'Lonely Planet : Thailand' by Joe Cummings

Review by Alexander Turner

"The best way to use a Lonely Planet guidebook is any way you choose. At Lonely Planet we believe that the most memorable travel experiences are often those that are unexpected, and the finest discoveries are those that you make yourself. Guidebooks are not intended to be used as if they provided an infallible set of instructions." From Lonely Planet : Thailand

Plane slowing on a runway before finally stopping. Condensation forming dewy droplets on the windows. A musical "Pling" as the safety belt lights are switched off. A flurry of movement and activity as people rise from their seats. Overhead lockers click open and slam shut. Passengers make involuntary noises as they take the weight of their bags on to muscles immobilised by sixteen hours of flight. Brief exchanges occur but most people are whacked out and just want to get off the plane. They amble to get to the best position to hasten their exit from the world of being just so much cargo.

I looked through window into the mid-morning world of Don Muang. So much seemed the colour and shade of late summer hay. It looked strangely flat. Not that airports are ever built in hilly areas but it seemed the vista went on for ever, only broken by the fringe of palm trees and airport buildings. This was the first time I'd ever seen Thailand and I'd set myself up for three months of it.

Once the jostling for position in the exit queue was over there was a long wait. It was like a frieze of a battle scene with bags held in precarious positions, people half standing from their seats and yet not able to stand fully because of the positions. Expressions looked strained but passive. After all, most these people were here on holiday.

My mind was humming with expectations. England was in the grip of a November ice age. It was good to be leaving. I thought of friends left behind and already they seemed half real to me. The Sunday Times seemed unreal to me. My passport and boarding card were in my shirt pocket. The packet of wine gums, magazines, books and newspapers I had brought with me were stuffed in a Heathrow airport carrier bag at my feet.

With an audible sigh of relief the queue of passengers started moving off the plane. I watched them passively. I'd spoken to a couple of people very briefly on this flight but hadn't really got chatting to anyone so they were still a loose group of stereotypes to me. There were the middle aged families with well-mannered blonde children. There were the go-getter types who would clearly have been happier in business class. There were the awkward faced students already decked out in baggy shorts and T-shirts. There were the quieter middle aged men. A handful of different races but mostly white Europeans. Only two or three Thais which had surprised me. I'd half expected to meet Thai people on the plane. As they moved they tried to retain the veneer of civilised behaviour while clearly wanting to fight their way off the plane tooth and nail.

I caught sight of one man who seemed to have the same idea as me. Sit tight. Relax. Let the others fight it out. I caught his eye and we both smiled, probably thinking the same thing.

When the crowd finally thinned out I stood up and pulled down my black carry all and the jumper I had been wearing when I got on the plane. Stuffing the jumper into the Heathrow Airport carrier with everything else, I threw the bag over my shoulder and made my way out. Stewardesses with thick make up and professional smiles said "Goodbye, thank you, fly again" as if it was some kind of mantra.

The heat hit me for the first time in the gangway. A group of cleaners stood with mops and black plastic bags at the ready. I liked them. In fact I found myself liking everything I saw. I liked the beige coloured hallways. I liked the potted plants. I liked the slight tug on my shoulder from the strap on my carry all. I liked the fact this place seemed to smell and feel like the glass hothouses in Kew Gardens. Most of all I liked the small beautiful girls in squiffy green and tan uniforms with perfect bodies and perfect complexions who walked in pairs and covered their mouths as they laughed at some shared joke. I remembered my reflection in the bathroom on the plane as I'd shaved and brushed my teeth. My skin had grimy my blond hair looked dirty and my eyes looked as red as Dracula's. I looked around at my fellow travellers some dragging their bags on wheels. Few of them looked much better than I had. But these uniformed Thai women looked bright and clean. Their dark eyes glinted and sparkled with life.

Soon I found myself in the passport control queue. My grandmother always used to say of Tesco's supermarket that the staff there had two speeds "slow" and "stop". This is certainly true of Thai immigration too. While the Thai nationals whisked through and the airline staff whisked through it seemed that each tourist was having their identities checked against a list of known international terrorists. Nobody gets a leave of stay stamp in Thailand until that guy at the desk is absolutely sure they are okay. And woe betide anyone who crosses that little yellow line on the floor before it is their turn.

