Thailand is a confusing country

Interesting film being shown on the Sukhothai to Bangkok bus today. I have in the past studied 15th and 16th century feudal Japan but I honestly do not remember any helicopters being featured as they were in the ridiculously over the top offering on our screen. Maybe there was some confusion with the script of 'Miss Ho Chi Min City' (as I suppose we are now supposed to call it).  It's very difficult for we oldies who rote learned all our countries and capitals and national flags to keep up with the ever changing names. So am I going to Burma or Myanmar, will I be starting in Yangon or Rangoon? And heaven knows what they will have done with all the names by the time I arrive in Vietnam.

Sukhothai and Si Sachanalai were a refreshing change from the mayhem that is Bangkok but I have to admit to a certain feeling of being Wat-ed out now. 

I'll spare you the other dozens of examples!

Sukhothai Historical Park is a very self contained site and I was one of the few people who decided to walk round it rather than biking. It was a sensible decision as many of the (endless number of) Wats were off the beaten track and could only be accessed on foot. Si Sachanalai on the other hand ..... When I arrived, the standard 'I help you missie, good price for you' came rushing over with offers of the hire of a motor bike (has he not seen the age it gives on my passport for goodness sake!) or a bicycle. It's a very long way to the Historical Park he assures me. Yeah yeah yeah, I've heard it all before thinks Miss Brains of Britain.  More than an hour later, as I'm still tramping down some dusty flea bitten road through what can only be described as a series of shanty towns, I decide to start singing 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' as the most appropriate response to my sense of impending doom and disaster. Lunch when I eventually arrived seemed like a really good idea but sadly there were no huge bottles of wine on the menu, not even any small ones so I had to drown my sorrows with lukewarm green tea.  Serves me right for being such a clever clogs. 

Anyway .... When Mr Lunch Cooker offered the hire of a bike I couldn't get my wallet out quickly enough and Beatrice and I toured the park happily together and I didn't fall off once, but I reminded myself that the next time I hire a bike, instead of making such an issue of getting the saddle at the right height and choosing a suitable name it would be more sensible to check that the wretched thing has got some brakes. Going down a very steep hill with a sharp bend at the bottom is not the best time to discover that this is one modern piece of kit that your bike lacks!

Full of gratitude I returned the bike to my lunch cooker who then implied that it was a very long walk back to the bus stop. Now I already knew that from my earlier touch of idiocy so when he offered me a lift there on the back of his motor bike for the relatively (considering the distance and the wear and tear on my feet and sense of humour) minimal sum of 30Baht I clambered on as quickly as I could before he changed his mind. His wife seemed to find the image of me in my Audrey Hepburn sunglasses trying to look the coolest thing on the planet perched on the back of this ridiculous contraption, hanging on to her husband for dear life, one of the funniest sights she had ever seen. Me? I was past caring, I just wanted to get back to the bus stop without the never ending trek. When was the bus due? I had no idea. What did the bus look like? I had no idea. What was I doing there? I had no idea, but having waved down several what turned out to be lorries a Monk finally arrived on the scene and indicated in sign language that if I left the clever stuff to him (and probably Buddha) then all would be well and so it turned out. Divine providence - and a bus - appeared within 5 minutes. I can't remember the last time I was so happy to see a broken down smelly old piece of public transport!

So why the heading of this rambling blog?

Thailand bothers me in so many respects:  the Wats are kept to an exceptional standard, the many schools are superb examples of what educational establishments should look like, the car and lorry showrooms are of a higher standard than in Europe, the petrol stations are gleamingly new, the  reverence and deference in which the King and Queen are held would be the envy of other Royal families, and day and night the Thais are sweeping and cleaning and cooking and being industrious. 

And yet, and yet: so many of the population live in dreadful conditions, in broken down wooden shacks with rusting corrugated tin roofs, they scrape a living by sitting on the roadside all day in the blazing sun selling pathetic bags of nuts or a few dead blossoms,  they obviously have no mains electricity or running water, the roadside verges are strewn with discarded rubbish, the men and the women manually construct roads and dig pipe ditches with their only protection against the appalling levels of heat and dust being an old rag tied round their faces and necks.

I haven't taken any photos of the above points as I felt that would have been impertinent and patronising. It wasn't my place to be giving the appearance of spying on their pathetic way of life. 

It really does make me wonder: what is the point of these wonderful looking schools and the amazingly well kept temples and shrines if so many of these children have no decent future to look forward to?