Anyone who has been to Thailand has most likely noticed this before, a ten baht coin stuck in the ear of a Thai girl. They don’t all do it but I suspect most have done it at least a few times.

While Mo and I were at the local Monday/Friday market the other day she got change for a 20 baht note and quickly stuffed the coin in her ear, so, I snapped a quick pic and laughed a bit. I would think a lot of foreigners may have the same reaction but when you think about it people the world around use their ears in very similar fashions. The ears also make great pen holders or a nice place to keep that cigarette waiting for a smoke break.

Anyway I thought I would share this pic with those of you that may have never seen it before.

Next up I’ll take you up into the mountains of Petchaboon to see a beautiful mountain top Wat that is strung out through a series of caves.

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There is something about children at play in Thailand that takes me back to when I was a kid.  Rural Thailand for children isn’t much different than when I was growing up in the States during the late sixties/early 70′s. There weren’t computers or cable TV and our parents didn’t have a lot of money to buy us all the toys we wanted, but we made do. We would spend hours playing with card board boxes, wrapping paper tubes and string that became forts, swords and bows. We had the best toy of them all, our imaginations.

All the kids I have seen playing n rural Thailand have pretty much the same imagination and can play for hours with some paper and a few small toys. Their counterparts in the west are already getting fat watching TV, playing on computers and their favorite gaming system.

It seems to me that the children of Thailand are quite a bit more healthy than their counterparts in the West in more than a few ways. It will be interesting to see where these children are in 20 years compared to the children of the West. The rural Thai children may not have all the advantages that a child growing up in the west does but they aren’t too bothered by what they don’t have.

It seems with all the new technology we are making our children lazier in the West while at the same time putting much more stress on them. The children of my generation had it good and did just fine without all the gadgets kids have today. We were more social, less careful and definitely more thoughtful. Sure, we did stupid things and have the scars to show for it but we were living or lives, not wasting time in front of a screen.

Hopefully their imaginations stay with them and they help to build a better Thailand one paper airplane at a time while considering the plight of those poor disadvantaged children in the West who are coming to the conclusion that one to many Twinkies and too many video games haven’t done much to help them in life. The bigger hope is that they can remain children as long as possible before having to take on the responsibility of family, as all Thai children do much sooner than they should.

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Martyn over at Beyond the Mango Juice wrote an excellent post entitled Red Red Whine about rural Thai’s and just what little amount of money they actually live on in Thailand. He ended the post with a challenge for anyone living in Thailand to try and live on 170 baht a day. The post has really opened up a great discussion in the comments section that got me to thinking.

Obviously as a westerner any of us would find it hard to get by on any more than the basic necessities out of 170 baht a day. We would basically be able to eat and drink water. Self sustaining but not much more and with no overhead for emergencies or shelter we would most definitely be living in card board boxes. But, here’s the thing, as I pointed out most rural Thai’s own their own land, grow their own food,  have at least a motorcycle, have TV’s, DVD players, etc.  Now this isn’t representative of all rural Thai’s but I would say it isn’t far off the mark. Obviously some regions are poorer than others.

Martyn’s post and the many great comments it received really had me wondering how the Thai’s I have seen in Rural Thailand do it? While they aren’t living by Western standards they are doing much better than the Western poor I have seen my whole life. At least one comment brought up the girls working in the sex industry sending money home, and yes, that definitely plays a role in rural Thailand but with less than 4% of all Thai women working in the sex industry that can’t account for what I’ve seen.

I can only speak to the rural Thailand I have seen in Nakhon Phanom, That Phanom and Mukdahan. Mukdahan is a very poor province and the town is very small. The people there Don’t have a lot but they do have homes, a farm, shop or some sort of business and generally make enough to take care of the necessities. A fair many cars and motorcycles are owned in Mukdahan and of course every Thai owns a cell phone. I have also seen quite a few old computers, stereos, karaoke machines and the like at many Thai homes I’ve visited.

Nakhon Phanom though is quite another matter. A large city in comparison to Mukdahan and a much better standard of living for the most part. Many Westerners would still see the majority of people here as poor, but maybe they aren’t looking closely enough. Walk through the cities center on any given day and you will see what I mean. While, as a city, it lags far behind Bangkok,  for the most part these poor people who depend on farming, fishing and flowers as their main export seem to have everything you could need as a Westerner.

