Coming 'home' to Thailand - ups and downs

The girls at Yin Yang massage in Loi Kroh, Chiang Mai. No customers, but still smiling!

After such a long break away from Thailand, I was feeling naively cheerful. The Thai Air flight from Zurich was two-thirds empty so we could stretch out in comfort. Arrived in Bangkok bang on time. The taxi touts thankfully ignored us as we wandered around the airport before heading to domestic departures.

The Bangkok Air flight to Chiang Mai was a mere 40 minutes late which was pretty good in comparison to previous experiences. I withdrew some cash with my Thai bank debit card, left it in the machine, only realised what I'd done 24 hours later... but after a few minutes' panic and a dash to the local bank, discovered that no one had managed to withdraw a fortune in the meantime. I felt good, and was sure I'd got away without contracting swine flu.

Everything was going great.

Then the dreaded lurgy struck. Thankfully not the H1N1 version, but a pretty mean competitor, the way I felt for the next week. Blogging was out of the question, but the mai pen rai approach was working well. It still felt good to be back.

The smiles are still there. Chiang Mai may be dead, bars closing, restaurants struggling, hotels almost empty, monsoon rains coming down... but the Thais carry on smiling. There's a knack to it, I'm sure.


Everything was going 'swimmingly'... or so I thought. Then the body blow...

The new tenants of part of my home in France cleverly decided to use my swimming pool, without my permission (it was empty when I left, awaiting repairs). They decided to part-fill it, and long before it reached a safe level, held a party. A 17 year old (guest) dived in, crushed some neck vertebrae, nearly died, is in an induced coma for some ops, but before losing consciousness had no sensation in arms or legs. The prognosis is not good.

So that's why I haven't been blogging since bouncing back from the bug. It's touch and go whether I shall have to return to France, at least for a while, to try to sort things out. It sometimes amazes me how mind-bogglingly stupid people can be.

The mai pen rai attitude doesn't quite work for this situation. I'm desperately sorry for the kid involved, even if I don't know him from Adam. But I have to say I'm bl..dy annoyed too - I've barely been here a fortnight, and I'm looking at an unscheduled flight home. Unlike Thailand France is drowning in red tape, not quite American-style on the legal front, but heading that way. This story will run for a long while yet.

In an effort to remain cheerful, some more Thai smiles, this time from last Friday's 'Big Buddha Day' celebrations in Chiang Mai. My wife2b regularly tells me that a BBD is in the offing - I've never really taken in what they're all about. But don't the Thais just love them, going to extraordinary and intricate lengths to decorate the floats and people in the parade...


However 'Big Buddha Days' do have certain disadvantages. For no sooner than Friday's celebrations are over, I discover on the point of going out for a quick beer that both today and Wednesday are also BBDs, with bars (those that bother to stay open) not being allowed to sell alcohol. Not ideal for a tourist industry that's already suffering!

Rows of empty barstools at Chiang Mai's Number 1 Bar...

It looks like I'll just have to go out and drown my sorrows in nam som ... ;-)

["nam som" = orange juice]

chiang mai mai pen rai thailand tourism low season big buddha day monsoon rains

Thailand’s tarnished image abroad: Thai tourism in decline

Thailand's tourist industry is struggling. Last year we watched with astonishment as three months of protests and the unopposed occupation of Bangkok's Government House culminated in a week-long siege of the country's main airport, Suvarnabhumi, as the police stood by and did absolutely nothing. Tens of thousands of visitors were stranded by the yellow-shirt (then) anti-government PAD movement’s actions. This single event did immense harm to Thailand’s international image. This year it has been the turn of the red-shirted pro-Thaksin DAAD supporters, with clashes in the street that led to the humiliating cancellation of SE Asia’s ASEAN summit, planned for Pattaya. Regular political upheavals have reinforced a natural reluctance to visit a country which seems prone to a succession of natural disasters and man-made clangers. Thailand has had a bird flu scare, a plane crash in Phuket, the tsunami. There are regular accounts in the international press of the arrest and imprisonment of Westerners; extremely harsh penalties are sometimes imposed for what can appear to foreign observers, unfamiliar with Thailand's culture and laws, to be minor misdemeanours. Examples? Taking a beer mat from a bar, eating a doughnut on the way to a 7-11 supermarket check-out, contravening the severe lese majeste laws (for example by not standing up in a cinema during the pre-film national anthem). As a Brit, should you be rude about your own royal family during a flight to Bangkok, in the earshot of someone who takes these issues seriously, you could find yourself under arrest on arrival. The maximum lese majeste penalty for disrespectful comments about foreign royalty is two years’ imprisonment. Wherever you make them in the world.

