Hacktreks in Asia - From Our Travel Archives

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A comprehensive travel and bar guide to THAILAND by James Evans

Bangkok is a beast of a city. It resembles the sprawling metropolis from the computer game "Grand Theft Auto", only if Hounslow Borough council had been given the job of maintaining it for the last 30 years. This is to say that a lot of the low rise buildings have been poorly maintained giving way to dirty concrete fascia's - although to be fair, unlike the jewel of Middlesex, in Bangkok litter is kept to a minimum. Amongst the rudimentary construction the city is regularly punctuated with pristine monuments and temples. The airport is pleasant too, which is most welcome, as the last thing you need after a 10 hour flight is chaotic architecture. I guess it's a question of priorities.

The Thai people are very polite. They pay you the honourable compliment of not staring at you thus allowing one to focus on the task at hand without fearing interference. Today this involved finding accommodation. Around the Kho San Road area this works out at around 350 baht a night. Exciting as this area seems there is nothing much to do per se. All one can do is sink a few beers and maybe take in a gallery.

Never get in the Tuk Tuk - too goddam right. I didn't get in the Tuk Tuk. Which is just as well as I later noted reading the "Lonely Planet" that they are not to be trusted. What will happen is Mr Tuk Tuk will insist that it is in your best interest that he takes you on a tour of the sights before subtly dropping in that en route he will need to pick up his gorilla suit from the dry cleaners (he may have well, with such cursory notation did I observe this clause). What he really wants to do is take you round his mates’ house so he can sell you a Gorilla Suit. At hugely inflated prices. Primate attire don't come cheap.

I am amused by Buddhas. They are everywhere. There is even a temple built to especially house a huge reclining Buddha. "Golden Gigantic Reclining Buddha" it reads on the postcards and they lie not. Class. We should do it with Christianity: "Gaunt Mammoth Crucified Jesus". Anyhow, there are Buddhas everywhere, in all sizes, mostly Golden and all with the same beatific grin.

Bangkok is a city that I can not imagine is nice to live in. There are mangy dogs everywhere, little street urchins trying to scare you into buying Handy Andy’s with baby bats and a general air of licentiousness that makes Soho look pedestrian. When it rains though it does so in style. The lighting flashes long after the rain has passed and the thunder can no longer be heard, like a lamp with a bad connection flickering erratically.

Hua Hin - or should that be 'Berlin-on-Sea'. There are divisions of hairy Germans everywhere. Jerry has certainly got a stronghold on this town. I haven’t mentioned the war. As a holiday resort it stinks, but as a place to recover from the impact of Bangkok, it serves a purpose. With a Hilton hotel dominating a high street composed of mostly restaurants and European fashion boutiques, it nestles against the hills and presides over the gulf of Thailand like some sort of Aryan retirement home. Relief from this distinctly Bavarian order can be found in smaller bars and the 'All Nations' hostel that is run by a friendly Canadian named Tim.

A bonus is the restaurants. Here you can eat the best Sea Bass you will ever taste although it comes at a price of 200 odd baht (Not much in English terms but relative to Thailand as a whole it’s steep). Other than that all you can do is just sit back and drink the beer. This place will be hell in a year. Unless of course you are retired, rich, European and preferably with a moustache.

There is nothing to do in Prachuap Khiri Khan except get drunk. Unlike Berlin-on-Sea though it is not without charm. The town looks out onto a bay flanked by two imperious mountains and just sits there doing nothing. There is an abundance of gloriously healthy 50's functionalist architecture, a stark contrast to the scarred counterparts that make up most of Bangkok. Platoons of monkeys hang out on the waterfront giving this sleepy town a decidedly renegade edge. And seeing Thai schoolgirls three to a scooter sipping drinks through straws as they hurtle along the esplanade is the sweetest thing.
General observations about Thailand:
1 - Everyone drives like madmen.
2 - There are so many palm trees that, the odd hill aside, the landscape is actually pretty dull.
3 - All the dogs here seem to be on valium.

