Disclaimers:
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Not everything written here has got any particular significance to the places I visited in Thailand as such. Some are just my experiences, which could have happened to me elsewhere too. But that it has happened here, is why it is here.
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At places, I may be seen generalizing, so don’t fall into my ignorant, lazy conclusions. I may be right, but I might as well be wrong. How much can a person, who has stayed just for a week in a land, speak of it, with any degree of certainty!
That said, let me begin.
Day 5, Krabi
Mornings are emphatically empty in Thailand (First of my many generalizations, I suppose). I get out and hit the street at 7 in the morning. I can’t find the cup of tea that I’m craving; and the morning is already incomplete.
I saunter along the empty street and head into an open cafe. It’s all empty: the chairs, the counter, the snooker table and everything around. It must have been open all night and hence will sleep the morning, and perhaps all the way to the evening. I look around, pull a chair to sit, overlooking the sea.
The waves are hitting the shore, and there is breeze accompanying it. I’m staring at the horizon, trying to make this a perfect morning. But it isn’t one, and like many other mornings, this is just another morning, not the perfect one that we want it to be. I remind myself to stop romanticizing and accept the imperfection.
Lying on the shore is a plastic bottle. On the entire stretch, I can only see one. But one is no less. With every attempt, waves are closing in inch by inch. And slowly they come in and finally consume the trash. Never have I seen poison being consumed so gracefully, and eloquently.
The poison is slow. It will one day kill the sea, and us. No one is to be spared.
After a while, I leave the place and walk along the stretch of the street. I reach the interlocked pathway with a handful of seats, and trees planted equidistantly. Overnight rain has resulted in small puddles of water being formed in patches. And the little sparrows are hovering around these patches and hopping across the boughs of the trees.
One sparrow among them, lands at the puddle and rubs its feathers in the water. It stops for a while and continues to rub vehemently. It repeats and then flies off to a drier place and ruffles its feathers so as to brush off the water. This cycle of wetting its feathers first and drying it up next is repeated several times.
And for some time, I was lost in its world. It was such a wonderful sight that it made my morning.
Day 7, Bangkok
Hot sunny day, 10 am in the morning. I’m waiting at the bus stop for the airport bus. Apart from the cars and bikes on the road, there isn’t a lot happening. Almost all the shops are closed, and there are hardly any people walking on the street.
Next to the bus stop, a small shop with some cookies, chocolates and cool drinks, is open. I enter the shop to get myself a drink. An old man is sitting inside, with his dog. He doesn’t speak a word, hardly moves an inch more than needed to give the drink that I had asked for.
Silence had made its home here.
A long street sans people, empty shops, a pathway full of trees, a bus stop, hot sun, pleasant shade, a small shop and an old man with his dog; it is a beautiful image. Try picturing it. I can’t do justice to it with my words. If I were good at painting, I would have given it a try. But I’m not. So, I’m labouring and writing an image, not capturing it, just recording, as a reference.
Day 6, Tiger caves
We had to leave by 5 to catch the flight to Bangkok. Tiger caves was our last destination for the day. We still had close to 3 hours to spend at the place, and there was nothing much to do, apart from a summit to climb, if interested, on top of which Buddha stood.
No one seemed interested, including myself as I very hesitantly started to climb. It had 1260 stairs, and the ascent was steep. After climbing 200 odd steps, I said to myself - let me complete the hike.
By the time I reached the top, I was drenched in sweat. I like it when I sweat. I get a strange sort of pleasure out of it, especially when the whole of my shirt is plastered to my skin with sweat. So, what is so special about sweating profusely?
When you sweat from head to toe, the whole of your body is breathing, the whole of it is living. Every cell is inhaling and exhaling, celebrating its life. All it needs is an opportunity to express itself. And all you need to do is to make up your mind, for your body to live its life. So, when you run your body functions just like any other machine, and sweats, I see it as the unification of body and mind. The roots of my pleasure lie here, I suppose.
Let me now touch base upon a bit of Thailand I witnessed.
Ours was mainly an island tour, from Phuket to James Bond island to Phi Phi to Krabi. Bangkok was only our last pit stop. Since I had to leave early, I got little time in Bangkok. Needless to say, the maximum time I spent in Bangkok was at the airport!
All the places we visited were kept extremely clean, all the roads that we travelled across were wide enough and were very well maintained. Everything around looked lush green, couple of showers also helped the cause. The sea shores and the beaches we visited didn’t leave us with any room to complain with regards to cleanliness.
All this in itself was very refreshing!
As we were hopping from one island to the other, most of our time was spent either in ferries or long tail boats. The rest of the time we were either floating on the sea waters with our life jackets or snorkelling and peeping into the life under water or sauntering around the beaches.
Snorkelling was something very new to me and one which I enjoyed. The sea water at places was crystal clear and we could see through the water: the fishes, urchins and corals. At night, we also got a peek into the shining plankton.
The colors beneath the water are different from that of the ones above it!
Not once on our tour, did we have to wait for the taxi or the ferry or the boat. All that was booked was on time. This level of promptness took us by surprise. Thailand takes its tourism very seriously. The travel agencies, the taxi drivers, the boatmen are very prompt, from what we experienced.
Let me pause for a moment.
What is extremely clean or very prompt or very honest? What is clean is clean, promptness is promptness, honesty is honesty and truth is truth. When you add an adjective to these basic qualities, something is intrinsically wrong. Isn’t it?
We are so much used to uncleanliness that when we see something clean, we jump the gun to say extremely clean. When a taxi arrives on time, to which we are not used to, we label it as very prompt, when it is just being prompt. We face up to so many lies around that when we happen to hear the truth, we brand it very truthful, in essence though, there is only either truth or false.
Off to Phi Phi island. Meet the boatman.
It’s off season, so the boatman is pretty relaxed and has got nothing much to do, and he keeps himself busy by checking out the ladies visiting the beach. When asked if he goes out of Phi Phi anytime, only once or twice a year, he says lethargically. Phi Phi is beautiful, and all the beautiful ladies of the world come to Phi Phi, so why should I want to go out, he asks, as he bursts into laughter.
Looking at the boatman, one is convinced that he is happy with where he is. He wears that expression of - “God couldn’t have been more kind to me”. Ahh…the Life in the islands…!
The night life in Thailand…
In Phuket, the most happening street at night, is the Bangla street. It is a sin to enter the street without a beer in hand, one which we already committed. And if that wasn’t enough we took no shame in it. Laughing and joking at ourselves we walk along. In the whole of that street, we were the complete missfits. But little did it matter to us.
Like shirts put on hangers in a shopping mall, girls line up on top of the table, making their moves. The girls, boys and ladyboys throng the place, making all sorts of gestures and noise. It is more than just a party street, and pretty much everything you imagine happening, happens here!
We walked the entire stretch of the street and as if that didn’t make us feel stupid enough, we took the same route back, just to see how it feels like to be more stupid.
On our way back, we collected some litchis and rambutans (no whiskies or rums, just some fruits), and had them at our rooms, just to make such a night worse if it already wasn’t! But I must say, the litchis were really great - none argued.
Look, we’re passing a judgement on the taste of a litchi fruit after returning from the Bangla street. By now you must have concluded that we are indeed a special bunch of species! And, I firmly stand with you.
Earlier in the evening, we visited a couple of Buddhist temples, and on the way back I sat next to the tuk tuk driver. I knew nothing of Thai and he knew very little English. So, our conversations had minimal words, and between those words was a long pause.
Apart from driving his auto, he was also a part-time Thai Boxing trainer. So, he himself trained his four-year-old kid. He then went on to show me a couple of video clips of him training his kid.
To a random tourist guy, a father is showing a video of his kid boxing - in that very moment, with a stranger, I felt the warmth of togetherness. We shared a space common to both.
It doesn’t matter where we live, what language we speak, as long as we understand that we all live under the same umbrella of humanity and brotherhood.
