Our first day in Bangkok was pure tourist bliss. We ate pork cracklings and green mango at the house, and then saw some wats – Buddhist temples. Wat Arun was a big favorite with us, as we got to climb up a step stone stair with a rope-wrapped handhold to a high platform on the central tower, and view the beauty of the recycled mosaic work up close, while simultaneously looking down on the city, the river, the boats and the flags. It was so gorgeous. We felt so happy to be there with the Silamander.
Our second day was also very fun, but put me in a more pensive frame of mind. After a long discussion of personal logistics, the kind which plague all couples, the Professor and I went to Chatuchak (sp?) Market, a giant crazy warren of indoor and outdoor stalls in which we thoroughly enjoyed eating fried dough, fruit drinks and an assortment of meat on sticks, but whose actual shopping experience I found overwhelming. We did save ourselves heartache by skipping the pet section, though we saw a lot of great clothes for dogs!
Then we went to the home of the Expat Teachers! We hadn’t seen them in 10 years, and they haven’t changed a bit. They are as gorgeous, warm and wonderful as ever, and now each has a funny, active little mini-me who could make any parent proud. They have a life many teachers would envy, with a beautiful home in a green, pretty compound; nannies who love the children and make the teachers’ professional lives far easier than they are for juggling American-type parents; and students who are so respectful, some of them bow and thank their teachers after class.
Our friends enjoy their life. Yet, thoughtful people that they are, they think about the issues of their adopted country. The environment looms large; Thailand was 70 percent forest in the 1970s, now at 17 percent. The furniture stores responsible, Ethan Allen, Pottery Barn and the like, all have stores in downtown Bangkok. And like a lot of environmental stories, this one is complicated – Thailand was barely affected by the recent recessions, and the nation is both prosperous and cheap – partly due, no doubt, to this cash-in on the natural resources. And the nation is now the rice basket of the region, with farms where all those forests used to be.
Right behind their home is a clearcut rectangle of bare dirt. It used to be a patch of forest, and was home to Burmese pythons. It’s an example of the ugly but prosperous boom going on all around us.
So we went to dinner, and escaped from all that at a beautiful, old, teak open air restaurant on the river, watching the sun set and dye the river pink and gold and aquamarine. a hammock swung under a tin roof next door. We ate delicious crab curry, and somtam with crispy catfish, and tofu rounds that exploded in the mouth like luscious goat cheese. We made plans to hike at a national park later in the week.
We missed the boat home, but a lady gave me some bread on the pier, and I fed the writhing mass of catfish just below us.
Since then, I have been thinking a lot about our role as tourists here, what I can learn that will make this trip more than just a holiday, what I can offer in return. I don’t have a lot of answers yet, but The Professor and I have talked and a few things seem clear:
– We are viewing a region in the midst of rapid change, and we’ll be getting a snapshot of history. It’s fine to want to view things timeless, but labeling those as the only authentic things… Is inauthentic and untrue to the reality of life here. staying where we are in a resident section of the city, we are already off the tourist path – the interactions we are having are real, if not full of simple beauty that travelers idealize.
– This place is so affected by the Vietnam War and so many other exercises of Western powers. it’s the first time I’ve been to a region powerfully impacted by colonialism, and I am going to be processing for a while!
– The Private Eye
The Professor and the Private Eye: Adventures Abroad 