I went through my pictures of a stroll I took through town one day and I knew I had a few examples but I was shocked as I looked deeper at just how much business is done in Nakhon Phanom. Appliance stores, cell phone shops, new car dealerships and on and on. I wasn’t shocked that they had them because obviously I had seen them …I was shocked that there were so many of the same type of stores. Several of each kind on many blocks. Two things I made note of while there last trip were not one but two high end bicycle shops and two high end camera stores.

Now, it should be said that the majority of these things are imported from Korea and China and while they may not be the name brands most westerners are familiar with, these cheaper alternatives are still very good and not at all cheap by Thai standards.  These brands are cheaper but then again the average rural Thai doesn’t have much money to spend as Martyn pointed out in his post.

There is also something else apparent throughout Thailand that many Westerners don’t catch onto quickly, repair shops. Where we used to have a repair shops for just about everything, as Westerners we have turned into a disposable society where the Thai’s haven’t. Perhaps they are lagging a little behind the times but I think they are just that much more frugal than us. What can’t be repaired becomes something else such as old tires being made into trash cans where we just fill up garbage dumps with them.

There is no doubt that Nakhon Phanom is in rural Thailand,  and as Martyn pointed out in his post the average rural Thai doesn’t make much more than 170-200 baht a day ( Province dependent ). So, as the discussion has worn on I keep coming back to Mukdahan and Nakhon Phanom. Mukdahan in contrast to Nakhon Phanom has very stark differences for towns no more than 15 minutes apart by car. And while I think we all agree that the average rural Thai makes very little in daily wages a rural city like Nakhon Phanom belies this fact. The question for me now becomes just how are rural Thai’s in Nakhon Phanom coming up with enough money to support so many varied higher end businesses?

The following are some pictures from my walk one day in Nakhon Phanom and are representative of the town. I didn’t post many multiples of any one business but wanted to give you an idea of whats on offer in a rural Thai city. The first picture is a necessity and might give a clue.

It may also be good to keep in mind that many bigger purchases can be paid for on time plans. Also don’t be fooled by what you see, while Nakhon Phanom is a larger city the majority of the province is farm land with many poor villages and most of the big shops are at the center of the city with the rest of the city being houses, apartments and Wats.

Either way you cut it there are variables at play in rural Thailand. Head over to Martyn’s post at Beyond the Mango Juice and join in on the discussion and if you live in Thailand see if you can take him up on his 170 baht challenge, it could be very interesting if a few people took him up on this. I don’t think I could do it but then again I couldn’t live on a middle class Thai’s salary for a month in Thailand.

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It wasn’t long ago that knitting and crocheting were a popular pastime for women in the United States, as a matter of fact it was a pretty big industry as well. Obviously these were serious skills that were needed throughout the beginning of the country that took a back seat after the industrial revolution when machines made clothes faster and cheaper.

Even so knitting and crocheting were still very popular especially through the periods of the 1950′s to the 1970′s. There were yarn stores on every corner and it was commonplace to see a knitting basket in most living rooms with an ample supply of yarn and usually a half finished piece laying on top. Since the 70′s it’s a rarity to see any of these things in America. Sure, there are still women that enjoy the craft but they are few and far between these days.

During my first trip to Bangkok I found myself wandering the city most days, getting lost and enjoying the new sights I would see during my exploration. One day I stopped in a small beer bar to escape the afternoon heat and replenish myself with a nice cold beer when I saw something I hadn’t seen in almost 20 years. The cashier was intently crocheting rounded patterns and her friend was knitting them into a sweater.

The first thing that ran through my head was the fact that Bangkok holds the title of the hottest city on the planet followed by just what were these Thai women knitting sweaters for? Through my travels I ran into more and more Thai women knitting and crocheting. They were not only very good at it they wasted not one stitch. Sweater, hats, the occasional scarf and drink coasters…lots and lots of drink coasters.

The majority of knitting that I saw being done was by women from rural Thailand who were working in the tourist area’s to send money home. It wasn’t until my first trip up country to North East Thailand that I realized the truth behind the sweaters. From January to the middle of March it can get quite chilly at night. There was more to it than that of course. While spending time in rural Thailand over many trips it became apparent that many women still knitted and crocheted to clothe their babies and small children. Baby blankets, booties and hats to keep their little heads warm were just a few of the things they made.

While these crafts are slowly dying out in America they are still going strong among rural Thai’s but you can see it won’t be long before the slow decline begins here as well. All of Pookie’s Aunts and older cousins knit and crochet but Pookie and the younger family members can’t be bothered with it.

