November 2011 and I found myself walking across the widest
part of Thailand. For about half the
walk my Thai friend, Onanong accompanied me.
While it is not too unusual to see a backpacker in Thailand, it is
unusual to see them actually walking with a goal other than to drag their packs
from one guesthouse to another as they move down the road a hundred yards from
one guesthouse to another.
It is even more unusual to see Thai people walking any
lengthy distance. On this stretch of
highway Onanong was walking along with me.
She is a tiny woman, standing 150 cm (4’-11” ) and weighing just 42
kilos ( 92 pound). Her backpack perched
high on her back seems larger than her when she walks in front of me.
We were walking from the city of Phitsanilok toward
Sukhothai the ancient capital city of the Kingdom of Siam. Part of the road wound perilously through the
mountains, a narrow, winding thread of concrete that at some places had no
shoulder so we were forced to walk on the roadway or on a steep and slippery
dropoff.
This stretch of road was really dangerous. I had visions of a car or bus careening
around a corned and just knocking me and Onanong off the edge of the cliff like
roadside. We couldn’t walk on the
opposite side of the road, because the road was blasted and carved into the
rock mountainside. We could not risk
being caught between the sheer vertical rock face and some careless
driver.
To add to our visibility I took a broken branch and used the
sturdy stick like a flagpole to tie a bright blue shirt onto the end of
it. I carried this makeshift flag so
that it stuck up higher than my pack, fluttering in the breeze.
“Keith, what is that for?” Onanong asked as I cobbled
together this makeshift warning device.
I explained it was so drivers might see us better. Then in characteristic Thai fashion she
didn’t say much more about my warning flag.
However as we started walking again, I noticed Onanong was lagging
behind me a bit. The gap of 10 yards
made it seem as if she wasn’t really with me.
Later that day Onanong confessed I embarrassed her carrying
the flag. The entire idea of walking and
sleeping in strange people’s yard was quite embarrassing to Onanong. So much so, that when she walked with me, we
generally found some National Park campground or a guesthouse or lodge to room
at overnight. Only when I was walking
alone did I sleep in yards, schoolyards and on some temple grounds.
For me this adventure was a challenge of the physical
kind. Walking 5 to 15 miles, day after
day, carrying a backpack when the temperature was pushing 100 degrees in the
shade was tough for me. Getting up in
the morning, eating a banana and then waiting while the Ibuprofen eased the
pains in my body enough that I could get up and carry the pack again was
challenging for me.
The mental difficulties that Onanong faced as a devout Thai
woman trying to throw off the cultural shackles of 2000 years of history, to do
something beyond the comprehension of the average Thai was far more difficult a
challenge to overcome. Whenever a
friendly driver would stop and offer us a ride, Onanong was forced to face the
same barrage of questions each time.
“Pi, you need a ride? Are you
walking because you cannot afford to buy a ticket on the bus? Are you okay?
Is this farang (foreigner) forcing you to walk so he can save money on
bus fare? You want to go to Myanmar, why
don’t you ride?”
Onanong’s challenge was of the mind, something far more
difficult to overcome than the few aches and pains I suffered with during our
walk. She could not swallow 2 Ibupropen
then wait 15 minutes for the embarrassment to go away. It dogged her every footstep.
Onanong wants to say a few words about this walk. Here is what she has to say.
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