“…partly because I’m, shall we say, a little awkward and forgetful.”
We’ve travelled a fair amount, although nothing like two Americans we met — the man who tried to chat up Heather on Pan Am in 1980 and a sad fellow I once sat next to, who was desperate to get back home after yet another trip selling plastic packaging to the New Zealand meat industry.
So I think I speak with some authority, and where I’m wrong my editor will correct me…
In forty years of travel we’ve only been robbed twice, once by a pickpocket on the Paris Metro — another story — and once when our credit card was skimmed at a restaurant in Canada.
On the other hand we’ve come across a lot of everyday honesty, partly because I’m, shall we say, a little awkward and forgetful.
So here’s the Good Fortune score for Thailand, Laos and Malaysia 2023
§
Vignette from the night market in Chiang Rai
Not long after arriving at the market I was fiddling with my stick, and bag, and god knows what else, and without noticing, dropped a couple of hundred Baht in small notes on the ground (100BHT is about $5, not insignificant).
A cheerful looking guy from one of the stalls shouted and pointed to this old foreign fellow and the money at his feet, and I picked it all up.
He was selling orange juice, so we bought a couple of bottles, which were good, and I thanked him with appropriate self-deprecating gestures, and overpaid him.
§
Confused by the zeroes
I’ve described our train trip from Chiang Mai to Bangkok to catch a flight to Luang Prabang, how it was supposed to terminate at 6.55 in the evening, and how after seemingly endless delays we actually disembarked at Don Mueang Station well after midnight. Also, how grateful we were to the athletic young taxi driver who carried our bags down the “long, steep, concrete staircase” to the roadway.
We’d booked a night at the Amari Airport Hotel so we could enjoy a good night’s sleep and get directly to the terminal via a walkway that takes you above the train and motorways.
“Let me! Let me!” he’d said, “Where are you going?”
“The Amari.”
“I’ll take you!”
“How much?”
“Twenty!”
Twenty! Twenty Baht? “OK!”
“Pay him a hundred,” said Heather. Of course.
Our man bounded down the concrete stairs with 16kg in each hand while we descended more leisurely with our little back packs and swollen feet.
We were soon at the hotel, which was very close, and I proffered the 100 Baht note to our man.
“No, two!”
“You said 20!”
“No, sorry, I meant 200!”
Well sure, it’s really easy with Baht to get the zeroes wrong.
And if you think Baht are confusing, try Laotian Kip.
§
Good honest food at Nang Tao
We laboured our way down the streets of old Luang Prabang one day to find a place to buy food that we could cook in our homestay — you know, bread, eggs, milk, baked beans — and also to eat the “very best Khaosoi” in the city.
But the very best Khaosoi was closed — Covid has been tough on this tourist-dependent town — and the little mini-markets seem to stock very little except beer, water, toothpaste and unrecognisable stuff in packets.
So while Heather looked in a handcraft shop I sweated my way up the street looking for more mini-marts and somewhere else to eat. There were plenty of food choices but not what we’d been looking for. Heather was waiting outside the shop when I got back. She’d had more luck than me, and after some consideration we bought a few items as gifts.
As the proprietor was putting our stuff in a bag Heather asked him where the best current Khaosoi was. No trouble, that would be Nang Tao. Back the way we came, second on the left and you can’t miss it.
So off we went to this modest little place on a dusty road where the noisy kerbs were being rebuilt from end to end. We ordered two bowls of Khaosoi plus a side of steamed rice and stir-fried greens. Actually we ordered something different but the rice and greens were delicious, as was the Khaosoi.
Our host and his wife were friendly and spoke good English. She asked if we’d liked our meals, where we were from, how long in Luang Prabang etc. We pointed to our bag of shopping and explained how we knew about Nang Tao; and, after finishing our drinks and paying, headed back to Saffron for something sweet, a coffee and a drink. The girl on the till greeted us with a knowing smile for the second time that day, and we sat down in the shade and breeze over the Mekong, watching the longboats tie up for the night below us.