"Behind the line" a man with a large side-arm will yell fingers poised for the chance of drawing his weapon and shooting any tourist who has crossed that line without waiting his turn.

And standing at that desk is like suddenly finding yourself in a Spaghetti Western. The passport control official eyes as cold as those of an assassin looks you dead on in the eyes, then at your passport, then up at you as if, maybe, your photo doesn't match, then he'll briefly look over your immigration card. Then he stops. Calls over his friend. The friend looks at you and looks at the passport. There's a problem. You have the same face as a known heroin smuggler. Then he smiles and stamps your passport twice. "Welcome to Thailand".

I walked down the stairs, passing up the opportunity of the escalator , and walked through the baggage reclaim hall. I didn't have a bag to reclaim. The way I figured it the more stuff you have the more stuff you have to cart about everywhere. I had a change of clothes. A towel. A walkman and some tapes. I pushed on through the customs hall ignored by all and stepped into the thronging beautiful madness of Thailand.

"Welcome to Thailand" here in huge letters here with the purple gold insignia for Thai Airways underneath. "Welcome to Thailand" there beside a giant poster of a wai-ing beautiful woman with classic Thai cheekbones and the classic Thai face, smiling that sweet warm classic Thai smile. But everything else is bedlam. "My friend. My friend. You want taxi." "Good taxi here. Good price. What you want to pay for taxi." A blue shirted man who claimed to be an official taxi driver greeted me as if he had been personally sent to meet me. Crowds of people, some holding up signs for this family or that man, stood around the railings. I fobbed off the blue shirted man saying I had to change money.

All seemed to be a kind of warm chaos and I loved it. It was love at first sight. This was me. It was going to be a place I found everything I had ever been looking for in my life. I was alone here. I knew nobody. I had no-one I had to meet. There was no place I had to be. Nobody expected anything of me and for three months no need to work. I was far from everything I had ever known and this, in itself, was a piece of Heaven. The only real guide I had through all this was a man I had never met called Joe.

All that I knew of Thailand a few months before was through a handful of people. Some Thais living in England and Europe. Some Europeans I knew who had been there or wanted to go there. I had always been drawn to Eastern cultures to some extent but it was really a dream that set in my mind the idea of flying to Thailand itself. I had bought a trio of books that had really helped the idea grow and ferment in my mind. Charles Nicholl's travel book Borderlines (already reviewed here), Robert and Nanthapa Cooper's Culture Shock : Thailand, and most comprehensively the 1990 edition of Joe Cummings Lonely Planet : Thailand, then less succinctly called Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit : Thailand. These three books were what made Thailand a reality for me. The Lonely Planet guide in particular helped me to see how I could plausibly go to Thailand for quite a long time on very little money. That's why I was so drawn, initially, to the idea of Khao San Road.

I changed money at the airport's army bank where a beautiful young girl who was, I presumed from her insignia, trained to kill people, explained how lucky I was to have arrived in Thailand for the first time on the night of Loy Krathong. My experience of Loy Krathong later that day was quite a bizarre introduction to Thai society but that's a story of its own.

After being flirted with by this women and a friend she called on to help explain what I could do on Loy Krathong (this was naturally supposed to involve meeting a beautiful woman), I moved straight to the airport taxi booth avoiding all the touts. I paid the full wack up front (this was in the days before taxi-meters anyway) and allowed an old man to lead me to the car.

My driver was sitting on the bonnet reading the sports pages of Thai Rath. The old man exchanged words with the driver and then took my bag away from me to put in the boot of the car holding out his hand for a tip.

I sat next to the driver who apologised as he pulled out on to the highway for the fact the air-con was broken. "Air no good. Broken."

"That's fine." I said. And it was fine. I opened the window and enjoyed the bouquet of fresh petroleum fumes on asphalt.

"You look for hotel. I know nice hotel. Number one."

"That's okay. Just take me to Khao San Road."

"Khao San Oad ?"

"Banglamphu.

"Oh. Khao San Load. Banglamphu. No good for you. Very dirty place."

"I like dirty places."

