"The Electric Mule" will be a regular posting to our front page and our  "Global Studies" People section.  The author is on a 5 month travel of Asia with his wife.  He will write from his unique perspective of his travels and offer non-sequiturs to current events in the world.

Hello to Everyone in Radio and Televison and Computerland:  The beat goes on.

 

Tomiyo and I are in Chaing Mai in northern Thailand- on the edge of the Golden Triangle (where opium production is increasing according to the Bangkok Post), after a train trip from Bangkok which was 7 hours late due to an engine breakdown in the middle of the night.  The ride reminded us of AMTRAK train trips we took from New York to DC in the past which were supposed to last 3 hours but took 5 (thanks to lack of support for public transportation in the US!).

Usually, public transportation in Thailand works.  The Bangkok Metro (which is elevated) is outstanding, there are tons of cabs and 'tuk-tuks' (modified motorbikes that carry exhaust breathing passengers in a kind of covered pickup truck with lotsa flashing lights), and there are double deck tourist buses everywhere with all mod cons (including the lastest 'hot' Hollywood movies pirated on DVD). I did notice a 'slight' accident in the paper yesterday in which a bus overturned and 4 people were killed, but we weren't on that bus. I met a family in the Bangkok train station from Fornicalia who described their 'bus ride from hell' from Chiang Mai to Bangkok in which the driver 'put the pedal to the metal' all the way, but I wasn't on that bus either.  Besides, EVERYONE travelling thru southeast Asia for any length of time has had one of THOSE experiences. Since there isn't a lot of law enforcement on the highways, Asians tend to decide for themselves what is the correct speed to drive- which leads to some interesting 'confrontations' with moving and immoveable objects.  I saw a 'hip' book by a deranged artist at the Bangkok Art Museum which documented with pictures from newspapers, the 'splats' resulting from Bangkok youth on scooters and motorcycles colliding with cars, each other, telephone poles, and other objects they were attracted to.  Traffic accidents are the highest cause of death in southeast Asia.  The best joke I ever heard in India was: What did the Hindu say to the Buddhist?  Answer:  My karma just ran over your dogma.  Tomiyo and I have seen a couple of dead bodies on the road on our various trips while videotaping in these regions over the years- which raises issues such as who can touch a dead body under the caste system in India, who is an accessory after the fact (Napoleonic law prevails in some countries like Mexico), etc.

 

But I digress. Before our trip to Chiang Mai, we took a boat trip up north on the main river running thru Bangkok. Tomiyo discovered a 'half-way house' for female prostitutes and drug addicts at which the females reportedly 'volunteered' to quit their bad habits and be retrained in new crafts etc.  So, after discussion with someone speaking limited English, we plied our way upstream for about 45 minutes and then were crammed into a little van with 15 other people and about 20 minutes later were deposited further up-river where we had to take another boat across to the facility.  Along the way, we saw a number of the typical Thai longtail boats.  The distinct narrow, beautifully crafted wooden hull on these river and canal craft is powered by the famous longtail engine - basically a car engine resting on a fulcrum with a 20 foot long propeller shaft attached. The longtails were made famous by the chase sequences in the James Bond flick 'The Man With The Golden Gun', and they can really move out like a slingshot dragster when the boatman opens up the throttle.  I saw one boat that had its name painted on the side: 'Mrs. Sippi.  I thought, that's not bad!

 

In any event, when our boat crossed to the 'womens' voluntary house of detention', we discovered a guard house with a military type with apulets and pistol manning the post, with a few of his kibbitzing buddies hanging around.  Tomiyo explained that we had called and that we wanted to see the crafts the women made.  While we were waiting for the assistant to the director to come out to see us, the guard jokingly asked me if I wanted to deposit my wife in the facility.  Tomiyo responded that she was going to deposit me in the facility because she figured that some of the women volunteers might 'whip me into line'.  That got a few laughs from the guard and his cronies.  When the assistant director came out, she explained that the director was out of the station and out of town, and that they couldn't let us in until she came back.  She was very friendly, handed us a few brochures, and we boarded the boat back across the river.

 

A couple of hours wasted, however we got to see the old style of Thai life along the edge of the river. Basically wooden houses in various states of repair and/or decay sat on stilts about 8 feet above the water line. The newer houses had concrete pilings.  Men and women were fishing off their back porches, people were washing, and kids were swimming in the water.  For your info, Cheng and Eng,  the original Siamese twins (who were of Chinese extraction- many Thais are a mix because of trade with China over the years) were 'bought' by an American sailor from their mother.  They were joined with a ligature at their chest, and they used to dive in the water for coins tossed off boats.  The sailor took them to the US and the rest is history (as documented in the book 'The Two').  Cheng and Eng ended up in the Carolinas marrying the two huge white preacher's daughters. They had 25 children between them and even owned slaves (ain't life wild!).  The brothers spent 3 days with each wife and they died as a result of pneumonia contracted while travelling on a buckboard in a rainstorm keeping the appointment with one wife. One brother was an alcoholic, and the other wasn't but he got drunk just the same!  When the one brother succumbed to the pneumonia, the other brother became frantic, but died in one hour, possibly of fright.  Doctors today say that separating them would be very easy- they shared the sheath around their liver.

 

After our 'Apocalypse Now' trip upriver, I had a VERY strange experience involving cultural misunderstanding.  We went into little restaurant/cafe called 'The Joy Luck Club' in the hippie Khao-san Road district of Bangkok. We had been in the place last year and made the acquainance of the owner, a young Thai woman by the name of 'Waneeda' who had been to the West, and who had picked up a healthy dose of slang while living there, and who raised orchids on the side for export. When we spent time with her last year, she complained to us that global warming was stunting the growth of the orchids to about 2/3 of their desired size and that the situation was ruining her business.  I told her about a book I had read about the growing and stealing of orchids in Florida ('The Orchid Theif' by Susan Orleans), and we chit-chatted about all things floral and fuana (but NOT e-coli, which I acquired later!).

 

When we returned to the Joy Luck Club last week and inquired, her sister introducd herself to us and told us that Waneeda was now running a bar and restaurant a little distance away.  The sister gave us a map and address, however we have been so busy running around Bangkok and getting stuck in traffic,  we did not have a chance to see the new joint and renew our acquaintance with her.  So, since the Joy Luck Club was close to our hotel, we stopped by for a quick dinner.  Jazz was playing on the sound system, and when Benny Goodman came on, I told the sister that I had seen Benny once when I was in art school, that my deceased NY friend Orin Reilly (who was picture restorer at the Guggenheim), was a good friend of Benny's, and that all of the old jazz greats like Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane etc. were dead.  She smiled and nodded her head at the shame of it all.  You know what I mean: life, death, music- 'The Tragic Sense of Life' by Miguel de Unamuno and all the rest of it.  When I asked the sister for the bill, it came on a little tray with two jasmine flowers, which she announced were for us.  I thought she was just being a typical friendly Thai (Thailand is called 'the land of smiles'), so I left the flowers behind.   However she pursued Tomiyo and me to the door with the flowers- telling us that they were especially for us 'because we were such big fans of jazzmen.  At first I didn't 'get it'.  I still don't quite understand what transpired.  Jazzmen?  Jasmine?  It appears that the meaning of words depends upon how they are pronounced.  The virus of language strikes again!

 

Your humble sway back (I goes waaaaaaaay back- my species ploughed dirt in Eden)

Mule

 

Copyright Ernest Gusella 2009