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THAILAND - You're cruising on a scooter along the sunny, winding roads of Chiang Rai province in northern Thailand, a fresh pineapple warming in the bike's front basket and the wind whipping your T-shirt, craning to catch the panoramic views around every hairpin turn. You're having, as Thais learning English would say, "the enjoy."
It's a postcard moment that lasts all afternoon, driving up and over the jungle-covered mountains, past picturesque temples on the slopes and through hill-tribe villages where local children peer out with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.
Scooters are just one way to explore in Thailand. On this day, they're the perfect choice for exploring the northernmost province, where views of smoke-shrouded hills (it's the farmers' burning season) are best appreciated without glass. Taking huge gulps of the fresh mountain air and hearing the birds chattering through the treetops make it a journey for the senses.
How you get around the country is all part of the experience when you're travelling with the small tour company Smiling Albino, run by former Calgarians Scott Coates and Daniel Fraser. They believe in making transportation part of the adventure, whether it's a longtail boat, an elephant or a mountain bike.
This day wraps up after a long hike up a stairway cut from stone - a hike that earns you one of the most peaceful views in Thailand and a chat with a monk at the small hilltop temple. Sipping a Thai beer (a respectable distance from monks) and taking in the rolling, hazy hills, it's easy to see why Thailand has brought so many travellers under its spell.
Much like Canada, this is a country of vastly different areas. From rice fields to rain forests to tropical beaches, no two areas are the same. And most tourists experience just a sample. But you don't want to be a tourist. You want to be a traveller, soaking up the culture, the language, and getting a real inside look at life in this country.
And you only have two weeks.
Smiling Albino helps people do just that. Travelling with these Thai-speaking Canadians is a step off the tourist track and a step into the real thing. Fraser still carries the travel-beaten backpack that's taken him around the world; between him and Coates, they've visited six continents and 35 countries. Now that they've turned a love of travel into a business and made Thailand their home, they're ideal hosts for visiting Canadians.
Their personalized adventure trips take you places most tour buses wouldn't make it. When others are sitting in traffic for hours, you're hiking through real jungle with the tiny, sandal-wearing leader of a hill tribe village, and eating hill tribe food by a waterfall. When others are standing in line for yet another Bangkok temple, you're chatting with monks who live in a remote cave on the river.
It's all about knowing and spending time with Thai people and seeing life Thai-style, when you travel with Fraser and Coates. Since moving 18 months ago to Bangkok from Calgary, where Coates was starting out in journalism and Fraser worked at an advertising agency, they've formed relationships with a wide network of Thais.
Everyone from the head of the Thai boxing organization to the guy who rents scooters counts them as friends. Often, that enhances the travel experience for their small groups of guests - when you go to a hill tribe village, the chief invites you into his home. When you go to see a Thai boxing match, you're escorted to primo seats up front. And when you hit the pub in a small town, you're welcomed into a jam session with the locals.
"I think a lot of tourists don't see Thais as humans," Coates says. "They see them as these poor people who don't have money, so therefore they must just want your money. A lot of people order Thais around, and they talk to them like second-class citizens. We're actually interested in people, we strike up a conversation, and people don't forget that."
Maybe that's why Jib, the owner of the Bamboo Riverside Guesthouse on the Mekong River, with its lovely plank-floored, open walled restaurant serving incredibly fresh food (salsa from scratch, orange juice squeezed by hand from tiny mandarins), is more than willing to lend you his truck. That's right, just take it. Drive up into the hills, where you can park, sit on the tailgate and watch a world-class sunset.