He laughed. "Noo. This hotel very good. Clean. Only five hundred baht one night. Cheap."

"Not cheap enough."

"Have cable TV, swimming pool, all night coffee shop, twenty four hour room service."

"No. Thanks. I'd be bored out of my mind."

"You come for business or for funny."

"For funny."

"Khao San Load... too much drugs."

"I'll be careful."

"Okay. Okay. Khao San Load. I just show you this hotel first."

"Really. No."

"No extra. You pay already. Part of the service."

Part of the service. Everything was part of the service. I regretted no taking one of the touted taxis. "I really want to get straight to have Khao San Road. I have people waiting for me." I lied. There was no shame in lying in Thailand. It was a way of helping everybody avoid losing face. That was what I had read. I'd do a lot of lying in the weeks to come.

"Okay."

We drove a few minutes. I watched the massive billboards, at least half of them in English, many saying Welcome to Thailand in big bold letters. MacDonalds, Isuzu, Thai Air (again) a whole host of big name companies, very few of them Thai, were welcoming me personally to Thailand. Then we turned off the motorway main road and the driver indicated something out the window. I looked to see some modernist piece of corrugated concrete with black windows pitched on a grassy knoll between two major roads. "That hotel. Very good.. Maybe you and your friends back here. You get good rate if you show my card. Say I sent you. "

He handed me a business card which I pocketed just to shut him up. He must have liked driving round and round Bangkok too because he took me on the longest and most circuitous journey to Banglamphu imaginable. But, hell, I'd paid up front. I had nothing to complain about. My fictional friends might be getting a bit cheesed off while I was getting a guided tour of various areas.

"Rates in Banglamphu are the lowest in Bangkok and although some of the places are barely adequate (bedbugs are sometimes a problem), a few are excellent value if you can afford just a bit more. At the budget end, rooms are quite small and the dividing walls are thin. Some of these guesthouses have small attached cafes with limited menus. Bathrooms are usually down the hall or out the back somewhere; mattresses may be on the floor" - Lonely Planet : Thailand (1999 edition).

It has to be said Khao San Road is a unique place. It's like a world within a world. It's Bangkok's own little Farangtown. It's a while now since I last made it there. Well, it's a while since I've been to Thailand. But I imagine it's still pretty much the same. Maybe a bit more developed but not much. The buildings were similar to those all over Bangkok's smaller streets except here there was all this stuff transplanted on top of it. Small stacks stocked with water and bog rolls (the two most vital items). Other stalls with all kinds of sweets, fake ID's, fake levis, bootleg tapes, cheap belts, sandals, hammocks, backpacks, belts. Whatever the traveller could possibly want, some Khao San Road vendor has duly provided.

My first impression was, though, that the taxi driver hadn't been kidding. This place really wasn't very clean. The blistering heat as I stepped into the road and grabbed my bag from the taxi seemed to burn straight through the cotton of my shirt. I thought I was a mess from the flight but I felt as well turned out as James Bond compared to the westerners wandering around here. Oversized pink tie-dye wearing sun-stroke victims who dressed and moved with all the grace of the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. I figured that, as the guide implied, they were all on their way somewhere else just taking the time to pick up the accoutrements that would make their sojourns to some beachside island hideaway that much more idyllic.

Music blared from effective but small stereo systems which usually lived on the stalls selling bootleg tapes. Bob Marley and Dr Alban were big here.

Cafes and restaurants, mostly attached to guest houses, spilled out on to the street in a very Southern European way. Conversations flourished among mid-day drinkers trying to be heard above the buzz saw din of scooters and tuk-tuks. It reminded me of a more ramshackle version of some streets I knew in Milan. Except in Milan people seemed a bit more animated while talking. The waitresses looked about 13 or 14 years old and shuffled their flip-flopped feet from table to table serving drinks while simultaneously trying to watch a Thai soap opera on TV.

Eager to cut corners I went quickly through the places that Cummings recommended in his places to stay section. I settled on the Lek because from where I was standing I could actually see it. It didn't look much from the front but I figured that gave me a better chance of finding a room there. I walked past a lady sitting out on a stool sucking a coke through a multicoloured straw and through the doorway. Marching up the stairway towards the first floor landing I saw the signs "PLEASE REMOVE YOUR SHOES", "THAI LADIES NOT ALLOWED IN ROOM" and "NO DRUGS OR ALCOHOLIC DRINKS ON PREMISES".

