My Thailand Experience

 I think we can all agree, we are a spoiled people. We were fortunate enough to be born or transported to this land of milk and honey where things are relatively organized (well, except our current government wrangling) and we can depend on a steady access to fresh water, electricity and food. All of which, one way or another, are regulated and consistent throughout the expanse of our Nation. Not so much in lands outside of our borders (sorry…not you O, Canada, you guys are pretty set except for that weird money you have).

Let’s take a moment to discuss flying to distant destinations. The farthest I’ve flown was to Hawaii. About six hours with no delays. Dallas-Fort Worth to Doha, Qatar was 17 HOURS. There’s only First Class/Business and then the unwashed rabble (us).

We had these neat little video screens with like 400 videos and movies to watch but the seating space was ridiculous. When the person in front of me tipped back their seat, that little screen was now inches from my face. Luckily, I had been blessed with an aisle seat, I could get up at will and move around. My row companions, not-so-much.

Then there was the connecting flight, 7 HOURS to Bangkok and another hour and a half to Chiang Mai. That’s over a day in the air in a metal tube hurtling through space.

Apparently NOT worried about hijacking

Food wasn’t a problem, we had three meals on the Doha flight, two to Bangkok and another on the Chiang Mai flight (kudos to the Bangkok Air folks, they had, in my opinion, the best in-flight meal). Interesting side light, on Qatar, they give you this cool bag of stuff you might need like headphones, cute little socks and blinders to wear to sleep. They also have a “Personal Wellness Bag.”

Of course, it is an airsickness bag but with a twist. Look carefully and note the top is sealed, you have to tear it open to use it. I thought this could be problematic if you were in some sort of a hurry. This should probably have been covered in the Safety Talk at the start of the flight.

We Americans take so much for granted that, when we travel abroad, we have certain expectations and feel somewhat inconvenienced when those expectations aren’t met. The ugly American syndrome takes over and our hosts look at us askance, roll their eyes and do what they can to accommodate us when they can.

Like restroom accommodations. Both in Thailand and my experience in Mexico, not everybody is blessed with inside flushable toilets. Oh, you’ll be safe enough in some of the major cities, but just outside the city limits you would most likely end up with some version of this setup.

A stand up or squat situation with a manual flush of a bucket of water cast into the porcelain receptacle or it could be just a deep dug hole which may or may not be in a cabana or shed. Like camping, having a roll of toilet paper in your back pack (and some baby wipes for those more fastidious souls) is a life saver. For the “upscale” Resort we stayed in, they used flush toilets but a slight twist on the bidet concept. Bet you never thought to use a dish sink sprayer like these folks did.

When we arrived for our Medical Mission, Carmen took us aside and reminded us we were in Thailand and not to expect four-star accommodations or treatment. She emphasized we were guests in their Country and to act that way. We were told in no uncertain terms that taking shoes off when entering a person’s home or church was mandatory, and special dispensation had been offered us while we were at clinics because they expected us to be wearing shoe coverings on-the-job.

Masks are still common in Thailand (I was somewhat surprised, being from Texas, the Land of Virus deniers) how many people I saw wearing masks in stores or on the street) and if offered one or asked to wear one we should agree or leave the place we were in.

The Thai people are an old and proud culture and, although they will excuse a foreigner (they actually call us that), they can be easily insulted and don’t forget easily. Generally, if confronted by embarrassment, they will default to laughing or giggling and walk away. Many have been Westernized and many know and understand at least rudimentary English. It is taught in public and private schools and college/universities. There is also a huge Ex-Pat community of Europeans and Americans as well.

And, of course, there are a plethora of American fast-food establishments to make one feel at home. Although available, I never saw anyone use chop-sticks in and around the Chiang Mai area. Of course, with my corrupt sense of humor, I was trying to visualize someone eating a Big Mac with chop sticks.

Our first few days involved acclimating ourselves to the Thai ways. “Team Building” exercises involved us trying to pick up some basic Thai terms and greetings. Each Team of Medical and Vision had medical and/or vision terms to use to coax our patients to tell us what was wrong or right about what we were doing. This involved huddling with our Thai student leader and learning a song (in Thai) that we were going to sing to other groups later on…no pressure. No matter who you are or where you come from, it’s always easy to spot pain, suffering or fear in someone’s face and sometimes just holding a hand or shielding their eyes could provide comfort when the crazy foreigner is about to stick a big old needle into your extremity.

At one Team Building, Carmen split us into men and women and assigned us food preparation tasks. The men were teamed with some male Thai students to go to the food market. Our mission was to go into town and buy a main course, side dishes and a healthy soup.  One team had to prepare Breakfast.

The women stayed behind to get some open-air kitchen cooking techniques with our Chief Cook. Luckily, the men teams got an interpreter to go along to help.

We piled into our open pickup trucks (ah…did I mention they don’t have a Department of Transportation regulating things like…seat belts? Hey, its Thailand after all) and made our way through bustling downtown Chiang Mai traffic at rush-hour.

