Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Thailand - Beach Week
Not exactly a tough week!
We stayed on the island of Koh Samet, in the Gulf of Thailand. It's classified as a National Park but this hasn't precluded some of the beaches from being lined with hotels & restaurants, although they are reasonably low-key. The island is within easy reach of Bangkok so it tends to get very busy with young Thais at weekends. We did see quite a few Western tourists here too - the saddest being old men, some grossly overweight, with young Thai women in tow. We found the sight of them very unappealing & definitely disturbing but it's not a simple story of western male chauvinism buying the favours of young Thai women.
According to our guide, Oliver, Thai families encourage their daughters to find Western husbands, regardless of age, for financial security & because Thai men are not generally regarded as being reliable husbands. There's a whole spectrum of possibilities. Thai women's time & services can be bought for minutes or hours or days or weeks in the bars of Bangkok or Pattaya. Some relationships lead to marriage & a new life in the West for the women or a new life in Thailand for the men, complete with children & what we would regard as normal family life. Some women find themselves sucked into a life of prostitution either in Thailand or abroad, with grandparents left to raise the mixed race children that are inevitably born. Some men find themselves working back in the UK to support a wife or paramour they rarely see & all her family too. Whatever the rights & wrongs and whether it brings personal happiness or not to the men & women involved, it doesn't seem to bode well for the social fabric of Thailand or the long-term sustainability of its culture. We certainly couldn't feel comfortable with it! It does occasionally happen that older Western women have young Thai men in tow too.
That wasn't the only shocking aspect of beach life on Koh Samet, though! After months of living in societies with severely strict dress codes, we were suddenly faced with almost total nudity again! It was disconcerting. We found that we didn't feel comfortable with that either! Are we becoming old fuddy-duddies, tutting at the declining standards of the decadent West? Probably! We definitely tutted when we came across a group of young Christian missionaries - 1st of all, because they were missionaries (mostly American, but one was from Currie, Scotland) & 2ndly because they were cavorting on the beach in skimpy swimwear!!
It was possible to escape the madding & maddening crowds, though. The more popular beaches were much quieter on weekdays & by walking for a mile or two we could while away a few hours in secluded bays, undisturbed by other tourists or the many masseuses, manicurists & tattoo artists plying their trades in the busier areas. The sea was balmily warm, the sand dazzlingly white & the rocks perfect for scrambling over. All very idyllic! We had a great day out on a boat which circled the whole island, dropping anchor to allow us to snorkel above coral reefs, lying in very shallow waters. Being so near to the coral allowed us incredibly clear views of the brilliant life beneath the surface. We swam amongst shoals of colourful angel fish gazing down at amazing black sea urchins with a dab of white splashed on the end of each long spike - they looked deadly but beautiful! The downside of such close proximity was that most of the snorkellers emerged from the water with lacerated feet & legs! Nobody warned us that this was likely to happen although, of course, we have read several times since that this is a well-known peril faced by divers & snorkellers! Fiona's cuts have taken weeks to heal!
Other memorable moments - swimming in the sea before breakfast, eating all our meals on palm-fringed beaches, drinking Pina Colada from a coconut, finding our favourite Nutrageous bars in the 7/11 store (we hadn't had one since last December), being handed a flyer for an Indian restaurant by the woman who owned it, who was from Knightswood in Glasgow! (We didn't go!)
We stayed on the island of Koh Samet, in the Gulf of Thailand. It's classified as a National Park but this hasn't precluded some of the beaches from being lined with hotels & restaurants, although they are reasonably low-key. The island is within easy reach of Bangkok so it tends to get very busy with young Thais at weekends. We did see quite a few Western tourists here too - the saddest being old men, some grossly overweight, with young Thai women in tow. We found the sight of them very unappealing & definitely disturbing but it's not a simple story of western male chauvinism buying the favours of young Thai women.
According to our guide, Oliver, Thai families encourage their daughters to find Western husbands, regardless of age, for financial security & because Thai men are not generally regarded as being reliable husbands. There's a whole spectrum of possibilities. Thai women's time & services can be bought for minutes or hours or days or weeks in the bars of Bangkok or Pattaya. Some relationships lead to marriage & a new life in the West for the women or a new life in Thailand for the men, complete with children & what we would regard as normal family life. Some women find themselves sucked into a life of prostitution either in Thailand or abroad, with grandparents left to raise the mixed race children that are inevitably born. Some men find themselves working back in the UK to support a wife or paramour they rarely see & all her family too. Whatever the rights & wrongs and whether it brings personal happiness or not to the men & women involved, it doesn't seem to bode well for the social fabric of Thailand or the long-term sustainability of its culture. We certainly couldn't feel comfortable with it! It does occasionally happen that older Western women have young Thai men in tow too.
That wasn't the only shocking aspect of beach life on Koh Samet, though! After months of living in societies with severely strict dress codes, we were suddenly faced with almost total nudity again! It was disconcerting. We found that we didn't feel comfortable with that either! Are we becoming old fuddy-duddies, tutting at the declining standards of the decadent West? Probably! We definitely tutted when we came across a group of young Christian missionaries - 1st of all, because they were missionaries (mostly American, but one was from Currie, Scotland) & 2ndly because they were cavorting on the beach in skimpy swimwear!!
It was possible to escape the madding & maddening crowds, though. The more popular beaches were much quieter on weekdays & by walking for a mile or two we could while away a few hours in secluded bays, undisturbed by other tourists or the many masseuses, manicurists & tattoo artists plying their trades in the busier areas. The sea was balmily warm, the sand dazzlingly white & the rocks perfect for scrambling over. All very idyllic! We had a great day out on a boat which circled the whole island, dropping anchor to allow us to snorkel above coral reefs, lying in very shallow waters. Being so near to the coral allowed us incredibly clear views of the brilliant life beneath the surface. We swam amongst shoals of colourful angel fish gazing down at amazing black sea urchins with a dab of white splashed on the end of each long spike - they looked deadly but beautiful! The downside of such close proximity was that most of the snorkellers emerged from the water with lacerated feet & legs! Nobody warned us that this was likely to happen although, of course, we have read several times since that this is a well-known peril faced by divers & snorkellers! Fiona's cuts have taken weeks to heal!
Other memorable moments - swimming in the sea before breakfast, eating all our meals on palm-fringed beaches, drinking Pina Colada from a coconut, finding our favourite Nutrageous bars in the 7/11 store (we hadn't had one since last December), being handed a flyer for an Indian restaurant by the woman who owned it, who was from Knightswood in Glasgow! (We didn't go!)
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