Take your pick
****Nakhon Ratchasima or Korat? Solo rider arrives in the city with two names to a noisy welcome
Lloyd Sullivan
(Bangkok Post dd. 21 april 2006 // DN)
Korat (Nakhon Ratchasima, if you prefer) is the biggest province in the northeast and the second biggest population centre in Thailand, bigger the locals say with a sense of civic pride, than Chiang Mai. But the capital city doesn’t you give that impression. Certainly not if you come into town on Highway 304.
If you enter Korat on the 304, a divided four-lane once again, you don’t see much of a city, what you see are exit signs in English pointing the way to the city and so I took one of them and found myself shunted off onto a one way street walled off on both sides so as to eliminate any chance of reconsideration. I knew I didn’t want that exit the minute I took it, but there was no turning back.
This street took me under Highway 2, the main north-south artery in the Northeast, then made a U-turn and wound around like a bobsled run, finally spitting me out in the southeast part of town.
Korat has a lot of streets like that. Walled off, I mean. Even Highway 2 has a divider running down the median strip. What they’re saying to motorists in Korat is pick your route carefully, because once you’ve made your decision you’re going to have to live with it.
I saw a blue tourist sign that pointed the way to the Grand Raya Hotel and proceeded in that direction for a few kilometres looking for the hotel or another sign to the hotel, but saw neither. I was soon on the outskirts of Korat city once again, heading back the way I’d come.
I finally found a place to stay called Ratchadakorn Mansion on a small circuitous soi in some residential neighbourhood not far from a large temple complex but outside the central core. This place was a brand new five-storey apartment building, not really a hotel at all, but they rent rooms if there’s a vacancy, and mine, though spartan, was clean, comfortable and at 350 baht a night a good value for the money if you didn’t mind all the dogs barking outside the window. What a racket! I’d scarcely set my bags on the floor before I realised how noisy the place was; it was like I’d taken a room in a kennel.
I went to the window and looked out. No kennel, it was just an ordinary residential street, but the dogs seemed to being going wild. What was going on down there?
All this dog barking everywhere all the time, I thought. How do Thais stand it? They’re desensitised, I know. They grow up with barking dogs, so they don’t hear them anymore. At least if they hear them they don’t think of it as noise.
I remember when I first moved to Bangkok and lived on Ratchadamri Road I rarely heard a barking dog. I’d see plenty of dogs on the side sois around the neighbourhood, but they were mute for the most part. No barking, no growling, not like American dogs. I had a theory about it at the time. I called it the Scorching Heat Theory. Thai dogs, in my view back then, didn’t bark much because it was too hot to bark. Barking takes effort, like shouting, and might raise a dog’s temperature. No living thing in this climate willingly raises its temperature if it can be helped. So dogs kept their traps shut was how the theory went.
I had another theory, as well, a backup. It was the Freedom to Roam Theory. Thai dogs are not cooped up like American dogs, they’re turned out during the day, like horses on pasture. Many are turned out permanently. They can go where they want, they don’t have a chain around their necks. Since they’re free to roam they can take the casual view of things. No need to get excited, raise their voices.
American dogs generally speaking are not free to roam. They are confined in houses, small apartments or in chain-linked dog enclosures euphemistically called “runs” no wider than a bowling lane and just long enough for a single flying leap. Being locked up is frustrating for dogs, just as it is for people, and in time this frustration leads to behavioral problems, pathologies, a psychiatrist friend of mine would have called them. Thai dogs, on the other hand, appeared to be pathology-free.
But when I moved from Ratchadamri Road (ironically, because it was too quiet) to another part of town, I discovered that my theories held no water. Thai dogs are not only free to roam, they’re free to bark all day if they want to.
They certainly wanted to on the street behind me in Korat.
There weren’t any restaurants within walking distance of my room so after a quick shower I rode back to where I’d seen a couple of noodle stands on a corner. The cook was serving pork ball noodles and they looked good in the bowl another customer was eating so I ordered them. I asked for a glass of ice, too, mixed myself a Regency and soda while I waited. There were a lot of dogs idling about, I noticed. With two noodle stands here and one across the street the pickings on this corner were probably pretty good for scavenging dogs.
The cook brought me my soup and I had my dinner and drank my drink and didn’t pay any attention to the half dozen curs on the sidewalk until a couple of them actually started angling in my direction. What is it with this town? I thought. Dogs busting my eardrums, now they’re trying to get my food.
Whose planet is this, anyway? Ever hear the phrase, “gone to the dogs?” It’s not meant as a compliment! An old woman must have read my mind because she shuffled out from somewhere and actually shooed the dogs away, the first time in Thailand I’d ever seen that happen.
In gratitude, I ordered another bowl with different vegetables this time, crisp stalks of Chinese kale, called phak khana in Thai, peeled and sliced on the diagonal, crunchy and delicious, and I sat there on the corner under the stars thoroughly enjoying myself.
When I got back to the Ratchadakorn, I parked my bike under the building, shut off the engine and listened. Things were pretty quiet, no barking. Inside, I asked the desk clerk if the canines out back took a breather at night so human beings could get some sleep and she told me, in English, “We have no control over that.” You should sell earplugs, I thought, you’d make a fortune, but I didn’t say it.
I didn’t need to because, fortunately, I’d remembered to bring my own.
Copyright 2006 Lloyd Sullivan. To contact the writer, email to lsulli2@yahoo.com.