It’s high season in Thailand. This means that a glut of tourists, accounting for about 6% of the annual GDP*, descends to feast on the consumable aspects of Thai ‘culture’. The beaches, particularly in the South along the Andaman coast, are the biggest draw. This is where I find myself one Friday night. In Phuket, waiting for a flight.
Phuket Island, for those unfamiliar, is one of the most notorious tourist circuits in the country. If you enjoy getting wasted out of your mind and eating french fries on the beach while shooing off Thai touts, this is the place for you.
Not so much the place for me. But, I did find old town Phuket very charming. And Phuket is also where I met Herbie the German.
As I strolled along Thalang Road, looking for a place to eat dinner, I admired the Sino-Portuguese architecture – red lanterns in arched doorways, and sleek tiled sidewalks. After a bit of walking, I happened upon a cute little restaurant and waded my way in to find a table.
One spot remained: a chair beside a rotund older man, who looked to be in his late sixties, alone and eating with great satisfaction.
“Can I sit here?” I asked. He nodded and grinned, his hair framing his face in big white gusts.
At first we sat in silence. I got my meal, he nursed his Chang. We smiled at the cute Thai kids. And then Herbie got his bill from the waitress.
“Papa!” he exclaimed, squinting at the writing on the top of the bill. “Is that what you call me here?” The waitress laughed and confirmed.
After she left, he turned to me, “Well, when I was travelling in India in ’87, they called me ‘Buddha’ because I concentrated so hard when I ate.”
“So I can call you Buddha Papa?” I asked. The ice had been broken.
Herbie then began to share travel stories. How he’d been adopted by a yellow dog in Honduras, and how the dog had waited outside his hotel every day and trotted beside him everywhere Herbie went: “I think it made people not throw things at him.” How Herbie had nearly been tricked in Varanassi by a man who took him on a tour of the ghats and then asked him to buy a carpet from a family business.
“Wait,” I interjected, “Was the man down at the burning ghats?”
“Yes”
“How old was he?”
“Well, this was in ’87, and he was in his twenties”
“Maybe I met him” I said, “Exact same thing happened to me in Varanassi in 2006, but with a man in his forties.”
We grinned at the idea of this.
Herbie has smoked pot in Brazil; been to Vietnam before the doi moi market reforms; rode the long open roads of Mid-west America.
“I learned all about travel from my wife.” Herbie explained. They had met in their forties, married, and since traveled all over the world. Sometimes together, sometimes separately. “This time, I am on my own.” he told me. “When I get back to Germany in April, she said on the phone yesterday that she goes to South America, and will travel 5 states in a month.”
“There are two rules of travel,” Herbie continued. “Never stay in one place for longer than four days. And never go back to the same place twice. My wife says it never gets better.”
We begin to debate these two points for a while, and our voices get more rambunctious. People are looking over and grinning. I realize we must make an odd pair. I notice Herbie is wearing his passport bag around his neck, ‘hidden’ under his faded limegreen t-shirt. It makes a strangely shaped lump against his gourd-shaped belly.
“Okay,” I say finally, as we continue to hash out the rules of the road. “Then tell me what the difference is between a tourist and a traveller.”
Herbie harrumphs and pauses, sipping the last of his beer. I look up and see that all the faces have changed in the restaurant; a whole new wave of eaters have sat down and busied themselves with their meals.
“First. Tourists go to the same places. Never anything new. Always clearly marked and costing alot.”
“Second, tourists say things like ‘You know, the beach isn’t as beautiful as it was in the photos’ And ‘I miss my cheese and bread, the only thing they have here is rice, rice, rice.”
He turns to me and asks what I think the third distinction is. I think about it, and note how tourists never want to meet the people who live in the countries they are visiting.
Herbie interjects: “Yes, the only locals they meet are the ones serving them! Their servers!”
The two of us are satisfied with these three distinctions and have a good, long, (potentially obnoxious) laugh.
“Good, good.” Herbie says, patting his belly and finishing his beer. After he leaves, I sit and finish my drink, watching the action on the street outside. When the waitress comes over with my bill, we share a smile.
“He’s hilarious!” I say.
“Papa? He’s a very nice man,” she says. “He eats here every night for many days now.”
Many days at the same place, hey? After we’d debated these points heatedly. Him being very adamant on ‘Never stay; never return’. I think to myself: how beautifully and frequently the rules are broken.
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NOTE: *This 6% of GDP from tourism is purportedly the highest in all Asian countries.
Journey Tales 