For Christmas Eve, I met up with a Thai friend of mine who I met in Japan. She took us down to a local street food market full of delicious food that of course, isn’t listed in any guidebooks. We sat on the street and they ordered a massive feast of food, that of course is actually authentically flavored since its made for Thais. I think pretty much every meal in a foreign country is vastly improved by having a local do the ordering.

As strange as some people may find it, we were excited to be in Bangkok and to be wandering the streets and shopping and just enjoying city life. Our next stop is the Philippines for a month, but seeing as we will be with family I think this may be the end of our “backpacking” trip. In fact, Hugh and I splurged on a suitcase and are far too excited to be filling it with stuff. Amazingly, after 5 months we bought very, very few things on the road so its kind of hard to break that habit. Not that I want to. A little less materialism never hurt anyone.

Anyways, the dinner was pretty untraditional as far as Christmas Eve goes, but I was still really happy to be in a big bright city with good food and good company.

The last place we stayed in Phuket was Patong Beach, pretty much the tourist epicenter of Phuket and dear lord does it show. While there’s lots more shops and restaurants to choose from, there’s very little charm. The beach was incredibly crowded and the water quality was pretty poor (compared to the beaches just a few kilometeres away).

The main tourist entertainment strip is along Bangla Rd., which is often compared to Patpong in Bangkok–girlie shows, bars, prostitutes. I suppose some people would find it to be a den of sin and disgusting (read reviews on tripadvisor and you’ll see plenty of people bothered by it), but I thought it was pretty tame and silly. Then again, I’ve never really been bothered by girlie shows or transvestites.

Without a doubt, if you like the party scene then Patong is a pretty good place to stay… but personally, if we ever go back, I’d stay at a nearby beach and just rent a car (screw tuk-tuks!) up to Patong.

Tuk-tuks are the predominant form of tourist transportation in Thailand. They vary in form depending on the country, but here they’re more or less golf-carts on steroids. You tell your driver your destination, he gives you a price, you offer a counter-price, and then settle wherever it makes you happy. You accept that you’ll probably never get the Thai-price, but you are satisfied with something 10%-50% higher (NOT 2x-5x higher).

Except of course here in Phuket. A 2 mile journey costs more than a New York City cab ride, and hey–at least in a cab you get to be fully enclosed and have a pretty decent chance of survival in the unfortunate case of an accident. I am simply baffled at the $25 charge for a 5-mile journey up the island. This would be crazy in America, but this is absolutely ridiculous in Thailand where you can take a bus 300 miles to Chiang Mai for the same price. BTW, I’m not advocating being a jerk and haggling over everything. But there’s a difference between being overcharged 10cents or even a dollar, than being overcharged $15.

The problem is multi-fold and obviously the local government has a lot to answer for, but since I can do pretty much nothing about that, I’ll blame the people I have a smidgen of a chance of influencing. That would be us, the tourists and travelers. Now, I understand how it is–you walk out of your resort, a tuk-tuk driver tells you it costs $10 to go up the beach. You figure that’s not so bad, and besides–you don’t like haggling and you don’t really want to bother. But here’s the rub: everyone I’ve met in Thailand complains about scams and crazy prices–but it didn’t get this way because Thai people are thieving jerks, it got this way because someone just throws money around and doesn’t care if he’s getting scammed (or he does but just whines about it later.) So don’t be the cause of it! If someone’s quoting you a price more than London or New York, you laugh and walk away. 9 out of 10 the driver will chase you and discount his price. You don’t even have to walk away, just standing there often brings you a discount or the very tricky, “What price do YOU want?” This is Thailand, there isn’t even a meter!

You never to tell a tuk-tuk (or anything without a meter) that you are going to an expensive hotel, even if you are. Tell them you’re going to a nearby cheap hostel and your price suddenly drops. Once we got pretty mad at a shared-truck driver for charging us 5x the local price to our destination, he got pretty embarassed and then admitted to us he only did it because we told him we were going somewhere expensive, therefore, would pay it. On many other occasions, after asking the driver for his price, he went, “uhhh….” and looked us up and down before pulling a number out of the air. We’ve caught people changing their prices mid-haggle because they deemed us dumber/smarter than they originally thought.

Furthermore, we were told by a local that this group of drivers has not only fixed prices to an insane level, but they’ve also set up these signs to make themselves look official. The prices, for what it’s worth, is not based on distance–it’s based on a mix of where you want to go, where you are leaving from, and how much competition there is. We found that the most expensive place to get a tuk-tuk was, surprise surprise, around the resort hotels. One driver had the nerve to ask for about $45 for a 20 minute trip–more than the cost of the airport which was 60 minutes away.  But this is where I blame tourists…where on earth did that number come from? There must have been someone out there who thought that price was reasonable. =P

But hell, if some sucker/lazy holidaymaker is willing to pay 10x the local price for something, why not?  But let’s remember, just because you don’t want to deal with haggling on your once-a-year vacation doesn’t mean life ends here once you’ve left. You accept a stupidly inflated price and all that does is make it worse and worse for everyone other tourist, and yourself when you come back. This has come to a head in Vientiane (Laos) and here in Phuket where the prices are more expensive than anywhere else in Thailand. When you try and tell a driver that his price is 10x the Bangkok price, they say, “But this is Phuket!” Dude, it’s still Thailand.

