A non-conformity flight

Homeward bound, I had a pleasure of a 5:00 a.m. boarding one of the American airways serviced to the U.S. via Narita, Japan. It seemed to be a no complaint flight judging by experience I had on the way to Bangkok. I did not expect anything different on this one.

Well, I was a bit surprise.

Things were going smooth from BKK to NRT on an airbus craft. Five minutes into an old Boeing 747 I was informed by the captain it was going to be a bumpy ride. When I flied I always chose the aisle seat to be able to get out often for the restroom. My seat was five rows from the back of business section. The captain said he was going to put the seat belt sign on for about three hours until it was clear of hurdles.

A conformist I am, I was sitting tight in my seat and of course with seat belt on. At regular situation I would also locked my seat belt no matter the captain has asked or not, just because I hate to be waken up by a flight attendance during the turbulence. I’ve seen some passengers from behind my seat making their visits to the restroom in front of us getting ready for a long sit still.

Then when things got quiet down I realized I should make a similar visit too. Unlocked my belt and walked up to that restroom behind business class, there was coming a well aged lady attendant making a jester and words, "Sir, you should go back to your seat". “I need the restroom,” I said. “I know,” she exchanged with a tone of authority. “But the seat belt sign is on.”

Afraid to be called a non-conformist, I turned back to my seat and fasten the belt holding my necessity until a future opportunity late in the flight. My necessity was not an urgent one anyhow.

To my astonishment the same lady came back in a few minutes with a piece of white paper, a letter size, in her hand. She pulled on a curtain to separate the two classes in traveling on airplane, they’re called the zones, and tucked it on. I could see writing in fine ink only that they are in English and Japanese. The wording I could not dole out but was understandable when a lady passenger of an Indian look turned back when she read the sign.

I had no other idea in interpreting the flight attendant act but to remind myself that standard does not always come in single. Not only I should not go to the restroom while the seat belt sign is on, but also I should not use the restroom in the frontal class when I was in a behind class. Not even when my seat was just a few feet away from it and many others passengers in my class have used it.

The puzzle came to me that was I being objected to as a non conformist, or myself was objectionable. It was such a silly question.

For a long time I sat still in my seat while many peoples got up and went to that restroom behind business class section after an announcement from the captain again that the seat belt sign was going to be on most of the time, but passengers could go to the restroom if they made it quick. The consolation came too late, I think, because it was exactly the same idea I was rejected when I got up and walked a short distance to the business class restroom, to make it quick.

To ease my puzzlement I pulled out my camera and took a picture of the white sign on the curtain separating business and economy classes, hopefully to get more details out of the copy for I did not dare to go near that curtain again.

Pretty soon there was an announcement for my section that the ladies could use the restroom in the back of business class section. It was also understandable considered that area was frequent by a team of female attendants.

Finally I decided to get up and walk to the back of the plane when the seat belt sign was not on. A bit surprise one more time when I found one available restroom’s door was broken and wide open. No wonder many people went to the restroom in business class because the necessity relief was in limited supply.

Through the flight I watched a team of lady flight attendants, most of them looked over fifty, working hard and full of efforts. They were trying to make a long flight smooth. I used to see other crews, mostly Asian and younger, did without a sign of struggle. I began to admire these ladies professionalism and took the matter to myself that a sad incident happen because I was at best just too naive .

I tried to enjoy the rest of a flight where movie screen was one large size on the wall for everyone to share, unlike a standard small screen in front of each seat for a passenger to choose the program they like. No matter what my food tray in front of me was crooked and not leveled, plus my earphone were broken twice.

I did not have any complaint for the rest of the flight until we landed at JFK. The usual communication from the captain while the plane was taxiing to its parking spot to remind passenger not to unlock their seat belts before the sign is off. When the sign did go off I was standing ready to disembark the plane. The guy behind me try to push me to walk further to the front and stand waiting in business class section, the one that became almost a forbidden land to me.

All of a sudden, an unexpected announcement came on by the captain. “Sorry folks, you have to go back to your seat." It sounded like he was joking but he was not, "we park in a wrong spot.” “Please go back to your seat. We are going to be towed back out to a right spot.” It was like an anti-climax when everybody was rushing to the exit doors and had to pull back.

