A Tourist's Observations from Thailand

The word tourist originally meant travel-writer, with tour derived from the Latin word torpare (to turn on a lathe) or, in a later French update, to make a circuit, a rounding with the intention of returning to where one started. In the late 18th century, being a tourist was an occupation. On my recent trip to Asia, I toggled between being a 21st-century tourist on holiday, hoping to write something relevant, and being a mom again to the Thai Muslim high school exchange student, nicknamed First, who became part of my family some twenty years ago. 

The United States State Department sponsored First under the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program. The program, initiated after 9/11, aimed to bring carefully selected Muslim students from around the world to experience American democracy and life, then return to their home countries and tout our worthy qualities. First was a joy to everyone in our household and was loved beyond measure. I had long intended to meet her family, but when her father died the previous year, I didn’t want to miss meeting her mom. My daughter Molly, her partner Rocky, and our dear Thai kid mapped out an itinerary, keeping some details secret to surprise me.

Before First picked us up from a boutique hotel, Rocky, Molly, and I walked to a bank to withdraw cash. Thailand intentionally promotes a cash-based economy to spare small businesses the fees associated with credit and debit cards. While I waited outside the bank, I took a photo of a charming billboard featuring a businessman with a silly-looking chick—not something I might see in America. Thai humor was already asserting itself. 

First escorted us through the day, starting with a wander through the canal-side Pak Khlong Talat wholesale flower market. Approaching a canal, I saw a line of guys, one or two with fishing poles, others holding baskets, and a few just watching. As we passed, laughter broke out when one of them lost his fish. The sense of camaraderie was strong, but it occurred to me they were working, not fishing for fun; they were catching fish here in the middle of a city of five million people in need of food in any way it can be obtained.

Numerous well-tended cats and a rare dog or two were in evidence in the stalls lining the market's roads. Women making jasmine garlands, folding lotus buds, and stringing marigolds as offerings at Buddhist temples sat in the back of the deep stalls, chatting as they worked. 

Men with a weariness about them pushed dollies overladen with baskets, cardboard, or other odd lots of stuff. In a city where the poverty rate hovers around an astonishing two percent, it seemed everyone had a job, however modest. Dodging motor scooters or small pickup trucks over-piled with crates, we wended our way to a corner cafe recommended by First. 

We sat at tables outside on the walkway while two women cooked over fires on this humid, hot day, preparing our meal from fresh ingredients. Thailand is known for its hospitality and food. First lent me a battery-operated fan to keep cool while we waited for a delicious meal. Her small gesture of packing an extra fan for me exemplified her culture’s thoughtfulness.

Upon returning to the little parking lot where we had left the car, we each paid a few baht to an elderly woman for access to a clean restroom with a single squat toilet, a spray hose, and no toilet paper—the first time I had encountered this. I came to appreciate the logic of not adding paper to what must be a massive sewer system. (However, over the course of the trip, I had a couple of hilarious episodes of dousing my clothes with one of the spray hoses. An inept tourist, I was.) 

Switching things up, we drove to the elegant ICONSIAM mall, which is culturally associated with Thailand’s royal family. It didn’t resemble any mall I had visited before. I think of it more as performance art, with its curated views from curving balconies looking down into a courtyard below or the river beyond. Midway, we came across a humongous thirty-foot dachshund sculpture, gently breathing, wearing a warrior’s shield. (It startled me because of its resemblance to my mutt back home.) The dog was promoting a new line of perfume called Puppy, with advertising copy that was art itself. 

The mall had its share of ultra-expensive shops, indicative of the wealth in Bangkok, but it also showed how Thailand has made it possible for succeeding generations to move out of subsistence livelihoods. First’s grandparents were rice farmers; her parents were a teacher and a police officer; and she works in administration at an international school. Although some of the products in the mall were well beyond First’s (and my) income level, there were still numerous affordable options for someone in a middle-income position.  

While driving toward our night’s lodging into an older part of Bangkok, an accumulation of details—the foreign look of the apartment buildings along the canyon-like roadways, the noise, the signs in other languages, and the pick-up trucks with people riding in the back (illegal in the U.S.)—caused me to have two almost simultaneous reactions. The first was a flash of joy at being in this enormous city, which so obviously cultivated a culture of caring. Jobs like sweeping the sidewalks with simple handmade brooms seen everywhere or offering taxi service in your truck’s bed had a dignity to them. Seeing a family squeezed onto one motor scooter—a father, a child, and a mother—spoke to me of how humanity is the same the world over, everyone making do with what is available, hoping their children will enter a world of better possibilities. And then, uncalled for, came a thought of Pakistan. Of children injured. Of apartment buildings like those we were passing (except the ones in my mind’s eye were bomb-ravaged, tilted, with bed sheets hanging where walls had been). The joy I had been feeling seemed to draw itself up, slide sideways, and a sadness took a seat beside it. I said nothing. For a moment, I felt choked up; it was an odd feeling to have in the middle of that glorious day.

But the day was not over. First dropped us on a curb near our lodging. We slipped through a small parking lot that bordered a Buddhist temple, rounded older houses with cats and one old dog lounging about, and arrived at the doorstep of what had once been a small fish-oil factory partially built on pilings over the Chao Phraya River, a huge river known as “The River of Kings.” Entering a corridor lit by a dog with a lightbulb in his rear end (how could one not smile?), we slipped off our footwear in the foyer, imitating the thoughtful, culturally common gesture of the guests who had arrived before us.

Molly found this unique ten-room hotel, Loy La Long, knowing it would please me with its charming, historic atmosphere. While we waited for the front desk clerk to check our passports, we were served a chilled drink and then escorted to our small but beautifully appointed rooms. The earlier unsettling sadness was gone. Opening the windows to catch the river’s breeze, I settled in for a nap before venturing out on my own to walk the neighborhood as evening approached. 

A few blocks from the hotel, I entered increasingly narrow streets; motorcycles, mostly ridden by men, arrived home to the greetings of neighbors already sitting outside the now-closed first-level shops. The welcoming smell of cooking wafted from the windows. 

Again, the feeling of being deeply affected by this vast and diverse city and its lovely people returned to my heart. How could anyone visit such a city anywhere in the world and not fall in love with the people? How is it possible for any man or nation to be so cavalier as to presume that bombing or attacking fellow humans or their housing, water, food, or fuel facilities has any moral standing? Thailand is not under any immediate threat, but like Ukraine, Israel, Pakistan, and Iran, its people want the best for their families and want peace. Tourism has made our world smaller and more accessible. Might it not foster an aversion to war and a love for all our fellow passengers?

My Thai Family