I’d personally like to know how much money they need to pay the mafia or whatever, because the way the prices are–if they just took 2 or 3 fares then they’d be making more money than I did in Japan. And no matter what the drivers say, it’s STILL Thailand.

I’ve been to one in Pattaya before with my mother (very funny story for many different reasons), but this one was much more grand. It had incredible costumes and set design. One of the sets was a jungle complete with waterfall, another was a giant sphinx with King Tut’s head. The “girls” themselves varied in believability, but for the most part it was pretty good. They sang and danced to songs in multiple languages, but for some reason the vast majority of the songs were Chinese. There was only one song in Thai and it was more of a comedy routine with a very heavyset kathooey and a lanky kathooey who were both pretty obviously men doing embarassing things to the men in the audience.

At one point, Hugh and I both noticed a girl who was just so… Japanese. We couldn’t put our finger on it at first, but there was something about her actions that made her seem just like the idol/models on Japanese variety shows. She was very pretty and had this doe-eyed look on her face. Even the way she clapped her hands freaked us out. We could have brought her to Japan and everyone would have just assumed she was some sort of magazine model.

After the show I realized what it was, it wasn’t her looks necessarily since other girls were just as pretty and “Japanese-looking” (it’s a pretty trendy way of dressing/styling oneself here), but it was the excessive expression of “femininity.” Kathooey (the good ones) are believable not just because of their looks, but because they have mastered the “act” of being a woman. On Japanese TV you see an endless parade of models doing “acts” of what is considered feminine in Japan: a mix of being helpless, childlike, demure, and often dumb (or at least extremely naive), but always beautiful. They don’t just say things that convey these ideas, but it’s in the smallest detail of how you sit, how you clap your hands, etc. After three years living in Japan, I found myself picking up some of these Japanese femininity cues.

It made me realize how absolutely important certain actions and gestures are to seeming masculine or feminine and makes me wonder how much of what we consider beautiful is based on these things as well. We saw plenty of kathooey on the streets who were physically pretty, but somehow didn’t cut it as beautiful. It’s interesting how the extra gestures can increase a woman’s beauty.

There’s no pictures in this entry because I wasn’t willing to pay a $6 tip per girl for a photo. =P And trust me, the minute you try and take a photo that’s when 10 of them jump in with you. I saw a poor guy shell out about $60 just because he wanted a keepsake, when he tried to protest they got pretty aggressive. Not super lady-like, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do…

As we sat watching the sunset, a woman asked if we wanted to buy a balloon for good luck...

I had seen these balloons up north before and jumped at the chance. Besides, we could all use some good luck.

As the balloon floated by, tourists stopped drinking and playing soccer to watch it rise into the clouds...

A little kid even started clapping...

We watched it float into a tiny black dot in the sky...

Best 100baht I've ever spent =)

We first saw these balloons last year during our visit in Chiang Mai. If you’re interested, this blog had photos with literally thousands of hot air balloons being sent off during a festival. The photos are night photos–the balloon is fun during the sunset, but it’s absolutely magical at night.

Karon Beach. Busy yet pretty quiet

Our first destination on Phuket is Karon beach, located midway down the island on the west-coast. While it’s not as built-up as other places in Phuket, it certainly doesn’t feel desolate. Instead, I think it lacks a lot of charm. See, when you go to a place like Patong, when you know it’s going to be all nightclubs and bars and tourist crap, well you expect it to lack charm. However, it usually makes up for that in excitement, nightlife, and pleothera of activities. Waikiki is still nice despite being a commercial hellhole, and so is Cancun. Karon, unfortunately, touristy without much to do (besides girlie bars). However, the beach is very pretty with squeaky golden sand and clear water. During low tide, the water gets too shallow to really swim, but it’s nice to just sit in and enjoy the sunset. Despite the fact the beach is quite crowded, it’s full of middle-aged Europeans who are generally quieter than your typical spring break/gap year crowd so it can be pretty relaxing. There’s also not that many touts on the beach and they generally leave you alone if you want to be left alone, though we find it pretty comical that none of the food stalls have prices on the menus. Judging from overhearing what they charge you, the bigger a dumb tourist you seem (or the richer), the more they try and charge you. Lesson learned: look like a poor backpacker.

