Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Pondering about luck.

Already after coming back home from Thailand I started asking myself about the reason why I heard the wishes of luck from the Thais so often. “Koot luck for you” was what a tuk-tuk driver, street vendors, a temple guardian, a monk and hotel receptionists wished me.
So “How come?”, I thought, if in Buddhism there is no such notion as luck but rather karma. In Buddhism, everything follows the cause-effect principle. Striving to possess makes a person suffer, so one has to overcome their egocentric wishes by controlling mind and body. Doing good helps to build up positive karma and and brings about positive effect. On the other hand, a good luck charm is often misinterpreted since, as I see it, one keeps one as a sign of a promise to oneself that he or she will follow the right path of living.
My idea was confirmed when I read this, “Buddhism teaches that the one, who is deeply learned and skilled, well-trained using well-spoken words with his father and mother, cherishes his wife and child and leads an honest, humble and simple life should be no less than “good luck”. This gets us to the conclusion that, apparently in the Asian tradition luck is rather interpreted as good karma created by motivated action, rather than simple chance. As someone said, “luck is when opportunity knocks and you answer”.

I suddenly realized that whenever they wish you luck they are rather wishing you to choose the right path of living.

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 14 (Back to Bangkok - continued)

We went across Bangkok to see Golden Mount temple. Bangkok I think is one of the few capitals where “I live right in the city center” doesn’t sound as such a great thing – once the skyscrapers end, getting back to the parallel world of Bangkok slums can be pretty traumatic.

Golden Mount Temple is a mountain shaped structure with a spiral walkway that brings the visitors to its golden top, the temple itself. On the way up people ring a series of bells suspended on racks and finally strike forcefully a large metal gong with a thick wooden mallet.

Reaching the top one can’t but marvel at arresting 360-degree panorama of the whole old town, an incredible Thai soup of pointed pagoda roofs, shabby huts, trees and faraway skyscraper skyline. I’ll miss this place.

At night a tuk-tuk gave as a refreshing drive through Chinatown and main roads with myriads of shining lights to our favorite bar to crown the day with farewell cocktails and shisha.

It definitely won’t be an ‘adios’, but an ‘HASTA LUEGO’.

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 14 (Back to Bangkok)

We are back to Bangkok’s chaos. Gosh, I missed it!

People praying at a shrine right among skyscrapers

  The plan for the first half of the   day was to take a closer look a Bangkok’s parallel world: its business and commercial center which has nothing to do with the old town, except for omnipresent street food vendors.

Sounds weird but the most exciting part the day turned out to be our ‘excursion’ to an Asian mall. Food courts we found in the malls were not less outrageously unfamiliar as the street food markets with an incredible amount of food with nondescript names and showcases with plastified dishes, even soups!
I ventured on some green tea cake with red bean filling: tasted good beyond any expectations!

toffee makers

Japanese sweets

Many deserts looked quite hideous, like, for example, ice-cones with colored syrops and corn (!). The ones what really caught my attention were matcha desserts, made of green tea powder. Matcha smoothies, matcha puddings and matcha frozen yogurts seemed very popular with stalls over the place offering this green-tea based sweet with jelly, black pearls or sweet red beans.
Asians and Europeans do indeed have very different ideas about what is tasty…

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 13 (New Year's Eve)

Dolce far niente

… On New Year’s eve we arrived at Bayoke Sky Hotel. Fireworks have always fascinated me, but it was something different seeing them light up below around Bangkok from floor 42.

Happy New Year!

Last day on the islands was spent in self-pampering, sun-bathing, palm-watching, indulging in (soft & strong) fruit shakes and dining right on the beach digging our feet into the sand.

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 12 (across Koh Samui Island)

There are some moments in life, remembering which may not have any practical use whatsoever, but even so, for some mysterious reason they get hooked on your memory.
This morning on the way to the interior of the island, time froze for me for a moment, when I saw a big buffalo sleeping peacefully among the graceful palm trees in the morning mist. This is one of the moments when you think ‘I wish I could stop time (or the car) and paint it!’

Today my other dream was to come true: jungle safari in a jeep. With all the ups and downs and a mountain river extreme crossover on top of a jeep the trip was was a blast!