My last trip to Mukdahan had me spending some time in the village with the grand parents and Pookies cousin. Her cousin was 4 months pregnant at the time and she was furiously crocheting away. I only spent a few days in Mukdahan before moving on to Nakhon Phanom but I never once saw Pookie’s cousin without needles in her hand intently working on more pieces that would be knitted together at a later time.

Keep an eye out during your travels though Thailand and you’ll start to see it more and more, and if you are real lucky you might get a scarf or a hat out of the deal…I did.

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After a hard days work I was asked if I wanted to go fishing, to which I replied,  “sure”. I expected that once the fishing nets were checked and folded up that we would be loading up the truck and heading down the road to the Mekong, but I was wrong. We loaded up the truck and got all the kids on a motorcycle and started heading in the general direction of the Mekong but then we took a turn onto the dirt road that runs along side the rice fields.

The fields behind the farm are separated by a small wooded area with a stream and on the other side was another 40 fields or so. We came out of the wooded area and drove to the opposite side of the fields and parked. That’s when I noticed that interspersed around the fields were actually man made ponds that were pretty good sized and as I found out about 10 feet deep.

I asked Pookie if they had stocked the ponds and I was told they occasionally buy feeder fish and set them loose but the birds also help out by dropping remnants of fish and other critters into the water. As the nets came out and were prepared to start the fishing the kids found a spot in the shade to play while Pookie hid out behind a very small tree for cover while watching the men fish.

The ponds are collectively used by all of the farmers so I didn’t expect many fish to be pulled out but after a long day of shoveling manure I was more than ready to jump in and cool off. Eventually Pookie’s brothers and her young cousin unfurled the nets and set to trawling the first pond but as expected they didn’t get anything after 3 tries. We then headed for the second pond only to find that the fish weren’t home there either.

Right near the fields is what looks like a large natural lake and I was told we would walk over there and give that a try. I thought it sounded like a good idea until I walked into the lake only to find that the water only came up to my shins. At best it was 3 feet deep in places. more of a large flooded area than a lake. At this point I wondered what we would be fishing for.

It didn’t take me long to realize we would be mucking around in the mud for fresh water clams and mussels. They didn’t think I was up for it and laughed as I laid in the water, pulling myself around with my hands while feeling for anything in the muck below. Surprisingly, for me and them, I pulled up about 12 mussels and the brothers found about 20 each. More than enough to compliment dinner that night. And while we were mucking around in the mud Pookie decided to try her hand at photography, as you can see she caught my better side.

So, as the sun began to set, we loaded up the pickup truck and headed back to the house with our haul of mussels and just like their western counterparts there was a tall tale or two of the fish that got away. Dinner that night tasted better than any four star restaurant, partly because the work we put in to bring it to the table but mostly because I felt like I was a part of something bigger than a meal.

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In this day and age we don’t tend to think much about how our food is prepared or preserved to last as long as it can. Unfortunately, even though we call it progress, technology has failed us in many ways when it comes to the foods we eat

These preservatives may keep the foods we eat from spoiling faster and keep bacteria and fungal growth away but they also change the foods on a molecular level and the story is still out on how some of these preservatives can affect us.

Leaving small town America for rural Thailand will open your eyes in many ways but none more than how food is handled and preserved for future use. It’s almost like walking backwards through time and using reverse technology.

While I was at the family farm in Nakhon Phanom I witnessed daily the act of preparing food for future use. While the family does have a small refrigerator it isn’t relied upon to keep food as much as it is used to store water.

All this food preparation and preservation takes time but it is an every day part of life in Issan shared by the farmers and city dwellers alike. Walking through the city streets you will see many houses where they are preparing meat and fruits to dry in the hot Issan sun.

One day I watched Pookie’s Aunt gather mango’s for an hour and then she peeled, cut and seeded them before placing them in a mortar and pestle and mashing them for what seemed like another hour. She added small amounts of salt and sugar while mashing and then when done she spread the mashed mango on plates and left them out to dry in the midday sun. When dried it becomes similar to a fruit rollup that you can eat whenever you want and they supposedly last quite a while. The 2 plates pictured above are the result of a half a days work.

How have we as Westerners gotten so far away from the fundamentals of society. Everything has been scaled up with unnatural communities springing up around malls and entertainment districts. Because of this we had to figure a way out to feed millions of people cheaply and efficiently, although badly at the same time. We stopped living where the living was good and spread out in unnatural ways that can’t be sustained.