One of three Asians seen on Karon beach today =P

Something that was a bit weird was seeing all the topless middle-aged (obese) women. Now, I have nothing against topless sunbathing–I’m no prudish American, and I’ve done it before and thought it was liberating (nevermind the fact I lived in Japan where naked bathing with your friends (female) is matter-of-course.) However, countless literature, travel guides, pleas from everywhere urge people to respect Thailand’s culture and NOT do it here. Yet seeing people flagerantly ignore is kind of sad. We are very, “in Rome, do as the Romans do.” But I guess there’s always people who will do whatever the hell they want no matter where they go.

One last thing–this place is absolutely devoid of Thai tourists, hell, it’s devoid of any non-Caucasian European tourists. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, but I have always loved and sought out diversity. Also, I personally think it a bit odd to be in a foreign country, yet the only locals are people you see are the ones serving you pineapple or trying to sell you sunglasses. Yes, I know most tourist beaches around the world work this way–lucky for me, I know a few beaches where locals and foreigners mix pretty evenly. =P This is not one of them, but it’s still beautiful and a nice place worth visiting.

We then moved on to Chiang Mai where we are staying at a guest house which I can best describe as “serves the purpose.” We pondered going to Myanmar/Burma, but with the ethical and moral concerns (look it up on wikipedia if you don’t know about the tourism boycott) we decided that if we were going to go, then we needed more time to research to ensure that as little of our money is going to the ruling junta as possible. So instead, we’ve decided to fly down to Thailand’s renowned islands. I’ve never been, so I’m pretty excited. We have tickets to Phuket, but we may island hop elsewhere. We also figured, if we are gunna lie around all day, we might as well do it on a beach. Am I right, or am I right?

One of the most important things is to choose a tour group that is reputable and ethical. Any sort of contact with tourists changes a village, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Tribes are allowed to develop and change, just like our societies do. This also means some people may have romantic notions of people living in huts and wearing traditional outfits all the time, the reality is, like the many other groups of people, jeans and t-shirts are more comfortable, and easier to acquire.

There’s good development and bad development. Some tour groups basically just dump a busload of tourists into a village. The village gets no money from these tours, so they basically have to beg or sell junk to the tourists who come. You know you’re on a tour like this if you come in on a bus and then have a thousand people try and sell you trinkets. There are a few companies, especially in Laos, where the actual tribes either run the village visits or get money or community development assistance. These are probably the most “authentic” experiences you can have, though no experience is really going to be authentic on a tour group. That’s just how it is, but not everything can be “authentic” anyways. What does that word even mean?

Tourism dollars can be a great help to tribes, but can also be exploitative. Take for example, the case of the Long-Necked Karen women in northern Thailand. Historically speaking, these tribes did not exist in Thailand. They’re actually refugees from Burma who basically live in a village built solely for tourism purposes. They are not considered Thai citizens and have few real options to leave. If they don’t wear the neck rings, they don’t get money. Their village is basically a human zoo for people who’re curious about them. There’s nothing wrong with this curiousity, but people should know the situation. If you really want to see them, go to Myanmar. More details about this group can be read about it here and all over the internet.

Before you trek or board a tour bus, try and make an effort to learn a bit about the culture you want to visit. There’s excellent museums in Chiang Rai, Thailand and in Luang Prabang, Laos. At least that way, authentic or not, you did more than just snap a photo at someone.

The shrimp burns! AHH!

As soon as we crossed the Thai border it was so strange, it was…so obviously Thailand. All of a sudden, the roads were nicer, everyone owned a new car (actually, the fact we even saw cars was unusual), there were powerlines in the sky, advertisements, billboards, internet on every corner. It’s so odd that crossing a river can seem like entering another world.

The travel group we created all headed to the bus station: we all had different destinations in mind, half were off to Chiang Mai and the other to Chiang Rai. Yet at the last minute, all 6 of us ended up going to Chiang Rai. But not before a couple of people (Hugh included) raced out to the 7-11 to buy giant Coca-Cola slurpees. Mock us if you must, tell us we’re not hardcore travelers–we don’t care, it was delicious. =P

The sky smiles down on us. People all over where pointing and laughing at the unusual sight on Dec 1

As luck would have it, the guesthouse we had previously chosen had enough room for the 4 of us who remained in Chiang Rai (me, Hugh, Midori, and Jaja.) Later we had dinner at the Chiang Rai nightmarket–we all each bought a dish to share and in the end it added up to about $2 each. And we ate very well. It just seemed like we were being rewarded for our travels that we did without whining or getting mad at each other. Even the sky seemed to be laughing with us.

Our plans now are in flux as we didn’t really intend on having to be in Thailand for so long, but more and more a small trip to Myanmar is sounding very intriguing….