Trang is Tranquil

I hadn’t been much to the Andaman Sea before last week, when I ferried out into it for about an hour to a square island with sheer cliffs on all sides. The only habitable spot on Koh Laoliang is a beachlet, 500 meters wide and 100 meters deep. An entrepreneur puts up a handful of safari-style tents six months a year.

Nobody at all lives there in the rainy season because the waves are generally too rough to land a boat. The island’s lone permanent structure is a tall metal pole supporting four large speakers, an early warning system paid for out of the flood of international donations following the 2004 tsunami.

It was Thanksgiving, our office had several days off in a row, and a group of friends from work had flown down to Trang on one of the last flights out before protesters closed the Bangkok airports. We had booked two nights on the island, but as there were a few minutes before our ferry departed the mainland, and the future was uncertain, somebody bought two cases of Heineken.

We passed our days doing what people do when they don’t know how much longer they have: kayaking, card playing, snorkeling, rock climbing. When the time came to return home, the sea wasn’t cooperating. Our group and one other planned to take the ferry back to Trang, but riding a long-tailed boat out from the island to meet it, and docking with it, looked like a challenge.

The solution was for the boatmen to wade next to a kayak, pulling us away from the beach one at a time, until everyone in our group was aboard the long-tailed boat. They said they would have to come back for the second group. Understandably, the boatmen were in a hurry to return for them, so we weren’t too concerned when they rushed us onto the ferry after (rather forcefully) coming up alongside it. What we hadn’t understood was that the long-tailed boat had been damaged in the collision, thus stranding the second group until another boat could be found. The ferry didn’t wait.

Our trip home was otherwise uneventful. We stopped for a couple hours at a lovely hot spring. A cute little kid, no more than six or seven years old, took all of our orders flawlessly at the local food center. Nobody was even bothered too much about having to take the overnight bus because the Bangkok airports were still closed. We didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, and frankly didn’t much care.

Malaysia is Multicultural

On the 4th of July in Kuala Lumpur, no fireworks went off that we were aware of. But the design of the Malysian flag looks much like America’s, so at least that part was familiar.

Coming from Bangkok, our first impression was that we were in a much more developed place—efficient, centrally planned, proud of its successes. Seeing only the capital, we couldn’t tell how evenly Malaysia’s wealth is distributed, but KL’s streets and sidewalks at least looked in much better shape than what we’re used to.

At first glance the signs in Malay offered no clues. But after a few minutes, words and meanings began to pop out, like used to happen with those hidden-picture drawings as a kid. “Sentral” was obvious enough as the word to describe the main bus station; likewise, it wasn’t surprising to see “Polis” marked on the door of a car with a flashing light on top.

The hotel posted a welcome to a group of “eksekutifs” and offered a “cyberjaya” for anyone wishing to use the internet. Another term that quickly made itself clear was “dilarang,” as it was generally followed by a long list of no-no’s. Not only are flower picking and littering prohibited in a public park, it seems, but also writing and peddling and perhaps kissing.

Somebody suggested we visit the Highlands, which sounded refreshing. Soon we were suspended in a sky cable car, looking for monkeys in the rainforest below us. I looked forward to hiking around the top of the mountain when we finished the two-mile ride. Instead we found ourselves surrounded by casinos, amusement parks, and hotels that would have been right at home in southern California or southern Florida.

I had no idea such a familyfuncenter existed in Southeast Asia, and perhaps unfairly, I didn’t expect to find casinos in a Muslim-majority country. But Malaysia turns out to be many countries in one. A museum we visited the next day in Malacca featured displays on the various eras of the past six or so centuries: Sultanate, Portugese, Dutch, British, Japanese, British again.

The mixture shows up clearly in the food offerings. Crossing Malay and Chinese food produces a cuisine called nyonya. The many curry and roti shops made me feel I was in India.

Not only is Malaysia the former centerpiece of colonial power in the region—“Whoever is Lord in Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice”—but since independence about 50 years it has spent some of its natural resources prosperity on “kontemporari” symbols of achievement to go along with its “tradisional” attractions. The Petronas Towers were briefly the world’s tallest buildings. The federal government’s activities have been moved to a shiny new showcase city about 15 miles from both the capital and the airport, presumably because concentrating too many of the country’s aktiviti-aktiviti in one place is dilarang.

Uthai Thani is Out of the Way

It’s the kind of provincial capital where the dogs don’t get up from the middle of the street when they see a van coming. As we got close to town, maybe only ten kilometers to go, a little kid at the back complained that he really couldn’t hold it any longer. The driver stopped. Somebody slid open the side door so the kid could pee at the edge of the road.

My hotel’s proprietor stopped at the circuit breaker as we walked down the hall, to make sure my room’s electricity was turned on. It wasn’t the hotel I expected to stay at. I planned to go on that evening to an even smaller town, near a wildlife sanctuary that I found by accident on the Web. But a late start from Bangkok meant I missed my connecting bus, so there I was in Uthai Thani.