Big Buddha in Koh Samui

Magic Garden

a island of millions of coconut palm trees

Jungle Safari on top of a jeep. My other dream came true.

real Thai selva

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 11 (Ang Thong Marine National Park)

Koh Samui is famous not only for luxury resorts and restaurants with prices kindly adapted to the European pocket. It’s also known for its proximity to Ang Thong Marine National park. ‘Ang Thong’ means ‘Golden Bowl’ and it is basically an archipelago of 42 islands scattered across emerald waters. This was the place that in fact inspired Alex Garland, the author of ‘the Beach’, and was the original setting of the book. It’s actually true that the first ones to discover this hidden paradise were pirates, who inhabited the isles, while ravaging in the sea for years. Later it also belonged the military people who turned it into their closed base for quite some time, and only not long ago it was finally turned into a national park.

After an hour boat ride sunbathing on the top deck, it was so exciting to do kayaking around the isles and passing through stone aches and caves!

Hundreds of beaches here in the archipelago are deserted and their surroundings make a great place for snorkeling. Our first destination was Koh Mae Ko or Mother Island, one of the 2 biggest islands famous for the Thale Nai saltwater lake. This unusual lake encircled within green limestone cliffs owes its amazing color to the sea waters, nourishing it through underwater caves.

Thale Nai saltwater lake in the middle of Koh Mae Ko (Mother Island)

Another big island Wua Talap or 'Sleeping Cow' is popular for its caves and a high lookout point, from which you can get breathtaking 360-degree views of the whole park. We couldn’t imagine the climb to a 500m altitude would be such a challenge!

climbing up the steep 430m hill at  Koh Wua Talap (Sleeping Cow Island) in search of spectacular scenery      

first viewpoint

However, if you make it to the top, you get a reward: all the islands right at your feet! Here you feel almost dead but incredibly proud of yourself!

breathtaking view of all islands at your feet...  you feel almost dead after the tough climb but extremely proud of yourself!

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 10 (Crossing the peninsula)

Was longer than we suspected. We were promised to be in Koh Samui at 5.30 pm.
Waiting for a bus to take us to the Krabi bus station a tuk-tuk driver approached me to offer service and, seeing my ticket saying’ Krabi-Surat Thani – Koh Samui: bus + boat’, he grinned, ‘Good luck for you’ and walked away.
In a short while we were brought somewhere near krabi. One has to possess a certain amount of imagination to complete the picture of a lonely hut with 2 tables, several beach-style plastic chairs and a woman selling rice and sandwiches to realize that the shack was the bus station!
To our even greater surprise a modern double decker (with girly pink draped curtains!) appeared from the woods.

We arrived at Surat Thani at 3 pm unable to believe that the feared bus torture lasted so little even with pitiful Thai roads!
Ironically, we didn’t know the torture waited ahead in the boat.
Once we finally got in (after 2-hours wait!) we joked, ‘ Can you imagine to see in the news: A boat crashed and sunk without leaving the pier!’ It screeched so bad and bent inward banging against the pier, I could imagine it to be true!
Banging and screeching went on for more than 2 hours. At 8 pm we were finally in the hotel. Luckily, alive!

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 9 (Ao Nang and Railay Beach)

The Peninsula is even greener than the islands, meaning both land and water. The road cutting into mangrove swamps, followed by selva between the mountains leads to Ao Nang, a small coastal town in the Krabi province. We got there in a colorful wooden songthaew. Its driver was a typical Thai man - short, tanned, with just a couple of hairs sprouting from his upper lip and scarce long hairs right beneath the chin. He first called out desperately for people going to Ao Nang and then stuffed all the white sardines into the truck (the truck’s physical capacity didn’t matter much). An already usual procedure was to stop in the middle of the way and nowhere and trying to figure out where everyone was going. It turned out more than half of the present didn’t have an idea and were immediately kindly provided with suggestions. The fun part though started when English-speaking people pronounced in an oh-so-English way the absolutely not English-sounding place & hotel names and usually got 2 possible answers:’ Eh????’ or ‘ No no!’ The most reassuring was to see the driver recognize your place name and give you an outrageous kind of smiles, with the teeth in his mouth pointing in all directions.
Ao Nang, however, is not a sort of place where you can get lost easily, as it’s virtually (without understatement) two perpendicular roads, one of which runs along the beach. That’s pretty much a typical Thai place.
Coming to Ao Nang, I realized that apparently the only buildings with proper walls can be mostly seen in hotels and 7elevens, while here too, regular Thais apparently live in makeshift(-looking) hovels.
Something different about this town was a new kind of tuk-tuk, which, unlike those in Bangkok and in the North, are normal motorbikes with a sidecar to fit up to 4 people or, if needed easily convertible into a footstall!

