Officially, a Thai tattoo is a battlescar. A big patch of seared flesh somewhere along the calf where an unwary motorbike rider got too close to the exhaust pipe. Some people get burned badly enough to go to the hospital, although I'm not sure which would be worse - an open wound or a trip to the emergency room at Phuket General. Either way, whether it's a crusted over scar or a fresh white patch of gauze, you see a lot of Thai tattoos on Phuket Island. I think about this as we speed along the main highway at a whopping 60 km per hour. Not so much when you think of it in mph... why does it seem so fast? Could it be the bare legs sticking out of my shorts, tempting the pavement to reach up and scrape at me? Could it be the mad traffic that honks and brakes and swerves all around us in a barely controlled chaos? Pulls out into traffic right in front of us without looking? Logan has a lot of time on motorcycles... I keep telling myself that, but still... visions of skulls bouncing around the highway, ricocheting between trucks and tuk-tuks like pinballs, horns honking wildly and lights flashing when they get a hit. There's a helmet under the seat but it would be next to useless if I actually needed it and god knows how many other sweaty heads it's been strapped to since the last time it was cleaned. They do clean those things, don't they?
I put these thoughts out of my mind and instead enjoy the wind blowing through my hair, a welcome if artificial breeze on a hot, sticky afternoon.
We rode out in the morning to check out the waterfall. It seemed like a good enough destination. As it turned out, a destination was all it was... of course, the dry season isn't the best time to see a waterfall. We knew that.
No matter, on the way we stopped and had a look at an elephant trekking service. One handler got a kick out of letting his elephant go and watching our faces as it thumped by us untied. It was more interested in its food pile than in us, but just before I left Vietnam Mr. Vong had been telling me how more people are trampled to death by elephants than ever die from tiger attacks. I'd also heard a harrowing elephant story from Trish Bruegger not so long ago after she got back from a safari. This elephant seemed pretty docile, though. We watched it ignore us, then got back on the bike and rode on past groves of rubber trees.
Next we came to the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project, a sanctuary for previously captive gibbons deep in the center of Phuket island. The goal is to eventually release all of the gibbons who come here into the wild, but first they have to be taught how to survive - gibbon coping skills. Many of them have been abused, though, some so badly that they will probably never learn to play well with others in the wild. It's a sad place, and at the same time an optimistic one.
We keep going on foot from there til we find the dry season remnants of what is probably, at some point in the year, a reasonably impressive waterfall. Logan scrambles around it a bit, but today is more about the journey than the destination. Somewhere along the way I got a good picture of him putting gas in the bike from one of the soda-bottle style gas pumps along the roadside. No meter, but the inverted bottle is calibrated... you tell the attendant how many liters you want and they turn off the spigot when it gets to the appropriate line.
The ride back is occasionally terrifying but uneventful, and we both walk away unscarred by the famed Thai tattoo. I did get my own equivalent of one, though. Not a scar from a hot tailpipe, but a purple stain on one of the few pieces of clothing I brought with me for this segment of my trip, courtesy of a little old fruit lady on Phi Phi Don.
On one level, most Asian cultures share certain broad characteristics just like most European ones do. But just as in Europe, the similarities quickly disappear when you start traveling from one country to the next. Thai people, I've discovered, are as different from Vietnamese as Germans are from Italians. Which is a good thing... to me, at least, since one of the things I love most about traveling is the endless number of opportunities for confusion, misunderstanding and, hopefully, eventually figuring things out. Things don't always go the way you'd like them to, but if everything went smoothly, travel would soon get boring.
One of the striking things about Vietnamese people is how happy they are. Excitable even... I love their enthusiasm. They work hard, all day long in many cases, and often six or seven days a week. Many work in family shops where they actually live in a back room or upstairs apartment, so the lines between work time and not-work time are easily blurred. They are super industrious and get a lot done, but they always seem to have time to stop and talk, laugh, sip milk out of a cool coconut, rescue a lost tourist... they find foreigners fascinating and even the shy ones will sometimes plop themselves down next to a tourist on a park bench or at a cafe and ask if you have time to talk. “I am Hien. Can I speak English with you?”
Maybe the novelty of having foreigners around has just worn off here, but Thai people don't seem to be like that. Not the Thai people I've met along the Andaman coast, at least. I haven't been anywhere else yet. They'll bring your food and walk away quietly without so much as a twitch of the lip, without even making eye contact. A Vietnamese will stare right at you with a curious face and a big friendly smile - do you want to talk? - until you acknowledge him with a smile and a few words in return.
They also don't seem to have the same attitude toward food here. In Vietnam, fresh is everything. A skewer of grilled meat is handed to you right off the coals, still dripping with roasting meat juices. The beef in your morning pho soup is shaved off a raw slab of cow right into a steaming bowl of broth and continues to cook right before your eyes once delivered to your table. I didn't realize that was intentional the first time I noticed it... I kept plunging the red bits out of the way until I couldn't find them anymore and I realized “oh I get it, they’re cooking.” The guys who sell coconuts to rush hour commuters always have a large pile of pre-opened ones with straws in place ready to go for those who barely have time to toss over a 2000 dong coin before moving along, but if you're not in a hurry they'd rather hack open a fresh one for you instead. The lady who sells me a pineapple every day when I get off the bus in Truong Tchin neighorhood has a huge stack of pre-peeled fruits, and if I specifically point to those that's what she gives me. But if I just say "I’d like one pineapple, please," she'll pull out her knife and carve me a fresh one. That's just the way they are in Vietnam. Not so here. At least not this lady.
