Brash Bangkok, culture-hound Chiang Mai, pornographic Pattaya, innocent Isaan - which one is your Thailand?

Wherever you go in Thailand, fitting in anonymously isn’t an option. In European countries, if we keep our mouths shut and our gestures to a minimum, remove the Hawaiian shirts and don’t wear socks with shorts, Westerners abroad can just about pass for locals. However in Asia we stand out like big, calloused, and rather ugly, sore thumbs. There’s only so far the farang can go to merge in. Many fail miserably.

This doesn’t bother those of a certain attitude in the least. Arrogant, intolerant and nationalistic, convinced of the superiority of Western civilisation generally, and of their own country specifically, they display their ignorance and disrespect like strutting peacocks, feathers in full display posture. Except their plumes only appear brilliant and exotic to themselves and their ilk. They have about as much subtlety and as many brain cells as the average peacock too. (No criticism of peahens intended) (Beware: lots of blatant stereotyping and unfounded assertions in this blog entry ;-)

Away from the glitz of the tourist areas, there is another Thailand...

Which brings me to PATTAYA - Apologies to some of the very decent and atypical folk who live there, but a lot of male tourists with this mindset - and some expats too - often graduate to the likes of Pattaya; Nana Plaza in town form, with a beach grafted on. Given the excellent alternatives, why go there in the first place? Cobbled together in a haphazard Thai fashion without bothering with town planning, this sprawl of ugliness has few redeeming features. Before you get to the city proper, there are miles upon miles of ‘moo ban’ villa-style villages, often half-empty. Their mostly Western owners fly in and out occasionally, leaving these ‘communities’ to the minority of all-year-round expats, a few rich Thais, security patrols, maids, sweet and pretty young Thai things, and swimming pool attendants.

I’ve stayed in one a few times, and by chance on one occasion most of the neighbours were there at the same time. A cul-de-sac of high walls and automated gates, enclosing well-tended gardens, neat little pools and luxurious villas; an oasis of calm. But you could be anywhere – Provence, the Seychelles, Jamaica, what’s the difference? Much as my host is a genial chap and an all-round good egg, I start to fidget almost immediately.

The usual pattern. Beers, lots of them, as the chaps, curiously all from somewhere near Birmingham in the UK, put the world, and Thailand of course, to rights. The mainly Thai ladies/girls usually happily hang around in the background, variously chatting and cooking. I just don’t fit in – I know it, and they know it, no matter how hard I try to bluff my way though. A couple more days reading a book, a few dips in the pool, and I’ve had enough. There are few other options in Pattaya; hardly anything is within walking distance of the moo bans, just more deserted sois of luxury, silently shouting; “Keep out! This is Little Farangland”. Or take a long taxi drive into the ‘city’ in the evening, and explore a seedy, run-down ramble of streets whose sole purpose is to cater to the baser tourist needs, peopled by a mix of hard-eyed Thais looking for the next opportunity, and insolent, smart aleck, mostly drunk farangs, making fools of themselves.


Sure the latter has its appeal – seeing a melting pot of cultures come together to satisfy the overpowering need for sexual release is fascinating for a while. There’s a never-ending flow of great photo opportunities and exciting stories from Walking Street and surrounds, as some of the Pattaya-based blogs show. Bar and street fights, explicit sex, desperate bar girls with fixed smiles often hiding scorn and disgust. Quietly angry Thai males who have learned to despise the invaders, while depending on them to earn their livings. Flabby, aging Westerners with roving eyes and hands; opinionated, loud-mouthed, intolerant and mocking of the 'inferior' local Thai inhabitants. Sweaty and beer-breathed, sexual prowess boosted by a cocktail of alcohol and Viagra, they prowl the streets looking for the next conquest to brag about.

And these farangs are the ‘ethical’ sex tourists and sexpats. Behind the scenes there is a murky sub-culture easily tapped into by the determined paedophile. Smut comes in various shades, and the Walking Street façade only gives a glimpse of the more garish, barely legal variety.

So for certain visitors the appeal can pall pretty quickly, and soon I’m looking for an excuse to escape to a different Thailand, where there are at least a few of humanity’s higher virtues on display. There’s something ugly about in-your-face Pattaya that leaves me vaguely depressed, with a craving to see something beautiful – a guileless smile, an honest, unpretentious gesture, a simpler Thai lifestyle, relatively unpolluted by our so-called Western ‘values’.

