asddas

by Kevin Farley (Taiwan)

I didn't expect to find Thailand

I definitely didn't want to go to Thailand. When Rob called me about the holiday, I tried to convince him to go anywhere but Thailand until he snapped at me with that disdainful tone you only get to use with friends you’ve known for 20 years. “Shut up, Kevin! The ticket to Bangkok was cheap. I have 7 days in the country, so find somewhere close and tell me where we are going!”. “So”, I told my girlfriend, Alice, after hanging up, “I guess we’re going to Thailand.” I had been to Thailand in 2010, to Bangkok and then south. But something felt off. It was the feeling of being on a Tourist Travellator. Like in an airport where you are heading to customs and they have posters of all the wonderful and weird places you can visit. And we did. The floating market, Khoi San Road, Wat Pho, street food stalls, food poisoning, Soi Cowboy, sleeper trains, ferries, seasickness, Koh Phangan, a Full-moon party, a beach bungalow. But everywhere I went I was one of many. Flotsam in a steady stream of flip-flops, tanned tattoos, Chang vests, backpacks, sunglasses and the ubiquitous baggy pants. It was like being in a museum, looking at a “Thai Holiday Exhibition”. And to those being looked at, I was an indistinguishable part of the never-ending stream of gawkers, flush with fresh Facebook content. The interactions felt transactional: Culture for cash, selfies for sale. It disappointed, and so I wrote off the whole country. And, yet, the Mae Hong Son loop from Chiang Mai changed everything. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes it so special, so memorable. The thrill of driving the road on our 125CC beasts was a major part of it. A road that dips and climbs and winds its way through 1865 turns, an embarrassing number of which left me whooping into my helmet at the picture-perfect scene. The tree-lined straights stretching into mist or another turn. The weathered faces of farmers on their dusty old motorbikes transporting all manner of goods and a dog to or from the market or the fields. The monks crossing a bridge at first light, their bright orange robes the only splash of color in the black and white landscape. The majesty of the mountains beyond mountains that reveal themselves as you burst through the trees into the sunlight. The immense Asian Redwood trees that tower over the road, providing cool pools of shade. The tropical curtain that hems the road, a kaleidoscope of greens which, occasionally parts to give a glimpse of life in these hills. Rice fields ploughed by oxen, hewed by hand in the hot sun, bow-legged bamboo shelters tucked under trees for a shady spot to wait for the heat to pass. The unassuming, open-air, riverside bar in Mae Sariang that had an incredible assortment of things from barber chairs to a North Korean Army Officer’s hat. The roadside shops, a short dusty walk from the tarmac that all feature bright or formerly-bright-now-sun-bleached-almost-white banners for ice cream, or a cellphone company, or soap, or washing powder, or cola. The calm of the Mae Hong Son night market which wraps itself around a still lake in the middle of town, in which is perfectly reflected the twinkling lights and brilliant white of the temple's stupa. And the people. The teenage monk who wanted a selfie with us, while we were standing and looking out at the ‘famous’ sunset. The bar owner who told us she was tired and didn’t want to cook, but directed us to her favorite restaurant in town and wrote down what we should order. The man who we happened to sit next to and laughed at us as we bit into our food and were surprised by the spiciness. He taught us how to say “Not spicy, please”, in Thai, and we're now friends. Or the young girls in traditional Thai garb doing photoshoots with their moms in a tiny old-style wooden temple. The "Land of Smiles" moniker is now understood. The return trip is planned. The word has been spread: we know a place, where the people are as beautiful as the backdrop.