From the time I was able to escape, not as bandaged as I could have been and just as nervous about being alone as I was two months prior, I took the short drive to Bangkok with all my belongings, leaving more than half of my stuff for Jenna. I realized that I had, despite my pain and the emotional beatings that Pattaya, Jomtien, Chonburi, had doled out, created a life there. I was a little bit sad to leave, to leave Jenna behind, to leave the students behind, to venture alone again. I remembered how absolutely excited I was to not be alone and to have a job again, to feel settled and here I was again in my life giving it all up for the unknown. I cried when I left and didn’t mean to…it was the ultimate release of a good decision made. I realized how much of a bubble Pattaya had been when shortly after I got on the bus I got off into Bangkok, into freedom, into the ability to start over and do what I wanted to do.
Bangkok – busy, comfortable, me myself and Jenna and old friends from Malaysia mixing with the rain and the rats from Khao San Road, unsure of myself walking tepidly along rainy streets and alleyways regarding my safety as an old habit long forgotten. Bangkok – hilarity, finding my laugh again, drinking beer in the afternoon, small luxuries in riverboats that remind me of my grandfather dancing at my cousin’s wedding, smoothly and slowly and roundly, the way all memories should come, like couch cushions softly swaying against my cheek for an afternoon nap, like raindrops near me but not on me, like green grey memories, Bangkok. Bangkok, freedom, liberation, tiredness, recovery, tea drinking, realizing I had packed too much, lamp-lighting (not fluorescent), friendly conversations with normalcy walking down the street, meeting people my age who were not interested in go-go bars or prostitution but rather…just…conversation and maybe a drink. Bangkok – a shock of sorts as I realized that for a month I had been living accustomed to a place of high trauma, high cortisol brain involvement, like I did before, in those long-lost folds of my brain and that at times and regrettably it felt comfortable and I learned to silently hate, to see things through my squinted eyes, covered partially by my risen cheekbones because I was always wincing from the pain. Bangkok…cured me, partially, from that, and brought me back down to normal breathing patterns, to approaching people with sweet and not bitter, with hands outstretched and not “are you here on a sex tour?”. Bangkok, dirty, slums, brings me back to the reality of a third world country flanked by the beauty of sparkling temples in the night, and houses falling into the brown river on the riverboat ride. Bangkok, where children smile and wave at me because I look funny to them in their untouched-by-globalization-neighborhoods, where a tuk-tuk ride in the pouring rain makes me, alone, laugh out loud and remember what it’s like to have fun. Where Jenna, who amazingly came to visit because I missed her, and I laughed without restraint and bought t-shirts and allowed ourselves to not be brought down but instead be uplifted. Oooooh, Bangkok, through the squalor I saw all the colors that the grey of Pattaya nearly drowned me in.
Then, to Chiang Mai, where the elephants live. The city of the north, in the mountains, where things cool off and broccoli reemerges and your mouth doesn’t fall off from the spice but rather enjoys a touch of sweetness. I took the overnight train and blasted into the past – I felt like I was on the first train ever to touch tracks…people smoked long cigarettes in the open-air dining car with temples glittering in the long grass, seats transformed into beds, food was ordered in advance and brought to us, and the toilet led straight to the tracks. A 14 hour train ride, turned into a 16 hour train ride. I met a friend, Sarah, who bunked in the bed above mine, and two more friends drinking in the dining car (which was loud and hot and had bugs pouring in with all the windows open, barreling through Thailand’s body at an incredible pace, slowing down to pick up people on the side of the tracks and people at train stations with four or five plastic chairs in the waiting room). These few hours, in this space, were some of the most memorable for me – I felt there was little separation between myself and the tiniest parts of this country, like parts of my heart were flinging themselves out of the windows and landing in the grass, in the temple glitter, or on people’s laps as they waited in plastic chairs, only to be picked up and examined and placed gently in the long grass around them…I felt like part of Thailand, part of the noise and dirt and bugs and the shouting and the heat that brought it all.
In Chiang Mai I found the peace that needed to follow my recovery. I met up with an old friend from Malaysia and stayed with the girl I met on the train. We ate delicious food, rode elephants, went white water rafting, trekking, bamboo rafting, saw women from the long-neck Karen hill tribe, rented motorbikes, saw mountain temples, went to the zoo, and watched Thai boxing. Although the city of Chiang Mai, protected by an ancient wall and cloud of mist, is strikingly beautiful and calming, the tour that we did that included most of these activities (the rafting, elephants, and hill-tribe) was unsettling. I felt like I had in Malaysia; like I was extracting a piece of someone else’s culture and selfishly keeping it for myself. The elephants, abused by their “owners”, trained at rigorous elephant school, separated from their mothers at an early age, hit with a wooden stick when they didn’t obey…it made me a little nauseous, not from the bumpiness of the ride, but from how every time I lovingly patted my elephant’s back in an apology she would swing her nose up to me and sniff at me. And the bamboo ride, near the pristine river was also near the logging trucks and tons of destruction to build more bamboo rafts and restaurants for the tourists…it was, to say the least, a tour I won’t do again. Lastly, the Karen long-neck tribe visit -we waited in quiet excitement, hushed by the sadness we had experienced earlier and ready to experience real culture. As we arrived, our hopes shattered as our guide explained that the women (“long-necks” because they put golden rings around their necks to elongate them, a sign of beauty. They also place golden shackle-type bands around their legs, right below their knees when they are very young, so that when they are older they can barely walk) come from Burma for three months to set up stores in a “tourist village” to try to sell scarves, jewelry, their livelihood, while the men stay behind and work. For mysterious reasons that the guide would not explain, they go back to wherever they came from (here it became ambiguous whether they actually came from Burma, the camps, or the hill tribes that rest between the border of Burma, Laos, and Thailand), soon to return when the demand calls for it. There were little girls running around with the rings around their necks looking terribly beautiful, women with golden shackles limping up the hill, and teenagers with neck jewelry talking on cell phones while we, 8 white people, walked and stared at them asking to take pictures. We felt awful, confused, unsure about cultural norms, and unsure what we should do. That night, we decided to let our anger out by watching some Thai boxing (and the drinking the cheap beer that comes with it). I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This was the experience I wanted; the loud tinny music, the hot pavement outside the elevated ring, the Thai man taking money for bets, the outfits and celebratory dances performed by the boxers before the match began, the washing of the feet, the cheering in each corner, the loud Thai women who were just as knowledgeable and engaged as the men, and the coordinated efforts of the fighters. I loved it! Even when the kids entered the ring to fight and everyone gasped, I was totally intrigued. They were about 8 or 9 years old and looked so nervous they could barely contain themselves. The sociologist, or maybe anthropologist, in me calmed my friends down (who were visibly upset) and had them look around at the massive amount of respect they were getting from their families, how their feet and heads were being delicately touched and washed before the match began, how the families in the corner hugged and kissed them before they entered the ring. I know they were excruciatingly young to fight but Thai boxing here is like putting your child in karate lessons back in the States, only with so much more cultural attachment. The kids fought, after they each did their well-rehearsed dance to bless the ring, and after the match was over the kid who lost went over to the winning kid’s coach and took a sip from his water cup; a sign of mutual respect. Then, the two children went to the middle of the ring and with huge smiles on their faces, forgot that they were in a boxing ring surrounded by adults, and gave each other the biggest hug. Everyone cheered and my friend and I got a little emotional. Maybe it was the beer, I don’t know.
