They, of the Incandescent Soul

Part 2 of MartinT’s adventure in Thailand

Beer Travels November 5, 2003
Written by MartinT

Montreal, CANADA -

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING WITH GOD

The day after. Expedition numero uno. Out of the seafaring clouds appeared mystical rock formations, the surrealist landscape of Ang Thong Marine National Park. Auspicious omens seeped through the vista, as ancient silk pirates could have emerged at any moment I’m sure. But we didn’t have any silk with us, so we were okay. We carried only snorkels, flippers, and the desire to jump in the sea as soon as the boat would allow us to. Schools of multicoloured tropical fish welcome us, eager to check out these long, hairy creatures clumsily moving about in front of them. Kayaking in the small caverns of the sea of Thailand soon follows on our agenda, as is hiking in 80-degree bamboo staircases to turquoise lakes of sulphur. Ah, serenity.

Our evening reward is a tantalizingly delicious seafood kantoke, comprised of six creative dishes, amongst which I have my first meeting with my culinary coup de foudre, a true love at first bite: lobster in green curry. Squid à la crunchy pepper and cashew nuts also delight our palates and oh my god look at that sign over there!! 80 Belgian Beers!?! Reading again...now breathing...wow, I’m not hallucinating! ”Pickles Bar”, on Koh Samui’s Chaweng Beach is supposedly the first of many to come in Southern Thailand we soon learn. Thus our glorious evening meal will end with my salivating on Gauloise Brune, Ename Tripel and…the supreme deity of Orval. Who could resist? After this moment of meditation, I think we can now mentally and physically head for Koh Phangan.

THE MOST REFRESHING WARMTH OF AUTHENTICITY

Precipitated by perceptions of hurrying precipitations. The mountainous country of Koh Phangan, where dirt roads twist and wind over and around breathtaking cliffs, rendering an unparalleled view of the Sea of Thailand, is stealing our hearts away. The unviolated freshness of the air here is palpable, just as the genuineness of its inhabitants. I have never breathed such cleanliness. We are eating on a bamboo deck suspended 100 metres above a deserted, rocky beach below. The crickets surrounding the mountain jungle are so loud (even during the day) that the rural authenticity and stunning virgin nature of this island cannot be avoided. The biggest “town” is but two streets filled with regular markets, no girlie bars thank goodness, and a real open-air Thai food market. Of course, no sun-seeking tourists are walking amidst its strange and often pungent odours, which is a relief for us. Tonight’s after-dinner liquid libation is Sawee Wine, a rice wine; this sweet and very fruity (peachy, cantaloupe, mango) rendition shames most imports we get up here in Quebec in drinkability and outright flavour. So here we will hover for four or five days, absorbing the veracity of many a smile and the shiftiness of Mother Nature. A simple bungalow on a secluded beach will suffice. And a few new Thai curries as well! A couple of never before seen beers are also tasted : Black Beer, Super Beer and Leo Beer. (Addendum : I’d like to have the Super Beer one more time as it was probably the best bottled offering I had in my trip. Only saw it in Koh Phangan though.)

...

The inherent splendour of a tropical storm is in full view. God, this is beautiful. Electricity long gone, we lay there fanless, eaten by the evening heat like the leftover mackerel from the fish market. Except we reek of body odour and insect repellent…tasty…but after sweeping the beach floor with palm-tree brooms, everything is back in order and the soul massaging and total relaxation continues. We are ready for more intense mindshocks. But before we do, it seems it’s going to be Round II of Burning Alive evening; tonight’s non-English-speaking, pyromaniac chef cooks up a namprik, a shrimp and chile vegetable paste whose intensity would set any living animal digging for the nearest source of water. I, of the incandescent tongue, am branded and cannot even finish my plate. Marie laughs and I start to laugh. Through blazing flames. My stomach still remembers this one.

STROLLING THROUGH BANGLAMPHOO

Cloudwalking back to Bangkok…The flight northwards reveals a most stunning embroidery of angelic cloudscapes. Floating on an immense head of Orval if you will. A flight back is so inexpensive that we convince ourselves that we don’t need that 12-hour train ride back to Bangkok.

...

Megalopolis now opens itself. We settle in Bangkok’s old downtown, near the country’s most beautiful temples and the famous Khao San Road, where the thousands of overlapping signs herald the density of the Banglamphoo neighbourhood. “Bustling” was surely invented to describe a city like this. But throughout this almost overwhelming density, respect thrives and bonhomie burgeons easily. Truly remarkable and inspiring.

THE DEAL WITH TAURUS BREWHOUSE

This one looks like it’ll pour for a while so I have time to explain this. Here’s what happened when I initially arrived at Bangkok’s Don Muang International Airport, in a state of extreme fatigue and new-continent confusion. I noticed a sign which said : “Fresh Brewed Beer! Here at Terminal 2”. More on that later (I’m a tease). 2 weeks after this curious moment, I try to find “La Lunar Brewhouse”, supposedly formerly called “Taurus Brewhouse” by the way, and finally find the address but the place is now called “Orbit” and was closed for construction. Disappointed and sweating profusely from the kilometre walk (it was that hot), we turn back towards Sukhumvit Road. Almost there and ready to hail a cab, I see a big “Brewhouse” sign written in bold on the side of an oncoming truck. Intrigued, I ward off the first taxi which stopped and I wait to be able to see the aforementioned truck better. And then many shrouds of mystery were lifted. On the truck was written : Taurus Brewhouse, www.lalunar.com, Sukhumvit Road 26 (the present “Orbit” address), Don Muang Airport (!!); 4 Beers Available (strong ale, pilsner, wheat beer, lager). So I would after all get the chance to taste this brewpub’s beer! In a couple weeks that is.