I said it was ironic that we’d failed to find either of the things we’d gone looking for and yet had a pretty successful day.
Heather said, “Where’s our shopping?”
Feck. “I left it at Nang Tao — she-it. I’ll go and get it. Have you got keys to the homestay?”
“No — don’t do that! Get a tuktuk and I’ll come with you.”
“I left it, I’ll get it. It’s only ten minutes there and back. Have you got keys?”
I walked back — first right, then left, then right, then right again and you can’t miss it — on the left down the dusty street with piles of sand and cement and the workers mixing plaster with shovels, and placing kerbstones.
Nang Tao was almost empty. I asked our hostess if she’d seen our bag of shopping. She and the young woman who’d been entering as we left both laughed and pointed to where I’d parked it. I said thank you. “My wife will be very happy, but not with me!” More laughter.
We went back again for good, honest food.
§
U-turn at Suvarnabhumi
Vientiane airport is tiny. It felt like another flashback to air travel round the Pacific in the ‘80s. But Bangkok’s two are major league.
Wanting to avoid unnecessary walking after our Singapore experience, we proceeded with care. First, grab a trolley.
Heather never wants to do this. “We don’t need one. They’re a nuisance. The bags have wheels.”
But just the act of hoisting them off the luggage belt tells me she’s wrong. Sure they have wheels, but our back packs and man bags don’t, and who wants to drag stuff anyway? So we grab a trolley.
There was a booking system for taxis. You stood in line, told them where you wanted to go, got told how much to pay the driver, were allocated a vehicle, and off you went, me gratefully pushing the trolley.
“Not that way, this way!” yells Heather, as I head off in the wrong direction.
So I do a swift U-turn and head back. We’re just about finished loading up the car when this young woman comes racing up with my back pack, complete with, let me think — my computer, my iPad, my Apple Pencil, all our power packs, all my medications, and most of our charging adaptors and cables. Not my passport I don’t think…
§
Down Trou at Icon Siam
Is Icon Siam Bangkok’s Number One Temple to Nothingness? And is it catching?
One visit was enough for us, including one to its remarkably well appointed toilets, one to the Apple Store and one to its balcony to video the Bangkok skyline and the traffic on the Chao Phraya River. Toilet visits don’t normally warrant a report, but this time was different. As we were about to leave, heading for the taxi stand, they were becoming a higher priority.
Finding them wasn’t easy. (Finding the elevators hadn’t been easy either — we’d been looking for them all visit. The place had six levels, using the escalators had involved a lot of walking and Heather had slightly sprained an ankle.)
Eventually I managed to decipher, I thought, the absurd little signs that the interior designers had deigned to give us, and Heather decided to wait where she was while I ventured on — only to discover, at last, and too late to be helpful, the elevators!
But no toilets.
There must be another turning, I thought, so I walked on. But no, just a glass wall.
But no again! The wall was in fact a pair of elegant, sliding glass doors. The one in front of me opened as I drew close, and I was grateful to see a tiny M reassuring me that it was the men’s, not the women’s, door that slid open. I’m not yet ready to assert my non-Cis right to toilet wherever I choose.
The toilets were empty, and spotless. They had a hook for your man bag. They had those automatic flushes that work inappropriately if you make any sudden moves. I could work out how to operate the soap and water. I found the only drier. And I headed back to Heather.
Fortunately it wasn’t very long before I discovered that my phone wasn’t in my hand, or my pocket, or my man bag.
So back I went, fearing the worst — I’ll bet I put it down to wash my hands. I’ll bet it’s gone.
But no. It had slid out of my pants pocket onto the spotlessly clean toilet floor, and there it was still.
I suppose this should be filed under good luck rather than good people. And maybe the odds were tilted in my favour; maybe I was in fact one of only a few people who’d been able to discover the toilets.
So yes, good luck, and good people. And I forgive the young opportunist at Don Mueang Station.