Few customers, plenty of pollution in Chiang Mai...

On top of all this, even if limited progress has been made, Thailand still has a reputation for rampant corruption. Foreigners can feel they are tiptoeing on eggshells through some mystifying rules and regulations, and to cap it all, they appear to be somewhat 'flexible' according to occasionally rather questionable decisions and interpretations by individual officials. And it's hardly rare for an official to need an 'unofficial' payment to smooth the way...

It's dead at the Chiang Mai Saloon, on Loi Kroh Road in Chaing Mai. (The guy in red is the owner)

All serve to instil doubts into would-be travellers about the risks involved in visiting Thailand. Many seasoned travellers and long-term expats are able to come to terms with certain idiosyncrasies, which effectively boil down to respecting the Thai way of life. But expecting first-time visitors to be able to do the same? More than a little optimistic.

Things could well get worse before they get better. More political demonstrations are planned from late June. There have been rumours of one new Chiang Mai hotel being down to 10% occupancy. Bars and tourism-related businesses are closing left, right and centre. Ok this is the start of the low season, but even so. Sterling, the euro and USD are still weak compared to a few years ago, and there is little sign of Thailand's central bank relaxing its strong baht policy. Before the financial crisis began to bite, certain middle- and high-end hotel rates were rising well above inflation rate. Dwindling numbers of tourists that are still coming to Thailand are being more careful with their money. Other countries seem to be doing a better job of marketing their tourist industries, especially those S.E. Asian countries that are now selling themselves as family destinations, eating into what not so long ago seemed to be Thailand's monopoly of the tourist market in this part of the world. Bali, the Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam are all making significant inroads into Thailand’s former share.

Thailand’s image has also been tarnished by accounts of high pollution in the Chiang Mai region as well as Bangkok, and endless traffic jams in its capital city. The pristine beaches and undeveloped islands of twenty years ago are a fading memory.

The town hall in Malaucene, Provence, France. The mill workers are fighting the closure of a five centuries old business, but it seems to be a lost cause...

The worrying economic situation on a global level is just exacerbating the problem. As an example just today in my little village of 2,750 people in the Provencal backwaters of France, workers from the sole industrial business in the area of any size were desperately trying to persuade the Schweitzer-Mauduit Group, American owners of Malaucene's five centuries old paper mill since 1920, not to make the final 211 employees redundant and close the mill altogether. The machines already stopped turning on April 1st of this year; some April Fool’s joke. A little piece of history, this mill has been producing paper using water from the Grozeau spring since 1545 - the oldest mill in France. A sign of how bad things are, that a business that has operated non-stop for almost five centuries is closing. And surprise, surprise – Schweitzer-Mauduit opened a 100 million dollar mill in China in 2005, making exactly the same product. The writing was on the wall. Industrial production was being moved from the West to Asia and a ready supply of cheap labour, long before the economic crisis began to bite.



Thailand has long been a popular destination for the French. A stagnating European economy will see a sizeable proportion of holidaymakers saving money and choosing to vacation much nearer to home. Some of those thinking of retirement to the Land of Smiles are now looking at different alternatives. A couple of years ago the owner of the Ad’Hoc pizzeria in Vaison la Romaine was convinced that Thailand was the place for him. Tucking into a ‘pizza royale’ there on Wednesday, he was much less enthusiastic. The euro… pollution… violence on the street… unstable politics... all came up in the course of a brief conversation, all issues raised by le patron, first.

