From Bangalore to Bangkok

Sawadeeka y’all! That’s Thai for Hello my favorites! It’s great to be posting again – we just got back from nearly a week and a half on “holiday” and much has happened. On the minor details front, the paper on AIDS and Globalization was successfully completed – excellent! We left India on the 27th on a 3-hour flight to Bangkok – after we arrived, we bid farewell to Michael J. Sielaff, Ben Wagner, and Tessa Grevle as they had to continue the traveling Up Nort to Chiang Mai. The eight of us who remained in the capital city checked-in to our hostel, unpacked a bit, and then jetted off to the weekend market. On Sunday, we visited the National Museum of Thailand for a few hours to try and orientate us to the really unique place. While we were in Bangkok, we tried to take in a lot of cultural activities – Thailand is a Buddhist nation, so we visited many “wats” (temples) and stopped by the Grand Palace one afternoon. Come Wednesday, it felt time to sort of escape the concrete jungle, so we boarded a 12-passenger van, then a double-decker bus, and then a ferry to get to the island of Koh Samet. It was the token touristy thing to do, but seemed absolutely necessary after we got there. The weather was perfect – sunny and upper 80s. We were put up in bungalows (little shacks with a large bed and a fan) for $5/night and spent Halloween day beachside taking in the Gulf of Thailand and people-watching the hoards of European tourists at their seaside bars. On our second and final night there, we watched the sun set from the top of a hill a 20-minute walk from our resort. It was just classic! On Friday, we rendezvoused with the group who traveled north and exchanged stories from the week. Saturday morning we split ways – Jill, Jess, and I were on a mission to find the city’s fertility shrine, which apparently houses a huge collection of phallic symbols. Women wishing to become pregnant go there and pray – if they get “with child”, they come back with a token of a phallus. Never did find it – okay since none of us were dying to get pregnant. Just curious, that’s all! That night, we departed Thailand for Bangalore and arrived back at Visthar yesterday morning around 6 am.

I (heart) BKK!

It didn’t take much for me to fall in love with Bangkok – here are a few of my favorite things about this stellar metropolis:
*Public transportation – ridiculously efficient! The airport was immaculate, the taxis were everywhere, the city has BOTH a skytrain and a metro subway, traffic moves with more or less some fluidity. I was impressed at how slick it all was – eat your heart out, NYC!
*Food – so there was your classic Pad Thai (rice noodles w/ bean sprouts in a peanut sauce; at least one meal of this per day!), but the noodle soup, spicy basil with chicken, the pineapple, all were to die for!
*Street Vendors – all the above in convenient, roadside distribution.
*Contemporary living – admittedly, I latched onto the obvious “westernization” of Thailand. It reminded me a lot more of home than any place has in the last 2 months. I’m a little ashamed for talking up Bangkok so much because it is “modern” – but it was welcomed familiarity on my vacation.
*King Rama IX – okay, so Thailand is kind of like England in that it has a constitutional monarchy. We didn’t know this before, so when we saw buildings plastered with pictures of an 80-year old Thai man, things got weird. But at the National Museum, we learned that since the early 20th century, Thailand has been under the rule of a series of “Ramas”, and the 9th is taking up residence in the Grand Palace right now. His face is everywhere! There is an intense sense of pride and reverence in the king. For example, Rama #9 is sick in the hospital right now – to show support and solidarity for the king, the Thai wear yellow shirts with the monarchy’s insignia embroidered into the fabric. Talk about coordinating outfits! Also, we went to a Thai movie called “Unlimited Love” (enough said!) one night. Before the movie was screened, they played this segment set to the Thai national anthem with scenes of the King – there were only 11 people in the theatre, and we all stood for the 3-minutes while it was running. Wild!

Now for what really irritated me:
*Sex Tourism –everyone hears about Thailand’s dark side, but nothing could prepare me for how exposed it really is. Maybe I’m just naïve; I know this sort of stuff happens all over the world, even stateside, but I just have never noticed it. So when we walked down Soi Cowboy (Bangkok’s Red Light District), I was way disturbed at the level of promiscuity there. No one seemed to have any discretion – there were obvious transactions on every block, and a middle-aged, white man always was involved. It was hard from that point onward to not look at any older European/American man with a Thai girl and not think he is a total skeez. It really disgusted all of us – there was one time we saw a young Thai woman, not much older than any of us, crying and getting into a taxi with a 50-year old chap that would take them away from Soi Cowboy. Pakee Vang wondered if any of the men here see us as white tourists and be reminded of the people they have back home – say daughters or wives. It is the portrait of human exploitation and trafficking. Kind of makes you really value those Gents in your life who have some sort of concept of respect and honor.

*Body Image – this should (and probably will be) a post of its own. Not that I was frustrated with specifically Thai body image – but I did find myself drawing a connection between the American concept of “beautiful” and that found in Bangkok. Ads featured more skin than found in India, and the models were classically thin. The model for beauty was really sold in the city – there were work-out facilities on every block and for the first time since leaving MN, I saw folks running down the sidewalks for leisure. I just guess I was reminded at how obsessed our culture is with a certain look – it was strange how much pressure I felt even halfway across the world to look hot in a tank and cute shorts.

*India’s Quirks – coming back to India was harder and weirder than I expected. Maybe it was just because I wasn’t paying enough attention – but regardless, a lot of my time here has been spent making excuses for certain things that really aren’t acceptable. One particular scenario that I have just pardoned is the behavior of some men. We were primed before we left the states that we were going to be treated like “movie stars” and that the women on the trip should be aware of the attention we were going to receive from gents everywhere we would go. So when we started noticing the constant stares, the inappropriate comments and the incessant whistling, I decided I was going to be “culturally sensitive”. It was forgivable because we are white, foreign women and a spectacle. In Thailand, though, I felt like we were under the radar – far less conspicuous. So when we got onto the airplane back to Bangalore, riding with offensive remarks and 40 pairs of eyes fixated on the women in the group, I got indignant. It’s one thing being sensitive to the practices and beliefs of a culture and it’s another to totally let yourself become an object. I might be losing patience for this and other standard-operating-procedures of India.

All in all, I guess we learned more than we had bargained for while on vacation. Always the scholar - oh, were we able to recover though! Now we’re diving back into the academic work (hence the impromptu trip to study Jainism in Sharavanabellagolla). Look-out for a post on this unique lifestyle soon!

peace and love