But I guest all airline passenger are the conformists, otherwise we would be reading a next day headline news, “Passenger fall off the plane trying to park at JFK”.

Insignificant excursion and a farmer tale.

An unexpected phone talk with an old friend from L.A. led me to an insignificant but satisfactory excursion to the mountainous villages of the Clitys in Garnjanaburi province.

I was at a dinner party celebrating birthday of a senior mentor in Bangkok. The birthday man was a rector of my alma mater, Thammasat University. One junior alumna mentioned Loong Yee as one of our coincidentally favorite older friend. She dialed him right away just to try if the connection was viable. It was, because he happened to be out of his farm at a time. He went to a lower land nearby, where wireless signal was possible.

“Hey Chad, come on over to see me here at Clity,” his voice was loud and full of excitement. After a few minutes of greeting and getting an old buddy relationship reconnected, he let out some words that got me more interesting. “I planted coffee,” he said.

“Oh, really, wow!” I let the jargons described my enthusiasm. It suddenly came to my mind that I got to spend time in a coffee plantation again for the second time. The first one was a long time ago in the South. We spent the nights camping in soaking wet with dews tents under coffee trees. This time would be a bit different.

I took a few hours ride in transporting van to Garnjanaburi and caught another couple more hours van ride to Tongparpoom district where Loong Yee was waiting to pick me up. Then after lunch at a local village headman I climbed on his four wheels drive climbing the mountains of the Clitys.

I was reunited with an old friend who used to have everything in the U.S. and left it all to fulfill his satisfaction in Thailand. What he finally found here is an unfulfilled satisfaction, but more rewarding in his heart. He found himself, and a new expectation.

“Oh, what a man! What has he got? If not himself, then he has not,” the old blue eyes used to sing this encouraging tune for those of us who could not satisfy expectations.

Loong Yee might not be necessarily seeking satisfaction for any expectation. But his decision to come back to Thailand leaving his big grocery business in L.A. and his prominent place in the Thai community was definitely not a sorry one, not at all to him. He’s still striving as strong as a bull pulling big cart.

Loong Yee, or Pi Yee as I knew him before he left Los Angeles, was well known and liked. His success in business must have had less kick for his energy so he could set aside and went to find new excitement in politics of Thailand. He spent many years doing ground works in the elections for his close friend in Garnjanaburi. When he found out Thai politics would never be improved because the players, high or low, always resisted the changes, he moved on to farming, a passion he hasn’t relinquished.

He stayed around mountainous areas in Garnjanaburi for a couple of years before settled in Sungklaburi, an up-most district near the Burmese border. He built a country house there with no intention to set it aside again, not until he found cool weather of the Clitys. “This is my final destination,” he told me he would stay farming there to the end when we sat talking after dinner in dim light hooking up from car battery.

“I do this because it gives me a feeling of fulfillment.” He said pumping his two fists out in front of him. “I feel very proud in myself when I could finish what I wanted to do.” And he would never stop unless he finished. After a balloon heart surgery less than a year ago he’s still full of projects to make coffee farming success, not only for his plantation but for the whole region of Chalae.

“He did not have to do this.” One local village head told me about Loong Yee effort to make planting papaya in the upper Clity successful when most of farming in the area is corn. The Clitys, one Lower and one Upper, are two attached villages in the mountains of Chalae district, Tongparpoom township in Garnjanaburi province of Thailand. It’s only 300 some kilometers from Bangkok in a 700 meters elevation where temperature could go down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit in winter and a balmy 70 degrees in summer.

The Clitys were just two unknown mountainous villages on the edge of Tung Yai Naresuan, a huge forestry national park in western Thailand where ethnic Karen live and farm. The lower Clity was in the front page newspaper about five years ago when toxins from a lead mine poisoned local waterhole and killed some villagers. Remaining of toxins are not harmful now but water supply is dwindled because of corn farming took away chunks of forestry.