[photo by catherine of http://catherinewentworth.com/]

BANGKOK – an explosion of noise, smells, and shocking visuals, often all the more exaggerated because this is where first-time visitors usually start out. If you have never been to Asia before, it can be mind-blowing, days passing in a haze of half-remembered sights, tastes and impressions, wandering an alien world that bears little or no relation to our westernised idea of civilised city life. Bangkok has everything a farang could possibly want and a lot more besides that some might prefer to do without. After the initial ‘hit’, I need to get out quick to retain my sanity. Bangkok carries you away on pounding waves of sensation, and I’m rudderless and dismasted within hours of arrival, even after numerous visits. Could I live there? Maybe twenty or thirty years ago, fresh from living in Madrid, London, Paris, Milan… one big city is pretty much like another, cosmopolitan behemoths that breed unexpected friendships and chilling indifference, and which need savvy, determination and enthusiasm to survive and prosper. Now I just want to get away from it all… or so I try to convince myself.

ISAAN – if there’s anywhere to get away from it all, parts of Isaan certainly fit the bill. It’s a huge province, and I won’t even attempt to try to describe how it is to live there on a full time basis – I’ll leave that up to the bloggers on the spot. The few weeks I have spent in villages in the north-east have been disconcertingly challenging on a personal level. Despite thinking otherwise, I soon realised how addicted to sensation, a constant need to be diverted, I have become in the West. The pace of life in Isaan, the simplicity, may appeal emotionally and intellectually, the back to basics dream… but the reality? That’s something else. Daily life is a mundane ritual of simple survival activities for many local and often unimaginably poor Thais, and there just isn’t that much going on outside the fundamental necessities of community living, where ordinary folk just do very ordinary things most of the time. Controversy is supplied when a villager cheats at cards. Headline news is when a buffalo gets run over by a local farang. Could I live there on a permanent basis? I’m not sure. Plenty of small and medium-sized towns, but they lack the vibrancy and complexity of the more important urban communities such as Chiang Mai, plus I like the choice Chiang Mai offers – there you can both live the quiet, rural life, and take a quick trip into town and soak up the atmosphere for a day, before you become too much of a hermit.

CHIANG MAI has something for everyone. Admittedly your average Pattaya addict would become quickly bored, but Chiang Mai does have its seedier side, if limited to a couple of very small and relatively unostentatious parts of the city. Sex is less overtly advertised, the girls are less demanding and softer of face and attitude. Violence, crime? It occurs – it is even, sadly, on the rise, with a mix of problems generated by increasingly hard times economically, and growing numbers of illegal workers arriving mainly from nearby Myanmar. But it still feels safe to be on the streets, at any time of day or night. While taking sensible precautions, of course.

Chiang Mai has its Thai pride. Farangs are tolerated, even liked when they show respect for the city, its culture and people. But we remain dispensable, a minor part of the whole picture, one which the majority of local inhabitants have little need of, dependency on, or interaction with. I like that. I like that a lot.

For those with a broad range of interests, who find Bangkok too heady and overpowering, Pattaya too much of a reminder of what’s wrong with humanity, country life impoverished Thai-style too much of a challenge to personal insecurities - and who came to Thailand to meet Thais and discover something both about other ways of life as well as about themselves - Chiang Mai is the perfect compromise. It’ll do for me.
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So, what do the experts say, the expats on the spot? – I’ve left out some blogs that I appreciate for other reasons, but here are a few that give me a bit of an insight into living and surviving as a farang in the places mentioned…

Bangkok

Dan's blog epitomises frantic Bangkok, with a mind that skitters from politics to sex to food and back again, apparently at complete random. A helter skelter ride through all that is Bangkok. Absolutely. Once a very welcoming chap, if you decide to call in on him unawares these days, you'll need rubber gloves for the electrified fencing, a thick blanket to cover the razor wire and jagged broken glass on top of his wall, a hacksaw for the iron bars in all the windows, and some sleeping tablets for the Doberman. No half measures where Dan is concerned, once he's been robbed. Ok, well it was five times in three weeks...

