Thailand: Always A Place To Return To

Was Thailand unsafe, sleazy, repetitious with one Buddhist temple melding into the next?

A ho-hum, underwhelming destination of smelly food and trashy shopping?

Read on!

A family from Navi Mumbai -- parents, daughter and the daughter's friend -- went to Bangkok on a holiday. The girls were around 10; their parents family friends.

They went sightseeing, ate local food and, of course, shopped. Towards the end of their holiday, their parents needed to exchange a skirt they had had bought at a mall.

They asked the girls to wait for them at the atrium inside the mall and exchanged the article.

When the couple returned to the atrium, maybe 20 minutes later, the girls were not there.

A panicked search began.

Floor by floor, shop by shop, aisle by aisle.

The girls were nowhere.

Two hours went by.

The couple went to a police station and filed a complaint.

The cops tried to calm them down but the news was devastating: It was unlikely the girls would be found, the police said.

Girls that age aren't picked up and shoved into someone's basement as it's heard of in true crime stories in the US; in Thailand they are picked-up to be trafficked, according to the police and were likely on their way to bordering Myanmar.

Fifteen years have gone by.

The girls have never been found.

It's a parent's worst nightmare to have your child vanish. It's entirely another matter to have a friend's daughter under your care vanish.

... Unsafe Thailand

---

A female friend went to a strip show in Bangkok. After the hour-long show, she had this to say:

The striptease was a full Monty, and the performer, a stunning young woman, apart from various show and tells, unscrewed a bottle cap with just the muscles in her nether region. The audience watched in rapt attention, enjoying the show as if it were a Bharata Natyam performance, clapping during interludes.

The only section of the audience which tried to misbehave -- yes, of course, Indian men -- were picked up by bouncers and deposited outside the door. Can't blame them. They just got their geography wrong and mistook it for a bawdy show in desh.

... Sleazy Thailand

---

My mom loved the 1956 film, The King and I, starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr (maybe Brynner more than the film itself). It was a musical and back in the day when Thailand was not a tourist destination, it was India and the world's window to an exotic distant place.

The film, of course, was highly fictionalised -- adapted from Anna Leonowen's memoirs, a British governess in 1860s Siam (the ancient name for Thailand) -- and her time at the royal court.

There was, of course, a hint of a romance between Anna and the monarch of Siam, King Mongkut. It probably was as real to the Thais as Hollywood's The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959) or Kim (1950) were to Indians. But what a splendid film it was.

... Monarchic Thailand

---

A young couple I met at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International airport, while waiting and praying for the Indigo flight to take off, was headed on a package tour to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

It was the woman's first holiday abroad and I do hope they had a lovely time because any country can be different things to different people.

On my first trip to Thailand, I had expected the country to be unsafe, sleazy, repetitious, with one Wat (Buddhist temple) melding into another, onslaughts of smelly food, trashy shopping and generally a destination that was ho-hum and underwhelming.

It met none of my expectations.

Thailand is a place you promise yourself you will return to.

It's a place I have eaten the most amazing food, consistently at every meal, while on any foreign vacation, and especially ones that don't break the bank.

It's a country that stuns with its beautiful Wats, paintings, etchings, art and craft.

It's a country where you made our way through crowded, vibrant and exciting night markets, eyes darting left and right like at a tennis match, absorbing the array before you -- fried grasshoppers and tarantulas, elephant pants, rattan bags, jade jewellery, balm and Thai silk.

It's the thrill of taking a speed boat down the once-dangerous and druglord-speckled Mekong Delta, that's kissed by Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

A country that stuns

It's the surprise of finding clean streets, unbroken pavements, almost no litter, no beggars and no visible poverty.

I felt like a villager from Phulera at the gargantuan malls where you need GPS to find your way around and can spend an entire day and still not see half the mall.

It's the silken roads with nary a pothole, a pit, an unmarked speedbreaker, patchwork repair or uneven surface.

Ah Thailand!

It's the Thais -- warm, friendly, (language can be a problem, though), helpful who somehow somewhere give you a feeling of being at home.

Indians do Thailand as a pilgrimage -- the first holiday abroad with friends (given its accessibility, safety and relative affordability), or as bachelors (there were six men on my flight to Bangkok and they weren't there for the sightseeing if the snatches of conversation were anything to go by) and finally with family in a group tour, that takes you on a hop-skip round of Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket and Krabi with veg meals and fake designer handbags thrown in.