Huong introduced me to Asian plums a few weeks ago. They're not like Western plums... they're red and crunchy, shaped more like a narrow apple and with the crunchiness of a crisp pear. Very refreshing, and on a hot sweaty day on Ko Phi Phi Don island they look like exactly what I want... a fresh, crunchy, slightly sweet Asian plum. I walk over to an old lady at a fruit stand. "Hello, how much are these?" I ask, pointing to the stack of plums.
I put these thoughts out of my mind and instead enjoy the wind blowing through my hair, a welcome if artificial breeze on a hot, sticky afternoon.
We rode out in the morning to check out the waterfall. It seemed like a good enough destination. As it turned out, a destination was all it was... of course, the dry season isn't the best time to see a waterfall. We knew that.
No matter, on the way we stopped and had a look at an elephant trekking service. One handler got a kick out of letting his elephant go and watching our faces as it thumped by us untied. It was more interested in its food pile than in us, but just before I left Vietnam Mr. Vong had been telling me how more people are trampled to death by elephants than ever die from tiger attacks. I'd also heard a harrowing elephant story from Trish Bruegger not so long ago after she got back from a safari. This elephant seemed pretty docile, though. We watched it ignore us, then got back on the bike and rode on past groves of rubber trees.
Next we came to the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project, a sanctuary for previously captive gibbons deep in the center of Phuket island. The goal is to eventually release all of the gibbons who come here into the wild, but first they have to be taught how to survive - gibbon coping skills. Many of them have been abused, though, some so badly that they will probably never learn to play well with others in the wild. It's a sad place, and at the same time an optimistic one.
We keep going on foot from there til we find the dry season remnants of what is probably, at some point in the year, a reasonably impressive waterfall. Logan scrambles around it a bit, but today is more about the journey than the destination. Somewhere along the way I got a good picture of him putting gas in the bike from one of the soda-bottle style gas pumps along the roadside. No meter, but the inverted bottle is calibrated... you tell the attendant how many liters you want and they turn off the spigot when it gets to the appropriate line.
The ride back is occasionally terrifying but uneventful, and we both walk away unscarred by the famed Thai tattoo. I did get my own equivalent of one, though. Not a scar from a hot tailpipe, but a purple stain on one of the few pieces of clothing I brought with me for this segment of my trip, courtesy of a little old fruit lady on Phi Phi Don.
On one level, most Asian cultures share certain broad characteristics just like most European ones do. But just as in Europe, the similarities quickly disappear when you start traveling from one country to the next. Thai people, I've discovered, are as different from Vietnamese as Germans are from Italians. Which is a good thing... to me, at least, since one of the things I love most about traveling is the endless number of opportunities for confusion, misunderstanding and, hopefully, eventually figuring things out. Things don't always go the way you'd like them to, but if everything went smoothly, travel would soon get boring.
One of the striking things about Vietnamese people is how happy they are. Excitable even... I love their enthusiasm. They work hard, all day long in many cases, and often six or seven days a week. Many work in family shops where they actually live in a back room or upstairs apartment, so the lines between work time and not-work time are easily blurred. They are super industrious and get a lot done, but they always seem to have time to stop and talk, laugh, sip milk out of a cool coconut, rescue a lost tourist... they find foreigners fascinating and even the shy ones will sometimes plop themselves down next to a tourist on a park bench or at a cafe and ask if you have time to talk. “I am Hien. Can I speak English with you?”
Maybe the novelty of having foreigners around has just worn off here, but Thai people don't seem to be like that. Not the Thai people I've met along the Andaman coast, at least. I haven't been anywhere else yet. They'll bring your food and walk away quietly without so much as a twitch of the lip, without even making eye contact. A Vietnamese will stare right at you with a curious face and a big friendly smile - do you want to talk? - until you acknowledge him with a smile and a few words in return.
They also don't seem to have the same attitude toward food here. In Vietnam, fresh is everything. A skewer of grilled meat is handed to you right off the coals, still dripping with roasting meat juices. The beef in your morning pho soup is shaved off a raw slab of cow right into a steaming bowl of broth and continues to cook right before your eyes once delivered to your table. I didn't realize that was intentional the first time I noticed it... I kept plunging the red bits out of the way until I couldn't find them anymore and I realized “oh I get it, they’re cooking.” The guys who sell coconuts to rush hour commuters always have a large pile of pre-opened ones with straws in place ready to go for those who barely have time to toss over a 2000 dong coin before moving along, but if you're not in a hurry they'd rather hack open a fresh one for you instead. The lady who sells me a pineapple every day when I get off the bus in Truong Tchin neighorhood has a huge stack of pre-peeled fruits, and if I specifically point to those that's what she gives me. But if I just say "I’d like one pineapple, please," she'll pull out her knife and carve me a fresh one. That's just the way they are in Vietnam. Not so here. At least not this lady.