Rural Thailand is the perfect example that we should all be striving for. Small self contained communities working together to grow their own foods and prosper off the land. These Thai farmers could survive any disaster put to them much more easily than any community in America or Europe. Don’t believe that? Just look to the after effects Katrina had on New Orleans. We had the technology and the wherewithal to withstand anything and yet we failed.

If America and Europe don’t get back to these types of small self sufficient communities then we won’t have to worry about wars, natural disasters or energy deficiencies bringing us down because we will have already brought ourselves down with our need to live in suburbia closer to the McDonald’s, Starbuck’s and the Walmarts of the world.

Edit: Go Passport just left the link to a documentary called Food Inc. I think this should be required watching for every person living in Western society. The full movie can be found here: Food Inc

I decided to add the movie here as well because it really is that important for people to see.

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Well, not really. At best,  you can hope for “out of sight, out of mind”, and then we have the oddity that is the above picture.

Rural Thai households are probably among the cleanest in the world. The floors are either concrete, tile or smooth teak and they are swept as much as three times a day. Unfortunately,  for the most part,  they are swept just outside the front porch and the remnants are left where they lay. Occasionally they are gathered into a pile and burned, occasionally.

At my girls family house in Mukdahan this is pretty much the case. Things are allowed to collect around the outside of the house and eventually they are gathered up and burned by the side of the house. Plastic bottles, candy wrappers, milk cartons and anything else you can think of. The process definitely goes against all reason.

And then you have the pit at the rear of the property. This pit is roughly four feet in diameter and at least 3 feet deep. The pit is filled with plastic bags, the kind used for takeout from the market. You would get chicken skewers in them or maybe sticky rice. There are at least a thousand or more plastic bags in this pit and still room for more.

Now, What the hell is this all about? I’d love to tell you but I have no clue. As I said before,  and as the pictures show,  trash is left to accumulate and then burned. So what is the purpose of the pit and thousands of plastic food bags?

I suppose there is a possibility that these bags would draw unwelcome guests due to lingering food smells but it seems to me that the bags have been cleaned before they were deposited here. The pit has also been open for some time and there is no apparent animal activity around it.

Perhaps I have stumbled upon the black hole of plastic food bags and I should count myself lucky that I wasn’t sucked in and transmuted into leftover tadpole guts or ant larvae. Or worse yet,  a plastic bag with no apparent purpose in a pit.

If you think about it these bags must be lethal in some way. Why else would someone dig a pit specifically for these bags and no other trash? It could be a trap to lure in idiot falang such as myself. I can hear the family now…” young brother go dig a pit and put all the plastic bags you can find in it, I bet the falang will find it within an hour and start taking pictures”. This is probably the best possibility.

I’m sure you are wondering why I didn’t just ask what the pit was for? I did, and the answer was much more convoluted than I could ever possibly hope to go into here. I walked away from this knowing that the pit was important and that’s all the falang needed to know.

What I do know is that the pit was scheduled to be closed soon after I took the picture and buried with the bags would be all my unanswered questions. The only good to come of it all would be the green patch of grass growing over the once plastic void. It might be a while before anything else goes green around these parts.

So, what do you think?

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I love rural Thailand and all it has to offer, from the laid back atmosphere to the kind smiles of  it’s friendly people, everything seems to mesh. That being said there are a few aspects of rural Thailand that scare the hell out of me.

For the most part you won’t be seeing too many western toilets while in rural Thailand, sure the better hotels will have them but if you are visiting the family farm , well, you better be in a squatting frame of mind.

I’ve gotten used  to the morning manual showers which consist of a bucket and a big pot of cold water. I’ve even gotten used to using the squat toilet, although if any Thai ever saw me using it they would wonder just what the hell I’m doing, after they finished laughing.

The hongnam itself is an upgrade to the basic outhouse. Four concrete walls with a slanted metal roof that is more of an open air design. A pump brings running water into a tap used to fill the various pots and trashcans. One big clay jar to shower from, a smaller clay jar to flush from and various other jars and cans for washing of clothes and other secrets I have yet to uncover.

Going to the bathroom in the village is a little more involved than waking up and stumbling in. It becomes a ritual of sorts. A process where you begin with one action and move on to the next. it’s all very easy to get used to even if the morning shower is just a wee bit colder than I normally like.

What I haven’t gotten used to is the morning audience that attends these rituals. It’s nothing to look around and find a large lizard or 3 hanging about on the walls or a large hairy spider hanging out on the ceiling. At least they make themselves known. It’s the unknown that I fear, and for good reason.

