Thai temple

The world politic condemns any country that is not “democratic.” Yet, when
faced with acts that embody the true essence of democracy: a political
system in which the supreme power lies with the citizens, the world simply
cannot recognize it.

On Sept. 19th a military coup overthrew the Thai government, while the
Former PM Thaksin Shinawatra landed in New York City to give a speech at a
UN assembly. The coup was fast to act, and soon the nations capital was
filled with Tanks and military soldiers. Thailand’s issues with the Prime
Minister stemming the past two plus years have been slow to enter major
newspapers around the world, but add a few tanks and a coup and we have
headline news. At first glance by those who have simply not followed this
conflict, this would seem violent and undemocratic and simply put “scary.”
Enter US Government. The US was the first country to be “disappointed with
the Coup, who supports the corrupt Thaksin Shinawatra leader, and threatened
to review its relationship with all of Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, Thaksin,
who was denied his speaking time at the UN assembly, tried to declare a
state of emergency in his own country, only to have the military cut the
phone lines 10 seconds later. Exiled by his own nation, Thaksin flew to
London where his daughter lived in his one of his mansions, and was forced
to watch his country via the western news stations and newspaper headlines.
Back in Thailand, the people rejoiced and welcomed the soldiers who wore
yellow ribbons symbolizing that the take-over was supported by the revered
King. Thai’s were found handing roses to the soldiers and posing in photo
ops as if the military were pop star celebrities.

Most would ponder at the thought of a ‘perceived’ hostile takeover with
military tanks flooding the streets being a peaceful movement, but in order
to regain control of a country dominated by a “democratic” leader who
refused to step down from power after several huge protests this past April,
it should not be so surprising. After studying and watching the Thai
society over the past few years, I am confident in knowing that these
citizens understand their rights to make decisions for their country. This
is a population that is not afraid to protest, whether it is violent or
peaceful, they will march in the streets for days on end, and they will
continue to voice their concerns until they, as the majority, have won.

The protests began in April shortly after Prime Minister Thaksin sold his
Thai telecom company, Shincorp to Singapore and decided to not tax himself,
making him an obscene amount of money. Thaksin was already the richest man
in Thailand and one of the richest men in Asia. Although Thaksin had made
several big errors including: making huge mistakes in his policies in
Thailand’s Muslim South that has resulted in a huge rise in violence and a
death toll of over 3000 people in the past 3 years, as well as hiding bird flu
epidemics to avoid trade barriers and protect Thai exports, it was not until
the middle class felt betrayed by Thaksin’s tax-free wealth that protests
really began. In April, after over a month of protests, Thaksin decided to
hold another election. He claimed that if less than 50% of the population
voted for him he would step down from power. This enraged the people of
Thailand, who believed his unfair actions were reason enough for him to step
down and be tried without an election. Thai’s filled the streets dressed in
black and yellow and refused to vote. In the end, most major parties in
Thailand as well as 40% of the population boycotted the vote. Although
Thaksin had won the election wining 51% of the votes, he chose to step down
temporality to avoid any further conflict. Months later he returned just in
time to declare another election.

The people have retained their power. The military has fulfilled their duty
to protect the people from harm (Thaksin), and the country is currently
peaceful. This is simply a ’silk’ revolution that clearly follows the
democratic doctrine. It is we Westerners who should be scrutinized. Could
this type of revolution happen in the US? Would our will and morale evoke us
to seize our democratic rights? If a leader was corrupt, the product of
mass death tolls, and hid the truth from its people, would the people bind
together to demand a change? Not Likely. Yet we continuously claim that
these ‘uncivilized’ people do not understand the meaning of democracy. Shame
on us.

Note:
I decided to write this article after reading a popular forum on the internet. The forum had a thread entitled “Breaking: Thailand Coup?” The comments from several posters where as follows, ” I wonder how many Muslim clerics were involved”; Not to Demean this, but aren’t Coups common in the 3rd world?”; and finally ” Muslims (most likely) have seized Thailand.” This is the type of response that fuels me. People, can we be this naive? Our media and governments and now even the Pope has out lashed on the Muslim population blaming them for everything. Soon we will be blaming the Muslims for our wives and husbands leaving us, and for our bikes being stolen. Thailand is also NOT a 3rd World country and Muslims di not take over Thailand! We should be ashamed of ourselves and of our neighbors as this is 2006 and we still have not moved past an era of extreme discrimination.

