absolutelyBangkok archive · Being farang
Originally published Jan. 24, 2010
They’re one of my favorite spots in Thailand, one of the kingdom’s most romantic places, the hot springs of Hin Dat an hour’s drive northwest of Kanchanaburi. To cut a long story short: The public bath with beautiful hot spring water pools are open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day. Enjoy a relaxing bath in the hot thermal water with this distinct odor of rotten eggs, i.e. sulphur. After that enjoy a bath in the refreshing little stream bubbling just alongside. And again, and again. Pure idyll. And maybe a massage.
The brook brabbles, the birds are singing and tweeting… Best to be enjoyed close to the opening and closing hours when there are hardly any visitors. So I went there on a Friday night — and guess what, some eager locals were washing out the pools. All the thermal water got pumped off into the stream and the locals were scrubbing the walls. They do that every Friday night, a worker told me. So Saturday morning I tried to be the first in those pools freshly refilled with healthy thermae spring water.
But what a surprise, eager local residents were enjoying the fresh water already! That early! And I thought I’d be alone… It’s still dark, not a ray of sunlight. Local residents relax in the quiet peace of the hot mineral-rich spring water of Hin Dat before the tourists arrive. Only one guy was talking, and I heard him say — obviously not the least bothered that me farang could understand: “Yesterday afternoon, there were so many farangs in the water. God was that water dirty. Now it’s clean again.”
Well, that yesterday afternoon I’d been at the Hin Dat hot springs as well being a thermae junky. The only foreigners I saw was us… I’m aware that us cheese lovers may feature certain secretions — but polluting a whole landscaped swimming area? I didn’t answer in Thai. Didn’t feel like starting a verbal challenge. It’s all sabai sabai in there. He would have been so embarrassed that the ground would have swallowed him up. Was it outright racism?
Later on after breakfast I returned to the springs — yep, the fourth time in two days — and guess what: bus hordes of Russians were unloaded and headed straight for the pools. But… not a single specimen of the pallid northerners headed for the toilets. Well, a few minutes after dozens of Russians took over the pools a strange subtle odor seemed to emerge from beneath.
Not the kind of sulphur smell. But an acrid, distinct urine-like smell.
In an instant we were out of the water heading straight for the showers. Must have missed a similar busload the other day… Russians arrive there every day by the busloads, we were afterwards told.
Maybe that Thai referring to polluting farangs wasn’t too racist after all. But then again, and that’s not a rough generalization, that’s an insight gained after many years of dedicated observation:
Nowhere in the kingdom you find cleaner toilets than beside swimming pools.
Hardly anyone seems to use ‘em.
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