Still on a French theme, there are some similarities between Thailand and France - the latter is also rather complacent about its value as a tourist destination. A case in point, winter sports vacations. France once held a virtual monopoly on the mass ski tourism business on their side of the Atlantic, with unrivalled infrastructure combining with natural resources and competitive prices to leave challengers far behind. But little by little less obvious ski tourism countries (eg Bulgaria, Russia), have been building up their appeal, and are starting to offer more competitive packages. To the point that some French resorts are now seriously feeling the pinch. A bit late now to think about investment in marketing, renewing infrastructure, making prices more competitive, with an increasing number of former clients having already voted with their ski boots, sliding off to considerably less expensive white slopes elsewhere. France is beginning to learn that size and even reputation isn’t everything. You have to be able to keep it up, and there are some younger and hungrier suitors out there.

Although regular travellers to the more exotic destinations are a resilient bunch, a major part of the global tourism market targets first-time visitors rather than returnees. These are considerably more fickle – it takes one worrying event, and a country can be quickly crossed off the list of possibilities.

It's the extra-low, low season in Pattaya - photo by MyThailand.com

Any positive signs from Thailand in response to the crisis? We have seen a few commercial gestures sponsored and marketed by TAT, the official Thai tourist board. Plenty of hand-waving from government officials and politicians. But the suspicion remains that Thailand will as ever muddle through, mai pen rai style. Tomorrow’s another day…

Edit 13.06.2009: Personal Thailand has some interesting facts on corruption taken from the recent NACC study

Edit 13.06.2009: Bangkok Blogger has a great post on the nitty gritty survival problems of ordinary Thais because of the current lack of tourists, and some quite astonishing personal anecdotes from his last week around the Big Mango... click her for "Bar Girls, Restaurant Girls, and Laundry Girls"

thai tourism thai politics thailand recession global tourism france tourism winter sports

Going, Going, Gong... and some floating memories

A sign of the times in Chiang Mai - another failed business. Would have liked to have known how long a shop exclusively retailing gongs managed to keep afloat. But while on a watery theme...

The floating market has become something of a tourist cliche these days, part of the unavoidable list of must-see places for visitors to Bangkok - sooner or later you'll find yourself there, just as countless tourism touts will eventually end up persuading you to make a trip to the Tiger Temple. But if you're going to go, now's the time - the dearth of foreign visitors will make for a scene resembling the market in days of old. For once looking like the 'real thing', rather than an imitation version, a show put on for the tourists' benefit. Ok it's not - it's a bona fide market that has been trading in this manner for many years - but the seasoned traveller can end up with that nagging feeling, when persuaded to go along on an organised trip to places like this.

In the days when tourists were still flocking to Thailand, visitors to the floating market near Bangkok.
Click on any of the thumbnails, small or large, to see the full-size photos...



It's a colourful and chaotic setting, for first time Western visitors to SE Asia providing a cultural 'rush' that leaves you giddy with exotic impressions of a world so far removed from our own.


On your way back home your guide will miraculously find the time to call in at a gem factory or the like, not originally on the day's agenda. You are under no obligation to buy of course, but he gets his pay-off just from leaving his group at the door. The theory is that the wide-eyed tourist fresh off the plane from 'civilisation', inebriated by Asian exotica, will be ripe for the soft sell. An attractive lady will act as your limpet-like assistant, ushering you through the maze of never-ending counters crammed with jewels priced at least 50% higher than in back-street shops. You don't know this yet - or you wouldn't be on a guided tour in the first place.

Still, if you have valiantly resisted, you start to wonder how to escape. You peer into the distance, but no sign of a way out. When you eventually have to ask if there actually is one, your personally assigned gem specialist will adopt a wistful look, while trying to sell you the last option, the cheapest item in the shop... then lead you to a door where the word exit has been printed in size 8 font.

