Travelers' Tales Thailand: True Stories (Travelers' Tales Guides) Read online

  • The rings can cause physical deformities as severe as those created by foot-binding or female circumcision. A traditional punishment for adultery, the article notes, was to remove a woman’s rings and allow the neck to flop over, suffocating the woman.

  I won’t debate these arguments. There may be some validity to all of them (although I am still not convinced that wearing the neck rings is as painful, immobilizing, or oppressive as either foot-binding or clitorectomy). Nor do I intend to defend my research; I spent just one afternoon in the Pa Dawng village, and it’s certainly possible that I was misled as easily as any garden-variety tourist.

  I do feel, however, that there’s something rather self-righteous about declaring, from the aerie of political correctness, that the Pa Dawng are cultural victims. Unlike many ethnic Burmese, who were massacred under Ne Win’s murderous regime, the Pa Dawng managed to escape across the border to Thailand. It may be true that, at present, for economic and/or political reasons, Thailand refuses to help its Burmese refugees. If this is a fact, the Pa Dawng face two choices: they can return to Burma, and face ethnic genocide; or find a way to abide in Thailand until world attention motivates the Thai government to give them the aid they require.

  Travel writing is usually viewed as romantic, but doing it for a living quickly makes a realist out of you. It’s a thin line, sometimes, between opportunity and exploitation. For me, the bottom line is that the Pa Dawng were offered a choice of reviving their neck ring tradition for income. While dire straits may have compelled them to do so, it’s extremely patronizing to deny them either responsibility or credit for their decision. These are not helpless primitives who, enticed by a few shiny coins, sold themselves into cultural slavery. They are pragmatic people, and survivors. Though their compromise can be perceived as uncomfortable and even degrading, one must allow that they have made their choice for a reason. The situation on the Thai/Burmese border stinks, but any outrage directed at the Pa Dawng’s survival tactic had better be accompanied by an alternative solution. Meanwhile, similar choices—by people who must perform dangerous or uncomfortable work in order to feed their families—are being made in this country as well. (I do find it admirable that the Pa Dawng women’s “occupation”—unlike hotel work, PC-board assembly, or sneaker sewing—allows them to spend most of the day with their children.)

  I enjoyed meeting the Pa Dawng women. They are dignified, articulate, and funny. And the fact that their walls were peppered with self-portraits from magazines and newspapers indicted, at least to me, that they aren’t ashamed of their lifestyle. I did not, and do not, feel it is my place to either damn or pity them for the decision to turn a possibly arcane tradition into a lucrative tourist attraction.

  Nor do I feel the situation is without larger value. My sincere hope is that the debate over the Pa Dawng will focus attention on Thailand’s role in the refugee crisis—and lead, ultimately, to a regional solution. For if there is an ultimate goal here, it is not the elimination of neck rings; it is the day when all ethnic Burmese can return to a free Burma.

  Jeff Greenwald also contributed “Bite-sized Buddhas” to this book.

  “How big is a stick?” Ajahn Chah once asked his disciples. “It depends on what you want to use it for, doesn’t it? If you need a bigger one, then it’s too small. If you need a smaller one, then it’s too big. A stick isn’t big or small at all. It becomes so as a product of your desires. In this way, suffering is brought into the world.”

  —Tim Ward, What the Buddha Never Taught

  E. M. SWIFT

  Sport in the Land of Sanuk

  What is Thailand’s favorite sport? If it isn’t fighting (fish, kites, bulls, boxers), it must be wagering.

  I BEGAN TO SUSPECT WE WERE IN FOR A FAIRLY UNUSUAL TRIP shortly after the visit to the snake farm. A man there had leaped into a pit with three deadly cobras, caught one in his left hand and another in his right, and then while holding those two squirming vipers aloft, put his face inches in front of the third. Serpent and man bobbed and feinted at each other—cobras apparently have poor depth perception—until with a sudden thrust the man crashed his face against the snake and, because the snake was on the cement floor, against that as well. The man wriggled there as if stricken, gathered himself, then rose to his feet in triumph. To the relief and the disgust of the spectators—most of them tourists—he now had the third cobra in his mouth. His teeth grasped the back of the snake’s hood while its tail lashed him across the chest and shoulders. The proud man circled the pit, posing with the snakes for pictures.

