TASHY TRAVELS

Every Sunday, I am going to upload a post about the different countries I have visited and/or lived in since 2002.

I can assure you of some interesting stories.

THAILAND - PART TWO

Next, we left the luxury we had been given in Bangkok for a brief tour of Northern Thailand organised by our sponsors. I was quite happy to get out of Bangkok and see more of the real Thailand. Sadly, from quite early on, that was not all I saw more of. I saw an awful lot more of the toilet compartment on the coach and rather too much more of the sushi I had eaten last night. To put it bluntly, I was pretty ill. To put it very bluntly, forget the pretty; I was ill. Anyone reading this who really knows me, there may one or two who actually do, will know I don’t do ill. And when it is forced upon me, I am not great company. It isn’t the illness that gets to me; it is the fact that I can’t do what I want, the fact that I am losing a few hours out of my life.

A little bit like my Australian surfing experience and dizziness, by the time we arrived at our hotel, I had convinced my little body, and I think it was quite a lot littler by then, that it was now OK. The most worrying part of our journey was not on the coach, where, as I said, there was a toilet, but on the boat which took us up the River Kwai to our accommodation. There was no toilet. But I survived and soon knew that it had been well worth it.

During this little excursion up north, we would spend one night on the famous floating raft hotel near Kanchanaburi on the River Kwai. It was truly amazing. The hotel is a series of rafts linked together at the side of the river. In a way, it’s a bit like being on a train, as you walk from one end of the hotel to the other. It was opened in 1976 and sits in a tropical rain forest with a mountain range as your backdrop. The boat we came in on, tied up at the side of the hotel, we alighted and were walked to our room.

There was no electricity, the windows in your room open onto the river and we had a small balcony where we could sit. The peace was total. Sometimes in life, something really does hit you as being beautiful, amazing or even just surprising. This did all three. I loved it and my illness seemed to fade away.

Later that night, we went along the rafts till we reached the dining room. Everywhere was lit by lanterns. I wish I had a picture but, sadly, I have nothing and mere words cannot do the whole experience justice. I haven’t said this before, I may say it again sometime, but, if you need a list of places to visit before you die, this is one of them. Go there, or even if you fail in that simple request, look it up on google. Remember, I won’t, because I am intent on only telling you what I remember not what I can now find out.

After the meal we were taken back along the rafts to a small theatre. Here, we were treated to a dance show by the local villagers. Lots of the dancers in the performance were kids, some from the nearby Mon village, which I will tell you all about later in this piece. The main dancer, a young boy, had the most amazingly supple movements and, while much of it was as I expected Asian dance to be, surprisingly some of the movements done by the little boy seemed quite similar to break dance. With one of those strange quirks that seem to populate my life, I do have a photo taken in the theatre. How? Why? I have no idea but when you have been through as many weird events as I have in the last 15 years, nothing is really a surprise.

Night on the floating raft hotel was just wonderful. We had 3 windows wide open, heard the water splashing below us and the gentle movement of the rafts easily put you to sleep.

I promised to tell you about the local villagers near our hotel. If you walked to the very end raft, there was a rickety wooden plank running down to a small beach. This took you into a settlement where some of the hotel workers lived. Unlike the manager of the hotel, who was Thai, these people were from the Mon tribe who, originally had lived in Burma. Some of them had run away to Thailand where they were allowed to settle in some parts of the country and to preserve their own culture. We left to check out the settlement shortly after we arrived, before dark fell.

The life in the village was amazing. It was such a peaceful existence and, of course, the surrounding countryside only added to the beauty. Though these people obviously welcomed tourists, and were prepared to benefit from them, you didn’t get the impression that tourism really mattered to them. It was fantastic to realize we were walking through a real tribal settlement. This is what travelling is all about.

We found our way to the schoolhouse and an old man was teaching about 12 kids a tribal dance. First he showed them, then he instructed. All the kids were laughing and having fun but still learning. The teacher pulled them into position and even kicked one young girl on the bottom when she got something wrong. She laughed, he laughed and she danced it again and got it right. I know we have to protect our children from some people, who may abuse them. And I know, from my experience, there are some people who teach or coach children who do not understand the barriers of a relationship. But that between this old guy and these kids was so interesting. In Europe, certainly in England, we have reached a stage where pupils and teachers cannot really interact and I think it is sad. This teacher was not harming the pupils in any way and they responded so well to him and were obviously having fun. In England, it sometimes seems, you can’t even share a joke in case you are told off for insulting the pupil.