At least this is no Tunisian souk... the salespeople in Thailand are restricted by a culturally bred natural reluctance to impose themselves on their potential customers. Walk through a night bazaar, and no street hawker will attach himself to you refusing to take no for an answer. A simple "mai ao, krap" (no thanks, I don't want), and you will be left alone.

That's one memory I always take back with me to Europe - the unfailing politeness of the Thais.

Thaksin phone-in blocked? Angry crowds in Chiang Mai

Ex-premier of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra was to have taken part in a live phone-in tonight to supporters massed in a Bangkok stadium, and at rallies around Thailand. However there was both anger and disappointment amongst the several thousand strong crowd in Chiang Mai when the authorities allegedly blocked the transmission of his satellite phone call from "somewhere in a neighbouring country". [Ed. at this stage there is no evidence that the phone-in was deliberately blocked. There was pressure on Thaksin to avoid further provocation, even from within the political groups he used to lead]

- technicians and organisers at Chiang Mai DAAD headquarters struggle to establish the satellite uplink, to no avail...

The anger was pretty muted in the circumstances. Imagine the reaction of a crowd somewhere in the West, gathered together at a major rally to listen to a revered, if fugitive former leader, only to be told that the transmission had been deliberately blocked by the authorities of that country. There would be outrage, demonstrations, possibly even riots. However this is Thailand - and there was a certain resignation at a not unexpected turn of events. Thailand's democracy is stuttering, and the prospect of real freedom of expression is even more remote after tonight, according to one of the Chiang Mai organisers.

One of the rally leaders puts on a brave face, but he couldn't mask his disappointment at what he saw as yet another deliberate attempt to stifle the voice of the ordinary Thai people...


Very striking is the composed and orderly nature of every rally I've been to here in Chiang Mai. A far cry from the gangs of stupid thugs that the PAD leaders would have their followers believe are gathering in hordes in the north of the country. With the help of an interpreter, I was able to chat to half a dozen red-shirted followers present at tonight's gathering, and they all expressed an articulate understanding of the issues involved. Hardly the ignorant peasants portrayed by their yellow-shirted opponents.

Plenty of passion - but no aggression

Not a single major Thai TV network broadcast the pre-recorded speech, only showing brief clips of the 50,000 strong gathering at the Bangkok stadium. In the address Thaksin suggested that Thailand was undergoing a "coup d'etat" targeting the newly formed democratic institutions, accusing the military of directly intervening in the current discussions over the formation of a new government.

He also berated PAD for their occupation of the main Bangkok airports, Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang, and appealed for unity.

Earlier in the evening, the Imperial Mae Ping Hotel at 6.30 pm. If the number of lights in the rooms is any indication, occupancy is extremely low, in line with the 10% reported by a number of top hotels in Bangkok

10.30pm, at the What? bar, Loi Kroh. A few expat regulars watch the Liverpool Hull match, barely a farang to be seen in the street outside...

To avoid accusations of bias... here are some yellow-shirts.

Taken in those innocent days when PAD hadn't hijacked the colour for their own purposes, and people happily wore yellow as a sign of respect for the King on a Monday.

Lest it be forgotten that ordinary people are the pawns in the machinations of the powerful as the game plays itself out...

RELATED POSTS:

November 27th - Thailand - Caught in a humiliating political farce
November 28th - Chiang Mai - the calm before the storm?
November 29th - Thai tuk-tuks to face down the tanks
November 29th - Red-shirts rally in Chiang Mai
November 30th - Thailand - the land of worn and tired smiles
December 1st - Crisis in Thailand? What crisis. Mai pen lai
December 3rd - Airport occupation over... or is it?

