Destination: Thailand
Khao San Road on Terrorist Target List. Pass the Banana Pancakes.
by Jim Benning | 09.30.03 | 9:22 PM ET
It’s hard to believe, but the hostel-lined road in Bangkok, a symbol of global backpacker culture, was among those places targeted for bombing during an APEC meeting next month, according to published reports. Four suspects arrested in connection with the plot are scheduled to go on trial in November. Nevertheless, according to a story in the Bangkok Post last week, Khao San’s backpackers are unfazed. “Music plays at full blast, food carts pass by, and ice-cold beer is still the hottest menu item,” the paper reports. The article even quotes a British guy named Stuart who said he didn’t plan to go anywhere. And for further proof that backpacker culture on Khao San is alive and, uh, well, Khao San Road the Web site features a story about the latest T-shirts for sale on the road touting “Khao Sarn Syndrome.” The shirts list the vows that backpackers with the syndrome apparently must take, including, “I shall wear as big a backpack as possible to bear proud witness of my creed” and “I shall not leave Khao Sarn Road without a Lonely Planet guide.” Nope, Khao San Road hasn’t changed a bit.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzDreaming in Thailand
by Jim Benning | 06.17.03 | 9:52 PM ET
Photo by Jim Benning. Jim Benning assumed he had put his cultural travels on hold when he visited an American chain restaurant in Hat Yai. He was wrong.
Morning, Not Smart
by Katherine LeRoy | 04.16.03 | 9:53 PM ET
Photo by Katherine LeRoy. She coped with the slamming car doors and the fumes from the gas station next door. But Thai pop gave Katherine LeRoy a hot heart.
The Volunteer
by Will Kern | 12.12.02 | 10:02 PM ET
A Thai orphanage needed helpers to "play with the babies." Will Kern answered the call.
Mr. Benny and His Bones
by Jim Benning | 12.04.02 | 4:11 PM ET
Rolf Potts moved to Ranong, Thailand to work on his book. He didn’t plan to socialize, and he didn’t want any distractions. But that was before he visited Mr. Benny’s barbershop for a trim. As Mr. Benny worked on Potts’ hair, he told him a captivating tale of grave robbing and bone smuggling, and Potts couldn’t help but return for more.
“In sharing the bizarre tale of his dead uncle, Mr Benny had broken through my tunnel vision and allowed me to glimpse a piece of Ranong for the first time,” Potts writes on Lonely Planet online.
The piece is featured in A House Somewhere: Tales of Life Abroad, Lonely Plant’s new story collection.
Forget Relaxing on Ko Kamui. I’m Going to Prison!
by Jim Benning | 11.08.02 | 12:53 AM ET
During their holiday in Thailand, New Zealander Phillipa Bonnet and Irishman Gerry McCue saw a notice posted at their guest house that foreigners locked up in the country’s maximum security prison—mostly on drug charges—love having visitors. So the two travelers took a Bangkok river taxi out to Bang Kwang to pay a visit.
“I have to admit, I’m a bit interested in how horrible the stories are,” Bonnet explained. Reports Frank Bures in the Christian Science Monitor: “In perhaps the latest twist to reality-based tourism, visiting imprisoned foreigners has become something of a trend among young travelers passing through Bangkok. Each year, some 8.5 million tourists pass through Thailand. As paths to beaches become more well trodden, young backpackers looking for a more visceral holiday experience have been going to Bang Kwang to see their compatriots.”
About 7,000 foreigners are doing time in Thailand, Bures writes, including 18 U.S. citizens.
The Only Time Most of Us Will Notice the Moon is When We are Standing Shin-Deep and Urinating
by Jim Benning | 06.14.02 | 12:54 AM ET
As a group, backpackers are generally considered globally conscious, well-meaning citizens. Melbourne native Campbell Smith thought so, too. Then he visited Ko Pha-Ngan for the Full Moon Party of Hat Rin Nok, the renowned festival that draws thousands of backpackers and world-famous DJs to white sand beaches along the Gulf of Thailand. “Twenty years ago, before the full moon parties, Hat Rin Nok was a tiny fishing village unchanged in millennia. A generation later—our generation—and the streets are paved with Internet cafes and the fishing boats conduct all-you-can-smoke ganja cruises,” he writes in the Sydney Morning Herald. “Backpackers Inc. has become a franchise, too, a prefabricated worldwide formula that is constructed wherever two or more Germans are gathered. It exploits the disparity in Third World wages just as surely as does Nike.”
Super Bowl Fever Hits Thailand
by Jim Benning | 02.05.02 | 2:19 AM ET
Rolf Potts found himself in southern Thailand for Super Bowl Sunday. In an audio report for public radio’s The Savvy Traveler, he grapples with the prospect of missing yet another quintessentially American big game. “My expat neighbors don`t even sympathize,” he says. We sympathize.
Sorrow in the Land of Smiles
by Jim Benning | 09.27.01 | 1:00 AM ET
On the streets of Bangkok Jim Benning faces a confounding reaction to the terrorist attack on America
Terror in America: A Letter From Thailand
by Jim Benning | 09.13.01 | 1:01 AM ET
By Jim Benning
Soup to Nuts
by Newley Purnell | 09.01.01 | 1:02 AM ET
Bangkok's Bangplee Market has everything Newley Purnell could ever want. Except one thing.
- « Prev Page
- Next Page »