Deborah's Southeast Asian Adventure

The movie filming has finally wrapped and I've been invited to attend the WRAP party tonight on the beach in Ao Nang by Horace who has styled me with the title "The Location". Why? Two days ago, the hotel manager contacted me to ask if I would allow the crew to film a scene from my room balcony which has the perfect view of the small swimming pool where they were filming the crocodile attack on the corrupt businessman. I agreed. Then the film's location manager came up to me and offered me a free dinner for two and bottle of wine, plus cocktails during happy hour. Which was just fine with me as it was 'no skin off of my back' to oblige. The next day, he informed me that they needed to film from my room again. I stayed to watch and then went down to sit beside the director who was filming the gory scenes when the crocodile eats the guy. It was fascinating. To make the pool look like it was filled with blood, they filled it with this thick Malaysian rasperry juice then stuck this huge, fake rubber crocodile in it and thrashed it around. Next, they had the businessman who was to be eaten shoot some scenes where he is scrambling to get out of the pool unsuccessfully.

This actor was really friendly and let me take his photo. He was half Thai, half American and spoke perfect English and Thai. In between sets, he gave me a quick lesson in Thai pronunciation and talked about the tonality of the language. Horace and I then proceeded to have a delicious meal of Thai Green curry and got drunk on plenty of Mekong (local Thai rum) and cokes.

In between the film excitement, I've been enjoying the southern Thai beach landscape which is truly stunning. Imagine white sand and emerald green water with these massive limestone formations covered in trees and plants rising out of the Adaman Sea. Stunning! Two days ago, I went on a day-long excursion where about 30 of us visited several islands (Bamboo Island, Monkey Island, Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Le) and did some swimming, snorkelling and sunbathing. The snorkelling was so beautiful. The fish are so colourful and you can feel them nibbling at your hands as you throw them bread. The water was beautiful and deep (12 metres in some places) but surprisingly warm. We had a lunch feast on Phi Phi Don, site of a village badly-hit by the tsunami. It was really sad to see the place where about 6000 people lost their lives. They are busy re-building but locals say it's a shell of it's former self. (This is where they filmed "The Beach" starring Leonardo di Caprio.) Yesterday, I hung out by the pool at this resort but today, I took a longtail boat to East Railay, another beautiful beach. I could only stay for three hours since the sun was so intense. I decided to be adventurous and took local transportation all the way back - what is known as a songthaew which is basically a pick-up truck with an open back with a bench along each side. You just squeeze in with a bunch of locals, grab on to something and speed away. The plus is that it costs nothing.

I'm staying at this really nice resort but I'm so thankful that the friendly film crew is here. Besides them, it's mostly filled with 50-something-ish European couples. It's shocking how anti-social they are. They stick to themselves and make no effort to interact or even be friendly with fellow hotel guests. I tried to strike up a friendly conversation with a guy who approached me about a mixed up bill and you could see that he was just so uncomfortable with the contact. (I later saw him having dinner with a demure Thai woman.) After living in Europe for several years, I'm still not used to the coldness of some of the people.

Yesterday during dinner, I made the remark that my guidebook mentioned that sex tourism between Thai women and foreign men really took off because of the American military presence. Horace almost jumped out of his seat and responded that this was complete horsehit. According to him, sexual exploitation has existed for years in Thailand, long before Western men came along. He said that Thai culture has a long tradition of men having wives and several concubines, even claiming that still today, Thai businessmen, generals, and wealthy men maintain loads of women on the side. The difference is that it's frowned upon when it involves a farang (foreigner). The funny thing is that while I've seen literally hundreds of couples composed of Thai women and white European or American men, I have not seen one single, solitary example of a Thai man and Western woman. I wonder why that is?