SAWASDEE THAILAND

( Written while in Chaiyo District , Ang Thong Province , Thailand  on the 21st Jan 2014)

It was my second time in a Boeing, the UL 886. I wasn’t quite excited unlike for the very first time I traveled in the airplane. Yet a window seat will never fail to amaze me when flying in the air. Why? I get to see many things. Different kinds of landscapes when the plane takes off. I believe there is always something beautiful to be discovered out at the window. The sun rise and the sun sets are my favorite. The gigantic mountains, meandering lakes, buzzing cities with its sophisticated highway and subway networks woven into society is amazing.

 But this time I couldn’t work out much to capture the early sunrise in Thailand. I was too lazy, perhaps sleepy and jet lagged! The early morning in Siam wasn’t beautiful. It was the 16th of January. Even at 6 .15 in the morning there was a dim dusk moving. The sky featured in yellow, daisy like mixed with crimson. The paint was somewhat subdued. It didn’t ease me. I thought it will rain.

Airplanes have made travel easier. In three and a half hours time I was at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, finding my way to the foreign arrival queue.

After two days of my stay in Bangkok for a volunteer teacher preparation camp, I got to know from one of my friends that it is winter in Thailand now. So the gloomy sky I saw the day I arrived was a reason for winter. Even the cold that crept inside my clothes, the bitter wind that cut through my skin making me shiver constantly was another evidence of winter in Thailand. But there was something exceptional. No snow to be seen. Not even the rain or ice rain! Until dusk it was sunny. So far I have known that Thailand is super hot. Were the books wrong? Or was I wrong? What I knew of Thailand was even less than a thin strip of ribbon. Lately I knew that there is winter and the endless showers that fall from July to September which brings deadly floods at times.

People looked weird here. I realized that they were staring at me many a times I passed different faces. None of them bothered to utter a word. There was something incredibly odd. I discerned that the important notes from history occurred. They were rendered meaningless in the beginning. “Land of smiles” is just a word that I came across my Grade 11 History book. Thais smiled, smiled and smiled. They were supposedly happy-go-lucky people. The past years of the kingdom have been the most interesting. The political chaos and the social upheavals have resulted in mismanagement of the country. But still they’ll be smiling. Perhaps they are clueless about things. They just smile.

The more deeper and darker, behind the streets of Pattaya and the Pantong beaches is a Disneyland for pedophiles. Every inch of the pavement is dedicated to the sex toy trade. For all one knows, it’s a multi-million dollar sex – sale industry. It was quite obnoxious and yucky! Sex is usual but the sex trade was a flucky picture for me.

There is more to calculate, to hear, to feel and to experiment through the windows of the little room that I own from my host family. The stuffed pavements with poker players, the vendors selling fried cockroaches, flies and even fireflies. The raw footpaths surrounded by dry leaves in rural Thailand , the rock bands  and the brown eyes of the Thai bar girls in city hunting down to lay all night in thirst for lust . Nights never to be forgotten. Alone in Sins.

More to come in another 35 days,

Sawasdee Thailand!