The grubby faces of two young boys stare at me from the window of the bamboo watchtower, their defiant expressions just masking their curiosity and no small amount of fear. There is no doubt that these guys think they are in charge as they hold fast onto the loops of string which operate the gate. I look strange to them no doubt, a bearded falang in dusty clothes carrying a large and even more dusty rucksack. Though they have seen many foreigners in their village, most will have been from Medicine Sans Frontiere or the Malaria Prevention clinic. Few tourists get off the bus here.
The watchtower guards the entrance to block A3 of Bek La refugee camp, a complex of bamboo and banana leaf houses running for five kilometers along the Mae Sot to Mae Sariang road in western Thailand. Two ranges of steep hills either side of the road and two Thai police checkpoints at either end are the real walls of this camp, so the bamboo fences and gates seem rather superfluous. Behind the hills a few kilometers away lies Burma, the country from which the thirty thousand Karen people who inhabit Bek La have fled. They are unwelcome, but tolerated, in Thailand and Bek La provides some housing, schooling and medical care but probably little future for its occupants.
Letting their curiosity overcome their fear, rather as I have done in jumping off the bus at this point, the infant border guards winch the gate open for me and I stroll in wearing what I hope is a 'please somebody say hello' expression on my face. One man does say 'Sawadii!' in response to my greeting, the rest of the gathered locals just stare in mild curiosity. There's a volleyball match on, played with a bamboo pole as a net, and I squat in the dust on my rucksack to watch, hoping to show that I'm not a gawking tourists who expects to see smiling natives in traditional dress, but just somebody passing by and stopping to watch the game.
However silly this may seem, my strategy works well. The game continues uninterrupted, the women who had stood up when I entered sit down again after a few minutes, the toddlers who had run behind their grandmothers skirts at the sight of me emerge and some of the more daring ones come closer to find a better place to stare at this strange creature. I really have no interest in volleyball, and this could hardly be described as a game of great importance. But I watch anyway for a while, paying just enough attention to 'ooh!', 'yeah!' and 'ouch!' at the approprioate times while using my vantage point to steal glances at the people and their village.
It seems to be entirely constructed of bamboo and banana leaves. Nothing much distinguishes one house from another or from the store houses and shops. There's no paint or decoration, no embellishment. It's quite pretty though, not at all dreary as I had expected. Very neat, very clean, every house looks tidy and well kept. The people too look healthy, well fed and content if not actually happy. I guess a steady stream of foreign aid organisations and fairly open access to passers by are indications that the Thai government has nothing to be ashamed of. I wonder for a moment if this is a showcase camp and if there are others less well kept to which I have no access. But there's no sign of the place being prettified for tourists. There was no signpost in Mae Sot which directing me here. But for a chance meeting with two MSF workers I would not have known the place existed.
My fantasy of playing foreign correspondant and listening to daring tails of escape from Burma evaporated pretty quickly after I sat down in the dust. But I'm still pretty interested in life in the camp, and I'd love to have a chat. Sadly, nobody seems to speak English and my Thai stretches only as far as basic formalities. There seems little else to do than watch the game. I'm not comfortable with wandering around the camp like it's a zoo or with taking photographs. There are no invitations being offered, so I just buy a few bananas at the store, bid farewell to the gatekeepers, and changing from would-be foreign correspondant to wanna-be explorer I hike cheerily on up the road.
Disappointment aside, I am pretty pleased that I stopped at Bek La. I only have to recall the startled looks on the faces of the other tourists on the bus this morning when I asked the driver to let me off. The backpackers guides don't say anything about the area between Mae Sot and Mae Sariang and I think many travellers will assume that here be dragons!
Hearing happy laughs, I notice a school on my left. As I approach, the six and seven year olds in the schoolyard stop playing one-by-one to stand and stare in shocked silence. I feel like a lion facing wildebeast and I hold the suspense for a moment before I wave at them. In relief at realising they are not going to appear on 'when nature turns nasty' they all burst into grins and wave back. The sound of jingle bells being sung in one of the classrooms adds a touch of surrealism to this picture and reminds me that Christmas is only a few days away. I keep this waving session going as long as I can since it is my first and maybe only exchange with the people of the camp. Soon, however, tired little arms stop waving and the scene returns to a sea of staring faces, albeit less scared by now. I move on.