Digressing again, I was, back in 1990’s, teaching a group of 17 year olds. Essentially I didn’t treat them as anything other than an equal as a person. On one occasion, an inspector came to appraise my performance. Part of our lesson was a bit of note-taking which anyone in their right mind must find boring. Nevertheless it had to be done. One young lady seemed a bit reluctant with her note taking so I pointed out to her that I had personally checked her pen, it wasn’t a grenade, and she could click it and use it. ‘Pick a window, Richard’, she said, ‘you’re leaving’. Now I hadn’t heard this phrase before, so I laughed, the others laughed and she laughed. Two minutes later we were back note-taking, the young lady included.

After the lesson closed the inspector told me I should never let trainees talk to me like that. I asked why. ‘You lose respect, you must always be in control’. I pointed out that I had been in control and, as I had been sarcastic telling her off, I felt she had every right to respond in such a way. I asked him if he noted any malice in her remark. ‘That doesn’t matter’, he said. He admitted that they had all then gone back to taking notes and overall he felt, except that one blemish, I had done well. By then, his opinion didn’t interest me. As he went to leave, I asked if he had ever taught 17 year olds. ‘No’, he said ‘but teaching is teaching. I considered her remark a direct threat to you’. At that point I gave up. Teachers need to have a rapport with their pupils and being a dictator isn’t the way to do it. Of course you must be in control, ultimately, but a 17-year-old trying to use adult humour should not be disciplined. Manipulation is not a dirty word. Anyway the room had no windows so I’m sure it was a joke.

But, back in Thailand, or maybe Monland, all was fun. We found another class and here the kids were all running around and chatting. School had finished for the day. We noticed that most of the kids had face paint of some sort, almost like a tattoo. Sadly we couldn’t find anyone to explain this and we were running out of time before we had to return to dinner. The kids were fascinated by the camera and wanted to show off some pictures they had been drawing. It made me realise that art and music are a great way of linking cultures, a universal method of expression which can cross any language barrier.

So, while I was standing, taking pictures and wondering about these kids and their face paint, they had found something in another culture that fascinated them. My girlfriend had a tongue ring and as she talked to them, they spotted this. Time after time they would indicate that she should stick her tongue out so they could see this. It certainly stopped her talking for a bit. We had two totally diverse cultures, and two different generations, each trying to understand the other’s culture. Painted faces and tongue rings, linking people together. Weird

We then set off back to the gangplank and on the way saw some older boys playing football. The field had goals at each end and in one of the goals was………………. a cow. Chewing what little grass there was and completely ignoring the boys. At first I thought it was Sepp Mooer (sorry) but I was wrong. I also noticed that, despite there being no electricity in the hotel, there were a few TV’s in the village. Some other kids were sitting on a fallen tree and we tried to speak to them but they either didn’t, or wouldn’t admit that they could, speak English. So I just talked to them while they sat. Bit of a Mon-a-log really

In the morning we returned to the village, they didn’t understand my joke so they welcomed me back, and went to the school again. In a complete change, and in a place of obvious poverty, we found all, and I mean all, the pupils in school uniform. They all wore white shirts and red skirts (yes the boys as well) and were happily singing, waiting for their teacher. They still had the painted faces.

I suppose more than one night in paradise is greedy so, after that extra visit to the Mon village, we climbed into the boat and took the river trip back to where we had left the coach. Then, it was more hours on the road. This time I spent the whole journey in my seat, never once visiting the toilet compartment.