We did Bangkok and northern Thailand, skipping southern Thailand and its beaches entirely. None of us are beach bums; give us paddy fields, mountains and mist, waterfalls and forests with large helpings of Pad Kra Paw and mango salad.

Sure, Thailand has problems and there is a dark, dangerous underbelly.

According to a report by Foreign Policy magazine, Thailand is the largest sex tourism destination in Southeast Asia. In fact, prostitution generates an annual revenue of $6.4 billion according to a 2023 report.

More than 80,000 people have been sold into the Thai sex industry since 1990 according to the Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation: Thailand.

Prostitution is visible in most of the tourist areas in Bangkok, for instance, in the Sukhumvit area, Lumphini Park or Patpong, with prostitutes either walking the streets (they are called freelancers), or waiting at glass-fronted massage parlours, or at go-go bars (dancers on stage, available to you for a fee).

In fact, as I waited at the junction of Nana BTS (a metro station at Sukhumvit) for a friend who did not have her bearings quite right, I realised that the massage parlour behind me, fronted by buxom women in short, tight dresses, was in fact a pick-up joint that offered more than a mere massage.

Yet, I have rarely felt as safe.

Unlike India, where even a donut is fair game, the men (generally tourists) in Bangkok firmly focus on women in the trade.

A friend helpfully told me that I didn't fit the bill -- not being white and nubile -- and therefore I couldn't be an apt judge, and while that is true, it isn't just that nobody feels you up -- it's the gut feeling that only women are familiar with -- the feeling of being safe.

Yes, there are gorgeous ladyboys or were they women (?) walking the streets or standing at street corners with Indian men desperately trying to grab a deal.

Or the LBH (losers back home) -- old, white, balding men who come to Thailand alone and hook up with young Thai women and live together for months or till their visas expire.

Think White Lotus.

Yes, it fed a stereotype, but you will certainly see these one-foot-in-the-grave- white men with a local Thai woman hanging on to their arm and word, walking around the city, with pit stops of PDA. Interestingly, the colloquial word for Westerners is farang, much like the Indian word firang or firangi.

Bangkok has a buzz that you miss when you go to northern Thailand -- in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. But it is in these places that you find the quieter, prettier, genteel Thailand.

IMAGE: Wat Rong Khun, or the White Temple, known for its elaborate design and symbolic bridge of rebirth.

The stunning White Temple (Wat Rong Khun) of Chiang Rai, which looks like Chantilly lace embellished with mirrorwork, conceptualised, built and funded by Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat, is eye-poppingly beautiful. The gallery showcasing Kositpipat's paintings is a must visit -- it's like going to Paris and not visiting the Louvre.

IMAGE: Wat Rong Suea Ten, or the Blue Temple, distinguished by its striking blue tones and intricate patterning.

We stopped at the Blue Temple (Wat Rong Seur Ten) which like the name suggests, is a gorgeous indigo blue; the Wat Umong and the massive Wat Huay Pla Kang.

We marvelled at the bizarre Baan Dam Museum (Black House or Black Temple), a dark and mysterious museum covered in art and installations made of stuffed and skinned animals.

In fact, it is the world's largest collection of animal remains made into furniture and art installations. It also had several hand hewn wooden totem like figures with massive erections.

Buddhist temples of gorgeous varieties

We ticked off every Wat along the way -- Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, Wat Chedi Luang, and Wat Phra Singh, and as I sipped bubble tea and cooled down with a Thai tea ice-cream, I realised we had seen over 30 big and small Wats.

Yet, every single one looks different -- the styling (universally gorgeous), the decorations, the courtyard, the temple itself... The only thing common that I found after visiting every Wat was the surprise I felt at how different one was from the other.

For instance, the 500-year-old Wat Srisuphan in Chiang Mai is made entirely of beaten silver. with some parts aluminum. and styled in the Burmese way (they had settled in these parts).

Around the base of the temple, interestingly, are embossings of ancient wonders of the world (Pyramids of Giza, Lighthouse of Alexandria), world capitals, and the modern wonders of the world (Christ the Redeemer, the Taj Mahal etc).

Omnipresent in both Bangkok and northern Thailand, when we went, were the black and white flags and festoonings around government buildings to mark the demise of Queen Sirikit. In fact, Thailand is in mourning for one year.

The monarchy is taken seriously in Thailand and not lampooned like it is in Great Britain.