I just reach the police checkpoint when the next Mae Sariang bus appears behind me. Two policemen who look like they're in their teens smile mischeivously from atop a tree where they're sunning themselves They don't seem concerned with my presence and pay no attention to the occupants of the bus either which is almost packed with locals.
When I describe this vehicle as a bus I use the term rather loosely. To call it a truck, however, would be unfair. It's really something in between: another product of the imaginative breeding program between motor vehicles which they have perfected in Asia. For this breed, the creators seem to have made appropriate introductions between a small pickup truck, a pair of wrought iron bedspreads and a tent. Two rows of seats facing each other in the back of the bus give this vehicle its Thai name: songthaew, literally two seats. As I climb in, these two seats are already full with local people and the floor space in between is packed with bags and baskets of all sorts of goodies. In a flutter of pink Karen skirts, eight boney knees shuffle a little closer together and the women along the right hand side make some room. They rearrange some cargo too, though I suspect that some of it is capable of moving its own accord. The space they make for me is right up in the front, leaving me nicely exposed to the headwind as the bus pulls off and even though the vehicle is now overfull my space is quite generous. The woman beside me has left a noticable airgap between us and I sense a little discomfort in her face. I greet her and the other occupants with a smile.
As far as I can tell by their dress, everyone in the bus but me is Karen. Thai-born Karen of course, so they don't live with their cousins in the camp. There's one rather crusty bloke opposite me smoking a huge torpedo-like home-made cigarette. I try not to stare. It's difficult though and I make mental notes of the details in everyone's faces and clothing. I'm listening intently to their chatter too, wondering if this is Thai or Karen they are speaking. To be honest though I don't know enough of either to tell the difference. I do have a few polite phrases of Thai, and some number under my belt. About the most useful phrase is "Mai pen rai". It is usually translated as "it dosen't matter" but in colloquial use, it can mean "you're welcome", "that's enough sugar, thanks", "no, I don't need a plastic bag, thank you very much", or even "Ok, we're getting nowhere, I don't speak your language, you don't speak mine so lets just smile and leave it at that".
While in Sukothai, I browsed through the most wonderful Thai phrasebook belonging to another traveller. Zoe had picked it up on her travels, found it was mostly useless, but kept it anyway for entertainment value. Two full pages were devoted to greetings. Like-by-line, the polite English greetings were all laid out: "good morning", "good afternoon", "good evening", "hello", "how are you". Each one was identically translated as "sawadii". This is entirely correct, but it makes you wonder if the writer was paid by the word. There followed a long list of the names of Thai government departments and titles of major and minor officials taking up several more phrases. Then there was the section on hiring a maid which included the memorable phrase "I'm sorry, I can't pronounce your name, may I call you Jean?". Unfortunately for me right now, I can remember none of these phrases and I have no phrasebook, however useless. It is a sad omission from my rucksack.
With a judder, the bus stops at another bamboo and banana leaf settlement. This one is more colourful than Bek La as it is an ordinary Thai town. There are several motorbikes standing around and there is a splash of advertising. My neighbour, who for convenience sake I suppose I could call Jean, is marshalling her pink tassled handbag, a baby, a basket of vegetables and an unusually contented chicken off the bus. She does it with an easy grace which suggests lots of practice. In her hand she holds one end of a piece of string which snakes across the cargo on the floor and disappears in under the bags at my feet. As soon as she has herself sorted out on the roadside she gives the string a sharp tug and the head of a very annoyed looking goat appears from under the pile of bags. Not happy at being woken so rudely, the goat braces itself in the stereotypical cartoon 'stopping just before a cliff' pose and skids and bounces along the tops of a long line of bags before taking a final life-saving leap off into the road. This is a moment no camera of mine can capture and I really can do nothing but stare.
As we leave Jean and her assorted wildlife behind in the dust I ask myself why I have not taken the time to learn more Thai. Laziness? No, not quite. More a consequence of indecision really. Each of my three weeks in Thailand has potentially been my last as I try to decide which of Malasia, Cambodia, or Laos to visit in order to renew my visa before entering Suan Mokkh. Being in a state of 'just about to leave the country' is not conducive to learning the local language so I never really started. In the end I popped over to Burma just briefly and now I really am in my last week in Thailand - I start in Suan Mokkh just after Christmas.
