Tales From The Land Of Smiles

Amusing Encounters of the Travelling Kind

In these early weeks of our trip, the character of the people of Thailand is already one of the undoubted highlights. So friendly, always ready to smile, calm, peaceful and considerate, you just can’t imagine any of them ever losing their temper. And several of them seem to fall into the “joker” category. 

One such is a guy working at our residence. His name (not sure of the spelling) is Pass. We can’t help but imagine him on Mastermind….

“And we welcome our first contender. Your name is?”

“Pass”.

Pass is a real joker. On our first day, I placed my arm next to his and told him that we will soon be the same colour. “No way!” he laughed, “me Thai, you farang”. A couple of days later, with my skin, I thought, turning a nice shade of tan, he repeated the action and laughed again. “See!”, he shouted, “me crocodile, you lobster!”.

The lady at a restaurant down the road throws ripe bananas to the monkeys every day. She jokes that the sweetness makes them taste better when she catches one and cooks tom yum monkey for the family. At least, we THINK she’s joking…

Have you ever noticed that the sounds of early morning often give you your memories of a trip? We swapped the city sounds of Bangkok for the birdsong of Kanchanaburi; then swapped that birdsong for the gently rolling waves of Klong Nin shore. Which in turn were swapped one morning for the scuttling of a giant cockroach on our tiled floor. It was so big that for a moment we considered saddling it and offering rides to the children, but decided that maybe that would be exploitative.

Local cats wander in and share the shade of our porch; hungry monkeys boarded our longtail boat and sat on Michaela’s lap; a giant bug lives on the shrub outside our door. Amongst all this nature, it’s the people who are the real stars. Thai people are, so far, beautiful people.

Wildlife

With jungles, mountains and rivers to come on this journey, we anticipate that wildlife spotting will become more and more exciting. Yet it’s already been pretty good despite only so far seeing cities and islands. 

Bird wise, Bangkok is home to countless numbers of zebra doves and the common mynah bird. Koh Lanta has even more mynahs but we haven’t spied a single dove. Egrets, storks, cranes and herons feed throughout the countryside and many types of raptor circle the skies. Notable sightings so far include fish eagle, a Brahimy kite, Chinese pond heron, glossy starling and pied kingfisher. 

Multiple crab species occupy the beach, from tiny white cartwheeling versions to ambling hermit crabs to huge burrowing types with eyes on stalks. Fish of all shapes and sizes are equally plentiful.

Bugs and insects abound, though this is probably the most fly-free part of Asia we have experienced to date.

On Koh Lanta we have seen several large monitor lizards moving in seemingly slow motion, and of course there are troops of monkeys in the trees, hanging around the fringes of restaurants, and climbing aboard the visitor boats. They know where to find dinner.

Language Barriers

We all know how English has become the international communication language, we all regularly hear different nationalities conversing in English as the language of common ground. It makes us English speakers rather lazy when it comes to learning, but, for ourselves, we try and give it a go.

No guide book or phrase book quite prepared us for the Thai style of speech though. No matter what the written phonetics say, every single Thai sentence ever spoken ends in an elongated vowel sound, like for instance “caaaaaa”. If there isn’t one, they add an “aaaaaaa” for good measure. With a smile. It’s very endearing. The word for “hello” is sawasdee, according to our books. It isn’t. It’s either “sawasdeeeeee” or, more often than not, simply “caaaaaaaa”. 

Is it the same laziness which makes us British find it funny when English translations are incorrect? They’re not funny at all, are they. Even when one of the rules on a notice in your room is…

“Please do not have cook in the room”. Well, as it happens, I wasn’t intending to!!

Health and wellbeing 

The massage hut on the beach has been tempting us during our stay here, it’s right next to our hut, and as we sit on our terrace shading from the late afternoon sun we choose…. a full body oil massage for Michaela and head, shoulder and back for Phil. As we lay on our mats under the shade of palm trees, an old fan helps cool us, the sea breeze gently caresses the strings of shells adding to the serenity of this place, the sound of the sea and heavy scent of the oils transport us to a distant place as we luxuriate in the expert touches of these tiny Thai ladies. We lose ourselves. This is indescribably good.

They gently rouse us. It’s been a wonderful hour. For Phil it’s almost like waking from a hypnotic trance, Michaela feels herself walking through ancient underground arches towards a bright light. What exactly happened then? Was that our first spiritual experience?  Who knows…..