  Back in our river taxi, one of the ubiquitous, long-tailed motorized gondolas that navigate Bangkok’s canals, I asked our guide, “Have you ever been face-to-face with a cobra?”

  “I killed many cobra.” James replied without bragging. James’ real name is Chamnong Tongkaew. He asked that we call him James though, because he likes James Bond. One of the Bond movies, The Man with the Golden Gun, had been filmed in Thailand.

  “In the rainy season, after flooding, cobra come inside my house,” James explained. “Have nowhere else to live. Dogs help me. They bark and block the door. I use stick. I try to use my hand like the man in the snake farm, but is very difficult. I use stick. Cobra very good to eat. Old saying our country: Mongoose, he eats cobra. Cobra, he eats rat. Rat, he eats rice. But Thai people—we eat al-l-l of them.”

  James sensed our queasiness. “Not city rat,” he assured us. “Rice paddy rat. Is very good. Better than chicken. Not as good as cobra.You will have some before you leave. But you maybe will not know it.” James smiled his wonderful smile as the river taxi continued its lazy tour of the filthy, fascinating klongs. My wife, Sally, pointed out a lovely private home tucked among the wooden huts and salt barges-turned-houseboats. “Yes, very beautiful,” agreed James. “Owner must be corrupt.”

  At sunrise I had taken an early bus to the Chin River and unpacked my kayak on a landing by 6:30 a.m. Everyone else appeared to be up to make the most of the cool morning hours. As I removed the frame sec- tions and unrolled the canvas hull, I noticed local Thais were not self- conscious about staring. As if in a trance, they stood in a circle around me until I motioned one person to help. I suddenly had smiling faces and helping hands all around. It became a pattern wherever I visited in Thailand that local people, at the slightest sign of friendliness, would offer to help assemble my kayak.

  —Peter Aiken, “Thai Waterways”

  Sports in Thailand. That was the idea. Go to Bangkok, poke around the countryside, paddle through the klongs and find out what the Thais like to do for sport. Over the centuries people have come to beautiful, exotic Thailand looking for many things. Few have left disappointed. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, when Thailand was known as Siam (the name was changed in 1939 when Premier Pibun Songgram sought to expand his country’s borders to include all Thai-speaking regions), the Burmese came looking for riches and slaves. In the mid-1800s the Chinese began a steady immigration, seeking opium and opportunity. At the same time European traders were arriving, hungering for rice, silk, teak, and tin.

  The Americans did not make their presence felt until the Vietnam era when thousands of R&R-seeking GIs sought out a particular section of Bangkok known as Patpong looking for go-go girls and sex. More recently tourists of all nationalities have come to Thailand for its superb shopping, mouth-watering food, scenery, temples, festivals, royalty, and—above all—charming, hospitable people. But to come in search of sports?

  “This is a most unusual request,” said James, upon being told of our mission. “I must make some phone calls.”

  James called us the next morning to say that we had missed by a week the elephant festival in Surin, a day’s train ride from Bangkok. The event is a two-day rodeo held each November in which trained elephants run races, roll logs, and play soccer. And 100 soldiers challenge an elephant to a tug-of-war.

  It would have been an interesting spectacle, especially because elephants have played an important part in
Thai history. One of the nation’s most famous battles in the town of Nong Sarai in 1593 turned in favor of the Thais when King Naresuan met and killed the Burmese crown prince in a duel on elephant-back, ending 30 years of Burmese rule. Mongkut, King Rama IV, after whom the king in The King and I was modeled (because so much of it is imprecise history and derides the king, the movie is officially banned in Thailand), once offered to send Abraham Lincoln a herd of elephants to help stem the Confederate tide during the Civil War. Honest Abe declined.