We stop again, at a slightly larger town. This time the exodus is less dramatic as the bus empties and only two passengers alight. One, a middle aged woman has a team of helpers to load boxes and bags and tins onto the roof and floor of the bus. The second, travelling alone, has only three pieces of luggage. Three almost identical sausage shaped bundles about a metre long by twenty centimetres wide carefully wraped in palm leaves and tied with bamboo. Food? Laundry? Delicately packaged remains of his murdered relatives? He is a pretty odd looking chap actually: dressed only in white pants and a vest with an unshaved, almost bearded, face and very intense eyes. Putting on my mischeivous hat I imagine him introducing his bundles:
"This here is my dear aunt Hilda and these are her two lovely daughters, Esther and Betty"
"But they're dead"
"No they're not, they're just resting"
"But they're chopped in small pieces and delicately wrapped in palm leaves"
"Nonsense, theyre just resting. Beautiful plumage my aunt Hilda."
"The plumage don't enter into it, they dead". I pick up Aunt Hilda's mummified remains, wallop them off the
rood of the bus and let the poor dear fall to the floor with a dull wet thud. "Now, that's what I call a dead aunt!"
...as the daydream fades I realise I am staring the bearded stranger in the face with an ever widening grin on my face. Ironically he probably thinks I am the crazed murderer.
Humour keeps me sane in these situations. I really want to ask this man what is in the bundles, but from experience with much smaller bundles in Bangkok markets, any questions usually elicit a hard sell and I end up buying fifty cents of steamed dead something with rice wrapped in a banana leaf. Mindfull of the greatly increased scale I keep my mouth firmly shut and just nod politely. He nods back. I say 'sawadii'. He replies in suit. We leave it at that and after another bumpy hour's ride, he hoists his mysterious load off the bus and we leave him behind.
It's later now, and cooler. My left foot sits firmly on the back step of the bus, the toes of my sandle gently wedging a can of cooking oil in place against the side rail. Sitting at the back here allows me to catch a little of the sun's rays on my face which just makes up for the cold breeze on the back of my head. The sides of the bus are completely open and a swift breeze, occasionally carrying dust and leaves, whistles through the passenger compartment. Some warmer clothes would be nice, but my bag is on the roof, buried under a pile of pineapples.
We hit a bump and the can of oil shifts a little. I am only barely holding it in place but I am mindfull of how Thai's, like most Asians, consider the feet to be the lowest part of the body in more ways than one. It is rude to point at people or Buddha images with my feet and I am relctant to touch the food with more that just the tips of my toes.
The owner of the oil, the middle aged woman, sits at the front of the bus skillfully shepherding a bunch of unruly beercrates which use every bump and pothole as an opportunity to escape their confinement and leap off into the road. I note that she is using her hands and look to her for any sense of concern at my bad manners. There is none. Uncertain as to whether this is because she doesn't notice, dosen't care, or knows full well that in order to use my hands I would have to be hanging off the back of the bus, I dismiss my doubt to follow the way of my guilt from earlier.
Yes, I felt guilty about my little pythonesque episode, but only briefly. I don't want to travel through Asia as a closed-minded cynic making a joke out of everything I don't understand. I want to use humour to brighten up my journey. It is a fun way to write, but I dont want to be too lazy, too feckless. I don't want to be Kanchanaburi Man - looking only for the cheap thrill and skipping over the 'boring' bits of Thailand.
Another bump and another subtle sidestep by the cooking oil bring me back to the present. Looking past my left foot, through the railed step at the dusty road whizzing past twelve inches below my sandles, I realise that metaphorically as well as physically I am whizzing through Thailand one foot off the ground. It's not a good way to travel. Being honest, I must admit to myself I have been lazy about learning Thai, and a little shy of my hosts too. I make a promise to myself to fix this. Twin feelings of guilt and regret pay a brief visit to my mind, but I am not answering the door to them. Nope, I am not going down the fruitless path of self abasement here. As we enter a grove of pine trees, my old friend humour gallops up on its white steed to chase away the unwelcome guests. After all, I never wanted to be a solo adventurer whizzing along the dusty roads of south east Asia No, I wanted to be a lumberjack, leaping from tree to tree in the forests of British Columbia! My guilt and regret dispersed and in their place a new determination to get closer to the ground, I let go of my introspective thoughts and let the daydream continue "Ohhhhhhh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm Ok ...."