Reflections on northern Thailand 26.03.10

Sitting in a simple guesthouse in Chiang Rai, about 4 hours third class bus ride into Thailand from northern Laos. A young French man in an emerald green t-shirt is sitting on a lime green piece of concrete lawn furniture. The walls of the establishment are painted a startling shamrock and we are surrounded by many lush plants. It’s a study in green. He’s noodling on a classical guitar – Nick Drakeish tunes with a soupcon of gitane perhaps. He has a lovely percussive technique. Very pleasant. Fred has dry, rough looking hands with frog-spatulate fingertips but he plays beautifully – descending cascades of Joni Mitchellesque minor 13ths add K – I don’t know many of his chords. He plays a Nepali lovesong by request from me. It is sort of generic and sweet in a Mexi-pop way but lovely because of the unusual sounding vowels and tonalities.. He is from a town near Champagne. He is wrapping up a 2 year stint teaching music to Nepali street kids. Very pleasant fellow. His music seeps easily, like warm coffee, into the heavily lepidopterated garden, deepening its restfulness.

This part of Chiang Rai is like a carnal Newcastle. We are close to the bus station and, pro-forma, every third establishment is a massage parlour featuring former beauties in semi-recline, limbs piled on one another. They smile invitingly and call entreaties as we pass by (?). The farang here are mostly male as you might expect. Sad cases; pot-bellied Mr. Smithers types in too-tight shorts and universally uncool socks in sandals. They walk almost en pointe for some reason. We also see the proto Mr. Burns characters to complete the 'Simpsons' picture. These are Gecko-eyed caiphotic geezers with crepey pursed lips and preying mantis arms. Probably dropping two Viagra a day. Imagine them licking their lizard-thin lips with long, dry tongues. They sit, as still as iguanas, in coffee bars in cyan Hawaiian print shirts, staring into space or idly taking in the passers-by. Who is the audience and who is the zoo spectacle?

We leave on a bus to Chiang Mai. Purportedly a mecca of beauty and interest. At the bus station we meet a verbose young American man from Vermont. He speaks in a stentorian voice in our little Sawngthaeu - which is a small communal taxi made by welding two hemorrhoid-inducing benches into the bed of a small pickup and dropping a roof on it - while we travel from the central bus station to the main station outside of town. The Thais wince at his volume and intensity. He gushes a great percentage of his life story to us and then turns his beam on a young foursome from Colorado, repeating much of the same stuff. He tells us about malaria, dengue, types of rare tropical woods that people traffic in and methods for cheaply extending one's visa in Thailand. He has spent four years part-time here so he is a veritable fount of useful information. I’ve got a theory that for all his squeaky cleanness he is in the drug-running business. He has a property a stone’s throw from the Myanmar border. By his accounts he has led an interesting life with his life-experience pedal to the metal. He shows little sign of letting up. Remarkable fellow.

One of the wonderful things about traveling is the conversation with strangers one meets, however briefly. Whether it is trading stories like collectible cards or riffing on semi-parallel on-the-road experiences or sharing chunks of life stories, most people have interesting tales.

We haven’t met any philosophers yet. Perhaps the wise ones wait for others to arrive at their doorstep. When I refer to today’s Tao te Ching this idea seems to be confirmed, thus:

The heavy is the root of light.
The unmoved is the source of all movement.

Thus the master travels all day
without leaving home.
However splendid the views,
She stays serenely in herself.

Why should the lord of the country
flit about like a fool?
If you let yourself be blown to and fro
you lose touch with your root.
If you let restlessness move you,
you lose touch with who you are.