha houses. OK, but did we take the camera out at the bike shop before we left? We find somebody willing to let us borrow their mobile so we can call the bike shop. We try to explain we want the lady to look for our phone. Unfortunately, those English words are not in the bike shop lady’s vocabulary. Fortunately, the person who lent us the phone understands and communicates for us. No phone at the shop. OK, so we must have taken the phone out at the Buddha houses. The bike fell over! That must be it! The bag fell out when the bike fell, and in wrestling the bike back to the road, I must not have noticed. And since rIAm pretty much just hopped back on the bike, she wouldn’t have noticed. OK, we need to drive back there. From this direction, it would be at a curve right at the end of a guard rail. Off we went.

You can get anything in Thailand, pretty much. We’ve gone into pharmacies for things like mosquito repellent and the miraculous Tiger Balm. But even things that are prescription only in North America are in these pharmacies, no Rx necessary. Want antibiotics, “male enhancement,” or a birth control pack? It will only take you as long to buy it as it takes for the pharmacist to collect your (small amount of) money and hand you the pack. We talked to one older man from Las Vegas who comes to Thailand to have fun, but also to get all of his medicines real cheap. Says its better and cheaper than Canada, and that the current White House occupant has made it too hard to go there anymore anyway. We don’t know his full list of drugs, but it’s a list of heavy hitters for post heart attack patients who have smoked and generally treated their bodies poorly their whole life. And he didn’t need to bring prescriptions with him. Or fork over all that many Baht.

As we race down the road (ok, go 60 km/h) we’re each thinking about what the heck we’ll do if we don’t find this phone. rIAm is feeling horribly. I’m trying to stay rational. But the kilometers aren’t ticking away fast enough. Finally, we reach a familiar curve with a guard rail. Is this it? Maybe not, let’s keep going. Wait! Here’s the Buddha houses. We stop. rIAm gets off the bike to retrace where she walked. I roll down the hill with the bike. And as I approach the guard rail, I see it. The bag! It’s full! Phone, phrasebook, everything is still there. Some shouting, some sort of happy dance, life is ok again!

Now we are headed back to Phitsanulok. There were some rice paddies about 20km from the city that we wanted to see at sunset. Now we’re not sure if we’ll make it since we kind of feel like stopping for dinner. But we press on, and after this day on the bike and at waterfalls, we find ourselves in the midst of a very green field of rice paddies as the sun plunges into the earth. Even as cars whiz by a few meters away, a peacefulness settles over the land. We came on this journey for many reasons, but one of them was to see a rice paddy. And this one was perfect.

I mentioned that we made sure to learn a few food-related words. Well, we really learned more than that. We know some words for noodles, rice, chicken, fish and so on, which makes navigating restaurants a bit easier. We sure put our skills to the test at our dinner stop this night. At a scenic unnamed restaurant along the highway we stopped for dinner.

We tried to express what we liked, but we also wanted to sample some local specialties. Our server, who knew about as much English as we knew Thai, sort of understood. Maybe. Eventually we figured out that she was going to make us some sort of stir fried chicken dish, and something with fish. She served another table some fried rice paddy fish, and asked if that’s what we wanted. rIAm almost said yes, but when I mentioned what they were we nixed the idea; we had them on the farm, and although not gross, they’re not really anything special either. After that, though, we didn’t hear from our server.

Then, the chicken arrived. It was stir fried with cashews in a tasty sauce. Cashews are grown all over Thailand, and are often used in stir fries. It was a very good dish; rIAm rather enjoyed the cashews and I was happy with the chicken. But the real winner was the tord man plaa gai, or fried fish cakes. Oh man, those were good. Served with a spicy-sweet sauce and some bits of cucumber, this dish was fantastic. When the server asked if wanted anything else, I asked for vegetables, she decided they should be stir fried, and rIAm was thankful I had thought of that because the meal was rather light for her otherwise.

Another way to tell you’re in Thailand — or outside of North America or the UK — is that everybody speaks a much simpler English. You drop off extra words, and instead of using many different ways to say a dish tastes good, it’s just delicious or very delicious. Sometimes it sounds funny and often seems wrong, but it’s a lot easier on everybody if you learn to speak in abbreviated ways. So if two things are similar, it’s “same same” or “same like this.” Even when things are different, it might be “same like this, but different.” And when bargaining you may say “give better price,” as you don’t need to add in “me.” It’s hard to explain, it’s even hard to adopt, but slowly we’re getting the hang of the “international English.”

The highlight of the meal though, by far, was communicating with the waitress through a bit of Thai, a bit of English and plenty of gesturing. Particularly, about the name of the fish dish. She said what it was, we nodded our heads, then we forgot what she said. So we asked again, she said it again, and I wrote it down how I thought I heard it. We tried looking in our phrasebook, which has a handy section with foods, organized alphabetically by how they sound in Thai. I couldn’t find this dish. So we had the server say it a few more times, and that’s when rIAm realized it was a “t” sound at the beginning — tord. Sure enough, the book had it, the server’s eyes lit up when she saw that, and we excitedly made sure we could say the name correctly.

That interaction, however small and brief in the scheme of things, is emblematic of our journey. As much as we can plan our weeks, days or hours, in the end we’re in a foreign place. There aren’t always clear signs or easy moves. But if you take the risk, take the chance, get off the beaten path and work at it a bit, the other end is one of the most rewarding feelings.

Before getting home, showering, and crashing for the night, having had a wonderful day, we stopped at a festival. It turned out to be a Thai food festival, basically a Taste of Chicago, Thai style. There were loads of vendors around a bunch of tables and a stage featuring Thai singing and dancing. One of the booths was serving up something familiar. rIAm stopped, pointed, and asked, “tord man plaa gai?”

The two or three Thais in the booth had shocked looks, eyes wide, and smiles from ear to ear. We got it right.