  We had asked James to check into kite fighting, but here, too, we were out of luck. During the windy season between February and April, the Thais fly brightly colored kites of all shapes and sizes playing a game with them that amounts to an aerial battle of the sexes. There are teams, referees, national championships, and heavy wagering on each fight’s outcome. Of course, the Thais would bet on raindrops running down a windowpane. They, like the Chinese, are gambling devotees.The idea is for the large male kite, the chula, to clasp the smaller female kite, the pak pao, in its bamboo talons. As you might imagine, this is not an easy task requiring teams of as many as twenty men to handle the massive (up to 25 feet) chulas. The pak pao, meanwhile, flits and dances gaily beneath its suitor endeavoring to fly up and loop its line around the chula’s head causing the larger kite to plummet to earth.

  James did assure us that we could see as much Thai boxing as we wanted and we arranged to do so that night. Thai boxing, the most famous of the indigenous Thai sports is not just kick boxing. Elbows, fists, and knees are part of the arsenal, although biting, spitting, hair pulling, and head butting are penalized. Muay Thai, the proper name for the sport, was originally taught to Siamese soldiers for use in hand-to-hand combat—which explains the anything-goes nature of the rules.

  There are two permanent boxing stadiums in Bangkok, the Rajadamnern and the Lumpini, which generally hold fight programs on alternate evenings. Ringside seats are primarily filled with farangs. The true fight fans are back a few rows standing waving fistfuls of baht while shouting out odds that change with each solid blow. “Four to five! Four to five.” (Thug! Whack!) “Eeeee! Three to one!”

  The fights we saw were, for the most part, bloodless affairs. In sixteen bouts over two nights only two ended in knockouts. Muay Thai fighters are small—70 percent of them are either fly-weight (112 pounds) or bantam weight (118)—and many are barely in their teens. “We call ourselves the small chilis,” James said, referring to Thai boxers. “The smaller, the hotter.”

  The evening was a wonderful spectacle. Before each bout the boxers performed an elaborate warm-up dance, called the wai kru, which served the dual purpose of loosening the muscles and getting the Muay Thai spirits on one’s side. Each fighter, in his own highly specialized way, would pay homage to the elders of the Muay Thai, men like Nai Khanom Tom, the most famous Thai boxer in history, who, in 1774 as a prisoner of war, defeated ten Burmese boxers in a row to earn his freedom. Often a boxer would encircle the ring with his glove on the top rope to ward off evil spirits. Some wore amulets around their arms; others wore headbands to hex their opponents.

  Strolling along a side-street late that first day we saw a group of young men who had just gotten off work, kicking a woven rattan ball into the air on a school playground. We had heard about this game, called takraw, but had not seen it in Bangkok. Now we began to notice it in every playground or schoolyard we passed.

  Takraw is, essentially, volleyball with the feet. Three players stand on each side of a 5’ 2” high net. Games are played to fifteen. The only time the hands are used is during the serve, when one player is allowed to pitch the ball back to a teammate, who kicks it over the net to start the point.

  The agility of the takraw players was amazing. Every player could spike the ball with his feet, sometimes doing a full flip afterward to land upright. The best players were so skilled they could take a spike with a foot, and then bunt the ball over with their heads.

  There are other versions of the game. In basket takraw, three baskets, or nets, are hung some twenty feet off the ground, and players try to kick, head, knee, or elbow the ball through. In the simplest form of takraw, a group of players simply tried to keep the ball aloft, showing off trick shots and not keeping score. Thais are individualists with a loose, cheerful approach to team sports. Thai, in the Thai language, means “free” and that is very much the spirit that prevails.

  The Thais also favor diversity, not specialization, in their sports programs. At Chiang Mai’s Hoa Phra Secondary School, we were told that seventh-graders learn table tennis and gymnastics. In eighth grade, students are taught takraw, soccer, and krabi—an ancient sword-fighting technique. The swords for these thirteen-year-old boys and girls are made of bamboo. In the ninth grade the children learn basketball, volleyball, and track and field. The sessions we attended were organized but not too disciplined. Giggling was a perfectly acceptable way to react to a missed layup or a bamboo sword to the belly.

  During recess we noticed one final activity of interest; the kids were playing tag with their feet. One lad stood in the middle of a circle of his classmates while the others jumped in and out teasingly. When the boy in the middle managed to swipe one of the others with a kick, the two exchanged places and the game began anew. For a society that considers the foot an extremity of exceedingly low esteem, the Thais certainly employ it a lot for amusement.