A smiling woman quickly looked up from the paper and said "Come in. You looking for a room ?"
"Yes" I said looking at a middle aged Thai man and two children sleeping on the floor by the TV.

"Singen or douben."

"Single."

She leaved through her book. Then looked up "Wait a minute please." She yelled and a girl with a broom appeared. There was jabbering in Thai that, at the time, I didn't understand a word of. "We have a room but it's just being cleaned. Fifty Baht a night."

"Sounds good."

"You want some coffee ?"

"Please. I'd love some."

"Sit down. She won't be long." The lady's name was Saithip. She made me a coffee and offered me a choice of biscuits from a large tin. I took one because it seemed churlish not to. Saithip came to be someone I knew well and became my first fountain of knowledge for all things Thai. She was Islamic and had spent some time living in the middle east but I never asked her about this much. I suspected there was some pain involved. Saithip, Mr Lek and his wife Goy became the first of many Thai people to completely welcome me into their lives. I felt embarrassed when westerners staying for that ridiculously small amount of money complained of this thing or that thing as if they had found a rat in a five star hotel restaurant. In fact, from my stay on Khao San Road I gained a far better impression of the local Thais than the Western visitors.

On the streets off Khao San there are bars occasionally run by and catering to the relatively well-to-do students at Thammasat University. A westerner venturing here can pretty much forget about picking up the local women, but I've been in these bars plied with free drinks just chatting away to the young adults who just want to know about how Thailand compares with the rest of the world. In fact venturing around Banglamphu and across the river into Thonburi your experiences are likely to be as far removed from the world of Sukhumvit as a trip upcountry.

The young girl re-appeared and I was shown to a room that was a bit basic and very small but seemed clean enough to me (I understand that now the Lek Guest House is one among many that have been completely refurbished, they even have western style toilets now). I paid something upfront and laid myself out in the room wondering what I was going to do now I'd got myself to Bangkok. Part of me wanted to nap, part of me wanted to take a walk, somewhere, anywhere. But seeing as the sun was high in the sky I decided to pick up Joe Cummings' guide and read. Get some bearings from a man who knew this place inside and out.

Cummings is quite the Asian expert. A graduate student of Asian art history and Thai language. Fluent in both Thai and Lao he first came to Thailand in 1977 as a Peace Corps volunteer. It was on this trip that he first walked down Khao San Road. In a recent interview he said of the road at that time that "it looked like any other street in that neighbourhood then, a series of single-storey, tiled-roof buildings, most with wood walls, some concrete or brick-and-stucco, each housing a separate little business. It really looked like every other street in old Bangkok."

Having written over thirty travel books and having won most of the major awards for them he now spend most of his time in Thailand, much of it researching new volumes of his work. He is so industrious that the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand alone grew from 444 pages in it's 1990 edition to 1032 in it's 1999 edition with a new edition about to hit the shops anytime now. If the guide keeps growing at this rate it's going to ruin its own market by being too weighty to fit into anybody's backpack.

In recent years Cummings himself has taken a lot of flack from those travellers who would like Thailand to remain a completely unexplored territory. The character in the film and book of The Beach notably blame him for the way places that would have been virgin paradises a few years before are now over-run by nauseating self-centred tourists... like them. Backpackers complaining that someone has written a book that makes life easier for other backpackers is unfortunately typical of the slightly twisted logic you often find among some of the people you run into on Khao San Road.

Cummings himself denies, or at least, plays down the effect he might have had on the travel boom but the facts seem to infer that his books played a very big part in Khao San Road's development. The growth of the guest house industry in Banglamphu does seem to have followed fairly swiftly on the heels of 1982's first edition of the book. Previously the main area for low budget travellers had been Soi Ngam Dupli and the notorious (and wonderful) Malaysia Hotel. The rumbling criticism of this boom in Banglamphu's fortune really is something that exists solely in the minds of a few of the backpackers themselves. For the local Thais the money generated has put kids through college.