It was a cacophony of horns, loud exhaust, clouds of diesel smoke (oh yeah, no smog regulations), squealing tires and then add in motorbikes in various configurations (amazing the things you can hang off of a moped) darting in and out of traffic. All vying and jockeying for position where whatever driving regulations and traffic control devices are mere suggestions in the overall picture and, oh, did I mention all that driving on the wrong side of the road?

Funny story, while we careened through the streets, I mentioned this seemingly chaotic road scene to one of our mentors, Dr. Roy Batterham. Doc Roy said it may look that way, but, in fact, all people who apply for drivers’ licenses take mandatory driver safety classes AND a mandatory four-hour course in Courteous Driving and must pass the course to get their license. Backward third-world country? I think not.

We get to the open-air market and split up to get our ingredients. My guys were tasked with getting the soup contents. We approach what I will euphemistically call a Meat Counter. No refrigeration or even ice supporting these various cuts of chicken, beef and pork lying about.

I was told that Thais generally ascribe to the European style of meal preparation. In most cases, they buy stuff for the next couple of meals so there is no immediate need to refrigerate because the food will be consumed soon after purchase. Most folks have refrigeration in the cities but the more rural (and away from electricity infrastructure) the fresher the purchase or harvesting. This market was extensive and you could pick up just about anything we might have at a grocery store except for packaging and some of it maaaaay still be moving.

My guys looked to me (the VERY senior member of the team) to come up with the ingredients. I looked about under the watchful and clearly entertained eyes of the women proprietors. You see, Thailand is more of a Matriarchal society and men aren’t usually the ones doing the food prep or purchase. So, we were already behind the eight ball if you will.

I was a little overwhelmed with the smell and display of various meats, some I could not immediately identify. I did note there seemed to be a plethora of pig parts, hooves, bellies, ears and whole heads. So, I had our intrepid interpreter ask the woman behind, what I will loosely call “the counter”, if she had any ground pork. She quickly and enthusiastically answered yes and asked me how much I needed. I couldn’t find any clues around me and my stalwart companions were of no help so they left it up to me. I recalled I was in a Metric country and blurted out, “One Kilo.”

This seemed to satisfy the woman who then told us she would immediately grind up some and that we could swing by to pick up after completing our ingredient list. We then selected some beautiful and BIG carrots, some potatoes and cilantro. We went by the meat counter, scored our pork, had enough stuff to feed about 20 people and got out of there for less than the equivalent of $10 U.S. dollars (the Thai Baht was 36 to one U.S. Dollar at the time).

After dinner, I had some time to do some reading. There was usually a “hot pot” of water for coffee or hot chocolate. For convenience, our hosts used a common packaged single serving coffee. Doc Roy came by and I remarked to him the huge number of coffee shops I had seen on our travels. Literally a Starbucks or mom and pop independent shop every hundred yards or so. Doc Roy told an interesting story.

As you note on the map, we were on the outskirts of the infamous “Golden Triangle” of Laos, Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. Opium, what started out as a revenue source for anti-Communist militias fighting in the 1960s in that region, ended up as a big Drug Cartel mess. Because opium was such a great cash crop in this region, the government was making efforts to get the locals off farming opium and move to a less dangerous and addictive crop. They went to the United Nations and their agricultural guy did a study and decided coffee beans would do well in their climates so there was a big push to switch over and now they have developed a huge coffee culture which coincided with the rise of coffee shops and cafes in the 70s and 80s. A success story if I had ever heard one.

It wasn’t all work and no play. We did get a day to visit a big tourist draw to Chiang Mai, Wat Phra That Doi Suthep built in 1384 AD. According to legend, a white elephant, carrying a relic of the Buddha, was released into the jungle and began to climb a large mountain in the center of Chiang Mai, Thailand – Doi Suthep. When it reached the top, the elephant trumpeted three times before dying on the mountain.

So, they built the Temple where the elephant fell using only local materials. There are 300 steps to the top and for good luck tourists walk around the Temple three times and ring the bells as you go. We were trying to get to the Doi Inthanon National Park and Elephant Sanctuary but the rains had washed the roads out and the park was closed (sorry Debbie).0

Then there is the downtown Night Market. It’s chock full of stuff you don’t need but have to buy because it’s so inexpensive, which includes a huge food court with traditional foods and an assortment of Gringo food like burgers, pizza and even Mexican.

On another day we got to visit the Central Festival Mall. A huge five floor monolith with all your favorite shops from Nike to Ralph Lauren. The food park was in the basement and had all the stuff you want to eat and desserts. Yes, even Krispy Crème was there. Prices in Baht were comparable to U.S. prices. There were no farmers shopping here.

All things must come to an end and our last day was packing and then airport nonsense. Chiang Mai was easy, very Southwest Airlines-like. But Qatar was beyond all expectations. In retrospect, the Arab nations probably had a heads-up on the Hamas invasion of Israel. Bangkok was pretty intense but in Qatar, the day before the attack, we went through four, count‘em, four separate security checks before getting to our final gate. At this writing, several Thai captives had been released by Hamas. 

After another full day in the air in my cramped aisle seat made me that much more grateful for our return. My comrades and I had a very rewarding and interesting trip loaded with memories of the place and the people. Now, I need to reflect and decide if I’m going back in 2025!