Turning it around in Thailand

Temples like this are everywhere here

Khao Sok National Park hotel

During the time which I had no money I checked out the protests happening in Bangkok which appeared, and were in fact, mostly peaceful. After getting pushed into the crowd and offered a free dinner and a bottle of water, a crucial moment I'd say in my recent turnaround, it was very difficult to leave. The crowd was truly massive. It's very difficult to understand any Thai but it seemed like people were pretty happy to have a White guy on their "side." I guess I now joined a side, but I won't go into the politics (or pretend to know anything about them) here.

I also had a night out with 8 Chinese girls that me and another travelor met in Chinatown Bangkok where we ironically shared a Thai dinner. Super friendly and constantly giggling as you would picture a group like this to be, we had a fun time. We tried Bird's Nest for desert -is that actually a bird's nest?

After doing quite a bit of what I like to call "urban hiking" I met some cool people to travel with from a hostel and got to know Bangkok a little. The way locals use the water taxi system is unique. The city is huge and there's a lot happening. There are so many Buddhist temples (and it just seems to be part of their culture) that your shoes constantly come on and off. They also have toilet paper at all of their restaurants here instead of napkins in the holder, this is a bit strange but apparently not embaressing.

Coming from Africa I have a bit of a unique perspective on relative poverty and 3rd World cities. The bad traffic here seemed normal, the dirtiness seemed relatively clean, the air pollution chokingly similar, the roads good, and the prices only kind of cheap. Relactively speaking with the infrastructure and style of life here it feels less poor than where I'm coming from.

A Hedon's Paradise

It seems you can find anything you want in Thailand. The place is really set up for tourism and endulging in vices is no problem if that's what you are looking for. Your morality is questioned here and because you are in such an "exotic" location there's a bit of an anything goes attitude it seems.

There's also this phenomenon of of always looking for something better. That white sand beach that's just a little bit whiter (or the "whitest"), the best Thai food, the best massage, the best "full moon party." Speaking of which, why are full moon parties such a big thing here? Who cares if the moon is full? Obviously it's an excuse to party but has it become such a big thing here? I doubt it has anything to do with traditional Thai culture, probably one country just doing a really good job of marketing and extracting people from very far away places like the U.S.

The massages here are ridiculously cheap (usually between $5-$10 for an hour) and good; afterall this is where Thai massage comes from. It's cool that local people are all about it too - it's part of their living for "pleasure" philosophy I think. A 50 something woman told me she'd been practicing for about 30 years and her small hands did some serious damage to my poor back. I wondered actually if the pain is supposed to be good for you or if I should say something? It's kind of embaressing to say something and it's potential insulting to the masseuse so I just sat there and took it like a man. This stands in real contrast to the Rwandan massages where it felt like I was a dog being pet. Even the oil massage (Swedish massage done Thai style) involves a fair amount of pressure here.

Besides the crazy amount of tourists (there's more than your fair share of super obnoxious young white people only here to party - don't go to Phuket), "ping pong" shows and happy endings being offered to you constantly, there is the food that stands out.

Thai Food

It's everything you heard and better. I knew it would be good but not this good and perhaps not this cheap ($1.5-$4/dish). I usually have no idea what I'm eating and I just have to point at what someone else has since the English is not very good here. It doesn't matter. It's all amazing, even if there are occassionally baby octopus or things you don't recognize in the soup.

Unlike the food in Africa which constantly makes you wonder how long it's been sitting, most of the food in Thailand is cooked fresh. They use fresh ingredients (I think), a whole lot more vegetables, and combinations of spices that give you the "there's a party in my mouth and everyone's invited" type vibe. Sweet and sour, salty and savoury, the right bitter and spicy, it's so much more interesting and delicious than African food. Unlike in Africa where people laugh at the white guy who eats the local food, everybody eats the local food in Thailand. There's crazy seafood, real nicec soups and curries, and the varieties of what they eat are surpringsly wide. Unlike in Africa where most items on the menu are not actually available, here there are items not on the menu available that you didn't even know existed. There's also a unique quality to the food - a lot of places I go I see something new and the food is just so different from the food in the West. It's all quite refreshing, exciting, and fulfillling one of the reasons why I came here. It may be my favorite part of Thailand so far.

You know your food is good when even the free food being handed out at the protest or the food on the normal trains is still decent.

I'd like to say I played some part in my own turnaround and return to glory but the reality is that I think it's hard to go wrong in Thailand. The North, which I will miss this trip, is supposed to be beautiful with a lot of cool outdoor activities. The South has some legendary beaches party's, diving, or whatever you're in to. My true accomplishment here is that I was born into a good family, a life of white (and male) privilege where even someone unemployed with no future job plan or real savings from past jobs, is able to travel to sweet places like this.

My new Moroccan friend Nabil and me heading to the beach