It's kind of a shame that this book has been so pigeon-holed and identified with backpackers because Cummings does quite a bit to provide information that would be useful for trips on any kind of expense account. He has long informative essays on history, geography, climate, environment, wildlife, politics, art, architecture, economics, politics, religion, culture, society, conduct etc. He also provides hundreds of detailed maps and information on all kinds of travel, and legal issues. There's a section on how to find work, how to get work permits, what to do if you get the runs.

As a card carrying hypochondriac my favourite is, of course, the health section. In my old edition the book just falls open on the dangerous diseases page. I like to know if that slight fever I've been running is down to Malaria, Japanese Encephalitis or Cholera. I spent many a happy afternoon sitting with the fan turned to "windy", the strains of Betty Boo doing the do rising delicately up from the street below as I checked the shape and size of latest rash and estimated my chances of imminent mortality.

Over the next days and weeks I explored many parts of Bangkok, on foot, that even seasoned old hands have never bothered going to. I might never have gone to half the places I did if I hadn't read Cummings opinions and recommendations. But I did start to find that in some ways Cumming's views just didn't tally with my own. When I first went to Patpong I can't even describe in a few words what a wonderful place it seemed to me. In fact I still like Patpong for exactly the same reasons. Even if you have no intention of ever sleeping with anyone in Bangkok I just don't think there's any denying the fun or the joie-de-vivre of the place.

Cummings has this to say : "The 'go-go' bars seen in lurid photos published by the western media are limited to a few areas in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya and Phuket's Patong Beach. These are bars in which the girls typically wear swimsuits or other scant apparel. In some bars they dance to recorded music on a narrow raised stage. To some visitors it's pathetic, to others an apparent source of entertainment."

I suppose in some ways this tallies with a general mainstream western view of Thailand's sex industry and Cummings' take on life, in that sense, is very straight laced. Maybe he has a right to judge as he seems to have done nothing but good for the country and fair play to him. It just seemed to me that he was missing this incredible slice of life due to a kind of puritan moral view of sex for money. Not that he doesn't present a very fair article on prostitution. In a short (four page) essay he chronicles the history of prostitution in Thailand and relates some interesting statistical information.

"According to a recent Thai university survey, 90% of sex workers - male and female - are below the age of 30, with 21 the median age; 53.2% are single, 38.86% divorced or separated, and 6.64% married Average monthly income is 5000B. Most are uneducated and come from village areas. Researchers estimate that they have a maximum working life of 10 years, though the average is two years or less. Many women return to their villages - some with a nest egg for their families, others with nothing - where surprisingly they are often treated with a measure of respect (one way for a village girl to compliment the appearance of another is to say she's "as pretty as a sophenii"). The ones that stay in it long-term appear to suffer the most; mental and physical disabilities acquired during their short working lives. Various Thai volunteer groups are engaged in counselling Thailand's sex workers - helping them to leave the industry or to educate them to the dangers of STD's, particularly AIDS. Thanks to such efforts, the latest surveys indicate that condom use amongst sex workers in Thailand averages 94%" Lonely Planet : Thailand (1999 edition)

I can't emphasize the usefulness of this guide enough. I suspect it is the most detailed and useful guide on the market. If there is a better one I haven't seen it. However well you think you know Thailand, it's pretty certain that Cummings knows it better.

In the film of The Beach Leonardo di Caprio's character says that if he ever meets Joe Cummings he's going to punch his lights out. I suspect Cummings' training as a kickboxer would probably give him an unfair advantage in such a fight. But reading that quote set me off thinking :

What would happen if you locked up Joe Cummings and Bernard Trink in the Big Brother house together for a week ? Who would be left standing ?

Lonely Planet : Thailand (1999 edition) by Joe Cummings. 1032 pp
Published by Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd
Australia $29.95
USA $21.95
UK £13.99
France 170,00 FF

Review Copyright Alexander Turner 2001

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Here are some links to places from ThailandStories.com where readers can see more about this book and possibly buy a copy:

 http://www.amazon.com/Lonely-Planet-Thailand-Joe-Cummings/dp/1740596978