The most beautiful beach isn’t exactly in Ao Nang, but on a small peninsula not far away, called Railay Beach. It’s just a 15-minute ride in a longtail boat to reach the western part, lined up with seemingly expensive resorts. From where you can take a kayak to the eastern part and relax on a lovely virgin beach and marvel extraordinary limestone cliffs.

Haeding to Railay Beach

West Railay

Tropical shower

East Railay

CRAB ART

Finally, Ao Nang is without doubt a great place to see the sunset or walk along the monkey path on the side of a mountain right on the beach.

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 6 (Koh Phi Phi Don)

Dangling feet from board a boat going to Koh Phi Phi island fills you up with delightful anticipation, as you figure silhouettes of the islands in the humid air.

happy feet

low tide

Imagine a surprise to see a busy pier, boats lined up along the coast, followed by busy crooked streets, cramped with - surprise! – stalls, bars and young tourists who seemed to have started celebrating this night’s Christmas early in the morning.
Being here, we realized once again that Thailand has a special smell (apart from all street food odors): in rooms, hallways, drivers’ cabin in songthaew or in a cup of tea. Sometimes it reminded me of something ‘bready’ but smells are the hardest things to describe.
The streets had a heavy traffic of mostly British tourists roaming around sipping from their small ‘alcobuckets’. Surprised by their generally young age, we later discovered that many those people come here and get their pocket money by pure speculation: getting an easy job at a next-door bar, giving out flyers and getting their couple of buckets as payment and then turn it into cash by reselling them to fellow travellers.

Finding tickets to continue the journey to the other side of Thailand, that is Bay of Thailand wasn’t a problem. It’s impressive how such a tiny island can have so many travel agencies. It was a relief to find a German lady at one of the agencies and speak normal English with her instead of its more common, handicapped, version. Thais speak a lilting sort of English and no matter how many words they use to express themselves, their combination doesn’t make much sense, sounding more like a riddle you have to figure out. ‘Here your English just gets worse, with the really basic level you have to get down to’, confirmed the German lady who has lived in Thailand for 13 years and even spoke some Thai.
Looking around at all the promised paradise of drunk Englishmen you start thinking who is more to blame for Koh Phi Phi Don’s current outlook: are these the abusing tourists themselves or permissive natives looking for additional income instead of saving this originally pure area?

So, instead of joining jolly crowds rocking one side of the beach, we celebrated Christmas at a beach restaurant on the opposite side with fresh grilled fish and in a company of longtail boats rocking peacefully on the shore.

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 5 (Royal Flora Festival)

Awed by solemn beauty of Doi Sudthep, we were later brought down to earth by a songthaew driver, as it turned to be a true challenge to negotiate the price of a ride with a guy hardly speaking any English. FYI: songthaew is a covered pickup truck with 2 rows of seats in the back, which is a popular means of public transport in Thailand.
The place we finally managed to get after half an hour of mimicking and waving hands was the Royal Flora Festival at Ratchaphruek park in the outskirts of Chiang Mai.
The Royal Flora in fact was an international flower expo of an impressive scale, a premise with lots of pavilions, shows, tropical gardens, a big Ferris wheel, and green tunnels with giant veggies hanging from the top! One of the gardens included a whole impressive collection of orchids, from regular white and purple ones, to tiny bee-like, spider & star-like orchids, the ones with central part reminding of tiny shoes and many others of all imaginable colors!

Finally, all the walkways led to a wide central alley ending with a big temple on a hill.

We had to catch a plane at night, so couldn’t stay till too late to see the show, but as it got darker, it still looked absolutely magical when, the central garden with flower and butterfly-shaped statues all lit up and started gleaming to the music.

…The plane got to Phuket at around 2am, so we reached the hotel deadly tired and slept like logs .