Tuesday, March 28, 2006

My Thai

It seems a bit odd to say we really like Thailand when we've just spent a week basically sequestered in an isolated 5-star resort and so hardly had a "real" experience, but since we really liked Bangkok last year, I think we can get away with saying it. Plus, we at least managed to have a small taste of Thailand despite being in a bubble for most of the week. For example, in the early evening we were treated to Thai music and dance at the hotel:





And despite our avowal to do nothing more strenuous than swimming from one end of the pool to the other, one day we decided to rent a car and see what was going on outside our little shangri-la. There's nothing like driving in another country to get your adrenaline pumping, especially since it was only my second time driving on the left side of the road. I think I did much better than the first time, although I still managed to elicit a few gasps of intense anxiety from Gretchen when she was convinced I was going to drive off the side of the road. One of the biggest challenges was trying not to clip the hundreds of motorcycles laden with food, passengers, heavy equipment, etc. Some of them were incredibly elaborate (basically, full food carts with all the accoutrements), but this was pretty typical:



And if I thought signs were hard to read in Malaysia, they had nothing on Thailand (luckily most signs included at least a little bit in English):



Most of what we saw couldn't really be captured with a camera, but suffice it to say it was a whirlwind of sensual overload. We managed to visit the main temple on the islantd, which we had heard was relatively mundane, but after seeing lots of dour European churches, it didn't seem especially mundane to us:



On a more somber note, we saw a marker serving as a reminder of the December 2004 tsunami (in an area that was not hit as hard comparatively as some others). When we were first thinking about the trip, I wondered whether it would be strange to visit an area that had been hit by the tsunami. In doing research, though, what came through was that: (a) despite the extent of damage (over 200 were killed on Phuket), most of the island was relatively unscathed; and (b) for an economy that relies heavily on tourism, people staying away is one of the worst things that can happen. (Our sense is that Phuket has almost entirely bounced back not only in terms of reconstruction, but also in terms of tourism.)



So, with the exception of a long flight and rotten jet lag, we give a big thumbs-up to Thailand in both its hermetically sealed luxury resort sense and in its in-your-face-but-with-a-smile, grittier, real-world form.