The Peace Correspondent (21 page)

So, 200 baht lighter, I check into the grand Royal Princess Hotel in Nakhon Ratchasima (also called Korat). The luxurious Princess (I am consistent here in my pursuit of the royals) illustrates Thailand's rapid recent development. A decade ago, towns like this had only small, basic local hotels.

That evening, the hotel's eager young Thai assistant manager shows me around historic Korat, with its ancient wall and moat. We end up strolling the night bazaar, a cleaner, less-frenzied version of Hong Kong's Temple Street Night Market, the air scented with charcoal-grilled chicken, chilies and garlic.

“The streets are narrow and the cars are wide here,” my guide notes. “If you come back in two years, it will be like Bangkok.” I fear he may be right.

While southern Thailand offers beaches and culture, the north has mountains and its own distinct culture. North of Korat I drive 12 kilometers off the highway to visit the Khmer ruins in Phimae. Although the restored temple complex is limited to a small area within a walled compound, the eerie stone carvings and towers evoke Cambodia's mysterious Angkor Wat, especially on this blistering day with no other visitors in sight.

As I drive deeper into the Issan district, the terrain and the people change. Women in broad straw hats work the fields and walk along the road carrying thatched baskets, men in Cambodian-type sarongs and headscarves carry ominous machete-like farm tools, and peasants appear in Vietnamese-style cone hats. Further north, young water buffalo sauntering across the road present different driving hazards.

As the highway twists up into the cool, forested mountains of Phu Phan National Park, for the first time in five days I turn
off the air-conditioning and crank down the windows to breathe the fresh mountain air. These slow, winding roads are a welcome relief from the freeways and traffic of the south.

Before Sakhon Nakhon, I turn off the road and a soldier waves me on toward the Phu Phing Palace in the park. The king and queen stay here while working with the local people on such projects as promoting handicrafts. I follow a twisting path through the parklike mountain grounds, passing gaggles of college girls returning to their tour buses. The palace, several expansive, comfortable modern buildings set among the trees, could be a group of grand houses in a North American suburb, only larger.

That evening, driving straight west into a ruby red sunset shimmering over the rice paddies, I ruefully recall the firmest advice I was given: “Don't drive at night.” It is a harrowing experience, especially at dusk, with farm vehicles with no lights returning from the fields, and cars and trucks not switching their lights on until it is completely dark. In the pitch black, I swerve away from the dark shape of a bicycle peddling down the road without even reflectors, coming within inches of smashing the heedless cyclist into the ditch. So I roll down the window to a wonderful, earthy smell of fields, burning foliage and buffalo dung, and slow to tractor speed, resigned to a late arrival in Udon Thani.

Of the various routes available beyond that city, near the Friendship Bridge leading to Laos, I was warned to avoid the 203 through the mountains past Phu Rua National Park. Highway 203 proved a joy to drive, an excellent highway with little traffic wending through the scenic mountains. It is more spacious here than in the south, the rice paddies interspersed with tracts of rain forest. In the hamlets, women sit out on elevated platforms with their produce for sale spread out before them.

All along these northern highways, ornate gold, red, green and orange temples sparkle in the forest like multicolored sequins on the green baize of a pool table. At a small, gilded monastery, I meet three monks. The eldest, who speaks good English,
says: “This is the best part of Thailand. It has the best air, the best climate.” The worldly cleric knows that in Canada, we drive on the other side of the road. He urges me to drive carefully.

One of his preteen acolytes speaks up. “He says he has never seen a foreigner driving around Thailand,” the elder monk explains. The bald-pated boy adds something else, and I push for a translation.

“He says foreigners are different. He says you are … fat.” I decline the invitation to address his English class and continue on down the road.

Later, at a basic roadside store/restaurant, I stop for lunch. The delicious noodle soup with slices of pork, served in a Chinese-style bowl with chopsticks, is a bargain at just 10 baht.

With time to spare, I turn off the highway, plotting a relaxing, roundabout route to Phitsanulok. Only a few motorbikes and a pickup truck bus share this potholed secondary road, where the going is slow. And suddenly, traffic stops completely. Ahead, a swift stream flows over the road. It is the heavy flooding I had read about in the Bangkok newspapers, with accompanying photos of cars, buses and trucks abandoned in midstream.

Indecisive motorcycle drivers sit around their machines; a dugout canoe ferries a few passengers with their bags; a farm truck loads several bikes on the back to drive across; and a few bus passengers wade through the thigh-high water. But it is the end of the road for me. Returning to Highway 12, the main east-west artery, I drive straight into the setting sun, reaching Phitsanulok just before the dreaded dusk.

Next morning, the hotel desk clerk assures me that all roads to Chiang Mai are washed out, information reinforced by the pump jockey at the gas station. A highway patrolman who doesn't speak English seems more optimistic, so I turn the Mitsubishi north again. In fact, the going is ideal along a smooth highway that I have all to myself in places. Approaching Chiang Mai, I reach the kind of winding, scenic mountain road that sports car drivers love to get their hands, or wheels, on. But all the traffic
here is small Japanese pickup trucks: Isuzu, Datsu, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Nissan.

Chiang Mai is a prime tourist area with handicraft villages, elephant camps, river rafting, trekking, hill tribe visits, dazzling temples -- and a royal palace. Fifteen kilometers from the town along a road twisting up through bamboo forest and lush greenery, I reach the hilltop Phu Ping Royal Palace set in Doi Suthep Pui National Park.

