The Thai don’t believe in coddling their tourists. And they don’t worry about liability claims much, which is how I came to find myself hurtling down a dark mountainside atop an ATV one evening last December, wondering how they’d get my body back home to the States.
In the end, I survived that ATV ride. And the elephant trek through the woods, the bamboo raft down a bracing river, the vertical straight-up hikes, bloody boxing, bone-bending massages, white-water rafting, even kinky-sex night spots and fearsome fireworks. I lived to tell you: Thailand is a thrill ride of a vacation spot.
The southeast Asian nation, shaped, as some cartography lover first noted, like the head of an elephant looking west and dipping its trunk into the Andaman Sea, is far away, not on the way to or from anyplace else. But contained within the outline of that enormous head is such a wealth of locales and travel experiences, plus great food and bargain-rate shopping that you won’t be easily bored during a week- or month-long stop.
Our two weeks came at a peak holiday season when planes, trains and hotels are heavily booked and that slowed us down. At other times, or with more timely reservations than we made, tourists packing bathing suits and hiking boots can hop from the stunning beaches of south Thailand up to the forested north. Coming from Florida, which is not without white sand beaches, and knowing we couldn’t cover the whole countryside, we opted for a north country experience – just a hop from popular yachting destinations along the coast.
But we began, as every trip to Thailand of any duration ought to, in centrally located Bangkok, a sprawling, hustling, surprising capital of at least 7 million. This is the city to splurge on a luxury hotel – the legendary Oriental or the Marriott Royal Garden Riverside are good candidates. Both rest on the banks of the Chao Phrayo River, which you’ll want to explore. Ride one of the graceful, garlanded river boats that float past the grand hotels, street markets and temples. This is an especially wondrous journey at dusk when a red sun backlights the jagged city skyline spread along the shore.
At the opposite extreme, be sure to hire a tuk-tuk – a glorified golf cart – to race you zig-zagging through crazy Bangkok traffic to see these top sights: the rich Grand Palace, the gigantic reclining gold Buddha at Wat Pho and the peaceful Golden Mount. We were not hot to visit a multitude of Buddhist shrines, but each of these was so spectacular we ended up with hundreds of pictures among our group.
We shopped by day and played at night in Bangkok, eating at all hours in noodle stands and from street vendors. Without breaking a 100 baht note (about $3), we devoured fresh pineapple, pad thai, fried rice, custardy pastries and fiery Lawp Muu. The Thai love to watch westerners sweat, eating their chili-laced dishes. We never ate a single bad meal and saved enough on the food bill to feel vindicated about the elegant hotel rooms.
I opted for a lazy float on the river the night the blood-lusting members of our group set out for the city stadium to watch pairs of men and boys kick, punch, elbow and head-butt each other.
Muay Thai boxing, a kind of super martial art developed by the Thai army, is incredibly popular because it’s fast and can be devastating. A kick that provoked an explosive bloody nose was the highlight my traveling companions talked about endlessly and for the rest of the trip they pantomimed kickboxing and body-grappling moves. You must get boxing tickets in advance and compared to other diversions and food, they are an expensive $30.
The body contact sport of my choice was Thai massage. On every block in the big cities of Thailand you will find at least two massage parlors offering back rubs, should massages, head work, full-body herbal treatments, a whole menu of optiond – though no sex, despite what you’ve heard – for practically nothing. Bangkok massages were the most expensive but we never paid more than $14 an hour and we got to the point where we refused to pay more than $6 an hour. Sometimes, we went in for body work two and three times a day.
While our massages were all platonic, we did have to sample the fabled sexy night life of Bangkok, of course. We visited Patpong and Cowboy Soi (soi means alley in Thai) during our Christmas-time visit. In line with the season, strippers in the streets trying to lure in customers donned red fur teddies and skimpy elf wear, which was festive.
The streets, even before getting to the bars and clubs, offer such alluring diversions as the bug vendor – grasshoppers and crickets are surprisingly tasty – and a drugged, baby elephant whose handlers for a price would give you sugar cane to feed it. The women in our group were diverted by the numerous, oddly matched couples of young, barely covered Thai girls and middle-aged, paunchy and usually tipsy western guys.
Overall, the show girls were scarred, razor-burned, out of shape by Las Vegas standards, and not too glamorous in ragged thongs and runny stockings.
Still, it was impossible not to be mesmerized by the ping-pong show. A not especially sculpted naked girl got on her back on stage, wrapped a leg around the pole and fired out at us from an intimate bodily opening a ping-pong ball. We’d been equipped with paddles so as to participate. This, we remarked to each other, had to be the dirtiest thing we’d ever done.