Loong Yee effort is to persuade the locals to plant sustainable crops so that the forest is not encroached and big trees are not cut down to open up for corn farming. Besides corn farming is cultivated only once a year and made the soil eroded over time. Loong Yee model to plant two friendly crops side by side with big trees will save the soil in long run and farmers can cultivate their crops almost year round. It would bring prosperity to the area. It’s also Loong Yee dream.

When he came to the Clitys five years ago he did not know exactly what his accomplishment would be. He only knew he wanted to be part of the locals who live by thick woods with no electricity, nor wireless signal. He fell in love with the locale and its weather. He built up ten resort style cottages furnished for travelers staying. He has open cottages mostly for friends and family. He was not yet ready for full operation of his home-stay. His attention has been in farming.

He started planting papaya and raising goats. Papaya was going well until the inevitable virus attacked. So did the goats until the tigers attacked. Goat has habit of going around nibbling everything in the neighborhood. The locals hate it. Loong Yee had to put his goats away from the villages and closer to the jungle. It was welcome by the tigers. Pretty soon Loong Yee had to give up his goat altogether. But for the papaya he fought on.

Many farmers in the area includes an adjacent district of Srisawat had to give up papaya farming because of the virus attacks. Others would fight it with antibiotic substances for a month or two before they decided to cut all the crops down. Instead, Loong Yee would increase the doses and their frequency. He kept doing that for three months until he saw new leaves came out.

He became legend for papaya farming in the area. Other farmers then tried to imitate him by going for the exact supply of antibiotics he had used. Only a few succeeded because they did not have determination and endurance like him. The legend now goes, “papaya virus was so stubbornly strong but Loong Yee was tremendously more stubborn.”

Before his fight with the papaya virus Loong Yee was introduced to coffee planting by a neighbor farmer. Loong Sugij is not exactly a farmer. Some would call him a hi-so or rich-man farmer. He’s a successful textile industry owner who has very much interest in coffee. Loong Sugij went to many dois (mountains) in the North where coffee farming are now outstanding. He brought back some Arabica to plant in his land in upper Clity five years ago. Now his coffee is recognized by the president of coffee aficionados association as a good potential.

The president saw healthy coffee in Loong Yee plantation that looked a lot better than Loong Sugij’s. He wanted to cup tasting Loong Yee coffee next year. It is an excitement we talked about most of my three nights stay at the plantation. I tasted Loong Sugij’s coffee from Loong Yee jar. It was as good as a Kawaii’s or Sumatra’s, I certainly believe. There’s no doubt with better condition, coffee from Loong Yee’s plantation would yield higher potential.

It becomes a very tall order for a man who is reaching his seventy.

I have more than encouragement for Loong Yee expectation. Coffee is a second largest commodity of the world trailing behind only oil. Thailand has just emerged into coffee industry when Doi Charng’s coffee was recognized by a German review. Loong Yee said to me he wanted the Clitys to be a significant coffee farming of Thailand. His plan is to produce high quality buds for local farmers and expand coffee farming in the area. His goal is to increase coffee plantation to 500 rais (200 acres) for the next five years.

He wants the locals to use his model of combination planting, coffee and papaya or coffee and banana. Coffee will start yielding in three years while papaya and banana will be ready for market in just a year. This model of combo farming would give enough income to farmers to keep going after twelve months. All local farmers would prosper by his model.

It seems like high hope of a dreamer if you are talking about it in classroom or coffee bar. But we were talking about this in a plantation where I could see red and green of coffee beans and papaya fruits juxtaposing under the warm sun and in cool breeze of upper Clity.

One would be a rag not to hope and dream in such environment.

Pinang Expres-sion

Pinang Expres-sion.

Late October in Thailand has never been like this in forty years. There are still plenty of rains everywhere for 2010. Here and there the rain fall seems not going to go away any time soon. The flood looms large in Bangkok when many provinces up countries are braving with their next height of water. In some area the water already reaches their beds on the upper floor.

The country is now having new omen to fight with. Daily television reporting is full of the situation where suffering peoples express their gratitude to the peoples who gave them “life sustaining sacks” or bag of dry and can foods and other necessities. This is a favorite charity made famous in the past decade by the king.

