Beginnings, Heading South
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Beginnings
I arrived in Bangkok on a Monday afternoon, two days after Kasma had sent her last group on their way home. We only stayed one day in Bangkok — long enough to take Kasma’s mother to lunch and to rearrange the luggage for a trip down south. Kasma had been in Thailand for nearly 3 months already leading two trips, both fairly easy and rewarding.
I
think Kasma does the trips for two reasons. The first is to introduce people to Thailand. She
once
said that if only one or two people on a trip come to understand and be touched by
the Thai culture, which really means by the warmth of the Thai people, that trip was worth it. The
second reason is that she has made friends all over Thailand doing these trips for almost two
decades — how else could she see all her friends every year? It is obvious that she has formed
lasting friendships. Her driver Sun was astounded when, at one resort, two women got up early on
their day off to see Kasma and the group off. In some ways the trips are nothing more than a chance
to trail around Thailand in Kasma’s wake and to reap the benefit of years of good will.
Actually the third reason would be the fantastic restaurants all over Thailand — how else to
continue to eat at them all?
As ever, we left Bangkok early in the
morning (5:30 am) — the only way to beat the traffic. We headed down the coast to a beautiful
sunrise and went to Damneon Saduak, the floating market, to enjoy the river scene and to eat a bowl
of “boat noodles.” (On the Thai map Damneon Saduak is near Somut Songkram.) Damneon Saduak is one of 
the
few floating markets still active and provides a glimpse of what life used to be like all over
Thailand. If you get there early you beat the tour buses and at that time most of the boats still
contain vendors of produce and food. Later on the boats fill with tourists, both Thai and fahrang (the Thai name for an American or European), It’s great fun to
paddle (actually, be paddled) around the river, take pictures, see a coconut sugar plantation, come
back to sit on the benches and eat boat noodles. We have a favorite vendor — you see his
picture at the start of the paragraph (also one of his customers); he has been there since Kasma
started her trips in 1986. His boat rests at one end of the pier, right next to steps where his
customers devour his noodles at 15 baht a bowl, about 40 cents. I’ve eaten his noodles on
every trip except one and it just wouldn’t seem right to miss them.
Heading South
Our destination on our mini-vacation was the south of
Thailand. Not the deep south, where there have been the problems lately (those are the provinces of
Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat) but the south nonetheless. Kasma wanted (needed, really) to check out
two of the places where she takes her southern trip to set things up for
next year’s tour. She planned to check out some other possible sites and we planned to visit
some of our favorite places on the way. We also had been invited to a house dedication ceremony in
Nakhon Si Thammarat.
The first night we stayed in Chumpon right on the Gulf of
Thailand. One of the best parts about traveling around Thailand without a tour group is the
flexibility to stop and explore things that grab your eye — on the trips there is too much
planned to allow such flexibility. As we drove away from our first night’s lodging, we spotted an
intriguing Chinese-style Buddhist temple with a multi-hand statue, possibly of Avalokitesvara
(Avalokita), a representation not often in Thailand. Actually, it was the dragon that caught our
eye.
Along the way, we stopped for about an hour at a
tire-recycling factory. All around Thailand you see these distinctive trash cans that have been made
from discarded tires. One of this year’s group members had been especially taken with them and
even wanted to take one home. When we drove past a factory we couldn’t help but stop and see
the entire process of how they were made. I modeled several of the products — the ad campaign
will certainly be appearing any day now!
We also stopped at a favorite
temple in Chaiya, Wat Phra Boromathat, one of the three most revered temples in the south. When I
first visited here in 1992, there was a courtyard that was 
surrounded by
delightfully-aged Buddha statues. Over the years they had become darkened, damaged and aged in a
beautiful fashion. It must have been about 3 or 4 years later when they started repainting the
images in gold with black for the hair — much to our disappointment! Talk about a lesson on
the transitoriness of all things!
After the temple we made a quick stop at a nearby weaving village where we bought colorful shirts for the beaches.
I should mention that we were being
driven around Thailand by Sun, one of Kasma’s drivers on the tours. Sun has driven for Kasma
for two years and has really been taken by the trips. He is used to traveling with more traditional
tour leaders, who don’t socialize much with their group members and pretty much ignore other
Thai people they encounter, except when a commission is involved. When Kasma’s group visit
hill 
tribe villages in the north, she encourages them to buy directly from the people
and leads by example: we have boxes of items from these villages, bought to help out the people. A
typical tour group would be told not to buy directly from the villages
and would be taken to a center where the tour leader receives a fat commission. In a typical group
drivers are treated as second-class employees, sent off to eat and stay by themselves, often having
to sleep in their vans. Kasma’s drivers eat with the group and stay in the same kind of rooms
as the tour members.
After two years Sun has become family. He treats Kasma like an older sister and we both treat him like a brother. He is so good natured and easygoing that what could be an awkward situation (I speak very little Thai, he speaks no English and he could become a bit of a third wheel) is fun. Besides, it means I don’t have to drive, which would be very tiring. When I drove Kasma and her mother around Bangkok two years ago they decided it was nah-gklua, which translates as terrifying.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- —> Part 1: Beginnings, Heading South —
- Part 2: Visiting a Lake, For the Birds
- Part 3: Nakhon Si Thammarat, Nakhon Market
- Part 4: Wat Phra Mahatat
- Part 5: A Day at Sun’s
- Part 6: To the Islands and Krabi
- Part 7: Bangkok, Street Food
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Last updated 27 August 2004.