Traveling Through Thailand, Part 1

    We're ready to go on a little trip through Thailand. But first, you must take a quiz, to make sure you have been doing your homework.

1.What is an ajaan?
2. Why are university students so shy?
3.If your student shows up in class with nasty looking scabs on his or her elbows, knees and face, or has a cast on their lower leg, what could you assume?
4.Why can't you get hurt in traffic in Bangkok?
    Now, ready to hop on the bus and see some Thai countryside? Some beaches maybe, too? Okay, come along with me.
     The first part of the journey takes us from Chiang Mai, which is in the north of Thailand, to Bangkok, which is in the center. This is a distance of about 450 miles, or 750 kilometers. My preferred method of travel is by train. We leave at 8:30 in the evening from Chiang Mai. The cost of our ticket is about 450 baht, around $18.^*    

I know some people would prefer to take a plane. After all, it's faster, and it would give us you more time when we got there. But I think it's too clean and easy. If we ride with the people, we can see all the small towns, barns, fields and cows. This is how to soak up the feeling of a country. I don't believe the soul of a country can be found in its airport lounges.    

As we pull out of Chiang Mai, we notice that we are surrounded by hills. It is easy to forget this while living everyday in Chiang Mai, just like we forget the desert that surrounds Los Angeles or the little hills and forest that surround New York. But we can feel the train chugging up long hills, and we realize that Chiang Mai is a long way from Bangkok and the rest of Thailand, isolated by these hills, and connected by roads which approximate highways in the U.S. during the 1940s or 1950s.
     Sit back, relax with a drink and a book, while the train chugs away, stopping occasionally at small stations along the way. Even at 8:30, it is already too dark to see out the window, and within an hour, the porter comes around and pulls out our beds. Time to turn in for the night. Climb up the ladder and into your bunk, and try to undress in a space smaller than a phone booth. Maybe it's easier to sleep with your clothes on.
     Before you know it, it is morning. You look at your watch: it's only 7 a.m., yet the light is already very strong. We are rolling across the plains of central Thailand; the hills of Chiang Mai have been left far behind. Everything is flat, and very bright green: spring-like. The fields you see are rice fields, and they are green because they are flooded with water all the time. An occasional clump of trees breaks the broad expanses of grass in the distance. If it weren't for these trees, these plains might be monotonous, but with them, they look very inviting.
     As we come into Bangkok the lush green fields give way to backyards, scrapheaps, ramshackle homes, and groups of people standing in twos and threes, preparing to begin their day. We come to Hualamphong station, the end of the line, in Bangkok.
     I am not going to dwell a lot on the attractions and oppressions of Bangkok, because that would take a whole newsletter by itself. We will only stay for a couple of days, enough time to catch up on sleep, and take in a movie or do some shopping. We can stay at a cheap but nice guesthouse near the river, away from the "backpacker ghetto" on Khao San Road, and take the river taxi and buses to get around.
     After our stay in Bangkok, we head into southern Thailand, which narrows into a thin piece of land known as the Malay Peninsula. On either side, there is ocean, and in this ocean, many islands. We take a bus, but not one of the buses that are booked out of the guesthouse -- those are for farang tourists, and they are expensive and often break down. We go across the river to Thonburi, to the southern bus terminal, and take one of the buses that only Thai people take. The price is lower, the service better, and very few tourists, if any at all.
     The first leg of this trip is from Bangkok to Surat Thani, a city about halfway down the peninsula toward Malaysia. The journey takes about eleven hours, leaving at around 8 a.m. and arriving at seven at night. When we get to Surat, we find an inexpensive hotel in the center of town. It's close to the bus station and to the markets. It's not a fancy place, but we're only staying one night.
     It's amazing where you can find bargains in life, especially in places you didn't expect. Last year, when I came here, I had been traveling all day and I was very tired. I had a bad headache, and I went to bed about 8:30. But I was awakened by a loud and brilliant thunderstorm. My room had a huge window, and the bed was situated right across from it, so that I could look out and watch the storm without even getting out of bed. I watched it for about an hour; it was some of the best free entertainment I've ever had. Now whenever I come here, I hope for another thunderstorm.
     In the morning we grab another bus, this one heading for Krabi. Krabi is on the western coast of the peninsula, and the journey takes about four hours. We see lots of palm trees, and the roads are a little narrower here than the ones we were on yesterday. As we come out of the forest to the coastline, we see huge grey rock formations, well over a hundred feet high. They are breathtaking to look at, almost like a mini-mountain range going the length of southern Thailand.
     The town of Krabi has a very nice boulevard along the harbor, but no recreational beaches. Its fame is that it is a jumping off point for the many beautiful islands in the area, which do have nice beaches. But it is already noon, and we're in no hurry, so we get a hotel near the harbor. It would be nice to explore the town, anyway, for one afternoon. We can head out to the island of our choice in the morning.
     At the hotel, we encounter an interesting test. They offer rooms a little more expensive than we expected, so we politely ask why. We are told that the rooms have private bathrooms and are on the second floor (there is no lift in this hotel). But if we want to walk up to the sixth floor, we can have a cheaper room with an outside toilet. I say, let us go up and take a look. We go up, and the room is very tiny and very basic, but the windows are large, running together along the two outside walls, giving a very pleasing, panoramic view of the city and the harbor. A poor man's penthouse, for half the price. I'll bet those rooms on the second floor don't have this kind of view. I tell them, we'll take the "penthouse." This is the way to travel.

^* As of January 2000, 5 baht = 13 cents, 37.5 baht = $1.00.