Some peoples might pray for his majesty shrewdness in irrigation, as portrayed by the press and governmental media outlets, to save the country from water disaster. Some others blamed on illegal logging in the area of Wang Nam Kieu nears Kao Yai and in the forest of Pak Thong Chai Mountain for the cause of flooding in the northeast. Amid admittance by Thailand’s head of irrigation department that certain amount of water has been released to save the dams. Dams projects are paramount in Thailand for the king farsightedness initiative in irrigation.
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But I set out anyhow on another trek, this time to the South on a sort of express train travel when the monsoon season is expecting within a month ahead. Destination Pinang, an old city used to be flourish under the British rule. I long to see this city for quite sometimes, admiring its historical architectures in downtown Georgetown.

One of its landmarks is the Eastern and Oriental Hotel. It remains a legend of a fond memory the English had left in the region. Some history enthusiasts would be happy to tell you of the two other significant of the old luxury in Rangoon and Singapore, where the colonial English gathered for their society away from home at the Strand and the Raffle. But we, three senor Thais settle for Hotel Oriental on Pinang Road. It’s not to compare with the world class Oriental hotel in Bangkok. It’s still a convenient stay not too old and not too shabby nears all attractions travelers should not miss when visiting Pinang.
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Me and one of my old classmates from college year, Uparit, took the Bangkok-Butterworth train from Hua Lumpoang, one afternoon nears the end of October, on a twenty four hours trip down south. We were going from an unprecedented rainfalls season in Thailand to an island in Northern Malaysia where usual heavy rainfall is soon to come. Another classmate, Prayoon, would join us at a train stop in Haad Yai, a big city some hundred kilometers from Thrung, the province he now lives deep-south.

The long ride abroad an express class was more comfortable and very much enjoyable than other trips by Thai train I previously had. Don’t be confused this express with metaphor of the Oriental Express. There is a real Asian Express service between Bangkok and Singapore with ticket price thirty times more. Our express train was as good as it got. The enjoyable part was long chatting with a couple of old friends. The comfort came from a steady flow of air-conditioning plus the not too bad food and, of course, a good bottle of Thai beer.

The nine cars express from Bangkok would reduce to a two car expres-sion at Haad Yai carried fewer travelers and locals southern Thais, Malays and Indians across the border. Passengers walked through passport inspections from Thai immigration to the Malaysian inside one small building before re-boarding the train. Then came, an easy over three hours ride to witness green scenery of a former Thai province of Tsaiburi, where palm tree plantations were in dominant.

We pursed from talking to each other to exchanging some life experiences and interesting stories with a fellow traveler sitting across the aisle. We noticed this young American adventurer was meditating in his seat. We found out he was doing Thai Theravasda meditation. He said he was a scuba diving and yoga instructor traveling the world for eight years, occasionally returned home in Dallas, Texas for short visits.

We envy his lifestyle, but I bet he admires ours.
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Looking from the ferry while sailing from Butterworth port to the island, Pinang was a lot bigger than I thought. I had a picture of an old village may be the same size or slightly larger than Phuket in Thailand. But a city on the island I saw was full of high rises, a similar appearance of Hong Kong or Zhang Hai. I’d arrived Pinang feeling resemblance landing at Samui on the Gulf of Siam. Some part of Georgetown reminded me of Chavaenge, a Western section on Samui.

Like Samui, Pinang has its main road along the shore circumventing the island. We started to explore the old Georgetown right after checked into the hotel. The center of Pinang is full of colonial architectures. Rows of old two stories concrete buildings stand abundance on every street. I enjoyed the afternoon walk around inner Georgetown taking lot of pictures of the buildings. At a street vender, we stopped for Laksa, a signature bowl of Malaysian curry noodles.

One of my classmate friends has been in Pinang several times. Uparit is pretty much familiar with the locale. He was in to relaxing atmosphere and some western dishes, especially steak, there. But we decided on local delicacy for our next dinner. One street corner vender excited us with succulent freshly prepared pork kidney and liver in rice soup. Rain that was on and off all day began to pour more on the last night before we left Pinang.

We had no idea our next itinerary would be very much memorable.