It's the beer

Chumphon seems to fancy itself as some sort of "Bangkok light" for the South. It isn't - it's very dull and again the only thing to do is drink beer. Really, it's for the best. Sanut Thani is a return to the polluted ravaged mindset that is Bangkok but without the fun. Its only real use is as a stop off point prior to getting the ferry to Ko Phangan or Ko Samui. You can't even really get drunk in Sanut Thani such is the shortage of bars or suitably inspiring vistas. It does however lie upon a river and the opposing bank seems to be made up off nothing but palm trees. This low rise scenery is actually quite impressive as it gives the impression that for about a 1000 miles there is nothing at all but vegetation. Then you turn around and realise that you are in one of the most mundane towns Thailand has to offer.

Thailand is a dichotomy. The people are extremely warm and friendly and yet persistently try and sell you things be it cheap jewellery or a lift on the back of their motorcycle. Unfortunately this duality precipitates itself into actually distrusting everything they say. Walking through a rural area of Ko Phangan it started to rain and a lady kindly offered her porch as refuge. I politely declined and warmed to her spirit but then could not help but thinking that if I had accepted she would have embarked on a long and convoluted attempt to sell me her daughter or something. At least they are pretty up-front about their intentions most of the time.

Had Rin has more farang that it does Thai people. The locals that do live here though ooze nonchalance and are not pushy in the least. This is almost certainly because there is such a captive market here that it would almost be a waste of time hitting you with the hard sell. Sitting on the beach you get a flyer casually dropped by your side every half hour declaring the amount of free booze you might receive if you were to frequent the advertised establishment. And with a prettier beach than Prauchap Kiri Kan there seems no reason to leave at all.

I wish I could compose a soundtrack for the people of Thailand to play whilst I am here. I have song for every moment but it's rarely played. I strolled past a bar in Had Rin playing heavy metal and such is the relentlessness of the dance music that emits from most of the bars that I was momentarily tempted to walk in. Moving north to Had Yao and the harmonic set up is much improved. The laid back atmosphere make it anathema to the decadence of Had Rin, and although electronica and Bob Marley are still the order of the day, the abominably named "Eagle Pub" will play Jimi Hendrix on request. It's only undermined by an air of snobbery that pervades throughout the older and more travelled clientele.

Bungalow installation is intense in Had Yao but there is an agreeable lack of bars and Seven Elevens making it a relaxing place to stop off and recharge ones soul. When the sea presents the land with a gentle breeze the rustling palm trees sound like rain. At night the squid trawlers provide the beach with a bizarre and calming glow. The rocks adopt images of grotesque faces and the clouds varied animals and ghouls. All to the sound of the miscellany of creatures that prefer a nocturnal existence.

General observations of the Samui Archipelago: 1 - If Thai folk generally drive like madman then the islanders need sectioning. 2 - The long haired locals are suspiciously laid back. 3 - If bungalow construction continues at the rate it is then in 10 years time that is all there will be.

A funny thing happened the other day - I met a Manchester United supporter who came from Manchester.
Ko Samui is Ko Phangan's older and bigger messed up brother. If Phangan was Johnny Depp, liked to binge but essentially too cool to warrant problematic, then Samui is a drunk from the old school, someone like William Holden or Oliver Reed. Lamai for example is made up of Hua Hin rejects, tattooed skinheads and lascivious men with a penchant for Thai girls. It's only marginally eased by a steep beach that induces impressive waves abetted by the sudden storms that often creep in from the Gulf. It's small compensation though. Chaweng suffers from the same problems except the culprits are younger, more diverse and the place is big enough to find somewhere to escape the depravity. Pizza Hut, Boots and Burger King all stake their claim to a town that has taken the bait of mass tourism hook line and stinker. It has its advantages mind. The roads are certainly more formidable than the quaint excuses on Ko Phangan, and the Sawngthaew * drivers seem to have no regard for the 45km per hour speed limit which makes for an exhilarating ride home.
(* Pick up trucks that have been converted into taxis by installing a bench on either side and covered with a canopy.)

