Ben's China Adventure

PHUKET & CIVILIZED SOCIETY

My 2nd day here, I met my former Thai teacher, Gap and his wife Pui for dinner. Gap was getting his PhD in Communications at Temple when he was teaching me. He has now returned to Bangkok and is a Professor at Sripatum University.

I then went down south to Phuket. While I know many a person who pronounces the island "fuck-it," that is not in fact correct. The correct pronounciation is "poo-get." There are 2 main activities on the island. Golf and Diving. Having never been much of a golfer, I decided to focus on the later.

I first arrived at Patong Beach. This is where most of the touristsare. I happened to come to Thailand in the middle of the tourist season. The major streets are filled with bars and drunken tourists staggering around. There's also a Muay Thai (Thai Kickboxing) stadium where you can watch about a dozen fights a night. Men and women, ranging from 14-30 box in their respective weight classes and genders while Thai people bet furiously and tourists look on. The fights are scored based on leg and knee contact - most punches aren't scored, unless they're really good. I witnessed some really impressive roundhouse kicks and flying elbows but the only time a fighter seemed to win without a decision was when he kicked the other guy in the balls. That person would fall over and the fight was over. Many times, it seemed like one guy would surely win, only to get kicked in the junk and lose the fight. Remind me not to take up this sport. It makes Kung Fu seem like crochet.

I wondered what it would be like around here in the wake (no pun intended) of the tsunami. I would never have been able to tell a few thousand people were killed here a year ago. Everything has been rebuilt. There are a few key exceptions. There are giant blue signs that say "Warning - Tsunami Zone. In case of earthquake, go to high ground." OK. That's blatent. The only other signs of the tsunami were vendors selling DVDs of the tsunami and people selling T-shirts that read:

Phuket, Thailand
2002 - SARS
2003 - Bird Flu
2004 - Tsunami
What's Next?

Capitalism at its best. I talked to some people who said the day after the tsunami there were tourists going to sunbathe on the beach while others were cleaning up the dead. Any hope left for humanity?

Patong was grating on me so I moved down to Kata Beach. In 1982, my parents backpacked around the world. They stayed on Kata beach in thatched huts without electricity and ate seafood and banana pancakes. On the spot they stayed, there is now a Club Med. There are however still banana pancakes and seafood. Delicious prawns and crabs for a dollar or two. Almost all of the tourists in Kata are Scandinavian. It has become the hot place for Swedes and Danes to visit. There were Scandinavian restaurants on every corner.

My first day in Kata I joined up with a dive shop and we went to Ratcha Yai. Phuket is one of the top 10 dive destinations in the world, with great reefs, fish and the occaisional manta ray and whale shark. I however experienced none of this. 5 months ago, while teaching (diving, not English) I blew out my eardrum. It was supposed to be all healed but I found out the hard way that it is not. I made it down 6 feet before such an excruciating pain that I had to surface. Damn. On the boat, my balance was off and I knew something was wrong.

That brought me to my second hospital experience in a month. This hospital was quite different though. Phuket has top of the line facilities and western trained doctors at rock bottom prices. This has turned Phuket into a "health-tourism" destination of sorts. People come for Plastic Surgery and dental work since it's high quality and 10x cheaper than back home. The ENT said I couldn't dive for 2 weeks, killing my planned week of diving. I have a feeling it will be longer than that.

That night, I decided I was done with the blond hair and walked into a "hair salon" to get it taken care of. I'll bet I'm the only person EVER to get a haircut at the whorehouse. For those of you who are confused, all the brothels double as "massage parlors" or "hair salons." I figured what the hell, they say they are a salon, let's see what they can do. It was cheap, and the haircut not great, but I am no longer blond.

I spent a lot of my time at an ex-pat bar right next to my guest house. I was walking by wearing my Grateful Dead shirt when a man who was about 60 said, "Grateful Dead! I used to sell acid at their shows." He introduced himself as "Captain Canada" and said he'd been living in Kata for 27 years. We talked for a while and he told me of going to Jerry Garcia's house and smoking pot with John Lennon. I always seem to meet interesting people in odd places. While I'm on that subject, let me briefly discuss the Dutch. It goes without saying, Dutch people are very liberal. All Dutch people that is, except for the ex-pats. Every single Dutchman I've met who has left Holland permanantly is very very right wing. They talk about how great George Bush is, how the war in Iraq was great and so on. It's bizarre, but I guess the only people who would leave a liberal haven like Holland and the very conservative ones, for whom Holland is too liberal.

Everyone knows the Livestrong wristbands, popularized by Lance Armstrong. Most of you know of the national trend of wristbands for a million different causes. Well, it's not just America. For the King's 73rd birthday in December, Thailand printed up 1,000,000 yellow wristbands proclaiming (in both Thai and English) "I love the King." It took me a few days, but I got one.

Now a brief lesson on Thai politics. The King of Thailand is the longest serving monarch in the world. He's beloved by all Thai people, to the point of worship. While he no longer has any real powers, every building in the country has a picture of him. He's done great things for the country and most citizens would lay down their lives for him. The government is ruled by the Prime Minister, Thaksin. He controls 12% of the economy singlehandedly and has been elected 4 terms. However, people despise him. He is re-electied because he can buy votes in the north. He has continuously tried to consolidate his power (like a certain US president) and last week forced the King to sign a law that said the King could no longer sign laws (anyone see the irony?) In Bangkok there are massive student led weekly anti-Thaksin rallies. The King could tell Thaksin to leave and he would have to, since at the King's request, the entire population would drag Thaksin through the streets. However, he does not. As the King ages, there is much concern as to who will take his place. Most everyone wants the Princess to succeed her father but she is not next in line. The Crown Prince, next in line to the throne is hated by the people. He is corrupt and when he was having marital issues, he made his wife and son "disappear." No one knows what happened to them, but he is remarried now. I also met him at the World Scout Jamboree here in Thailand in 2003.