Bangkok Blogger is one I found recently. BB recounts stories of the wonderful (mainly go-go establishments) and the weird (this one about a superstition involving a bridge, ghosts, and sanitary towels)... Amazing Thailand.

GregToDiffer is a quirky Canadian who just loves the big city. Why? "Why not?" he replies. "Well, it’s just never boring here. Between the chaotic traffic, the ‘quiet nights’ that spiral wildly out of control, the ridiculous politics, the cheap and awesome food, and the interesting people, even a ho-hum evening is likely to reward you with an interesting story or two. So, while I try to write about Thailand in general as often as I can, much of this blog ends up being about my experiences living in Bangkok." Read his then and now post, Bangkok in the 70s to the modern day.

Pattaya

I recently came across the Pattaya Photo Blog, maintained by a young lady of unknown origin and occupation, but who bombards and twitters the web with a non-stop colourful slide show of Pattaya images, seemingly day and night. She doesn't write much, I've no idea what makes her tick, but her pics say it all, and more.


Just to prove my blog is one big stereotype, Spike at Pattaya Days shows that there is an entirely different side to Pattaya - if you look hard enough. Great photos, stories, a keen mix of fun and self-parody.

Isaan

Martyn does a good line in irony too. His Beyond the Mango Juice mixers take you into a Jack Daniels world of Isaan contemplations, some of which require joining him in a large one to get a handle on his unique interpretations of life with and without his Wonderful Wi(fe). Obscure, provocative at times, often moving. Great stuff from Udon Thani. Going back to an older blog of Martyn's, I love this photo of his. Why aren't British kids like that?


Brunty has a very Isaan Style blog, and it's one of the most comprehensive and informative accounts around on life in the province. Teaching in a local school in Ubon Ratchathani, he is the oracle on all things educational.

Surin is home to a sexagenarian Englishman and his Thai Girl. His books and blog rove from the wistful to the sardonic, and both provide a profound insight into life in 'real' Thailand, far from the madding crowds of farangs in the likes of Pattaya.

The North, Chiang Mai

The Village Farang lives his Thai Village Life somewhere near to Chiang Rai, as far as I can make out. If you need any proof that a contemplative and contented lifestyle can be lived far away from the hubbub of city life, VF provides it throughout his thoughtful and thought-provoking writings. Prepare to read between the lines - and between the lines that lie between the lines...

Si vous parlez francais, this young lady is teaching in Chiang Mai, and gives a refreshing view of the capital of North Thailand, through her energetic and enthusiastic blog, Un Ptit Tour en Asie. Nice stories and some great photos, well worth a quick skim through for the pics even if you don't speak French...

Other places

The dry humour and keenly regimented mind of Mike speaks to us though My Thai Friend, and shows just how it is possible to live the quiet life in his little corner of the Land Of Smiles, somewhere near Prachuap Khiri Khan in the bottom bit of Thailand. Yes I completely ignored the southern part of the Kingdom in my blog. having never been anywhere near it. Perhaps Mike might tell us how it compares to those places I did stereotype...

Kanchanaburi is the home of Malcolm and his Thai wife Ciejay, and he is Retired in Thailand and Loving It immensely. Where is it? Somewhere near the Bridge over the River Kwae (Kwai), left a bit, up a bit, from Bangkok. Malcolm is determined to live every moment to the full, and this shines through his blogs in that especially American way. Who's knocking it - he's happy, and there's no arguing with that...

Suphanburi is in the same area, up a bit, left a bit from Bangkok. Thai Pirate Ben navigates through life from here, variously landscape gardening, blogging and eating, as far as I can make out. Consistently excellent blog from the man with green fingers and a wooden peg.

Saraburi is one of those places the 'Express Coach' from Chiang Mai has meandered through, somewhere not long before arriving in Bangkok. Young Jonny Foreigner lives there, blogging on all things Thai, from politics to morals to family life and his handsome and obviously brainy 7 month old son...


Last but not least, although she's Bangkok-based, her blogs are less on everyday life in the Big Mango than how to communicate with the indigenous people actually living there. As such her blogs are always worth a read, full of ideas and suggestions, because if you actually intend coming to live in the Land of Smiles, being able to converse with Thai people, even at a basic level, will add so much more to the experience. Women Learning Thai... and some men too ;-), by Catherine...

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