Thailand

9/12/09 - 31/12/09

Speaking of police states...

Northern Thailand, beyond Chiang Mai, beyond the hordes of package tour farangs and lame Chang swilling expats opens out into endless mountain vistas and fertile country, farmed by hill-tribe communities reminiscent of Java. The mountain road between Ang Khang and Arunothai for example has a real Bromo feel, possibly only lacking the edge of Indonesia, the constant heart-pounding adrenaline brought on by the anticipation of what might be round the next bend. A buffalo, an intercity bus, a landslide, or the sudden transition to a great pile of rocks and the fear of being completely out of your depth, out of control and on your own.

We could talk all about this. About the sleepy rural towns lining the Mekong. About the local riverboat traffic transporting goods and people to and from Thailand. About sitting on our balcony looking out across the river to Laos and wondering what it might be like over there.

But that would be getting ahead of ourselves. We’ll try to keep the rest brief, because the Thailand most of the 14 million package tourists see each year really doesn’t do it for us.

Trang’s not a bad little place though. Sitting out the front of a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the outskirts of town, having earlier been poached from the internet cafe next door - I have WiFi and my connection is much better than theirs. 8 megabit! - Chawakit, the owner, floats in and out for a chat.



At some point Ann casually comments that there’s an elephant walking past and that Lucas may care to look. Massive though it is, you could easily miss the dark gray blob at night, so she’s fully equipped with the latest in elephant road signalling technology. Stop lights, turn indicators, the works.

But free WiFi, exotic road hazards and conversations with Chawakit about the merits of open source software aren’t enough to keep us in Trang for long.

Koh Lanta supposedly has a lower farang to Thai ratio than most of the other islands, so after a couple of short ferry hops from the mainland we find ourselves in another bamboo beach bungalow by the ah... beach. It doesn’t take long to realise that if this is low-key Thai tourism then we may be in for a shock. Actually it feels more like Reverse Culture Shock, as these people no longer seem familiar or even likeable. Sour-faced, overfed, over health-and-safetied and mollycoddled they stalk the streets, caricatures of an alien civilization.

So the next day we take one of the bikes and piss off as far as possible in the opposite direction, to a little rocky beach all of our own. Its terrible what we have to endure really.

But hey, the beer’s cheap. Oh, but the bungalow has rats, which have a little midnight party with our breakfast. But hey, the beach is nice and secluded. Oh, but its rocky, and Lucas slips and cuts his foot open on some oysters. But hey, he’ll live...



A couple of days later though, a little out of Krabi, it becomes a bit of a nuisance when faced with the daunting 1237 step hike up to Wat Tham Seua. And while we’re on the subject, why do they do this step counting thing anyway? Since when was Buddhism a goal-driven philosophy?



Krabi’s not too bad, surrounded by all sorts of Lonely Planet Thailand 2007 12th Edition Andaman Coast stuff – beaches, caves, forest, Wats, you know – so we stay for a few days. Finally though, its time to move on, and figuring he can’t really put it off for much longer, Lucas resigns from Wesley Mission.

In our quest for a farang-free Thailand we decide to ditch the west coast, Phuket, and all that bullshit and make our way back over to Nakhon Si Thammarat. Its a former walled city, like so many in Thailand and has quite a bit of history. But they do tend to shoot people here. Or so we’re told. Or if we took any notice of the news we’d have already known.



Otherwise, it seems like a fairly low key place to hang out for a couple of days. The hotel is cheap and they let us park in the foyer, with the only condition being that we share the floor with a demented tomcat, who has the lungs of a fireman and wails like an air raid siren at inconvenient hours of the morning.

Inconvenient also is the cost of petrol here; its turning out to be a quarter of our living expenses. Which is a real bummer, but what do you do? We’re getting 85-90mpg on the highway but still the bus would be cheaper. Interestingly the gasohol they sell here seems to have no impact on the performance or economy of the bikes, even though we’d always been led to believe otherwise.