Mae Nam is the best resort Samui seems to offer. On a rainy day the east side is reminiscent of Isaac Levitan’s realist masterpiece "Deep Waters" restricted as it is from development by network of streams. The centre of the beach is more typically furnished with the staple palm tree and plays host to an array of pleasant bars and eateries facing north towards Ko Phangan. Lorries hurl along the main drag at break neck speeds, an indicator as to how Ko Samui has the highest incidence of traffic fatalities in the whole of Thailand. In spite of this Mae Nam is a delightful place with only perfunctory facets of the commercialism that mars so many other areas of the island. Perhaps best of all the residents are extremely friendly and their sense of humour can only be described as joyfully playful.

I love the postcard. My favourites are the antiquated coastal vistas that have faded in the light, drained of the overly rich colours that give the newer cards a feeling of unnatural artificiality. It succeeds where other forms of communication can not in establishing a tangible link between sender and recipient, and the journey on which the laminate undertakes is an adventure of Odysseyian magnitude.

TRANG. There is something oddly European about the wonderfully named Trang, with its wide roads and shallow undulations. Clean modern concrete structure cohabits with older but no less functional architecture, not too dissimilar from French football stadia design of the 1970’s ( Strasbourg’s 'Stade de la Meinau' being a good example). Its role as a stop off point means, like Chumphon and Surat Thani, the only farang are those in limbo and consequently there is little in the way of entertainment. However there is a bar just up from the cinema run by a Belgium guy that would not be out of place in Hoxton if it were not for the tiny ants that make their home in the bamboo furniture.

Krabi, the presumed destination of these purgatorial westerners, lies on the Mae Man Krabi {Krabi River} and to the north/east tree infested limestone rocks protrude awkwardly from the aquatically severed Ko Maew. Like sheered potassium permanganate their naked sides appear to be slowly succumbing to the inevitable tarnishing of oxidisation, as if a huge knife had been used to cut down into the formations to remove wedge shaped chunks of rock. The town is lively but not hectic, benefiting from a lack of any obvious centralisation, and the "Old West" bar is run by the coolest cowboy in town.
{NB - Chemistry was never my forte so I may have named the wrong element. Which ever it should be it is a soft metal, furry and matted in surface texture. If one cuts into its form with a blade a smooth silver fascia is revealed that slowly dulls as a result of a chemical reaction which occurs on contact with the atmosphere}

Pressed against the Andaman sea, Ao Nang's main drag is dwarfed by a huge limestone formation that seems to behave as some sort of precipitory vacuum, as if a huge extractor fan had been installed on it's peak dehumidifying the resort of any unwelcome water vapour. It feels like the end of the road but it's not as Phuket lies west/north/west and islands are further plentiful off the Andaman coast. Maybe it's the German families taking their winter vacations, or the plethora of rubber plantations that furnish the surrounding countryside, but probably it's because it was the last place to see before my return to The City that Never Sleeps.

I take the Bangkok Post and its international reportage make it perfect reading for the 12 hour bus journey from Krabi to Bangkok. It's sports coverage is excellent giving comprehensive cover of both the FA Cup 3rd round and the Ashes. It's ‘around-the-world’ anecdoture leads one to believe that everyday in Manilla someone kills their best friend after some sort clandestine tragic/comic turn of events. Honour seems to be a serious thing in the Philippines.

When you get to Bangkok at six in the morning you would think it would be relatively quiet. Instead it's populated with a smorgasbord of revellers, freaks and busy locals. It could be because you're stone cold sober but there seems to be a total absence of any style or purpose. Ah, Bangkok. You forget how off the wall it is and then you find yourself drinking in some Korean bar and all of a sudden your senses are affronted by some ridiculous aural cacophony. "Sweet Jesus, what was that?" You peer over the balcony to discover an elephant being paraded in front of people trying to enjoy their fish. And what's more the noise you heard still doesn't equate with the beast before you. Why is it there and where did it come from?

© James Evans October 1st 2003

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