An ATV run through rugged countryside outside of Chiang Mai may have been the purest fun of the trip. Don’t bother booking adventures before actually arriving in the northern capital, which is a smaller, more manageable version of Bangkok. Hotels or agents in numerous shops in the tourist areas of Chiang Mai sport heavy scrapbooks of snapshots you can flip though to pick a risk. Elephant treks, shooting ranges, rafting in still or white water, temple visits, journeys to Hmong mountaintop villages, motorcycling or ATV, take your pick.
None of us had been on an ATV and the touts told us no special skills were needed. It was to have been a three-hour tour. Sound like Gilligan’s Island? It was. We should have been warned by the release the ATV company had us sign before giving us helmets, which practically said: "We are gonna say we didn’t know you if anything happens." And it was a little worrying when one member of our group crashed into a bale of straw on the practice run and no guide offered any help. But we figured they would never give expensive machines like an ATV to tourists if they didn’t think we could handle them. Wrong. They do not care.
The trip was nearly double the advertised length, which meant that for no extra money, we got twice the thrill and a high altitude, red-streaked sunset. But it also meant we had to negotiate a treacherous, wooded route down a steep mountain in the dark.
It was worse for me because the only glasses I’d brought were sunglasses. My hands were numb, my legs were cramped and I was mentally constructing my will by the time we finally came back to the ATV store.
I had reservations about riding on an elephant after this. Having been toppled by a mean horse and spit on by a nasty camel in the past, I am not a fan of climbing onto large animals that harbor resentment against human enslavers, but the rest of the group insisted. We hired guides who took us by bus from the city to a camp where orphaned and injured elephants were cared for by what appeared to be a gang of reckless teenagers. They boasted in Thai about drinking feats and all wielded sharp spikes used to control the animals. Despite all our reservations, it was an amazing ride. We had to hold on to keep from sliding to doom as the elephants walked through a forest and then down a steep ridge to a river.
Guides also took us down that river in a Huck Finn like raft made of bamboo rods. The strongest of our group did duty as paddlers, straddling the raft and pushing it off of rocks and around eddies. Even those of us who sat through the drift ended up pretty wet, which made for a long, uncomfortable drive back in an air-conditioned bus. Bring an extra set of dry clothes if you go rafting. White-water rafting is a day trip from Chiang Mai and even in December when the water is not at its highest or fastest, the trip is worth it for scenery and wild-life spotting as much as for the sport.
The official sport of Chiang Mai may be shopping. The city is famed for its Night Bazaar and a separate weekend Bazaar, during which the city turns into a giant flea market. Kiosks and booths line the main street and between about 6 and 11 p.m. you can hunt, barter and buy simply everything. This includes custom tailored suit to hand soaps carved into flowers.
Pocketbooks, jewelry, silk, T-shirts, frames, toys, flags, statues of the Buddha, boot-leg versions of every American movie and TV show ever produced. I am trying to think of something that could not be bought.
The rules in this sport:
First, you have to negotiate. Start out offering one-third of whatever price the vendor seeks. Walk away if the vendor doesn’t come down as much as you want. He’ll probably call you back.
Second, older, white men will get better prices than anyone else. Thai culture is traditional and favors men over women, the old over the young and light skinned people over dark. They are simply accorded more respect and paid more attention.
Third, don’t believe all you’ll read about the exceedingly polite and non-confrontational Thai. In repeated encounters, the women in our group were cut off, snapped at and ridiculed by sales people. It seems that contact with tourists has made city dwellers prickly. We learned to meet such displays with a smart Thai expression that phonetically is: "MY RIP ROY," a reminder that rude behavior is unacceptable.
The same goes for tourists visiting Thailand. There are rules even in tolerant, laid-back Thailand.
When visiting temples, do not wear shorts or tank tops. Cover arms and legs – but leave your shoes at the door.
Do not sit with legs folded so that the bottoms of your feet face a Thai. That is regarded as a deep insult.
Above all, never make a joke about the Beloved King or his relatives. It is not just an insult but a crime, rigorously enforced. Shrines to the royalty bloom on every bridge, street corner and public building in the nation. The king’s photo graces hotels and all other buildings.
When the king’s theme is played over the radio everyone stops what they are doing and observes a moment of reflection. The entire train station played Statue and froze one afternoon as we went through.
Rosemary Armao is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York in Albany. She has worked on assignment in Bosnia, Algeria, Uganda and Mongolia, to name a few. Comments on this article are welcome at
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