Huong introduced me to Asian plums a few weeks ago. They're not like Western plums... they're red and crunchy, shaped more like a narrow apple and with the crunchiness of a crisp pear. Very refreshing, and on a hot sweaty day on Ko Phi Phi Don island they look like exactly what I want... a fresh, crunchy, slightly sweet Asian plum. I walk over to an old lady at a fruit stand. "Hello, how much are these?" I ask, pointing to the stack of plums.
She pokes her finger at a saran wrapped styrofoam tray containing about two plums worth of cut pieces. The slices inside are limp and starting to go brown from being in the sun. "Twenty baht."
"OK," I dig in my pocket for a 20 baht note, "but can I have a fresh one, please?" I point at the stack of uncut fruit with a questioning nod.
She hands me the styrofoam tray. "Twenty baht."
"OK," I dig in my pocket for a 20 baht note, "but can I have a fresh one, please?" I point at the stack of uncut fruit with a questioning nod.
She hands me the styrofoam tray. "Twenty baht."
I have no objection to the price, but the pre-cut slices look as appealing as a rotten banana. If I bought them it would only be to toss them in the nearest garbage can. I'm happy to pay the same 20 baht for a single piece of fruit, but I want it whole. That doesn't seem like it should be difficult since there is a pile of them right in front of her. But how do I communicate it? She doesn't speak much English and I speak no Thai. "Not this one," I say, putting the tray down again. "Brown." I point to the limp, curling tips of the top slice. "Can I buy one of these?" and point again to the stack of fresh ones.
She cuts a slice from one and hands it to me. "Yes," I say, taking a bite. "Thank you. This one." I hand the 20 baht note toward her hoping that she'll hand over the rest of the plum. Instead, she pushes the styrofoam tray toward me again. It's clearly the tray or nothing. Who knows... maybe there's a rule that vendors in carts aren't allowed to sell whole pieces of fruit. Or maybe she just wants to get rid of it before she has to throw it away herself. Either way, I give up. "Never mind," I say. "It's OK. How much for this?" pointing to the remainder of the piece already in my hand. Stupid question. There's no set price for a single slice. I dig in my pocket for a 5 baht coin to give her for her trouble, feeling guilty that she'd cut open a piece of fruit for nothing and not understanding why I can't just take the rest of it with me. Before I find the coin, though, she grabs the piece out of my hand and throws it at me. Hard.
I can't remember the last time anyone has raised anything at me in anger... not a hand or a weapon and certainly not a piece of fruit. Instinctively, I jump back a foot or two and look at her. "Oh!" I say, looking down at the stain on my skirt. She's not coming after me from behind her cart or anything so I just back up another step or two and walk away. A few blocks later I find another fruit stand and buy myself two crisp, uncut Asian plums for 10 baht with no difficulty. I walk back to the room a little shaken, feeling bad about the altercation. Something about being in another country makes me feel worse about it than if the same thing had happened close to home.
Unfortunately, the one quality that Asian plums and Western plums do share is their tendency to stain clothing. So while I don't have a distinctive burn mark on my calf, I do have a pale but apparently permanent plum mark on my skirt... my own version of the Thai tattoo.
She cuts a slice from one and hands it to me. "Yes," I say, taking a bite. "Thank you. This one." I hand the 20 baht note toward her hoping that she'll hand over the rest of the plum. Instead, she pushes the styrofoam tray toward me again. It's clearly the tray or nothing. Who knows... maybe there's a rule that vendors in carts aren't allowed to sell whole pieces of fruit. Or maybe she just wants to get rid of it before she has to throw it away herself. Either way, I give up. "Never mind," I say. "It's OK. How much for this?" pointing to the remainder of the piece already in my hand. Stupid question. There's no set price for a single slice. I dig in my pocket for a 5 baht coin to give her for her trouble, feeling guilty that she'd cut open a piece of fruit for nothing and not understanding why I can't just take the rest of it with me. Before I find the coin, though, she grabs the piece out of my hand and throws it at me. Hard.
I can't remember the last time anyone has raised anything at me in anger... not a hand or a weapon and certainly not a piece of fruit. Instinctively, I jump back a foot or two and look at her. "Oh!" I say, looking down at the stain on my skirt. She's not coming after me from behind her cart or anything so I just back up another step or two and walk away. A few blocks later I find another fruit stand and buy myself two crisp, uncut Asian plums for 10 baht with no difficulty. I walk back to the room a little shaken, feeling bad about the altercation. Something about being in another country makes me feel worse about it than if the same thing had happened close to home.
Unfortunately, the one quality that Asian plums and Western plums do share is their tendency to stain clothing. So while I don't have a distinctive burn mark on my calf, I do have a pale but apparently permanent plum mark on my skirt... my own version of the Thai tattoo.
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