A sign at the entrance says, “Dress properly, no firearms, and don't pick the flowers.” Up here in the cool mountain air, the gardens and greenery are northern climate -- azaleas, roses, fuchsia, impatiens, hydrangeas and clover. The spacious mountain resort is part modern, part traditional Thai. The finest buildings are whitewashed, with varnished doors and pillars, glazed bronze and green tiles shimmering in the sun, and roofs with chofa (sky tassel), curved finials poking up from the rafters like crooked fingers testing the wind.

The royal family had a good eye for real estate. Where they went, others followed, and now mountain resorts in the area accommodate less-regal tourists.

The best of these resorts is the luxurious Regent Chiang Mai, where I wash off the dust of the road in a giant soak tub, an iced Mekong (Thai whisky) soda in hand. Every suite here has a sala (open pavilion), overlooking its private rice paddies, framed by misty mountains. The carefully laid-out and landscaped grounds simulate a traditional Thai farm village, with pools, waterfalls and rice paddies. The lavish teak pavilions are created in the local style, and interior decoration includes traditional Thai artwork and silks, wood carvings, antique furniture, handicrafts, celadon ceramics and silverware. The long day's drive ends in the open-air Elephant Bar, then the Sala Mae Rim restaurant with a zingy tom yung kung (prawn and lemongrass soup), red chicken curry, spicy beef with basil, and tall, cold Singha beers.

From here I take a side trip to the last, northernmost palace at Doi Tung. Outside Chiang Mai, I happen on an auspicious sign, a
half-dozen elephants, jumbo, pewter-grey pachyderms ambling down the road, the mahouts squatting on them wearing ball caps backwards, American style. As I am on the trail of royal palaces, this symbol of the royal family seems appropriate.

Beyond Chiang Rai, the highway narrows, and signs in English disappear. Guessing at a turn off, I head up a narrow road climbing a steep mountain in the Nang Non (Sleeping Lady) range. Lost, I ask a passing farmer for the “king house,” as they call it. He points up the road.

Like Phu Phing, the Doi Tung Royal Villa is a working palace, a headquarters for the royal family's work among six hill tribe villages in the area. Here, in the infamous Golden Triangle, where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma meet, the recently deceased Princess Mother established reforestation projects to replace opium fields.

But the palace is also a tourist site, complete with jewelry boutique, hill tribe souvenir shops and an arts and crafts center near the entrance. The palace itself, with a stunning view of the valley stretched out far below, consists of a cluster of large Western suburbia-style buildings and several new villas in traditional architecture, with glazed-tiles and cross beams extending from the peak of the A-frame roofs. It is like an upmarket mountain resort, part Alpine, part Thai.

The setting is spectacular: spacious well-maintained grounds with terraced gardens, hanging baskets and flowers spilling out of planters everywhere. In this mountain region, tall, straight pines and other temperate climate conifers grow. My 3,367 kilometer drive has taken me from the Bight of Bangkok almost to the Burmese border, from palm to pine.

AT 10am on Koh Samui's Chaweng Beach, the cheerful hawkers and hustlers are already out. Ambulatory chefs carrying mobile kitchens of tiny braziers suspended from shoulder poles sell grilled chicken, corn and bananas. A henna tattooist applies his art to a pale, bare arm, a masseuse whacks and kneads meaty backs and thighs, stretching, pulling and pummeling the flesh.

On this sunny morning in the Gulf of Thailand, Germans sprawled on beach chairs are sipping their first beers of the day, French women whip off bikini tops, exposing sun-bronzed breasts, Hong Kongers discuss lunch and Australian girls get their hair braided and beaded, Bo Derek/Rastafarian style.

Twenty years ago, Koh Samui was an island of coconut plantations, fishermen and a small wandering tribe of adventurous backpackers searching for the perfect beach. Just over a decade ago, only a few bungalows provided basic accommodation. Now, the island is one of Thailand's major tourist destinations, with resorts lining beaches such as seven-kilometer-long Chaweng, the main tourist center, as well as Lamai, Maenam, Bophut and others.

The resorts come in all different styles, sizes and price ranges, some traditional tropical low-rises, others larger, more modern. Along Chaweng, one resort displays a pair of statues of huge faces on its beachfront, another bizarre fake palm sculptures, others driftwood sculptures.

Scenic Chaweng bustles with action as a steady stream of commerce passes the holidayers, although the hustle is low-key
and friendly. Signs proclaim “Beer is yum” and advertise “Thai massage, foot massage, skin your feet.” With the soles of my feet intact, I wander down the long stretch of fine sand. The foreign visitors here are near naked, while the Thais are clothed in big floppy straw hats, sunglasses, long-sleeve shirts and long pants, and shawls over their shoulders, exposing the minimum of skin to the searing sun.

A henna tattooist approaches me, displaying a book of designs that these epidermal artists copy, largely geometric patterns or illustrations of birds and butterflies.

“It is good for dancing,” he assures me, as I try to hide behind my paperback novel.

“I don't dance,” I reply.

“It's good for boomfing. You boomfing?” he asks, turning to a page with mildly pornographic designs illustrating couples “boomfing.”

At night, Chaweng is a lively, neon strip of restaurants, cybercafes, bamboo hut bars and clubs for dancing, and perhaps boomfing as well. The scent of fried garlic and chilies wafts from numerous small open-air cafes serving tasty Thai food - coconut chicken soup, spicy fish curry, fried noodles with shrimp, beef with garlic and chili, pork with basil, and garlic fried rice. The menu in a restaurant overlooking a small lake lists “Jesty Thai” dishes, and that is no joke. Italian, German, Mideast, Japanese, Korean restaurants, even a Gringo's Mex-Tex (run by a Canadian) all cater to international tastes.