Thai's All, Folks!

> In one corner of the market there was a food stall with a large number of baskets and a small number of smiling Chinese. "You eat snake?", they asked, and I didn't realize they were speaking English, so I just nodded, "Yes, I am hungry". Then I was introduced to the inside of the baskets, which turned out to be full of cobras. I finally got the idea of what it was they were trying to sell to me. I had the choice between cobras ranging in all sizes between tiny worm up to three meter long king cobras. I brought forward all the money I had left after getting my 200 baht bus ticket out of Thailand, to Penang, gave it to the snake sellers, and they picked out a 30cm wriggling, green one for me.

Here comes the part that will make it impossible to put "No animals were hurt during the making of this movie" when my travel journal goes to Hollywood. Do look away if you're really fond of snakes. What happened was that they fastened the snake by its neck to some gadget on the wall. Then they made a small cut on each side of its uh... throat, or upper, upper body, just below the head (it is kinda hard to describe body parts of snakes accurately, don't you think?), and ripped off the snake's skin, all the way to the end of its uhm... bottom. It was very apparent that the snake was still alive, as it objected against the butcher's administerings by hissing and moving its body vigorously. The uhm... "tail" was fastened to the wall, and a cup was set below it, so that the snake's blood could be collected. The meat was simply cut off in pieces, and pretty soon the small cobra stopped moving around. I had the option of having the meat grilled, shish kebab-like, or to have a soup made of it.

So, that was how I came to feast on a bowl of snake soup and drinking snake blood on November 16, 1996. It had an interesting flavour, but I couldn't help thinking about the snake's last, silent cries. I guess I should go to my local butchery at home more often and realize that animals die in various ways there as well in order to let me enjoy meaty meals.

Anyway. Been there, done that.

Although a bit bothered by screaming snakes nightmares, my last night in Thailand had arrived. I was kind of happy about that. By now I was fed up with Thai culture. The people seem to be ultra nationalists, and they considered themselves, their country in general and their king and royals in particular to be superior to others in a way that even makes Norwegians seem modest #:D) Seriously, I had a problem with relating to the Thai pride. I almost hope that the Thai economy will not experience the continued boost they predict for themselves. The Thai attitude would benefit from a slight down-turn, was my honest opinion.

(This IS the Thai alphabet.)

Having said that, I didn't experience food poisoning while in Thailand. I was utterly impressed by the infrastructure and modernization that is taking place. At the same time, the Thais are very good at keeping their culture alive in the modernization of the country, making it a very interesting place to visit. Oh, and if you go to the cities and expect to see "everyone" riding their own bike, you will not be satisfied. The cities are polluted, partially because everyone rides their own motorbike these days.

The language is quite difficult to pick up, as the Thai language has its own alphabet. I found it very difficult to get used to, coming from a Latin alphabet country myself, so I had to base my Thai vocabulary on what I could figure out from spoken conversations. As everywhere else, the people will smile at you when you try speaking their language, and it can get you a much better price on anything if you just learn enough to be able to bargain in Thai. If you speak only English and don't know what to pay, you are VERY likely to end up paying many times more than you should. By "more than you should", I mean what locals and experienced bargainers pay, not necessarily what would be a fair price for a Westerner to pay, considering the different financial backgrounds of locals and Westerners.

After having seen quite a few different parts of the country, there's nothing that makes me want to go back as soon as possible, maybe apart from the beaches. I certainly would not pick Thailand as the destination for a family vacation. A lot of the tourist traps should be banned for people under 18 years of age. And they certainly should be banned for ugly, fat, aging European and American men with money to spend, especially in the interest of the Thais.

So, being a bit Thaired, I went to Malaysia .