Most of the ten million or so people who live in Bangkok have little chance of escape from the smog and the traffic. Poor wages and a long working week means that any spare time is spent sleeping or attending to chores. But there is an emerging middle class, with time and money and a car, and they need somewhere to go to amuse themselves. Some of them come to Pattaya, clogging up the roads at the weekend; and no doubt other beach locations in reach of Bangkok are similarly inundated. But what if they fancy the countryside? Then Khao Yai and the surrounding area is the answer.
If you really want nature, there is the Khao Yai National Park, 2,000 square kilometres of forest, stuffed with wildlife just waiting to eat you, given half a chance. Of course, there is little chance of seeing any of this wildlife if all you do is drive through on the excellent road, windows closed, aircon on, and Justin fucking Bieber on the stereo because she who must be obeyed’s little sister has no musical taste.
You are taunted with the possibility of whizzing round a corner and colliding with a pachyderm the size of a house:
But what you actually collide with is a large pile of elephant shit which hardly qualifies for enjoying nature and the lingering aroma from the bodywork leads to arguments with the wife who is convinced I could have driven round it rather than into it.
In an hour or so of driving through the park, all we saw was this. Not sure what it is called, other than “lunch” to a tiger:
Of course, you are not meant to just drive through the park. You are meant to don camouflaged clothing and trek for days through the undergrowth in the hope of seeing some wildlife. Worst outcome: You are also named as “lunch”. Best outcome: You stand in a lot of elephant shit, are extensively bitten by leeches and mosquitoes, and have to lie about the “amazing experience” when you eventually return. As my maths teacher used to say, bugger that for a game of soldiers.
And the Thais seems to agree with my maths teacher, because they head to Khao Yai not for the national park and the endless trekking, but for all the crap that has sprung up around the park.
An enlightened park policy would ensure that the area around the park was kept natural to ease animal migration and keep the area beautiful. But there is money to be made, so instead of exiting the park and driving into rolling farmland, you drive into wall-to-wall restaurants, resorts and weekend housing complexes for the affluent of Bangkok. So the weekend warriors can stay in an authentic log cabin made of authentic logs made out of authentic concrete and have a wide choice of restaurants, where they can stuff their faces before heading back in convoy to Bangkok.
Trouble is, they have no exciting photos of their country adventure to show their friends when they get back. They could pop into the national park and snap some elephant dung; but that’s hardly going to cut it at the coffee machine on Monday morning. What Khao Yai needed was a place for people to take photos that highlighted the diversity of the animals, the unspoiled forest, a place that reflected nature untouched by human influence. What Khao Yai got was an Italian town.
(Excuse the heavy vignetting on a couple of these shots, it just a “feature” of my Angenieux lens).
Or rather, they got what someone thought an Italian town might look like. It’s called Palio and it sits, like a boil on the face of supermodel, not far from the gates of the national park. Narrow streets are stuffed with shops selling the same rubbish you would find in a Bangkok shopping mall, with only a pizza parlour making any attempt at being remotely Italian. The walls of the buildings have been treated so it appears that rendering has fallen off; just like it probably doesn’t in real Italian towns.
Just to make sure we know we are in Italy, the theme from the Godfather plays over the public address, interspersed with announcements about special offers in the shops; just to make sure we know we are really in Thailand.
It’s surreal, slightly hideous, and, knowing that is sits just kilometres away from the park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, slightly obscene. But what the hell, the Thais love it. Not for the shops, which seem to be generally ignored, but for the photo opportunities.
(I thought “Antiek” was Dutch…)
Even though it was weekday, the place was packed with people making victory signs and being photographed. Even she who must be obeyed had her sister leaning against walls and was snapping away happily. Fortunately, it started to rain so we left. When we arrived back at the poo-spattered car in the authentic Italian car park, I took a deep inhale and relished the smell of elephant shit; so much more refreshing than the offensive turd of a place we had just visited.
Comments 🔗
2011-03-17| Pete saysI love the ‘Go Away’ sign on the Dutch antique shop. How apt!
2011-03-18| Barry saysYes. I wonder that is about? But Spike, you miserable old sod - the Italian village with Dutch signage (wouldn’t be Thailand without that kind of screw-up) does look quite nice. Far, far better than most souvenir areas elsewhere. They’ve made a decent effort. I’ve seen something similar in Disneyworld or land (can’t remember which the one in Florida is called) and looks better to me than almost any other part of Thailand. It’s clean and smart and there are no fucking overhead cables all over the place. However - should be at a National Park? Well, it isn’t IN it, is it, so that’s okay. And I guess the people who visit need the ‘wall-to-wall restaurants. You take sandwiches, no doubt. Great photos by the way, as always.
2011-03-19| Spike saysSandwiches? No, we went to Fellatio Fracos Italian Diner where we were served with pork chops and chips with three slices of tomato and a piece of lettuce for approximately twice what we would have paid in Pattaya.
But you’re right, it’s actually rather pleasant.
2011-03-19| Wentworth saysSurely the emerging middle class have more than one car between them.