After a little thought, not like there is anything else to do while squatting,  you realize that if they can get in then it’s not to much of a stretch to get a snake in the loo too. Of course that is not the proper mindset to have and not something you want to be thinking about with your ass end hanging over the porcelain pit.

Last week I realized just why I should fear the unknown. I called my girl as I usually do and when she answered we had the following conversation:

Me: Hi teelac how are you?

Teelac: Not good teelac I have problem again.

Me:  What wrong Teelac?

Teelac: I live in hospital again.

Me: Why?!?!? What happened?

Teelac: I go hongnam teelac and saanake bite me.

Me: Teelac you ok? What doctor say: Big snake? Little snake? Poisonous?

Teelac: Doctor say I have to stay tonight so they can look me. Have big where snake bite me but it get small now.

Me: Where did you get bite?

Teelac: I not know how to say in englit.

Me: Your ass?

Teelac:  No! not in doot.

Teelac: I get bite on hand but not hand.

Me: Ah you got bit on finger?

Teelac: Yes teelac finnnger…I think next time have bite on top ( breasts )  I need big there

She spent the night in the hospital. Not knowing what kind of snake bit her they didn’t want to take any chances and wanted to keep an eye on her. Fortunately she is fine. As for me, I think the person that came up with ” when in Rome” should be shot. From now on I’ll be well armed before using the hongnam…or I’ll be buying diapers.

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Martyn over at Beyond the Mango Juice had a great post the other day,   Off Road in Thailand, that really struck a note with me. Rural Thailand is really an amazing place if you’re in the right frame of mind and getting lost on the back roads of rural Thailand can be an almost zen like experience.

My last trip I helped out with the family rice fields and I learned a lot about what the rural Thai families do to sustain themselves. Most of the family fields are just behind their house but they own a few fields about 4 miles away so that meant taking to the open road on the trusty tractor. I had my camera with me so I decided to take some ” on the road” pictures as we finished hauling our last few loads of manure.

I never really thought about posting these pictures until Martyn’s post reminded me just how much I missed being in Nakhon Phanom and how beautiful the back roads can be. So, Martyn these photo’s are dedicated to you. I call this gallery ” Rural Thailand as viewed from a tractor by a falang”

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With the recent economic climate I’ve read countless articles and blog posts lamenting the fate of Thailand’s poor rural class and how they need a helping hand up into the 21st century. Lacking  technology and marketable skills that would bring them closer into the closed rings of Thai society.

I usually don’t make it too far into one of these pieces before I have a good chuckle and move on. When economies crash you don’t read about the poor jumping from windows or being thrown in jail for defrauding the public through massive Ponzi schemes. You hear that their once tough lives will be getting a little tougher and they continue to move ahead the best they can, as they always do.

If the economy were to totally crash tomorrow 95%, or more, of you reading this would not only be devastated but you would also be without shelter and going hungry within 6 months. The truth hurts but lets be honest here, Marketing, banking, human resources and or manufacturing skills aren’t life skills they are just a means to an end. When that end is a disaster in the making  those skills become worthless.

Rural Thai’s grow their own food, build their own houses, work their own land, make their own furniture, baskets and toys. At first glance a westerner may see a poor farming village in Issan and feel bad about the poverty when in fact the Thai’s are looking back knowing full well that without the money the majority of western falang are one calamity from extinction.

Has it become harder for the poorer rural Thai, certainly.  They have to work harder for the same amount of baht they earned before but you won’t hear them complain about it. They don’t have the luxury of time to complain about it,  they have work to do.

Another huge factor for the poorer rural Thai is community. It means everything to them and they do what they can for each other even when they don’t have enough for themselves. A long time ago the western world was like this but it has since changed into a “each man for himself” mentality and he who has the most gadgets, biggest house and or fastest car wins. Take all those things away and how long will that man last when he can’t build his own shelter, grow his own food or figure out what he needs to do to survive. Technology is great but it has dumbed down the masses.

It doesn’t matter what is happening in Thai politics or the outside world because feeding the family and taking care of your own is what life is about in rural Thailand. Would the rural Thai like more out of life, of course they would. They would also like to be recognized for what they bring to the country, a true stabilizing force.

If the global economy disappears tomorrow you can bet that the rural Thai will still be working their fields and taking care of business without too much worry…what will you be doing?

Me? I’m going Thai, and it’s a good thing because I have some weight to lose…

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