(DAY = 21 W.A., YEAR = 2546)

MULTIPLE LIVES AND DEATHS IN AND AROUND KANCHANABURI

Today, I half-fell off the famed Death Railway. We and a host of other inquisitive trekkers were walking between the tracks of the breathtaking railway that caused so much torment during and after its inception, in order to reach a huge golden Buddha statue hidden in a cavern in the adjoining mountain. The view of the suspended railway in front of us and to our right over a jagged cliff and a jungle-overcome river ooh’d and aah’d everyone of course. And suddenly I disappeared from sight...You see, there was a board missing between the tracks and apparently I was the only one who was enough caught up with the scenery to fall prey to this gaping void. Luckily, the hole was only big enough for one of my legs to plummet through and my hands and hips stopped me before I even knew what had unfolded. Pushing myself back up to the amazed and concerned gaze of all around, I noticed how extremely lucky I was to have only scraped off a part of my inner left thigh. It was either that or falling a few hundred feet to the knife-edged rocks below. What did we do then? We laughed. Oh, how we laughed. I have shed my blood on the Death Railway. Never saw that in a brochure before.

...

The following day, we head for the picturesque Erawan National Park. Wading in the sanctity and turquoise royalty of the natural pools under its resplendent seven-tiered waterfall, we are replenished, refurbished, and the illusion of paradise is perfect. In a ray of heavenly light, a horde of virgin white butterflies appear nonchalantly flying on an invisible kite string...then a fish took a bite off of my big toe and that was that.

The calcium carbonate of the eroding limestone carried in the falls is said to be the author of the wonderful jade colour of the pools, even when sunlight is nowhere to be seen. Bathing in the firmament’s waterfall will surely invoke nostalgia in the near future.

...

There is an ominous feeling about the River Kwai and I haven’t even seen the movie. Those endless stretches of snatching jungle in a frozen leap over the river assures you there is no way out once you are on it. The strong current never produces a wave as the water effortlessly carries on its habitual purpose, feigning velleity. The bridge itself is not much really, just a tired iron contraption. But I have never felt a river looking at me before. Or maybe I was just entering good beer withdrawal at this point.

...

A random conversation on the train back to Kanchanaburi (which happened to be the famed Death Railway) with a young Thai man reminded me quite efficiently that travelling the world, to some people, is the supreme luxury of kings. This quite curious and inquisitive teenager asked such basic yet fundamental queries about the concept of tourism that I was taken aback and caught off-guard at first. “Why do you come to Thailand?” he queried in a heavyset, hard-to-decipher Thai-English accent. “To broaden my mind, to taste different cultures, to expand my comprehension of human civilization.” “…Okay, but why Thailand?” “Oh, well I love a place where I can go as deeply into the primal world of nature as I can into the bustling cities of humans. Thailand was just one place on a long list.” “What do I need to travel like you?” “Uh…That is a very broad question.” And that is when I entered subconscious shock. The concept was so foreign to this young man; he just had never been exposed to it before. Questions like: “Do I need a map?” and “How do I decide where to go?” almost knocked me out but I bounced back and re-explained my answer to his first question about Thailand. And he smiled broadly, looked into my eyes and honestly laughed. He was so fascinated that he laughed. And he went on into more technical questions about money, planning and so forth and the rusty train vomited to a halt. Death Railway was maybe not the best moniker for today.

CITY = ITSASOHOTTA, PROVINCE = AMAGONNADIE

(The Return of VelcroMan; the not-so-long-awaited sequel)

Now this epitomises “remoteness”. We are lodged in a small bungalow a few kilometres away from our next adventure, Khao Yai National Park, where elephants, monkeys, cobras and even a few tigers live in the wild. Here in Prachinburi, we are illiterate baboons. We must revert to rudimentary sign language to communicate, as speaking and writing are completely out. Moreover, we seem to be <U>extraterrestrial</u>, illiterate baboons. People of all ages look at us at first with disbelief and then with amusement as we walk placidly around their country haven. We are way more interesting than the wildlife in Khao Yai, I’m afraid.

Floating into the park in a 1950 American Army jeep, donated to the Wildlife Fund of Thailand, macaques greet us, leisurely crossing the street on an expedition unknown. This jungle is extremely dense and (have I talked about this before?) it’s an inferno. Soon after a chance encounter with a 5-foot-long monitor lizard, we venture to the highest peak of Khao Yai, to appreciate the immensity and girth of this natural world. This tropical jungle is so dense, it is humanely impossible to walk through most of its parts, so we will settle for a few trails and waterfalls. Everywhere we tread, with our highly fashionable, leech-protecting white cloth socks, the buzzsaws of the insect world acknowledge our presence with a resounding screech, as macaques in the distance echo their pseudo-electronic pulse cry. These creatures seem to have 1000-watt amplifiers instead of lungs. After meeting a few random amphibians, we quickly come to the conclusion that we would not encounter any elephants or tigers today, as Lot, our finger-pointing, machete-wielding eyes of the jungle, tells us there are too many visitors in the park, today being a Buddhist holiday. So we resign our anticipation and glee to the discovery of the thickest and hottest jungle we’ve ever marched through. The mountains of northern Thailand would be our last chance to see the wondrous pachyderm.

...

We, of the royal family of occidental wussies, have moved to an air-conditioned room after yesterday night’s sleepless, yet motionless, sweatfest. By the way, I, of the incandescent flesh, now arbour on the left thigh a splendid aurora bruisealis the likes of which have rarely been seen; a Thai-dye thigh, if you will. Marie-Eve does not think a close-up picture is a good idea, so I resign to printing this image on my overcooked brain.

Conclusion next week...

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The view of the suspended railway in front of us and to our right over a jagged cliff and a jungle-overcome river ooh’d and aah’d everyone of course. And suddenly, I disappeared from sight...

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