From Pinang, Uparit took a flight to Singapore to tend to his business. I and Prayoon took a four hours van ride into southern Thailand. We would cross the border at Jungloon across from Daan Norg of Thailand. My re-entering into the country was technically a procedure to continue my visa for Thailand. I somehow wasn’t much alarm when a Thai immigration at the check point told us about flooding situation inside southern Thailand.
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There were floods along the way to Haad Yai. The bad one was at Sadau about twenty some kilometers from Daan Norg. Rain was already heavy at the check point. A few kilometers away from Daan Norg, the Malaysian van driver suddenly slowed down and made a U turn back to where we had just left. He said he received an instruction phone call from the station in Haad Yai not to proceed. Flood has covered the road deep at Sadau unable for the van to wade through.

There were three passengers on the van, we the two Thai senors and a young Thai high school girl going home in Nakorn Srithammaraj for a visit on her school break. I asked the driver what was going on. He said he would leave us at Daan Norg and go back to Pinang. The girl called her mom who was waiting to pick her up at Haad Yai station. Rain was heavier when we got back to Daan Norg. After a few arguments with me the driver received another instruction to wait there until further notice.

The girl mom, driving in her Range Rover and accompanied by the station manager, were coming to pick her daughter up. The plan was adjusted to what I was trying to tell the driver, that he should take us to where the heavy flood was. Then we could hitch a ride on the passing heavy duty trailer truck across deep water covering portion of the road.

Luckily things went well with the plan.
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We were waiting at the edge of the water when one big trailer came. The driver let the girl ride in his front cab and us two senors on the deck behind. I was one hand holding an umbrella the other clicking my Olympus digital. We had to wait a while for the rescue of a family from the water in front of us. Neighbors used big rope to go down the side road where the family was stuck in neck high wild water.

Getting through a large trench of rushing water at Sadau was like having soup or salad first for this flooding adventure. A few more side dishes were serving thereafter not too far and at two other districts include Taloong. Riding in the all terrain vehicle in high water covering wheels was very exciting. Muddy thick orange color water was slamming through the center divider of the road through the car.

The girl’s mother took us to Haad Yai by late afternoon and the rain was still dancing. She decided to spend the night in Haad Yai when she was informed the road to Nakorn Srithammaraj was also flooded. She turned into a hotel with its first floor sits several meters above the street level. I agreed with her decision not to drive on home where she might get stuck in the flood in the middle of night. I also admire her decision to seek higher ground with anticipation of a big flood in the city she is staying.

That anticipation we did not share almost regrettably.
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The main course of flooding came that night fast and furious at around ten. Then the light went out all over the city in less than an hour later. I tried to stay asleep through the night packing my energy for the worst to come next day. Water level was more than two meters from the street. Looking from the tenth floor of a hotel, I saw thick muddy orange color water covered any open space not occupied by any tall building or structures everywhere in Haad Yai.

The history of 2000 flood in the city was now in repetition. This time the water level may be even higher. It could be at least two and a half meters high. Looking outside the hotel there was no activity anywhere almost all day until early afternoon except one rowing boat came around one o’ clock. About seven or eight helicopters were flying in a direction to a military barracks at around 4:00 p.m. A few motored boats came by at five. A group of peoples from the hotel took boat ride to dry land where transportation was possible to take them to the airport.

Rubber motor boats and long tail boats were helping to move sick peoples out of the flooded area all afternoon. But one lady who needed dialysis had to wait more than twenty four hours for the ride. They said they could also take a few people to the main street at Big C where ground transportation was still viable.
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Now there was a way to get out of water by boat, but to get to the airport on the road the rest of the way was a big question “how”. It was not a smart thing to stand hitchhiking on the roadside for the situation. What if the rain was pouring down hard again and no car or truck was able to pick you up.

The night came with a streak of hope when I got a message on the phone that my friend, a retired local police chief, was calling me. I made through a call back. He said his former attaché, who is now a police major at Songkla Police Command, was trying to contact me. Songkla is the mother city for Haad Yai.

When I got a hold of Maeng “the major” he was ready to pick us up anywhere possible.

Next morning hope was scant when I learned that boats rescue were still not able to stop at the hotel. Foods were still offered by the hotel, but water needed to be cut down because supply had drastically dwindled. The worry remained because the rain came again last night .The sky was foggy over the city all morning.

