To be kind

by Lotte Sikkema (Netherlands)

Making a local connection Thailand

We woke up to an empty motel. It wasn’t a big motel; it only had a few rooms, arranged around an open courtyard. The walls were white, in need of some fresh paint. Near the entrance there was one counter, but there weren’t any other facilities. And at this single moment, there also weren’t any employees. The weather was warm, a bit clammy, but always better than the cold back home. Eva and I decided to wait in the courtyard for an employee who could call us a cab. We had been in Thailand for only a couple of days. Our journey had started in Bangkok and had now brought us to a little village on the east coast called Prachuap Khiri Khan. Prachuap was a beautiful and history-rich village, but nevertheless, there weren’t many tourists. The town had a history in war and the remains were easily visible, as the town was regulated by the army for a big part . To get to the beaches, you first had to pass an army base. But instead of seeing all this for ourselves, Eva and I were stuck. The lack of employees seemed typical, in a less-economy-fixated world like the Thai one. Even so, we were getting a little bit annoyed and hungry when after half an hour, there still was no one to be found. We had to come up with a plan. We decided to walk alongside the highway, in hopes of finding a place to serve breakfast. And we were lucky. Almost next to our motel there was a big, luxe hotel, that reminded me of our western world in many ways. People were running around continuously and even when no guests were around, the employees kept on working. Like ours, their world seemed busy and fixated on money. We found the dining hall very soon and in fifteen minutes, breakfast was served. As I took the last bite of my toast, I asked Eva: ‘What now?’ ‘Maybe these people can call us a tuk-tuk’, she answered. I pulled out my Lonely Planet. If we were going to take a cab, we needed an exact address. We decided to go to a beach; there were three of them, but we found Ao Manao the most compelling since the locals enjoyed it the most. Eva stood up to ask the waitress, which obviously went laborious, taken that we were in a non-touristy area and thus speaking English was not so much necessary. I walked towards them to help and within no time we were surrounded by about eight employees. The conversation quickly converted into repeating ‘Taxi? Cab? Tuk-tuk?’ while making the ‘phone’-sign and ‘Ao Manao’. At some point, the first waitress understood. ‘Ahh, Ao Manao!’ She pronounced it just a little different than we had done. Then, she went to get a young man and gestured that we should follow him. So we did. Just moments later, we sat in a red car, on our way to Ao Manao. The young man put on a cd that he had burned himself. It contained western top-40 music. He started to sing along happily – for as far as that is possible in a language you barely speak. I started to sing along too, and so did Eva. He smiled. In about twenty minutes, we arrived at Ao Manao. I immediately understood why locals loved this place so much. It was quiet, with high needle-leaved trees, white sand and light blue, shimmering water. I got out my wallet to pay the man. He aggressively shook his head. ‘No pay’. I looked at him questionably. ‘No please let us pay’. I tried giving him the money, but he wouldn’t take it and shook his head once again. I was confused but decided to let it go. ‘Thank you so much,’ I told him, ‘Kapuhn kah’. He smiled. The red car left out of sight and Eva and I looked at eachother perplexed. We were there, on the most beautiful beach we had ever seen, brought by an employee of a hotel where we didn’t stay at and who we hadn’t paid. Maybe, the hotel wasn’t so comparable to western ones after all.