Tourists---Dick, Jan. 14

We were under no illusions when we planned a three and a half month trip to Southeast Asia---a nanosecond in these cultures---that we would ever be anything but tourists. We're especially aware of being tourists in Hua Hin, because it is a tourist town. It's Playa del Carmen with Thai flavor: high-rise hotels along the Gulf of Thailand's wide, white beachs, "spirit houses" at the entrance to each hotel to placate the natural spirits displaced when the buildings went up; open-air markets with food and souvenir stands, except instead of burritos and Mayan pots, it's coconut balls with sweet corn in the middle, gold-Buddha images and portraits of the Thais' beloved King Bhumibol, the jazz-playing monarch who has held Thailand together for 60 years as parliaments and military regimes have come and gone; daily sunshine and a post-sunset aubergine afterglow, but with no cold fronts to move in and send tourists looking for sweaters, for here we are so close to the equator that it's always warm, or bloody hot.

Tourism is Thailand's chief hard currency earner. Ten thousand tourists arrive every day. Most are from East Asia---China, Korea, Japan. The others are mainly from Northern Europe. In Hua Hin (pronounced Wah-Heen), Scandinavians are in the tourist majority. They congregate mainly in the restaurants that advertise "Europen food," and they appear happy and well fed. The appearance and manner of the ladies on the beach at the Sofitel has led us to rename it the SophieTuckerTel. We walked through the lobby of the Marriott. The place is a Disneyfied version of Thailand. You expect to hear "It's a Small World, After All" come tinkling out of the ceilings.

We're staying at a smaller Thai-family-run hotel, the Subhamitra, three blocks from the beach. It is pleasant and has a nice pool and costs $22 US a night. The foreign-owned beach hotels cost 10 times that amount. We have alternately walked about and lolled about, always looking forward (a Wheaton trait I have picked up) to the next meal. Yesterday we had for lunch a green curry soup so exquisite that we went back and had it again for dinner.
Our sight-seeing in Hua Hin has included a visit to a mangrove swamp in a national park. Poe drove us out there last week. It's a demonstration project by the government to show the environmental necessity of these filtering systems. Poe was appalled when we got there to find that the swamp next to the park had been drained by developers. It's the ongoing Florida-ization of Thailand, and a price will be paid. (In the late '70s, unrestricted logging led to floods in Thailand that killed tens of thousands; logging was halted way too belatedly.)
Yesterday we hired a tuk-tuk---a big, motorized, filth-belching rickshaw---and went out to the "monkey mountain" just before sunset. This is a high hill on the outskirts of town topped by a Buddhist shrine and inhabited by (a) rather enervated gray monkeys and (b) vendors.
Nothing in Thailand seems to have gone unexploited for the tourist dollar. I'm reading Ian Buruma's keen and flavorsome "God's Dust," reportage on East and SE Asia in the late '80s. He was here during the government's Year of the Tourist, when Thais were instructed to "smile a while." Every conceivable feature of Thai life was seen as a potential tourist attraction---temples, ceremonies, holidays. When the old walled city of Chiang Mai began drawing visitors, other walled towns were urged to put up hotels and restaurants. One town constructed a fake wall.
The Hua Hin locals always hope their favorite haunts won't be discovered by the tourists. Poe and Simon took us to a restaurant outside of town that was down a dark, dusty road between a canal and the railway line. I asked, "Have you brought us out here to murder us?" Soon, however, we parked and crossed a rickety foot bridge over the canal to a delightful assemblage of small, open-sided thatched huts. Each dining party had its own hut. Highlights: fried morning glory vines (nobody's morning glories will be safe when Joe and I get back to the Berkshires) and a luscious duck-pattie salad.
Tomorrow we'll have been in Bin Hua for a week, and we'll head north. This has been a perfect place to regroup from jet lag and from our five days in Bangkok of temples and the strains and pleasures of Thai city life. We'll take a morning bus to Bangkok, then the overnight train to Chiang Mai. (Yesterday a bad train crash near Hua Bin killed three and injured many. Simon advised us to take a car near the center of our train, in case it is struck from either the front or the rear. Poe is always bemused by these farang-to-farang admonitions. More on these two lovely people later.)