We drove to view the bridge over the River Kwai. The historical story is that in October 1942, according to my notes, the Japanese decided to build a bridge across the River Kwai as part of a railway line from Thailand to Burma. The eventual destination was India but, luckily, the Japanese never made it that far. The line was 400 kilometres long and it was finished in August 1943. The aim was to take 3,000 tons of goods and supplies across the country. In order to construct the railway, and the bridge, the Japanese made use of allied prisoners-of-war; and I use ‘made use of’ deliberately. The bridge that now spans the river is not the original. That was bombed in 1944 and subsequently rebuilt. The curved sections were original, the centre sections are new. Part of the original centre section is now is the museum that is close-by. Get in the right position and you can take a picture of the original bridge with the new, still working bridge, in the background. Each day, so we were told, a train runs along this line following the original route.

The museum also has static depictions of the sort of conditions that the prisoners-of-war had to endure. There are many photos as well. It has become a tourist attraction. The bridge itself became famous because of a French novel, written in 1952, and a subsequent film of 1957. The film story was fictional but won universal acclaim and, of course, made the bridge famous although I think I am right in saying the film was made somewhere else in Asia, so my notes say but sadly not where. I had a personal interest as a brother of one of my uncle’s was captured and worked on this railway. The prisoners, who were mainly British, Australian and Dutch, were held in prison camps and often had to march kilometres each day to work and then return at night. Their food rations were meagre, their treatment inhuman.

Nearby, at Kanchanaburi cemetery, there are the graves of nearly 7,000 men who died in the construction of the railway, which became known, not surprisingly, as the Death Railway. It is something like this that, for me, always answers the question, what point is history. I defy anyone, with an ounce of compassion for their fellow humans, not to be moved by this and not to see the futility of war. It solves nothing, it destroys everything. There are no winners. We need, as humans, to see what has been done before to understand we must never allow it again. I believe that knowledge of our past, our mistakes, our successes, is essential for our future. In the same way that I don’t think the car designers of today would be where they are without knowing, are at least using the knowledge of, what Mr Benz and Mr Daimler did all those years ago, the same applies to life. I am not saying that politicians won’t make the same mistakes over and over again, either through greed or stupidity, but if we, the ordinary man and woman, have these reminders, then maybe we might, might, if democracy really does exist, vote out these idiots. November 2, 2004, wasn’t the day when I felt my hopes had much chance of succeeding. In all, it is reckoned that 120,000 people died in the making of the railway and we view that as horrific. Apart from prisoners of war, the rest were civilians from Thailand, Hong Kong and Burma.

Slightly breaking one of my rules, I have just googled deaths in Iraq since the 2003 invasion as it has nothing to do with remembering my travels. The answer, according to Associated Press figures, about 110,000 up to 2009 and I view that as horrific.

Enough of my philosophical rambling; for now. We left the River Kwai and drove on through coconut plantations, waterfalls, until we reached a place called The Rose Garden just outside Bangkok. Here we saw a show of traditional Thai dance and Thai boxing. Thai dancing relies very much on hand movements and, indeed, finger movements. I think they could all make good cricket umpires. Perhaps Billy Bowden used to be a Thai dancer, who knows? As for the boxing, don’t even attempt to get me started on that. I think I just made my point about any form of violence so, any ‘sport’ where such an action is the sole purpose, is not for me.

We then went to see a performance of elephants and this time, I have mixed feelings. We had already been to a place where you could put money in the elephant’s trunk and they would take it to a stall and buy bananas. You could also then go on an elephant ride through the jungle and down the river. My thoughts on animals in captivity, and then training these animals, are where I am still in limbo. If the animals are properly cared for, and this is the real crux, I cannot condone this as cruel. Training an animal, in itself, is not cruelty or, if you believe it is, then we should not be allowed pet dogs and the equestrian section of the Olympic games would be viewed as cruelty too. In the wild, elephants can be shot for their ivory, illegal but it stops no one, and killed by other creatures. This makes a cared-for existence in captivity seem a better option. But, in doing that, we are interfering with nature, something we do all the time these days anyway so I suppose, what does it matter? I don’t know, I have an open mind, which has not been interfered with by anything unnatural.

At the Rose Garden we could feed the elephants. They had been trained to dance and perform and they were, without a doubt, a tourist attraction. It proved, if proof were needed, that elephants can learn to perform. There was also a part of the show where we were shown how the elephants were put to work in the past. Using elephants for work now is not allowed, as they are a protected species in Thailand and if you want to keep, or even breed them, you need to get special permission.

We then headed down south.

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