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Haatyai Trip August 03
A painting from Southern Thai Museum depicting Thais receiving 
foreign guest. They don't treat us that way of course.
  

Parade in Narathiwat                           Tut-tut ride in Haatyai                         Night-market shopping

The trip
Sometimes, its good not to wish for anything. Often you get what you wish for and you don't really want it. This trip to the southern tip of the neighbor state, Thailand was both trying as it was enjoyable. I was down in midst of a hectic time at work that I wished for a relaxing journey. I got what I wished and more. The air-cond in the bus broke down for most part of the journey, the hotel room is bad enough, hot water not working etc. So in the spirit of total relaxation, I told myself not to bother. It works.

Tom yam, tom yam and tom yam...
The only soup Thais know is Tom Yam, hot. The only vegetable dish, kailan with ikan masin. I know they have more, a Thai I befriended years ago claim that Thais created at least a hundred new dish every year. He may be bluffing but he was a good cook and an enterpreneur, own the Papa Tom-Yam chain of gerais, at time when Tom Yam was still consistently original, so I believe him. But the three days in Haatyai was the endless tomyam fiesta. So in between the tom yam,  even the free cashew-nuts was a blissful change. 

Lesson we can well learn
Haatyai is an old town, you feel the oldness as you walk the street. No wide granite pavements, no grand landscaping, but it is clean. Maybe it was the tourism industry, maybe it was Budhism, maybe the law was strict, but we don't hear the Singapore kind of control nor do we see the enforcement patrol. We were out late enough in their town, pass their night -hawkers packing time, but we don't see rubbish around. Flash back to our own pasar malam, the rubbish the hawkers happily throw around for others, the authority cleaner to 'buat kerja'. The Thais know how to keep things cheap and simple, prudently utilise their resources, why pay the authority to clean-up when you can do it yourself. 

So this was their secret, love of their country and mother nature, the citizen know they are themselves the resources, so unlike us, they care. We were in town the same time Thaksin had just announced their final payment of IMF loan. The ordinary Thais are proud. They had every reason to be.

Thaksin......
Thaksin Shinawatra is the Thai Prime Minister. The first from the business community, breaking the customs of successions of army generals. When I was small, Thai was a story of endless coup. My long distance newspaper page memory of Thailand was of army tank and a young King that even the powerful generals kneel to. And of course of gun battle on  the streets of Golok. Unlike the mental images I had, Hatyaai feels safe. And Thaksin is the 'man'. Thaksin was everywhere, the hoteliers, the tour guide and the tut-tut driver talk of him. In front of our hotel there was a Thaksin Tour, in Narathiwat a project by Thaksin Development and even a Thaksin University (The Institute of Southern Thai Study). All these belong to a man? Or the name Thaksin is so common not unlike our Ali? I don't know. Just no point finding out.

The Thai Service
The Thais are famous for its service. The image of Thai Airways stewardesses saying Sawadee, is another of the image I can conjure. Of course there's the famous 'other' service too. So if you look for some moments of pampering, go Thailand. Where in the world do supermarket girls bring their hand to their chest, like in prayer, slightly bowing their head saying thank you. Only in Thailand.

The point I'm making is on the general attitude of service among the Thais. Take a ride on a Tut-tut. It doesn't matter if you are alone or in a group, they take you, they don't wait for it to be full, they don't haggle for extras. Take the street pedlars, the hawkers, bargain with them, then walk away, they don't scream at you. Do the same in Petaling Street or Brastagi, you will now what I mean.

The Institute of Southern Thai Study
I love historical thing. And I love museum. Tour groups to Haatyai don't visit museum, they shop.  But we are architects, we don't shop, not that much. Okay, Anisah do shop for of all thing, a wc!, well, it's an architecture thing. 

So imagine the surprise and trouble it cause when we ask for a museum visit. First, a longer than normal bus ride, then at the museum we were told to pay. Pay? In Malaysia its free. Hey, this is Thailand my friend. They know their economy. It was 600 bhat a piece and no ticket. I wonder, probably the charge was only meant for foreigners.

The museum at The Institute of Southern Thai Study is good. It's a revelation. The exhibits, the artifacts, the architecture were well chosen and exhibited. Best of all, they are simple. Itself reflecting the psyche of the Thais. No laser lights, no touch screen audio visuals, none of the sophisticated gadgetry, but they are effective. They do not mind cameras too. Take your pictures, show them to people back home, if they like it, they may want to come too. That is clever marketing. Start telling that to our museum people back home.

ISTS is part of Thaksin University. It has a history of being grown from a smaller institute before being made a university. Located on a hill overlooking the large magnificent lake, the view it accord was magnificent. The architecture itself, modeled after the Southern Thai houses, was intricate and finely executed. Earthern-wares and brickworks, indigenous to Southern Thai was extensively used both as the construction and decorative material. Interestingly, broken pieces of potteries were made decorative perhaps deliberately. 

Exhibits arrangement interestingly occupies both the indoor and outdoor spaces. The in-between spaces were utilised to the max. So were the underside of the building. Sitting on the steep hillside, the space between pilotis creates a good exhibition area, utilised in the same spirit as we would in the yesteryears use our 'bawah rumah' (the space under the house). If it wasn't intended in the design, the utilisation falls in with the older concept. Good too was the extension of clay pottery in making the small dioramas. In the timber buildings, replicas of traditional Thai kampong houses,  exhibits of lifestyles and space utilisation were made in clay. Each potraying their facets of life, from cooking to eating, from childbirth to marriage to death. You can sense an aura of mystery, even scary. They not only make you see but feel. That is good successful architecture. 

Southern Thai was not very different from Terengganu. It shares the same historical heritage in religion, Malay culture, lifestyle and architecture. Sharing a similar climate, similar was the economic culture. The trip to ISTS was like walking down memory lane of my childhood days. The effort they took to genuinely display many of the exhibits, perhaps rebuilding them from memory was amazing. There was for instance a diorama of rubber-making shed. The iron roller, I have seen in my grandfather's own 'kebun', but they even have a timber roller that must have gone in time much longer. The various rice milling machineries made of wood, must have been ingeniously created at their time of hardship. No doubts the research into them was painstakingly made.
 

Pavilion Cipta
An old house revisited

A place called home
  The  story of  a  house once abandoned 

  Album 
Been here there elsewhere
 
Haatyai Trip 2003
Learning from the lesser