Nicole Sorochan is an aspiring Film Maker. She has an Asian Studies and Film Degree from the University of Victoria and has a strong interest in Asian Relations, Religion, and Politics. She is attempting to use Film as a form of social movement and awareness. For more information about her and her current projects please go to her website: http://www.nicolesorochan.com

Share This

Medical tourism also referred to as health tourism or health outsourcing means traveling to other countries to obtain cheap medical, dental, and surgical care. The exorbitant costs of healthcare in industrialized nations has led to the worldwide popularity of medical tourism. More and more people are traveling abroad as an affordable and enjoyable way to undergo plastic surgery and dental procedures.

Practically all medical tourism agencies, most of them located in the US and the UK, promote the dentist and the plastic surgeon abroad on the Internet. All the agencies have contracts with hospitals, doctors, dentists and plastic surgery clinics overseas. Using the service of medical tourism companies includes the fact that cross border medical facilities usually add 10-20% for commissions payable to the agency that refers the patient. That makes medical treatments more expensive than local pricing. Moreover patients cannot choose their own plastic surgeon or dentist. Usually it’s the agency that selects the doctor or a limited group of doctors or medical facilities the patient can choose from.

Of course there is a “do it yourself” alternative. Some try to find clinics in Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand, Hungary, Poland etc. without the use of medical agency services. But, researching an entire health industry in foreign countries seems to be time consuming, confusing and could be risky. Despite higher than local pricing of medical procedures it seems better to take advantage of the experience and expertise medical tourism agencies have.

However there is a new medical tourism trend finding its way on the Internet: do it half yourself after the agency has taken care of the other half first. This alternative is offered by the companies “Dentist Abroad SA” and “Plastic Surgery Abroad SA” both operating from Tijuana Mexico. For $15 the companies provide a thoroughly screened exclusive list of dentists, plastic surgeons, doctors, hospitals, cosmetic surgery clinics, dental surgeons, and clinics in Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand, Hungary, Poland and several other countries. The service includes contact info, pricing, years of experience, working procedures, specialties and the necessary background information. Since there are no contracts, the companies claim not to receive any commissions. If this is true, then it makes treatments much cheaper and patients may have 100% freedom to choose their own doctor or dentist.

“Plastic Surgery Abroad” and “Dentist Abroad” were launched with the aim of assisting people around the world in exploring global healthcare options available to them. The companies claim that their two websites will help individuals to find medical possibilities and pricing abroad that they might otherwise never realize. The address of the companies is: Plastic Surgery Abroad SA and Dentist Abroad SA, Av. Madero 1120A, suite 1+2, Tijuana, Baja California 22000, Mexico.
Websites: www.plastic-surgery-mexico-costa-rica-thailand-india-cosmetic.com and www.dentist-mexico-costa-rica-thailand-hungary-poland-dentistry.com

Sammie Justesen is a full-time literary agent, medical writer and editor, having worked with the publishers Mosby Inc., Addison Wesley Longman, Prentice Hall, and Springhouse Corporation. She writes professionally for print media and the Internet. Sammie has published business, technical, nonfiction, poetry, and short stories. Sammie is also a registered nurse with 25 years’ experience in the health care industry. She lives on Rooster Ranch in northern Idaho with her husband Dee, who is a home and small business consultant, e-commerce specialist, and webmaster. Her website can be found here: www.northernlightsls.com/aboutus.htm

Share This

Like other Southeast Asian countries, food stalls are everywhere in the streets, markets and festivals of Thailand, providing an endless smorgasbord of aromas, color, sounds and flavors - food in Thailand is a feast for all of the senses.

Picture a barbecue hotdog stand outside a North American sports stadium. Now, instead of hotdogs and buns sizzling on a grill, the food cart is laden with fresh bananas, which are slathered in batter and deep-fried to golden in a giant wok, then scooped into a paper bag like a super-size order of extra thick homecut french fries. That was my first breakfast in Thailand while I watched hundreds of beautifully costumed elephants play soccer and tug-of-war in an annual Elephant Round-up in Surin, in the far northeast of the country!

The next ‘hotdog stand’ does have a grill, placed over a large bin of charcoal, with flattened chicken quarters sizzling on sticks that you eat like a popsicle; next door to that is yet another steel cart heaped with fresh, ripe pineapple, mango and papaya, and sporting a huge mortar and pestle for transforming the greener papayas into a crunchy, sweet-sour-spicy salad with morsels of shrimp or squid, chiles, garlic and sugar.

What makes Thai food so delicious and distinctive among other Southeast Asian food is this unique blending of fresh herbs, spices and other ingredients that combine for a perfect balance of sweet, sour, salt and heat that leaves your mouth feeling clean and your tastebuds popping in the afterglow.

Fresh fruit, salads and even soups and noodles are ladled into plastic bags with a skewer, fork, spoon or straw for eating on the go or perched on a folding chair at a nearby metal card table in the market.