As I waited at a pier in Bangkok for the hop-on-hop-off cruise on the Chao Phraya river, I get an all caps message from a colleague: 'JUST AN ALERT: PLEASE DON'T SAY ANYTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT THE THAI KING OR ROYALTY. IT IS A MAJOR CRIME IN THAILAND.'

Followed by another message:

'PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL WITH WHAT YOU SAY ESPECIALLY IN PUBLIC PLACES.'

Yes, he thinks I have the IQ of an earthworm, and that I'm mentally unstable (probably right), and the messages therefore certainly stopped me from standing on a table and giving gaalis to the present King Rama X, but there was a reason for the messages.

Section 112.

This section of the Thai Criminal Code reads as follows: 'Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-Apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to 15 years'.

Yet, our guide to Ayutthaya (the former capital of Thailand, around 80 km north of Bangkok and named after India's Ayodhya) while telling us about the history of the country, made several asides about the various monarchs' rumpy pumpys.

I'm sure they were true, but I thought it was rather foolhardy when 'defamation' can be such an open-ended term, as we know from India's BNS.

Thailand Food and Culture

The other aspect that was uniform in Thailand was the amazing quality and taste of the food.

I always Google the food of a country I will visit to ensure I tick off the must-trys. I had 15 on that list.

I ate 14 and several others I wasn't aware of, never repeating a dish.

Here are the top nine dishes you cannot, simply cannot leave Thailand without trying.

Why not 10? Because it's tough to stop at just 10.

If you're vegetarian, there's always thepla.

Pad kra Pow
(Stir-fried pork/chicken/beef mince with holy basil and fried egg)

Pad Kra Pow is the most popular Thai dish when you go to Thailand as a tourist.

It's available at every restaurant, much like Butter Chicken would be in a Punjabi dhaba in north India.

The mince can be beef, chicken or pork and it's cooked with garlic, fresh basil leaves and plenty of chilly.

Served with rice, you can choose to add a crispy-edged fried egg on top and mixed together it's a phataka in your mouth.

Pad See Ew
(Stir-fried soy sauce noodles)

A stir-fried noodle dish just about available everywhere, I found it tastier than Pad Thai noodles.

Pad See Ew is more salty because of the soy sauce, slightly sour, a hint of smokiness and with the chicken or the protein of choice, the al dente bok choy, it's the best noodle dish that you will ever have.

Sai Krok Isan
(Northeastern Thai pork sausage)

Fermented pork sausages, not unlike the Goan sausages, they do not have the distinct brewed-vinegar smell that those do.

They are high on garlic, absolutely yummy and a better version of the Spanish chorizo.

I didn't find them in Bangkok, maybe because they originate from the northern Thai region of Isan, but it was everywhere in Chiang Mai.

Phad Phak Boong
(Stir-fried morning glory; it's called kolmi or kalmi in Mumbai)

I had this with steamed rice and a black pepper beef fry and it was magical.

The kolmi greens are stir-fried with garlic, chillies, oyster sauce and fish sauce, and it's a lesson in how simplicity can be the best ingredient.

The same dish can be done with tender asparagus.

Khao Pad Tom Yum
(Tom Yum Fried Rice)

This is a conjunction of Thailand's most famous hot and sour soup and rice.

It's got the distinctive taste of Tom Yum but it's like a fried rice and is flavoured with roasted chilly, kaffir lime leaves, galangal and lemongrass.

And baby, it's absolutely lovely.

Massaman Curry

The famous curry is a blend of Malay and Thai Muslim influences and despite its bright red colour is not spicy like Thai Red Curry, but aromatic with the coconut milk giving it that rich broth.

We tried the one with beef (yeah, beef, not buff) and potatoes and it's a bowl of teary-eyed goodness.

Mala Steamed Fish

We had the steamed version instead of the fried one; a feeble attempt to eat healthy.

Mala paste makes for a numbing-spicy, pungent curry and is made from Sichuan peppercorns (which is why it's numbing) and dried chilly peppers (therefore spicy), and other aromatics.

Whole Tilapia fish is steamed and then teamed with a stir-fry of onions, spring onions, Thai red chillies and Mala paste.

Som Tum Mamuang
(Thai Mango Salad)

Shredded raw mango, lime juice, fish sauce, chillies, peanuts is what it is made up of, but each place we tried it at seemed like it was better than the last one and every sampling was just an explosion of flavor. No Thai salad is quite as good as this one.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff