Bangkok, Thailand
March 22, 1985

Dear Folks,

Another American traveler pointed out to me that my visa for Thailand was good only for two weeks, not the two months I had thought. Having learned this unexpected detail only the day before the visa was to expire, it was all I could do to catch the next express train out of the country.

Because of one of those bizarre quirks of foreign bureaucracy that I'll never quite learn to appreciate, one could not obtain a visa extension for Thailand in Thailand. Rather, one had to go to another country to obtain a new visa, at one of Thailand's foreign consulates.

On the 36-hour train ride to the quite unMalaysian-sounding town of Butterworth (a vestige of Malaysia's days as a British colony), I discovered, to my pride's relief, that a large part of the packed train was made up of other foreigners likewise hurrying off to Malaysia for Thai visas. Indeed, I learned that the same train was continually rushing dozens of new visa aspirants to the otherwise lonely fishing village of Butterworth. It was to the point anymore that any Westerner who stepped into the Bangkok train station was automatically directed to the ticket window for the southbound express.

Now maybe I was wrong, but I certainly couldn't help wondering if the Thai king's treasury didn't have a veritable genius when it came to figuring out how to make the railroads and foreign consulates pay for themselves. At $20 for each visa, it wasn't too difficult to understand how the consulate in Butterworth (actually in a nearby island city called Georgetown) could be housed in such a magnificent mansion.

Still, his majesty's treasurers were mere amateurs compared to others far more experienced, like the Italians, who could make you smile broadly no matter how many traveler's checks fell prey to your signature. So I decided to let the others do the huffing-1 would settle down and make a point of enjoying what otherwise seemed to be a very special sort of journey.

Sitting in the only real air conditioning of my "air-conditioned coach"-- the breeze blowing over the outside steps at the coach's end--I watched with growing pleasure the tropical scenery whizzing past. Though it was the hottest time of the year in Thailand and far into the dry season, a dark rainstorm swept off the seas to cool things down and make the setting seem all the more a part of some high adventure. As if trapped inside some demonic cyclone, the train sliced through winds that howled in my ears and set my mind to imagining all sorts of intrigue.
What creatures. for instance, might be watching us from the heights of the spectacular limestone monoliths rising like sudden bergs from the jungle? Or, from where did that wonderful scent come? Perhaps from the bright orchids waving at us from the edges of the bamboo hut villages?

How beautiful and proud the tall, lone palms seemed. They were so aloof from the tangle far below their branches. And yet, could not there be pirates plotting on the beaches under those arched trunks? After all, only the day before I'd read in the newspaper that pirates in the seas off Thailand had killed at least 400 people, mostly Vietnam boat refugees, the year before. Certainly there was the possibility of bandits stopping this very train in some remote stretch and robbing all of us by holding long curved knives to our throats. Well...it does happen. More than once I'd read of bandits in the same part of Thailand stopping and robbing the tour buses. Why, only the previous week, the police had found another foreigner's slain body--headless at that!--beside the road I'd be walking along for the next several weeks.

Who knows? This very evening, in the dining car over a glass of wine and a flowery vase, I might meet some enchanting and sophisticated lady. Perhaps, just perhaps, she might even give my heart a good jolt by leaning over the tablecloth and asking softly if I, too, might be heading to a quaint and romantic little place called...Butterworth.

I sighed, leaned back against the top step, and let my thoughts be carried away by the rhythmic clickity-clack of the train over the tracks. Americans, by doing away with the long-distance passenger trains, are missing out on an invaluable opportunity to slow life down just that little extra bit that is so necessary to fully enjoy it. On a train there is more freedom to strike out down the aisle and start up conversations with total strangers. And, in a setting like the dining car, who can help but come away with some good memories?

Oh, to be sure, not all cross-country train rides are a joy. In Morocco the train I took from my month-long stay with the Jaquiths in Marrakech back up to Rabat, the starting point of my North Africa trek, was like a scene from an exaggerated disaster film. From the way the train station's mob in Marrakech rushed the incoming train even before it stopped--most screaming hysterically and shoving everything from babies to suitcases to wives through the open windows--one would have thought that that Sahara Desert city was about to join Pompeii and Mount St. Helens in the annals of great catastrophes! Stepping off that train after spending a bitter cold night squeezed between snoring soldiers was probably one of the highest moments of my life, although I crashed to earth quite abruptly when I found I was missing a pair of new shoes and my food.

But, good or bad, one thing is sure to come out of any long train ride ... stories.

After all, where do you think this one came from?

Steven

Posted by Steven Newman at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bangkok, Thailand
March 8, 1985

Dear Folks,

The thick Bangkok traffic rolled up to the red light. Engines roared impatiently. Drivers stared intently through swirling fumes like racers on some colossal drag strip.

Along the edges of the six lanes of asphalt jostled another jam of humanity. Dressed mostly in American-styled jeans and T-shirts, the mob pulsated to the comings and goings of overloaded buses and over-amplified American rock music. Though hardly a lip knew a word of English, many a chest displayed such messages as Pittsburgh Steelers, Laurel High School Wildcats," or--as one unknowing boy's did--such faddish cliches as Cute Girl.