My friend, Prayoon, seemed to be in high spirit. I told him to go out of there with me if we could get a boat ride. I would board a plane back to Bangkok and he could stay in Songkla where the land was still dry. He was reluctant. He has been saying the water would go down soon and we could get out. I did not think so but opted to stay mum.
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Things looked brighter when the sun show up by late morning and the water level went half way down before noon. A few six wheels and ten wheels trucks came by to distribute foods and supplies, the so called “life sustaining sags”. They let some peoples ride on their way back out. We were packed ready waiting at the hotel lobby for an available space on the next truck. Maeng’s assistant police man would come to the circle to take us to the bus station. I changed plan to take the bus to Bangkok because air transportation might be delayed. Plus airfares at the time were heavenly high.

By early afternoon water level went down even more. Thai authority was pumping out water all morning. This is the city considered very important because it’s one of the main constituencies for the Democrat, a core political party in the government. It’s also a part of home town of the head of the King’s Privy Council, General Prem Tinsulanonda. Flooding somewhere else in the country didn’t get this kind of vital treatment.

Most of the eighteen provinces hit hard by flood earlier like Ayuthya, Koraj, Udorn, Roy-ed are still soaked with water. Riding on a tour bus to Bangkok that night I saw water reached up to the road along the route. Rains were still pouring hard in Pattalung, Surastani and Choomporn. Surastani also had acute flooding.

Arrived in Bangkok at wee hour of the morning, I breathed nice cool breeze of the early Thai winter air.

Bangkokians were not reluctant to show their appreciation of the first day of winter on “facebook”. They seemed to be in jubilant mood much more contradictory to what peoples in Haad Yai and other flooded cities elsewhere were. Bangkok is also situated in low land area like bottom of a bow the same way as Haad Yai. Bangkok could escape all of water calamities this year because of its prominent status within the country.

This is a kind of double standard prevalent in Thailand in all aspects of living nowadays. I was not surprise when I heard that peoples in the flood stricken area of Ayuthya already scorned Bangkok, not because a bigger city got a better treatment. But the water that was supposed to flood Bangkok was instead sidetracked off to neighboring provinces like Ayuthya, Pratoomtani and Saraburi.

I am amazed indeed.

The Sprinter Journal

ChadSri in Northern Thailand, October 12-13, 2010

A lady put her green duffle on the brushed wooden bench beside my backpack looked at me nervously smiling. “Be my guest,” I said making gesture to let her know that we can always share public facility. She then walked around a few meters away empty hands and came back a few minutes later starting conversation.

“Where are you heading to?” And. “What time is your train leaving?” Those ordinary questions travelers would talk to each other anywhere in the world. When she found out my train hadn’t arrived yet and wouldn’t depart in a good forty five minutes she then asked, “Would you watch my bag? I’d like to go find something to eat.”

“Ah, yes, but don’t take too long” I said thinking that was the appropriate courtesy not being overly cautious during the time when just a week ago there were several bombs and bomb scares around Bangkok. The situation was now quiet down after the six months anniversary of the 10th April 2010 government cracked down on the Red Shirt protestors at the Democracy Monument, of which many lives were lost including a Japanese journalist and a few soldiers. But most of them were unarmed civilians.

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I was waiting for the train on a few days trek up north to Pitsanuloak, an ordinary province on the outskirt of Northern Thailand where tourism is still insignificant. I went there hoping to find, perhaps, the other branch of my family roots. A year ago I learned from my 96 years old aunt that my grand father had a brother when they came from China more than a century back. The brothers split and had never seen each other again, I was told.

Then a month later I talked with a friend in L.A. who used to live in the province. There is an established family business in her hometown city belongs to a clan with the same last name as mine. With some help from a university classmate who is one of the local I could locate the family.

The peoples who live at the establishment and run the business now is a third generation and do not know much about their roots. But there is still a grand mother who might be able to answer my quest one way or another. So I set up for this exciting quest.

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The lady came back in shorter time than I expected. She now conversed with acquaintance. She called me ‘uncle’ like everyone else I met in Thailand, young or old would call me. She talked more about her trip, my trip. Then another strange question popped up as I was a bit naïve about what was going on in the country I was born.