This journey - as most in Thailand - begins in Bangkok, a city of glittering temples and lively street trade. Seeing the sights is all about transportation and timing here. You can spend all day just getting to two or three major tourist spots - such is the traffic congestion of the city - or you can make it to several, fit in lunch, and experience every mode of transport along the way with the Smiling Albino approach. Hop in and out of the canal boat "buses" that roam up and down the many waterways that run through the city. Then hop on a tuk-tuk (a sort of motorized tricycle with a passenger bench), a longtail boat, a modern skytrain and a motorcycle taxi, and you've cruised around this sprawling city of 10 million efficiently. By the end of the afternoon you've seen four temples, including the all-jade Emerald Buddha and the giant Reclining Buddha, along with having a tour of Thai homes on the canals.
"A lot of travelling is spending time getting to the places you want to see," Coates says. "So why not get there on a scooter, on a longtail boat, or whatever. Getting there should be half the fun." It's a philosophy that carries on past Bangkok. There's exploring the ruins of Ancient Ayutthaya by mountain bike. Taking a slow boat along the river for an elephant trek in a hill-tribe village. Hopping on scooters to get from town to town in the north. And trekking up to the monkey caves on foot.
Instead of taking a bus, Coates and Fraser will give the business to a local guy with a truck. They'll eat where the locals eat. They'll hang out at the local pub - places like The TeePee in the village of Chiang Khong.
The TeePee is a tiny concrete block space where locals gather to jam on whatever instruments they happen to bring. Whiskey is ordered by the bottle here, and the walls are lined with photos left by travellers passing through. The waiter plays guitar, getting up now and then to remove his tie-dyed shirt, slip on an apron and whip up a sizzling order of chicken, garlic and peppers. North American favourites sung in broken Thai blend into lyrical Thai folk songs - now that's an evening of entertainment.
This is the kind of inside edge you get travelling with foreigners who've made friends. Fraser and Coates have all kinds. When their toast is served 15 minutes after their eggs in a Chiang Rai restaurant, they just shake their heads and smile. "There's a great Thai expression we use a lot," Fraser says of the Thai-to-English language. "They say, `don't serious."'
There are plenty of opportunities to use it in Thailand. Service is not always up to western standards. You might not get what you think you ordered in a restaurant. But westerners who become agitated, loud and demanding get the silent treatment from most Thais, even in the land of smiles. Many tourists never figure that out. But Frasier and Coates are there to help tourists feel like travellers.
They know, for example, that the commercialized mega-resorts of the south are no match for the pristine island of Ko Chang, with 70 per cent rain forest, white sand beaches, and fantastic diving. The swaying, 45-minute ferry ride to the island is an experience in rough wooden benches and salt spray, but when you get there, you've earned your fruit shake and your Thai massage on the beach.
Nourishment for the senses, and the appetite, is everywhere in Thailand. Steaming noodle soups, spicy curries and soothing coconut complement the freshest seafood and the many varieties of rice.
Sure, you can't find a decent cup of coffee to start your day, but what does that matter when you can have tea?Go north to Doi Mae Salong. Seat yourself on a log bench at a tea house that serves delicate green tea, grown on the very hills surrounding this tiny village, in an elaborate ritual of pouring and serving. It's tea that is imported to North America to be sold in exclusive tea shops. Tea that is served to you here with samples of sweet, somewhat mysterious dried fruits from giant glass bins that line the shop.
You're in the middle of another postcard, just one in a series of postcards that is a journey through Thailand. Don't serious.
If you go to Thailand:
- For more information on tours offered through Smiling Albino, visit their Web site at www.smilingalbino.com.
- For tourism and traveller safety information on Thailand, contact the Tourism Authority of Thailand and www.tourismthailand.org, or www.exoticthailand.com.
- For information on immunizations and health precautions before travelling to Thailand, contact the Calgary Regional Health Authority's International Travel Clinic at 237-6696.
- Currency: The Thai baht is running about 27 baht to $1 Cdn.
- Location: Thailand shares borders with Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. The east coast borders the Gulf of Thailand and the west the Andaman Sea.
- Climate: Thailand lies within the humid tropics. Average temperatures range from about 17!C in the cool season (November to February), to 35!C in the hot season (April to May). The rainy season runs from June to October.
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