Thai buses and trains become moving picnic grounds, with everyone chatting, eating and sharing the fare hawked through the vehicles’ windows at roadside stops and terminals: Gai Yang, the flattened barbecue chicken on a stick, skewered meat and fish balls and sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves.

Carnivals and markets feature huge woks at knee-height, bubbling with deep-fried critters of all sorts, many unidentifiable. Are they grasshoppers? crickets? spiders? baby birds? small frogs? — my mouth and eyes were constantly wide open in wonder and amazement!

I spent an inordinate amount of time in the fresh produce and night food markets — exuberantly fascinated and often visibly discombobulated, to the great amusement of the vendors and shoppers.

After traveling every aisle of food carts and woks on my mission to find the freshest, most interesting and tasty-looking dishes, I was often met with earnestly shaking heads or “No, you don’t want that - that’s Thai food!” by English speaking cooks or bystanders when I pointed and gestured and tried to ask for a meal I knew I truly wanted. On my first such adventure, I did not know that the custom was for the cook to show the ladle with the amount of the garlic and chili for you to indicate how much you wanted: thinking she was simply asking if I wanted those Thai ingredients, I nodded vigorously at the heaped display, and in it all went! Yes, it was Thai food, and I enjoyed every sizzling touch to my lips under the watchful, laughing eyes of the vendors and bystanders who had gathered.

I spent as much time learning about, admiring and experiencing the food as I did with major tourist attractions, often spending hours strolling through streets and markets taking in the sights and smells and sounds: quiet clucking rising up from a heap of vibrantly coloured roosters or chickens tied together at the feet - a Thai rooster’s plumage is extraordinarily beautiful; plastic tubs and buckets just full enough of murky grey water to keep the fish, frogs or turtles alive until a sale was clinched; mounds and mounds of green and red, and purple and orange; the pleasant stench of durian and jackfruit - pleasant because I was just so thrilled and in awe of it all!

I tried deep-fried grasshoppers at a carnival in Kanchanaburi during a sound and light show of “The Bridge On The River Kwai” that ended with a fabulous fireworks display recreating the Allied bombing campaign that destroyed the bridges of the Death Railway in 1945. I tried a few tiny roasted wood worms offered by a very thin host in a northern hill-tribe village near the Myanmar border, and feared that I was eating his family out of house and home. I discovered countless traditional dishes I had never tasted and savoured authentic versions of some I had had in Toronto’s newly arrived Thai restaurants. As often as I could, I watched their creation so that I could try to replicate them when I got home and got a kitchen again.

Many people are alarmed at how daring I was with my stomach. During two years of round-the-world travel, including six months in Southeast Asia, I only had one tiny bout of queasiness over a couple of days on Sumatra in Indonesia. In fact, I had never eaten so well or felt so healthy in my life. I must have found the perfect balance of common sense and adventure, or, some might argue, I was just lucky.

I don’t recommend trying everything, and I do recommend a few common sense tips for sampling the full range of the food on offer throughout your travels:

• at street and market stalls, do watch the cooking for awhile to ensure that the ingredients are fresh and the food is being cooked thoroughly; if you have any doubts, move on to the next vendor
• choose vendors that have a good steady flow of customers - not only is the food probably very good, but the turnover means fresher food
• ask your guesthouse host and any other residents you meet for their favourite places to eat, and for recommendations on dishes to order
• follow the other safe eating tips you find in travel guides, like recommendations about water, ice cubes, and peeling fruit and vegetables

Of course, you will find an endless selection of sit-down restaurants where you can savour some of the more familiar Thai dishes now found in restaurants around the world: green curry with chicken, red curry with beef, pad Thai and other noodle dishes, and wonderfully aromatic sweet basil dishes.

Whether you plan to sample the fabulous foods from the street vendors and markets or stick to what you know, learn a few tips on deciphering a menu or asking for a type of dish with a few Thai Food Terms.

Many supermarkets are now carrying a range of prepared sauces, curries and other Asian products, but if you enjoy adventure and creativity in your own kitchen, many Thai recipes are fairly easy to create once you’ve mastered a few essentials. Gai Yang, after all, is really just barbequed chicken with a Thai twist! A good food reference guide or cookbook with a glossary of Asian ingredients will help you gain that perfect balance of sour, sweet, salt and heat that is unique to Thai cuisine.

© 2005 recipe-for-travel.com

Carolyn Nantais is a freelance writer, website copywriter, world traveler and culinary xenophile who indulges in temporary retirement from time to time to travel and eat around the world. Her new website, The Recipe for Travel, is a food companion for travel lovers and travel companion for food lovers, with stories, recipes and practical travel planning tips gathered through adventures in round-the-world travel and food.

Share This