[sorafoto | 空フォト]
thai boat タイボート (bangkok)
Posted by timothy sullivan (Tokyo, Japan) on 7 July 2009 in People & Portrait.
Several years back, when I had ventured to Thailand with a few of my friends, three of us decided to take a small cruise on the Chao Phraya River, where we'd come upon this elderly man rowing away on one of the smaller tributaries.
I got a kick out of our "cruise"; first of all, the boat itself was one of the numerous ramshackle home-stitched craft that zip up and down the river; I almost burst out with a surprised laugh as I saw how it was propelled: The engine, which to me looked like a V6 taken from a Toyota, was attached directly to the propeller; to steer, our captain (who spoke nearly nothing--aside from what I'll get to next) merely pivoted the engine in a different direction.
As we'd started our cruise from the Peninsula Hotel, I suppose the captain determined that the three white guys must be loaded (despite our obvious youthful appearances); we meandered around different places down the river, seeing some pretty incredible sights--and then went down some of the smaller tributaries, where we could have a look at how locals lived. And, to my surprise, the fact that we were on the water did not immunize us from being the target of solicitors. Who rowed out to us as our captain shut off the engine. And who smiled and greeted us in Thai and made their pitch.
We smiled back and said that we weren't interested in what they had to sell; however, we weren't in a position to walk away from them, as we would be in a market. We asked our captain to move along; the taciturn man merely smiled, and with a handful of words we realized: we wouldn't move on unless we bought something.
As we sat adrift for a 15-minute stalemate, we debated amongst ourselves as to how best get out of the situation, finally concluding that we should best buy the cheapest item. At first we pretended to be interested in things, in the hopes that we'd simply be able to move on after showing we genuinely were uninterested in purchasing anything--but our captain would have none of that: grinned at us, pointed over at the other boat--gesturing that we were meant to buy something, then popped a cigarette in his mouth and crossed his arms and waited.
We finally agreed to purchase an oil-paper umbrella; when the transaction was complete, we looked at our driver--who held up one finger, shook his head; held up two fingers and nodded. We sighed, and knowing we were at their mercy, handed over the money to buy another umbrella--and were rewarded by the triumphant sound of the V6 starting up. The merchants waved at us with smiles, and the driver waved back; and the man in the photo shown here--witness to everything--had a grand old chuckle at the whole show.