Red--

Yellow--

Green--

Vrooooom! The race was on again!

Lurching and darting, the "racers" zipped along their tracks of concrete or asphalt to wherever it is that crowds are always scurrying. While some of those encased in the sleek Japanese steel and chrome bumbers of their cars might eventually somehow find a familiar garage or parking space, many of those on foot spun off into lush, multi-storied malls to be surprised by the latest punk designer fashions and bleeping, blooping computers. Yet others sped on tirelessly, peeling away from the pack only to replenish their stomachs with Big Macs, Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W root beers, Dairy Queen banana splits, Shakey's pizzas, or, as one pit crew's sign simply put it, American Fast Food, Hot Hamburgers, Served With No Waiting.

Designer jeans, knobby cassette players, wide-striped running shoes--anything and everything in a department store manager's wildest dreams--rushed past me at dizzying speeds. I stumbled backwards, as feverish from culture shock as from the Thai summer heat. From the open door of a fancy discotheque came the sounds of Hank Williams' hit Cheatin' Heart, while the giant figures of Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds stared down at me from a marquee.

Dumbfounded and soaked, I collapsed onto a lawn chair beneath an umbrella of Civil War flags. Why hadn't anyone told me America now had 51 states? Was this what the travel posters had meant when they had exclaimed, "Thailand--Asia's most exotic country!"?

"Drink, sir?" purred a waitress straight off the cover of Cosmopolitanmagazine.

I couldn't answer, at least not verbally: my eyes were pressing too tightly against my upper lip. On her tray, glaring at me like some haunting specter of a long forgotten past, was a glistening longnecked bottle of Budweiser beer.

"Maybe you like watch American football?" she asked. Then, pausing as if she was waiting for my eyes to plunk into my lap, she added: "Today, inside on big screen, we have Super Bowl."

Super ... Bowl?--The Super Bowl? In Pakistan and India hardly anyone had ever heard of such. But now, in a land I had expected to be the most primitive yet, I was being offered the most sacred of all American spectacles as casually as I might have been offered a cup of coffee in a Park Avenue eatery.

"Ma'am, is this really Thailand?" I wanted to ask.

What I had forgotten to take into account were the effects on the Thai society of a recent bit of history known as the Vietnam War. Though probably not well known by most Americans, Thailand was a major part of our military's logistics. Separated from the long length of Vietnam by only Laos in the North and Cambodia in the South, the ancient Buddhist kingdom, formerly known as Siam, was a strategic place to put bomber bases and supply depots and to provide recreation for battle-weary soldiers.

Thailand is still an extremely popular "R&R" spot for the U.S. Pacific and Indian Ocean naval fleets. As such, the Thais have been subjected to a continuous influx of Western culture not known by most Third World nations. Like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, Thailand has taken eagerly to the overwhelming American culture. Unlike India and most of the Muslim countries I have walked across, the government here has not gone to any great trouble to stem Western materialism or influence. To the contrary, the Thais have taken to both the good and the bad of American culture with a fervor that makes most of their Asian counterparts seem mild by comparison.

The more I explored Bangkok, the more that question I had wanted to ask the waitress kept creeping to my lips. As I roamed the interiors of what seemed innumerable new malls, department stores, jewelry shops, banks, and hotel/restaurant complexes, I was amazed to find a contemporary architecture and luxuriousness that often rivaled anything in the very heart of Los Angeles.

Unquestionably the Thais' willingness to take Americans to their hearts and tills had brought them wealth that otherwise would have been unimaginable. Instead of the largely poor, chaotic, and backward society I had expected in Thailand, I was surrounded by perhaps the most modern, efficiently run, monied society I'd seen outside of Europe.

Nowhere outside of my own country--not even in London or Rome or Athens--had I seen such a concentration of consumer and luxury goods from all over the world, particularly from the USA and Japan. It was almost as if those two economic behemoths had found in Thailand a perfect arena in which to do battle for the consumers' bank accounts. Without a doubt, Bangkok was the "great shopping paradise" of which I'd always heard, but had never really found.

With the prices for luxury and electronic items reputedly being some of the very lowest in the world, Bangkok was filled with Europeans and Americans scurrying about exercising their credit cards. With their arms loaded down with everything from fake Rolex watches to alligator-emblemed country club polo shirts to fake gaudily-carved elephant tusks that would inevitably end up in an attic, these red-faced shoppers seemed to have an awful lot of "friends" back home needing presents. At the main post office, which conveniently had an entire department set aside solely for the rapid fire packaging and mailing of tourist purchases, the Western shoppers could hardly stand to take the time to scribble down their mailing addresses before rushing off again to load up on more 24-hour-made silk suits and whatever
.
For the serious shopper, Bangkok was a dream come true. From sapphires to Mercedes, they were there--and cheap, very cheap. To many Germans and Americans I talked with, flying to Bangkok to do several days' of shopping and bargaining (an accepted and expected part of any purchase) was as ordinary to them as it might have been for me to hop in my Jeep back home and drive to the closest shopping center.

Steven

Posted by Steven Newman at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)