Bangkok has these very nice, very green and free bicycles you can ride around the touristic area.Although you have to show them your id when taking one, knowing that you can even
get a pilot certificate on the next street, they also take a photo of you, just in case.
Thailand is one of the most touristic countries perhaps in the whole world and it is one of the easiest to find your way around in. The internet is full of material on Thailand and whatever I may write here has the possibility of having been already written down somewhere else. Since I don’t want to pass by without blogging anything about it and not repeat anything else, I’ll just write down a few random things that caught my attention about Thailand, and most will still be repetitions :)
Colorful Ayutthaya tuktuks. Busses and taxis are also extremely colorful here.Thailand is the only country in South East Asia that has never been colonized. It has been a neighbor to other colonized countries all around but it always kept the kingdom strong. The current king, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is eighty something, is the world’s longest reigning monarch alive, with 61 years on duty. But Thailand is not a monarchy, it’s a parliamentary democracy. Well, on the other hand Thailand has the greatest number of military coups in this side of the world. In other countries around, like Myanmar or Cambodia, when army takes power they seem to hold on to it. Whereas in Thailand army takes power, makes elections in a couple of years, the same guys they made the coup against gets elected, they kick them down and make another coup, sometimes silent. But whatever happens, Thai people really trust the king and almost worship him. Little shrines devoted to his highness can be found all around the country and being disrespectful to him is a big crime. (As a side note, I have first time experienced in Thailand such a strong single superhero, revered almost as God almighty, just like the worshipping of Kemal Atatürk in Turkey. But this time he’s alive.) Unfortunately King Bhumibol is very old and sick and there are no good heirs to the throne, with the son being a corrupt womanizer of a socialite and the daughter, although very charitable and much loved by the people, being single with no children (plus Thailand never had a queen without a king before).
One of the millions of shrines in honor of King Bhumibol.
What happens when you cover all your temples in pure gold?Your neighbor gets jealous. And in this case, the Burmese invaded the capital Ayutthaya
and to take the gold –by melting it- burnt down all the temples and palaces.
The king’s color is yellow but every year people choose a new color for the shirts they wear with the royal seal. When I arrived everybody wore yellow because the king was 60 years on the throne and he was born on Tuesday, the yellow day. This year they all wear pink, which creates a very soft feeling when you look at a crowded market place where many Thai people proudly carry the royal seal on their pink shirts.
King Naalesuan was sent to exile when the Burmese invaded Siam. He became a herowith his later victories and his fondness of cock fighting is remembered by
all the big and small rooster statues in shrines and monuments in his honor.
The current political situation in Thailand is very strange. Couple of years ago the army took power against Thaksin Shinawat, the Thai Berlusconi, who was charged by corruption. Apparently people were not that happy with him and his privatization and selling government companies and other property to his family. After less then 2 years they held an election and although he himself was in exile (in fear of being jailed in Thailand) his supporters won the elections. He briefly visited Thailand but was forced back to exile when the court cases started to show results against him. Then the opposition started to make mass demonstrations and asked his party to give up. They had a few incidents when demonstrators on both sides clashed and killed each other on the streets of Bangkok but recently they’ve been first occupying the party headquarters, when some people threw hand grenades on them and then they went on to occupy the two main airports of Bangkok just before Christmas time. Reports said 300.000 tourists were stranded for almost a week when thousands of supporters of Peaople’s Alliance for Democracy took over the airport by literally chasing away the few hundred airport security and policemen there. And in the end they got what they wanted. The irony is that People’s Alliance for Democracy didn’t accept the results of a democratic election and pushed army to force a man in uniform to be the prime minister once again. After all it is just a light scale social class war between these urban middle class and the rural population who still support the old prime minister. The unfortunate result of this is the crippling of tourism industry which is one of Thailand’s main sources of income.
The giant swing of Bangkok. Who else would have thought about holding competitions of high swingingto the point that it becomes fatally dangerous? I tell you, it's no coincidence they love Red Bull.
Thai people are also different than other SE Asians, they are in a way more fiery. SE Asians in general are very kind and gentle people and in most cases this applies to Thai people also. They have these big smiles and they know how to make fun of life. But within the region they are the more aggressive and violent ones perhaps. As far as I know, Thailand is the only country in the region which has a living fighting sport tradition, muay Thai, or Thai boxing. They consume unbelievable amounts of really strong red bull and other stimulants all day long. In fact red bull started in Thailand where the local versions have too much caffeine and taurine to be legally exported.
Picking drinkers from the street on the new year day in Bangkok's Khaosan Road.It is very strong and you can be 12 and still have it!
Most Thais are Buddhist (some Muslims and Chinese also) and in traditional families men still spend a couple of years time as a monk in a monastery (somehow like the military service back in the west but not compulsory of course). This is a tradition of the whole Indochina region and even the king does his duty as a monk, and for some years every morning takes his bowl and goes begging. On the other hand, also like other societies in the region, there is belief in spirits, supernatural powers and honoring of the ancestors (sometimes wrongly mentioned as ‘ancestor worship’). They make these tiny houses in front of their houses where they keep little statues of their ancestors and honor them with offerings of rice, fruits and Fanta every morning. Many Thai people are crazy for amulets. You can find amulet markets by the sidewalk where vendors sell little clay figures of monks in meditation, or sometimes Buddha. The clay from each amulet supposedly comes from a sacred location and they are sometimes produced in monasteries. After you put the jewelers magnifying glass in your eye and check out all the tiny detail of workmanship and you decide to buy one amulet, you find a suitable house for it, which is a little transparent plastic ad silver pendant that you can hang on your neck with a heavy chain. And some people carry really big ones.
A shrine for dead ancestors shared by a living neighbor on the basement.Thailand used to be called Siam but changed their name because Siamese is just the main ethnicity here, whereas Thai means free, thus Thailand ‘Freeland’. I really appreciate this kind of name changes. Burma changed into Myanmar with the same reason as there are other ethnicities than the Burmese in Myanmar. I wish the same will be possible for Turkey and other countries where racial identities try to dominate a whole country.
Monasteries are home to many dogs, to the point that there are more dogs than monks like this one.And the first time I was seriously bitten by a dog was when I was in a monastery in South Thailand,
sitting and meditating under a tree early in the morning. Bad karma dog!
Being a foreigner in Thailand makes you a ‘farang’ and you are recognized as a money source in most places. It is so strong that it feels like in return of most Thais seeing all foreigners as tourists, most foreigners treat the country as an oversized hotel. Although this makes the country very convenient to travel in, I cannot say it is a good feeling not to be seen as a real person.
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I rushed this one to post it just before I leave for Taiwan.
I hope to write more about Thailand when I’m back here in March.
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