“Amazing Thai Travel 2008”

About sums it up really - Amazing Thailand! “Amazing Thai Travel 2008” is the name of a pre-Christmas fair aimed at stimulating domestic tourism, as if that could even begin to make up for the dearth of foreign tourists Thailand is likely to experience over at least the next few months. Organized by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and six regional tourism associations, the authorities are attempting to undo some of the damage done by the recent political upheavals, and the airport occupations in particular. Tourism represents about 7% of Thailand's GDP, and an estimated further 5% is generated by business completely dependent on tourism, so they've a lot of work to do...

The hotels - where occupancy has dropped to under 10% in some cases - are also joining forces with TAT in some major promotions to try to tempt back the tourists. There's a "Buy One, Get One Free" hotel and travel offer, promising 50% discounts on flights, amusement parks, and accommodation.

Despite these promotional efforts TAT Marketing representative Santichai Euachongprasit suggested this week that the number of foreign tourists is likely to drop by up to 50%, some 2.3 million people, between December 2008 and April 2009. Another TAT spokeperson said he expected this trend to continue throughout the year.

(Somewhat ironically) 2009 is 'Visit Thailand' year, TAT director Wiwatchai Boonyapak pointed out. He doesn't seem to be on the same wavelength as his marketing colleagues, trying to suggest that everything would soon be back to normal - "Even SARS and bird flu didn't slow things down for long".

Typical head in sand attitude from some officials - as if the social unrest, airport closures, combined with the world economic problems and the continuing strength of the Thai baht - not to mention renewed bird flu outbreaks in Isaan - won't dissuade a considerable number of people from travelling to Thailand.

By way of example, the £ sterling would buy you 67.3 baht as recently as July 10th. Just five months later, December 10th, the £ is worth 53 baht. The euro isn't much better. The less said about the Aussie dollar the better. Not so long ago there was a nouveau riche Russian invasion of Pattaya. Now the rouble is in free fall, with nearly a 20% devaluation against the USD since August, and some predicting that a further 20% devaluation is on the cards if oil prices don't pick up.

I picked one of Chiang Mai's most popular hang-outs, the Chiang Mai Saloon in Loi Kroh for a beer tonight. At this time of year, 8pm on a Friday night, it is usually packed out. Over an hour or so a total of four customers dropped by, including me (the guy in red is the American owner)...

Bored bar staff. The boss pointed out that it was the same story, worse even, around town. Most of the bars and restaurants are empty. I suggested that PAD had gone too far this time, that they had made a big mistake in occupying the airports. "Thailand never stops making mistakes", came the quickfire answer. Not a happy farang...

The bulk of the tourists stuck in of Thailand are now on their way home, the planes arriving are virtually empty. Perhaps this is the bottom of the trough, but all those who have cancelled are unlikely to return in a hurry.

Expat residents are still around of course, but with the drop in value of most Western currencies, they are spending less and less in bars and restaurants. I'm no different - prices are still relatively cheap compared to Europe, especially in the Thai establishments, but while inflation has caused prices to rise a good 10% over the last six months, my £ sterling income has plummeted in value. It's beginning to hurt!

So no meal out for me tonight - apparently some friends had dropped by with something 'special'...

All pretty standard stuff, or so it appeared. Fried fish with a sweet and spicy dip that is absolutely delicious, one of my favourites. Not so keen on the mixed vegetables in semtex-strength chili pepper sauce, bottom left. But our visitors wanted me to taste the final dish, top right, and guess at the contents...

It was a bit like a chewy version of chicken, with a slightly gamy flavour. To start with I guessed at some kind of bird - not even close. King Cobra was the speciality of the evening. I of course expressed my delight and thanks, and chewed my way through much of my plateful. Pretty tasty too to be fair, although the skin, prepared in this way, was thick, elastic and.. well.. rather disgusting actually. Might have been ok fried, but in a spicy sauce, not my thing.

Still, just a few days left before departure date for France, amazing Thailand politics and demos willing, so a few memories to take back with me to keep me going until I come back in four months' time. Salade nicoise and steak au poivre await. Could be a lot worse!