Shortly after settling in to the room, I got a call from the owner of the place in the small town. She was worried I’d gotten lost. That same kind of thoughtfulness radiated from her the next day when we finally did meet. She welcomed me for nearly an hour, talking in Thai of things we both really were interested in, not just about the weather or how long she’d been in business.

Here I was thinking that I’d come to surround myself with the beautiful landscape and its biological diversity. But the main attraction turned out to be this beautiful human being. She invited me to have dinner with her and her husband, the deputy mayor. We ate home cooking, not restaurant food. I felt more like a relative than a guest.

Then out of the blue appeared a fellow speaking English in an accent I didn’t recognize right away. This was Mark, from the Philippines, who teaches English to the youngsters in town. He explained that the school board couldn’t afford a native speaker, but were happy to pay him double the salary of the local classroom teachers, along with free room and board and the use of a motorcycle.

The only downside is that he doesn’t speak much Thai and nobody in town speaks much English. So when a roundeye like me shows up at this lovely little roadside resort, Mark wanders over and dives in to the conversation that he’s seemingly starving for. I didn’t mind. He soon had me in stitches with a story of being hospitalized after eating a pound of crabmeat at one sitting.

I had to smile, too, when we ended up going together to an unusual temple that sits a little way outside town. Even though he’d been there before, he couldn’t remember the way, and so thought it best to pay somebody to take us. Finding a driver was easy enough, but explaining what we wanted to do then fell to me. The newcomer helped translate for the local.

We made it. Wat Tham Khao Wang was gorgeous. The style and the building materials were like no temple I’ve visited in Thailand. If the monks there are the ones who keep up the extensive gardens surrounding the pond, I wondered how they also had enough time to pray and meditate. Should you find yourself in the neighborhood of Ban Rai, I recommend stopping by. Better yet, ask around for Mark and see if he wants to come along.

Koh Kood is Damp

Rainy season came early this year, but we went to the islands anyway. Our speedboat left from narrow finger of Thailand that pointed us toward Koh Kood along a route parallel to the Cambodian hills in the distance. Not that we could see those hills. The downpour kept us from even raising our heads. After an hour on the water, in spite of the boat’s canvas roof, we were all soaked to the skin.

Luckily the sun broke through just as we arrived. The owner of the cottages we’d booked was waiting for us with a warm seafood lunch. Seven of us passed a long weekend exploring the island, splashing around in a freshly recharged waterfall, or playing Scrabble indoors whenever the monsoon returned. (Little did we realize that a cyclone was hitting Burma at the same time, about 1,000 km to the northwest.)

Everyone else in the group speaks Thai better than English. So I struggled to keep up with the conversations, and surprised myself with how quickly the total immersion helped me pick up new words. Even the Trivial Pursuits-style games and the Scrabble were easier than I expected. If I keep traveling with this gang, I could get fluent pretty fast.

But I suspect we won’t return to this island unless we can get a sunshine guarantee. During the boat ride back, the skies opened again. Umbrellas were useless. We found the best sitting position was the one they recommend on airplanes “in the unlikely event of a water landing.” By leaning forward and grabbing our ankles, we retained as much of our body heat as possible.

By looking down we also could ignore the suspicion that our boat driver was lost. He finally cut the engine and admitted that without his familiar landmarks he wasn’t sure. We waited about ten minutes while the rain pelted our backs. Some people no doubt had now begun to find their prostrated position was also convenient for praying.

Happy ending. A fishing boat crossed our path, we were pointed in the right direction, and the mainland appeared just in time for the sun to shine again.

Mae Hong Son is Muddy

Up in Thailand’s northwest corner, at the end of a road the t-shirts claim has 1,864 curves, is a little town of about 8,000 people. It’s hilly country, full of views and tribes.

A few of us flew there on a long weekend, looking to find fresh air and other things that are rare in Bangkok. We were the only ones on the flight.

Our guest house was also quiet. We weren’t sure what tourists do in Mae Hong Son, other than perhaps recover from their journey along the winding road.

As we strolled around town, we spotted signs for a guide service advertising “uncomfortable tours” and “bad jokes.” Soon we were riding in the back of the guy’s uncomfortable pickup truck. He pointed out some cows with huge horns. They were wearing wooden cowbells. “Why do the cows here have to wear cowbells when they walk on the road?” he asked us. None of our guesses was correct. After we gave up, he said, “because their horns don’t work.”

The guide’s twin boys came along on the tour. They looked about five or six years old. Both had shaved heads except for a topknot that hung halfway down their backs. In the old days, lots of children wore that traditional hairstyle as a way to protect the spirit in their heads, known as kwan. Now you don’t see it much. We didn’t ask the guide about the topknots, nor did he make any jokes about them. Kwan is serious stuff.

We ended up at a hot spring. Workers wearing green uniforms offered us a choice of mud mask or full body mud wrap. They painted the mud on our faces and then we washed it off after about 20 minutes. Now we are much more beautiful than we were before. No joke.