Point and Smile, Point of no Return

Today I saw the sun dawn upon Isaan, the rural North-East of Thailand. Isaan people are the salt of the earth when it comes to endurance and hard-honest working spirit. That is, if they haven't gone off to Bangkok and catched the big-city flue. I was entering a land where 80 percent of the people worked for their food, in a quite literal way; planting rice, herding cattle, grinding spices after drying them, just being busy living the farmer's life. My stop was at Udon-Thani, it's a city for Isaan standards, just like Aarschot is a city for people coming from Aarschot, I guess. I was entering an urban landscape that came as a surprise after hours of rice-paddies and scrubland. Tuk-Tuk's waited eagerly, and the few farang that got off the train instead of going straight to Lao were being scanned expertly before prices were set for fares to go to nearby hotels. I ignored the latter of them, as they seemed to speak English too well, which meant their gasoline would cost the same as it would in Europe. Instead I walked a little into the city, letting it seep into my system. It was just as the guidebooks predicted, a little hard on the eye, no temples worth mentioning in the books, no guesthouses even for the shoe-stringed traveller. No problem there, as I made it to the hotel I got a deja-vu of entering an old Perestroijka Hotel somewhere in the outlands of Siberia. But with the heat on. This building seemed to have been erected in the fifties, post-war style, and I felt my hairs stand up as i noticed the tag on the mirrors: "Union Commerciale des Glaceries Belges, Bruxelles, Vitrerie en Beglazing." It seemed to have been on there forever, a tag that would appeal to the antique-dealers at Marolles, or the few old-school ones in the Kloosterstraat. The room was only 3.50 euro's, so I guess there is no need for guesthouses in this city, giving the fact that my room was twice as big as any room I've slept in while in Bangkok. I kinda liked these battered, 'ugly' cities, last time I was in such a place was when I got sick and had to stay in the local Hospital of Chumphon. That was a different trip tough. Back in the days when I still tought I would change just by travelling. These days, I feel more like I'm dissolving while travelling. I'm still very aware that I'm still same old me, but it just doesn't matter that much around here. Not that there's so much wrong with being me, but after 24 years you get bored by being you from time to time, I guess. No, lately I hadn't been too occupied with finding a reason for being here, or with just "being" in general. It was only by looking into that mirror and at the same time seeing the familiar font and names on the little tag, that I remembered I came from somewhere.


After I catched some sleep (see the previous post) I went out in the city, strolling around, window-shopping, and prety soon it dawned upon me I was far from Bangkok, despite being in a Thai city. Almost no one spoke Egglish, and it was only after about walking around for an hour or so that I saw the first other Farang. It turned out I was just around the corner of the major shopping mall, the biggest around, and the only one as well. But before I was in Airco-city, I was on my own, with my very basic knowledge of Thai being stretched far beyond my comprehension. This was the Land of Point and Smile, and then point some more, and speak slowly but still English, point some more, and just keep smiling so as not to upset the friendly but bewildered vendors. I guessed that apart from the shopping mall with it's Swensen and Pizza-Hut and All you can Eat-Grill (boy, I didn't just save money by catching up on forgotten meals, I think I even made money eating my way trough Tuna Salalds, Potato Salads, Pork Sausages and all sorts of thick dressings.) this would be the score for the rest of my upcountry trip. I would be getting my Laos visa in a couple of days, in Khon Kaen, when the embassy opened again after the weekend, and I would be going into a country where pointing and smiling and blabbering are common pidgeon. For now I was being happy just walking around, snapping uninteresting pictures and at the same time looking to the things outside of the picture. This was still the kind of place where Tuk-Tuk's were driven by old men in old shirts and gritty pants, instead of by some young schmuck with a Ray Ben on his head and the latest white Adiads on his feet. Andd I even managed to spot some Cyclos, that were being pulled by even more battered characters, men that looked like they had been born somewhere during the Roaring Twenties, alltough I doubt if there was anything roaring in these streets those days, apart from the occasional pig on a stick passing trough on its way to some party. (yes, well, if you don't have fridges and air-cool-trucks you best keep those precious porkchops fresh as long as possible by other means; keeping it alive and kicking) This was a place where people were very proud of knowing a word outside of Thai, and theuy insisted on using it whenever they saw a white-skinned farang around. I mean, it's nice when people say hello as you walk by, but if they keep saying it when for instance you try to point your way trough a purchase of a pen it tends to get a little annoying. Or even hilarious, as they yelled it at me with a big smile and a waive coming from a big truck that came very close to running me over. These people had their hearts on the right place, as far as I could tell, so I did not try to use my Sawasdee khap's too much but instead smiled surprised and answered with a nice Hello to you. Anyway, this was a place where you had to be very carefull with your Thai, because uttering even as much as one word (being one of the 6 or so I've mastered) would end you up in a waterfall of Thai sounds, and eager looks at the pauses between one waterfall and the next. Ignoring your baffled and lost look, the waterfall would just keep running until you shrugged your shoulders quite unsubtle, held up your palms towards the sky and shook your head like a horizontal variation of a death-metal-headbanger. Just remember to keep smiling in the act. Yes, I was feeling pretty happy. Soon I would be in dusty Laos, sitting on the deck of a steamboat (or so I imagined) watching landscapes slide by in a more than slow pace, which wouldn't matter because I was in Laos, Land of the 1000 Lotus-Eaters.