“Do you pay for your train ride?”
“Eh, Why not?”, was an instant answer in my mind.
“I did not pay for mine”, she continued.
“Oh.” Now I got it. It came to me that there was still a populist program the government tried to please the poor who are on the opposite side of Thai politics. This explained why she asked me all the questions about the type of train I would take, the destination and so forth.

She pulled out a worn out piece of flyer. It was the schedules for train services in all different types the Train Authority of Thailand operates, including all the stops along the routes I had no idea when I boarded the train. She pointed out on the charts that I could get free rides round trip if I took an ordinary, third class, train instead. But it would also take me three more hours in more crowded locomotives to the destination. Finally she wanted me to keep that worn out sheet which became very useful for the keen knowledge of my itinerary.

It happened that the lady saw me as a senior citizen who should take advantage of a populist Program offered by the government. It is a notion the underprivileged peoples of Thailand began to recognize not very long time ago. These are the peoples categorized as “Raag Ya”, a social class for grass root.

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The train I took was a special for second class called Sprinter for it run faster than normally the other second class called Rapid would do. There are several classes of train services in Thailand, though they all look and feel the same fatigued. The difference between a sprinter and a rapid is that one has air conditioning and the other has fans. The rapid train also makes all local stops while the sprinter only stops at stations for major cities.

My sprinter, a three car locomotive with engine underneath, named Rail Diesel for a kind of fuel it uses, still ran one hour overtime anyway. So I made right decision not to save a little more money riding in the “sweet-cold”, Thai slang for slow, Rapid or Ordinary third class.

However, the sprinter still gave me an extraordinary experience. First there was loud noise from underneath bothering me half of the way. The attendant, called Nai Truat, which means inspector, gave an explanation to one passenger for the cause of noise that the engine was sprinting but it had to be scaled down when traveling inside the cities. Something like you keeps taping on the gas pedal while the gear is in neutral. Then for half an hour in the middle of the way, the heat came out instead of air conditioning.

Other than that, the trip was memorable for nice scenery of the rainy season. Both sides of the track along the way from Nakorn Sawan, Gateway to the North, until we reached outside Pisanuloak I could see water almost everywhere under luscious green trees left over from heavy rainfalls.

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Pisanuloak was insignificant indeed. A small city with big history behind sits quietly between Nakorn Sawan and Uttaradit with some ruins remain in one of its oldest temple, Wat Chulamani. I stayed in a hostel suggested by my friend. It cost only half of any three star hotel would charge with all the same accommodations.

I visited the night market for dinner and morning market for breakfast. Marketplaces full of food and merchandises venders are everywhere in major cities of the countryside Thailand, as well as in many locales of Bangkok, like at Pratunam, Nana or China town.

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My mission was satisfactorily in completion, for I met a person whom I hope was related. A ninety years old lady talked to me in dept about her past. Her father was a Chinese came to Thailand more than a century ago like my grandfather. He was appointed a third rank of Siamese nobility, called Kun, by his patronage royalty who commanded a Siamese army for Pisanuloak territory.

His title was Kun Sripanich. Though spelling for the name is a slice different in Thai. But it can be the same surname as mine taking account from the fact that my father spelled his last name a little different than his elder brother from my grand father previous marriage. This Kun Sripanich did not use his title name as his last name. He took a new last name for Thai citizen.

His Chinese last name seams to be different than the one I heard was my grand father’s. I still need to check out some facts with my 96 years old aunt to establish any connection with this lady family. If there is no evident to support my hope I will still be satisfied with the mission as accomplished.

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Riding back another Sprinter train to Bangkok I felt a bit better than before I made my way to Pisanuloak. Then was the feeling of uncertainty whether what I was going to do is worthy for any accomplishment. Or it would be just another sheer nagging habit of the disregarded boxer who still wanted to be in the ring.

I enjoyed the ride more this time with consistent air conditioning and less, a lot less bothering noise, except from the cell phone conversation the lady behind me was utilizing Thailand’s advance technology.

Was I being nasty myself?

Nah!