En vrac

Y aller: d’octobre à février

Se déplacer: idéalement, en voiture (mais attention, on conduit à gauche). On peut aussi s’en remettre à un guide professionnel et sympa comme Komsan (alias Jerry) Suwannarat pour organiser le séjour et nous accompagner jusqu’au Cambodge et au Laos, si on le souhaite (jerrybkk.s@hotmail.com). Si on a du temps devant soi, l’autocar et le train et, sur place, les transports locaux sont d’autres options qu’on peut combiner, au terme du circuit, à une envolée sur Bangkok au départ d’Ubon Ratchathani.

*Se loger: dans la ville de Surin, à l’hôtel Majestic, un trois étoiles propret qui coûte à peine 40 $ la nuitée. Dans la province d’Ubon Ratchathani, non loin du hameau de Khongjiam, à l’hôtel Tohsang, une aubaine à partir de 65 $ la nuit. Au spa, offrez-vous un massage traditionnel des jambes et des pieds, qu’un thérapeute triture divinement à l’aide de ses doigts, jointures et coudes.

Soup and Seven Colors

Plying Thailand’s Chao Phraya River
Our boat hardly looked seaworthy. A converted rice barge with an articulated hull, it looked like a capsized armadillo. Three days cruising the famed Chao Phraya River was my husband Tom’s idea.

Heading north out of Bangkok, we would traverse a third of this 230-mile historic waterway, also called the River of Kings, and Thailand’s main trade and communications route for six centuries. Below decks the 66-foot Manohra Song showed herself to be a masterpiece of hand-worked Thai hardwoods. Four elegantly appointed staterooms each had a mirrored vanity, a step-down bathroom with a tile shower and a big step-up platform bed that faced a picture window, so one could lie abed and watch the vibrant theater of river life go by.

The Chao Phraya, besides replenishing one of the most fertile rice-growing regions on earth with topsoil washed down from the Highlands, also brought in the first Japanese, Persian, Dutch and English traders, including the first European emissary, Portugal’s Duarte Fernandez, who arrived on a Chinese junk in 1511. Bangkok nonetheless survived (in Joseph Conrad’s words) as “the Oriental capital which had yet suffered no white conqueror,” a point of pride that inspired a kingly name change from Siam to Thailand, or Free Land.

One of my hopes for the cruise, besides our not capsizing, was that I could learn a culinary trick or two from the ship’s private chef, nicknamed Icy by crewmates (because he’s from the north of Thailand). Icy, like all fine Thai cooks, ambushed us with a quiverful of vivid spices–lemongrass, coriander, tamarind and the eucalyptus-like galangal root–as well as fruits that look like hairy hand grenades, sauce made from fermented fish heads and the hottest chili peppers this side of the Himalayas.

“What is this?” Tom asked when during our first lunch our cheerful server, Antony, set a whole green coconut in front of him.

“This is tom kha gai,” said Antony. “Spicy soup with chickens.” Then he smiled and told us that in Thai tom means “soup.”

Though we both had ingested our fair share of chilis, neither of us was prepared for the heat of the Thai climate. Hoping for equatorial relief, we had arrived in September on the edge of the rainy season, but intermittent monsoons from an opalescent sky only turned the atmosphere into a steam bath. The Manohra Song’s ultra-air-conditioned rooms became our sanctuary.

As we motored along majestically at 6 miles an hour, turquoise-and-yellow hang yao (long-tail boats) blasted by, their propellers spun by 12-foot gleaming driveshafts protruding from converted Chevy engines. The stolid, solid Manohra, I noted, barely registered their crashing wakes as we threaded our way through ferry scows, lumbering rice barges, jaunty tugs and slipper-shaped market boats loaded with vegetables or fish.

What we enjoyed most was peering into people’s backyards. Homes on the Chao Phraya vary wildly, from falling-apart shanties on stilts to breathtaking mansions with lavish gardens, each with no apparent regard for the neighborhood. Even the homes of the very rich are outshone by the river’s rococo temples.

“What is a wat?” asked our scholarly shore-excursion guide, Komsan (Jerry) Suwannarat. A wat, we learned, is Thai for the golden-steepled Buddhist temple compounds comprising a shimmering bot (ordination hall), chedi (reliquary monuments), hor ra kang (bell tower), ho trai (library), sala kanprien (meeting hall), viharn (sermon hall) and meru (crematorium). On our first afternoon Jerry took us to the Khmer-inspired Temple of Dawn, Wat Arun, opened by King Rama IV (of The King and I fame), in Bangkok. There we were greeted by a 5-foot python named Monty, who, for a few Thai baht, you could wrap around your neck for a photo.

“Next stop will be better,” Jerry promised.
It was. The Royal Barge Museum is a priceless cache of 150-foot-long rowing shells used on the very rare occasion of a royal procession. Emblazoned stem-to-stern with gold filigree and capped with the fearsome faces of raving mythical beasts, they give the Doge of Venice’s venerable golden barges a run for their lira. “Venice is the Bangkok of Europe!” declared Tom as we drove back to the boat.

“Your names are, please, again?” asked Jerry.

“I’m Tom Kha Guy, and my wife is Jessi-ka,” said Tom, recklessly invoking “ka,” a suffix used by Thai women to be polite.

“Ah,” replied Jerry. He offered a humorous translation: “Tom and Jet si-ka: Soup and Seven Colors.”

For guides who can direct you to Bangkok’s best
shopping (custom suits, rubies, sapphires, silk) contact Jerry (jerrybkk.s@hotmail.com; cell: (66)81-6863915)

Jessica Maxwell

Vivamus aliquet felis eu diam ultricies congue. Morbi porta lorem nec consectetur porta. Sed quis dui elit. Nunc tellus elit, convallis ac est ut, lobortis dapibus nisi. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et male.