I'm the type of person who likes to reminisce a lot and lately I've been thinking about a road trip I took back in 2005 with my father and a group of his friends to Thailand. That had been by far the longest road trip I've ever been on.
We went to many places but the most memorable would have to be Nakhon Si Thammarat and Ko Samui. This may be a bit of an understatement but Thailand is pretty big. It took two days travel just to get to Bangkok. Needless to say after spending long periods of time in a car you start to suffer from a little cabin fever.
One of the main problems was that there wasn't much to do while travelling in the car. I didn't bring a Word search with me because that would have been insulting to my intelligence but crosswords are too hard. And Sudoku wasn't a big hit then (still wouldn't have brought it). I had only brought one book and that didn't last very long. We only had one mix tape and a Thalia CD. There is only so much Latin and reggae music one can listen to. By the end of the trip I knew all the tracks by heart. Local radio was out of the question as we didn't understand the language.
Asking a Malaysian to speak Thai is like asking an Englishman to speak French. Or maybe it's like asking Singaporeans to behave themselves once they cross the bridge. Only a small percentage actually do. Turns out Singaporeans are not as "civilized" and law abiding as they like to make others believe. I don't know why but I dislike Singaporeans regardless of their race, religion or creed. I wonder if Old Lee is going to sue me...he gets cranky when people criticize him, his son or the prison system in Singapore. At least over here when we ISA people they may one day actually get out and have the chance to sue the government and win some compensation. The Singaporean Government always wins. Just ask Alan Shandrake, a British author who was found guilty of "insulting the Singaporean judiciary". But I've gone too far off topic. Back to the story.
Watching films in different countries is a strange experience as well. I never knew Eddie Murphy could speak fluent Thai. This particular film was not only dubbed in Thai but the subtitles were in Thai as well. Believe me that didn't exactly improve the experience of the film. Of course in retrospect that might have been done to aid the hard of hearing.
Ko Samui is a very beautiful island. We had to take a ferry and the most amazing thing was that we could still get a phone signal while on the way there. Very useful if we had hit an iceberg along the way. The only problem with Ko Samui is that it's a lot like Phuket. It tries to cater to all the tourists a little too much. Besides the usual fast food outlets you could practically find restaurants from almost every Western country. What's the point of travel to a beautiful island like Ko Samui if you're not going to explore the local culture. We even came across a fish and chip shop run by an Englishman. Someone once asked my father where they could find some French food in Kuala Lumpur. He promptly told them to try France instead.
We were in Ko Samui for only a few days so we didn't do much. At least not me. I'm the type of person who hates big crowds and I get uncomfortable when leaving Kuala Lumpur. I did get to play mini golf though. It was my first and last time. The experience was a bit of a let down. There were a lot of Caucasian men zipping around the island on various types of bikes with a local girl holding on to his waist. Apparently the girls in Ko Samui are REALLY friendly.
Nakhon Si Thammarat was much better. Practically tourist free apart from us. One morning we went to the local fish market. Bought some really nice fish and had a barbecue on the beach. The water was clear and we had the whole place to ourselves. None of those annoying nudists that pop up in Phuket and Ko Samui. Well, we weren't exactly alone. There were two dogs erm.....well one dog climbed on top of another dog and you sort of get the picture. More dogs came by after the first two dogs got stuck to each other. That's not a euphemism. The fish was good though.
I think that was my last major trip abroad. I haven't been back to Thailand since 2005 and the last time I took a flight was back in 2001. What can I say? I really like KL.
There is one thing that us Malaysians could learn from our neighbours up North. Throughout our travels in Thailand there was not a single toll except in Bangkok. Might make our Government slightly more popular.
Best wishes to our dear Prime Minister who is recovering from chicken pox and is now in hospital being treated for gastritis. Give the man a break. After all he is trying to take care of 1Malaysia. I'm just glad that when our PM is down in the dumps his wife is ready to take charge.
Links of interest:
Freedom of Speech in Singapore
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