Zigzagging our way north to Bangkok where there’s some chores to do, we stop at Khanom, Khao Sok via Chiaw Lan Lake, Chumphon and finally Prachuap Khiri Khan. Along the way we discover why Malaysia’s east coast has such a sodden reputation, one of Ann’s panniers becoming waterlogged in the process.



That Thailand’s national parks really aren’t worth the B400 per person entrance fee, and that ever so gradually, they seem to be waking up to the fact that the rest of the world is onto their great big WiFi rip-off. Most places though (even some cafes and restaurants) still make you pay extra for the privilege. So its back to watching the minutes count down at internet cafes again, something which brings back memories of Indonesia, even though these places are a world apart. Non-smoking and fairly quiet, with reasonable PCs and ok bandwidth, the whole experience couldn’t be more different.

However, believe it or not, there are some things we miss about Indonesia – the smell of cloves drying by the side of the road, hotels that give you coffee on arrival and breakfast in the morning and let us use their roof to dry our clothes, the scenery, the photography, the chaos.

Things we don’t miss – pretty much everything else.

Because we’ve spent Christmas on the beach for years, in some ways a Prachuap Christmas isn’t so unusual. Well ok, the fact that you get to the beach by crossing the 53rd Thai Air Wing air force base (literally crossing the runway), and the normal sounds of the ocean are interspersed with artillery fire do make it a slightly unusual experience. We’ll admit to that. We’ll also admit to feeling a bit melancholy. Ann always struggles at Christmas, but this year its infectious.



On a lighter note... what’s the driving like, we hear you ask? Well, after giving the Malaysians a bit of caning last time, we’re going to do the opposite here and slot the Thais into 1st place on the list.

Thailand
UK
Canada
Oz
USA
Timor Leste
Indonesia
Malaysia

In general they’re extremely courteous (sometimes almost unbelievably so), stick to their lanes, obey the road rules, indicate... appropriately even, and drive cautiously, not aggressively. Even in Bangkok, the locals are surprisingly non-aggressive for such a big, congested city.

Maybe they’re scared shitless about attracting the attention of the fearsome Bangkok traffic police. We on the other hand, seem to attract attention everywhere we go, and on the ride into Bangkok get plucked out of a traffic jam and asked to produce our licenses.

Overpass. No motorbike. License.
“Where’s the sign? I didn’t see any sign.”
License
“Bullshit. No sign.”
License
“She’s got them.” (pointing to Ann)
License
“She’s got them!”
License

The usual tactic here is to confiscate your license and hold onto it until you come up with the “fine”, which is highly negotiable. But as soon as they see Ann produce photocopies of our international drivers licenses they seem to get bored and lose interest. We’re pretty over these officious little dickwads as well, so decide to ignore them and head off back into the traffic.



Predictably, the Bangkok traffic really sucks. Its nothing like Jakarta though; everyone’s very civilised as they slowly inch forward. The biggest problem for us is that the narrow roads make it very difficult to lane split and we often find ourselves stuck, eating diesel.

The other perennial big city issue is parking, and our two best options are either full or resemble a solitary confinement ward. So the only choice is to keep moving further and further out until we... “Hey I wonder what that one’s like?”

The lady on reception at Hotel 28 initially refuses us, explaining that the hotel is full. But after Ann does her best helpless dumb blonde impersonation, she relents and takes us to see a couple of rooms. Now we have to explain at this point that initially we’d missed the punters board on the wall at reception, so its only when Madam Wang reveals the circular bed in the circular room with the shag pile carpet and the velour upholstery, with the full floor-to-ceiling 360 degree mirrored walls, that the penny finally drops and we both burst out laughing. “Its a goddamn brothel!”

Oddly, the place turns out to be the quietest we’ve stayed in for months.

“Lucas! I told you not to turn on the TV!” 28 channels of wholesome family pronographic entertainment coming atcha.



We never particularly wanted to stay in Bangkok, but it looks like we’ll have to fly the bikes from here to India in a few months, so we spend a couple of days doing the rounds and making phone calls. Having been in denial about the cost of all this for a while now, its a little sobering to finally get some quotes.

Another steamy night settles on the city, and walking the streets, away from areas like the overwhelmingly tacky Khao San backpacker strip and the pathetic Patpong red light district, Bangkok is really kind of dull. Geographically flat and uninteresting, one street corner blurs with the next. A farang on a big bike blows through a police roadblock, scattering cops in all directions.

These roadblocks and checkpoints blanket the whole country, particularly in a radius of a couple of hundred kilometres around Bangkok, and you can practically guarantee that at the front of every traffic jam there’ll be a cop with a whistle. The army checkpoints are the most interesting however, simply due to the masterly inactivity of the soldiers. Its almost like they’re conserving energy for the next coup. We’ve learned not to make eye contact with any of these officious little officials, but its still annoying having to barge our way through countless traffic jams on the way out of Bangkok. Way out west. Out into the heat, leaving the brown haze of the city behind.



Hellfire pass is not named after the hellishly hot weather which occurs in this dry, dusty corner of Thailand, but it could be. There isn’t much respite from the searing afternoon sun when you’re walking along an abandoned railway track.

No, the pass got its nickname from the prisoners of war who dug it out of the rock face by hand. Working around the clock, they said the glow of the fires at night, casting ghoulish shadows on the walls of the cutting, resembled something out of Dante’s Inferno.



In photos the whole area looks autumnal, the bamboo on the hillsides turning shades of yellow and burnt orange, billions of their needle-like dead leaves carpeting the ground.



But its all an optical illusion. Yes it is winter, but god is it hot. It must be 40 today.

Later that night we spend New Year’s Eve at Kanchanaburi, in yet another bamboo-ish bungalow type thing. New year’s is never a big deal for us, so rather than going out and getting shit-faced at some Thai lady-boy bar down the road, we spend it sitting by the river Kwai, not contemplating the year that was and not looking forward to the year to come, just content to be alive and doing our own thing...

The Rabbit Proof Firewall

A couple of things have been bugging us lately dear viewers, but since we promised to use our blogging powers for niceness and not evil (opinionated grandstanding), we debated whether to post this one.

What could possibly be bugging us you ask? Well, admittedly we’re fairly unwound these days, so it takes more than it used to make us cranky, but please bear with us, because these things concern our beloved Oz and the continuing erosion of your (Ozwegians that is) civil rights; already a slippery slope. And we say your civil rights, because we’re over here in Thailand, where we have no rights.

Firstly, internet filtering. If any of you care one little bit about censorship, freedom of information, and freedom of speech, you will realise that the Australian government’s imminent implementation of an ISP-based content filtering system is not just something you should be wary of, its something, as Australians, you should be ashamed of. We certainly are.

Australia Introduces Web Filters
Joining China and Iran, Australia to Filter Internet.

These are the global headlines.

It is important that all Australians, particularly young children, are protected from this material.

This is the spin. This has always been the spin. The whale-sized herring used as justification, and trotted out for years by the nanny-state mongerers, the religious right and the loony left.

In fact, we were surprised to discover recently its not just China and Iran who practise content filtering. For example, this innocuous little site is blocked not only by The Great Firewall Of China, but also Malaysia. We tried accessing it from all over the country, using various service providers, but the site consistently times out. Cross the border into Thailand however, and up it pops. Spooky.



On a related topic, there are also vested commercial interests who would like to serve you up the internet like Pay TV. That is, you only get to see the bits you pay for. Would you like the MSN subscription with the optional Facebook upgrade pack? Or how about the Google and YouTube subscription? Oh, and this month we’re offering Wikipedia for an extra $2.95 per month. Tragically, we get the feeling that a lot of people, especially the younger generation (we’re really showing our age now) couldn’t give a damn. Many of these kids have been bombarded with advertising since birth; utterly brainwashed and lacking the capacity to discern reality from spin.

We owe it to our children to improve the filter between their ears that will help them know whom to trust, how to click the "back button" to avoid inappropriate content and how to enjoy the wonders of the Internet, safely and privately. Internet safety education is key to this, and should be mandated, not filtering. Parry Aftab, Executive Director-WiredSafety.org

The second, and admittedly far less serious issue, is something for our beloved Qld viewers to ponder. After spending the year riding through some of the world’s worst traffic and braving some of the world’s most idiotic drivers, we’ve got one thing to say to you lot back at home. You are so under the thumb. You are so over-policed, over-regulated and over-health-and-safetied it boggles the mind.

Speed is cited as a contributing factor in 5% of all accidents on Qld roads. The biggest factors, with a combined total of 61%, are Alcohol, Inexperience and Inattention. And yet, apart from the odd RBT, the only real focus on accident prevention is speed cameras (usually hidden), and cops with speed guns (always hidden).



These statistics are publicly available. We’ve been aware of them for years. We’ve bitched about them for years. But the reason we’re all hot and bothered about this today is that we’ve just heard the Qld government will be introducing point to point speed cameras in 2010.

Seriously you guys, in the Not Too Distant Future all these decisions will be out of your hands. Your cars will be externally speed-limited, governed according to whatever traffic zone you’re passing through. Unlikely you say? Bollocks. The technology is very straightforward, and was trialled years ago to improve the efficiency of long-haul trucks traversing the outback.

Do you really want to be reduced to automatons? Because your dipstick representatives, with their scheming Sir Humphries, will just keep chip chipping away, until the morning you wake up and its too late. Why don’t you just swap your Pajeros for the train now? Oh, sorry. Bad joke. Qld Rail that is.



For us, these issues reflect all that is wrong with Australia. Time and again, legislation is passed which is designed to satisfy the do-gooders, vocal minorities and those in power with personal agendas, and then sold to the public by their spin doctors. As a result, the law is no longer a framework designed to protect you and around which to build your life, it is instead a framework designed to imprison you.

Sigh... but anyway...

To end on a positive note, we saw the best piece of television in a long time recently, which exposed the Australian mainstream media for the bunch of dolts we’d always suspected them of being. And because its plainly obvious that most metropolitan water supplies are doused with Mogadon, it gladdened our hearts to think that there are still pockets of the country left where this isn’t the case.

Kind of a downer of a post at Christmas admittedly, but if its any consolation here’s a photo of us when we weren’t cranky in the least.



Have a great Christmas everybody. We miss you all.

Selamat Tinggal

Wed 25/11 – 30/11
We’re back. Back in KL with the family.



Back to replace clothes that have fallen to bits, pickup other bits for the GPS, a clutch release for one of the bikes, and a few pounds round the waistline, courtesy of Sharifah.

While fitting the new and long awaited GPS mount, we also take the tacho on Ann’s bike to pieces to see what’s going on, as its been erratic since Java. Which is a complete waste of time, since the needle is powered by some form of electrickery, not like one of those old fashioned cable-from-the-gearbox jobs. Some days its fine, some days it idles at zero, and others it gradually winds its way round past the redline and you can’t help watching it thinking the engine is suddenly going to follow suit and self-destruct.

It behaves itself on the way out to Putrajaya, somewhere we’d been meaning to return after being whizzed around it once before. Like Canberra, its an artificial town. And like most people who assume Sydney is the capital of Australia, the reality that Putrajaya is Malaysia’s capital comes as a bit of a doh! moment for us.



The fact that parliament still sits in KL seems to be a minor detail when glimpsing the city for the first time; the grand design gradually revealing itself.



Built on the site of a former oil palm plantation, and conceived by a former dictator, Putrajaya is dotted with signature buildings, designed by signature architects.



We double Richard and Stani out from KL to wander around the place, Ann for the first time on her bike.



And for a while, early on an overcast Sunday morning, we seem to be the only people on the streets.



The only ones doing this anyway.



The two huge signature mosques are a contrast in modern...



... and conservative...



...sophisticated...



... and... this... is the second silliest photo you’re likely to see today.

This is the silliest.

Tue 1/12
The same guy who designed the old KL Railway Station is responsible for Kuala Kangsar’s mosque so, after a late start (by the way did we tell you we were leaving again today?) we slowly make our way north on the old highway, stopping for food and photos, the whole time keeping an eye on the ominous looking clouds building on the horizon.



We’re already wondering about the wisdom of taking the back roads after passing several kampongs which have been badly flooded only days before and whose houses still bear muddy high-water marks, when the annoying showers of this morning begin worsening to torrential rain. Visibility is down to 40, which is the worst we’ve ridden since Timor. Its a shame, since the country from here to Sungai Petani is quite beautiful.

Wed 2/12
We’re feeling a little old the next day; our reserves of energy seem to have drained away in yesterday’s downpour. Or most likely we’re just out of shape, pampered by too much good living in KL.

And possibly its the thought of today’s goodbyes. Thobrani and Sharifah, who had followed us up to Sungai Petani yesterday, are heading back to KL again today, and we’re left floundering for words of thanks, finding it impossible to convey our gratitude and how much we’ll miss them.

Thu 3/12 – 8/12
So we head over to Penang the next day for a bit of touristic therapy.

We were told to go visit Peranakan Mansion the last time we were here, but didn’t seem to find the time.



Did you go see Peranakan? “Well, we were going to...” What, no? You. What, you didn’t see it? Oh, my god. I don’t believe it.



And so on and so forth.



To be quite honest, we reached a point several months ago in Sulawesi, when we realised that it made no difference where we went, how long it took to get there and what we did when we got there. It may sound a little pretentious to say, but was a real epiphany for us, and we’ve been thankful ever since that it happened early in the journey.



But back to Peranakan...



Which apparently represents the typical home of a wealthy 19th century Chinese family.



And is an eclectic mix of east and west.



Oriental and colonial.

Meanwhile, over at Sungai Petani, Atik, who is still in Medan, has been replaced by a Pakistani “security guard”, who is living on site “guarding” the house.

Apparently, ever since he started the place has been lit up at night like the Griswald’s Family Christmas, so one of our jobs is night-light patrol. The other is simply being here to give him company. Which is really part of the same job, or both jobs are linked at any rate. It seems that either the ghost stories have gotten to him, or he’s the world’s wussiest security guard and afraid of the dark.

Verbal explanations seem to fail, so it becomes a nightly game to see how many lights we can switch off before bed and how many have been switched back on again the next morning.



At least Penang is still there when we return a few days later.



Photogenic as ever.

Possibly the most interesting city in Malaysia.

It might also interest you to know that for months Celcom, the Malaysian telco we bought our sim card from, has been spamming our hand phone daily with lists of prayer times. Maybe we neglected to opt out of this redundant and irritating service after deleting one of their previous spams, but suddenly, on the eve of our departure from Malaysia, we find the service quite useful.

Rana, the Jean-Claude Van Damme of security guards, is a devout Muslim who never misses his prayers. How do we know this? Well, it seems nearly every time we want to leave the house (he has the only remote for the gate) and make our way to the front door, there he is on his prayer mat on hands and knees. Which causes us to back away, silently cursing, to wait a suitable interval for him to finish.

Its our own stupid fault of course. The daily broadcasts from the mosques become almost white noise after a while, and only now do we realise how successfully we’ve tuned them out.

Wed 9/12
Anyway... this’ll be the third time now. The third time we leave Malaysia feeling down, leaving behind people we care about.

Normally we get on the bikes feeling positive; energized with the anticipation of moving on. But after the Thai border at Sadao we blow through one dusty, depressing, no name town after the next.

Its not in our nature to get all gushy and sentimental, but a month ago Thobrani and Sharifah took in two complete strangers, housed them (in style), fed them (in style) and made them feel like part of the family. We can’t thank them enough.

And Malaysia itself? It may not be quite as exotic as its neighbours, but its almost as corrupt. Free speech isn’t exactly free yet, and there’s a real feeling of underlying racial tension, but nevertheless we seem to have become emotionally attached. And so, day one in Thailand is mostly spent reflecting on how much we’ll miss the place...