  From Chiang Mai we flew down to the island of Phuket in the Andaman Sea. Only a few years ago Phuket was considered an undiscovered paradise, but paradise has been found and taken over by sun-hungry Europeans, particularly Germans, who have changed the ambiance just a little. For sports there are golf and tennis and various water activities. In Phuket the only Thais one sees are in bow ties carrying mai-tais.

  Old pal James found us a bullfight in the mainland town of Chiang Di, however, a three-hour drive from Phuket to the eastern side of the peninsula. Bullfighting in Thailand, he told us, was not at all like bullfighting in Spain. The bulls fought each other, no one died; much money was bet. The action was spellbinding. James assured us we would be the only farangs in attendance.

  We rose at dawn and, taking leave of our beachfront hotel, crossed the bridge to the mainland. In the distance we could see the lights of the squid boats plying the Andaman Sea. On the coastal highway we passed sheer and bizarre limestone formations jutting up from the sea. These, too, had been features in The Man with the Golden Gun, and one formation, called James Bond Island, is now one of Thailand’s most popular tourist attractions. Heading inland, we drove through miles of rubber plantations, watching workers as they gathered the buckets of sap. The sap was poured into bath-mat-sized sheets of raw latex that were then hung from rails by the roadway to cure in the sun like great slabs of mozzarella cheese.

  At the bullfight we were greeted by a striking billboard depicting a white bull and a black bull squaring off before a sack of 200,000 baht. This was to be the featured event. A full day’s admission (fifteen fights) was expensive for the locals, so the rambutan trees overlooking the back fence of the bullring sagged with spectators sitting shoulder to shoulder. Midway through a particularly exciting contest, fifteen of them plummeted ingloriously to the ground when one of the branches snapped.

  The fighting bulls, Brahman strain, were matched by size. Before each fight the referee thoroughly washed both bulls, particularly the horns, to discourage the sort of hanky-panky that seems inevitable anytime men gamble on animals. Some trainers, we were told, used the trick of rubbing essence of tiger on the shoulders of their bull, so that the opposing bull would smell the tiger, become afraid, and run away.

  After the bulls were washed, their faces and shoulders were smeared with bananas, the natural oil in the fruit protecting the bull’s skin against chafing. And a powerful lot of chafing was to follow, for the bulls fought not by making long, fearsome charges at each other, like rams, but by butting their heads together and pushing like football linemen. The struggle was primordial. As the a
nimals braced and heaved in the center of the dusty ring, their muscles gathered like waves. And each step forward, each step back, changed the odds in the fight. A fight ended when one bull, sensing his opponent was stronger, backed off and ran away.

  The longest fight we saw lasted 45 minutes. The shortest ended in a matter of seconds. Afterward, the handlers pounded the bulls’ muscles to relax them and doctored their scrapes and gouges by spitting soda water into the open wounds. Judging by the bulls’ reactions, this was their least favorite part of the day. The handlers, who literally had to take the bulls by the horns and press their lips into the raw, sore flesh of the still-sweating behemoths, seemed none too fond of it either.

  As James had promised, we had been the only foreigners there, and the experience was exhilarating. People had moved to offer us their seats and shared their chili-covered grapefruit with us. They had explained through interpretation and sign language the betting procedures, the ebb and flow of the fights, and which bull was doing better and why. Fathers were there with their sons as fathers and sons in the U.S. spend Sundays together watching football.

  Two days later we left touristy Phuket and returned to Bangkok. We were staying at the Regent Bangkok, a few blocks from Lumpini Park, and early one morning, I got up for a jog. The park, to my surprise, was packed with thousands of people at 6 a.m. Joggers crowded the track. An aerobics class was being held in the shadow of the statue of King Rama VI. A group of elderly people practiced the balletic martial art of t’ai chi ch’uan, moving so deliberately that they looked like flowers opening with the dawn. Another large group of older people was spread out on a knoll in semi-disarray, a sort of human Stonehenge, hands on hips, bending at the waist, wailing like banshees. Sweaty joggers, into a more contemporary form of exercise, would trot past. The old folks on the knoll would let out a howl and 50 tired runners would burst out laughing.