John:
The Tour Guide That Just Don’t Give a F#$k
I’ve
been on a lot of tours in my day. This includes trips in Asia,
Europe, Australia, and the U.S. That’s four continents of tours,
and let me say, I have never had a tour guide quite like our tour
guide, John.
John,
to use a colloquial phrase, just don’t give a f#$k. At one point,
Loren and I were thinking of climbing up some rocks near a waterfall.
The climb was pretty steep and slippery and John came over to us.
“You can climb. You fall – you fall.” He then took a drag of
his cigarette and walked away.
John
aside from being ambivalent to his passengers general health and
well-being, also didn’t really put much time into planning his
discussions while on the tour bus. He may have had a diagnosable
case of Tourguide Autism, because he would get stuck on one piece of
information and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. For example,
“You
should all go to the night market. If you go out of the hotel and
take a left, you will be close to the night market. It’s just a
left out of the hotel. If you walk out, turn left, you’ll walk a
ways and get to the night market. It’s just a quick left out of the
hotel. You can buy things and see some of the sights. It’s the
night market. You can find it by going out of the hotel and turning
left.”
I
wish this were an exaggeration, but… It’s not. Also important to
note is the fact that he never once explained what one could purchase
at the night market or really where it was (aside from left…) and
what the actual name of the market was. Another important bit of
information he left out was the fact that the Night Market is housed
in the same building as the Ping Pong shows and sex bars. The next
morning was interesting when all of the middle-aged women whispered
about seeing Thai ladies in thongs and bras dancing through beaded
doorways all along the strip.
Tapioca
was also a favorite topic. This John Classic began with the following
exchange:
“Do
any of you know where we get the tapioca from in the tree?”
Bus
Silence.
John
Silence.
Doesn’t
one ask a question so as to get an answer or open a discussion with
the answer? What kind of alternative, new-agey tour is this John?
The
Tapioca Trend continued through all of day four. Never once did he
describe what tapioca was used for, why it was so popular to grow, or
really anything aside from his loop of:
“Tapioca
is made from root. (Yes, he finally told us where it came from) If
you eat it from root, you die. It’s filled with cyanide, you have
to expose it to the sun so the cyanide is broken down. You get the
tapioca from the root and its full of cyanide. The cyanide only goes
away by exposing it to sunlight. When you get the tapioca from the
root you have to be careful! It’s full of cyanide!” ad nauseum.
Tapioca
day ended with John leaping from the bus, asking a tapioca farmer for
permission, then wildly ripping up an entire tapioca tree so he could
show us the root.
While
I can’t really tell you anything about tapioca, at least John made
sure that I knew it was full of cyanide, and now I know what it looks
like being ripped from the ground by a 55-year old Asian man.
John’s
final favorite topic was square footage of property he owned… Yes,
that was also something he referred to at least four times in two
days. He was using it as a jump off point to talk about Thai real
estate, but the conversation never really got there. It got stuck at:
“You
know Thai real estate has gotten more expensive. When I buy my house
it was… It was about 10,000 – no 12,000 Baht. I buy the house and
it have three bathrooms, two bedrooms, a nice kitchen. My son’s
room about 8 by 7 – maybe 6 by 9? It have a nice porch with a
patio. The patio is not that big, maybe 3 by 2.”
This
conversation dragged on for thirty minutes as he discussed the exact
layout of his house and his apartment that he bought to make extra
money. Don’t worry, this conversation hadn’t bored any other
tourists previously, I know this because he had no idea what his
facts and figures were.
“My
house maybe 500,000 Baht or maybe…more…. That equivalent to,
maybe 500 million dollar – no… - haha! That maybe, like 18,000
dollar. I think, maybe it about…. No, it about 21,000 dollar.”
This lively self-debate continued on for some minutes.
Another
favorite episode of John Didn’t Plan It! was when he was talking
about the King of Thailand.
“King
of Thailand actual really good jazz musician. He write two very
famous jazz songs. You know them. He write… (silence) I don’t
remember.”
Not
only did he disappoint with bus conversation, but he also had a knack
for not preparing us for the events of the week, including dress for
temples. When we showed up at one temple and 8 people had to scrounge
up scarves, pants, and shawls to cover up their shoulders and legs to get in, the group was less than
happy.
A
concise feeling of the group came from one older white lady, who
was…what I would call disgruntled in general.
“Sometimes
John doesn’t really plan things out. He doesn’t realize his
actions affect others. You know… He’s kind of an idiot.”
I
feel it would be remiss of me to not mention that John did do some
cool stuff, like takes us to tiny markets, a school, and some sights
that are well off the beaten trail. He also told Loren and I to pull
down a sign that said “Do Not Enter” and take pictures in an
off-limits part of a temple. While some of these things may have
gotten us all thrown in a Thai prison, it also made for some fun
experiences.
That
being said, I wouldn’t really recommend John for any tour other
than one of his house. ‘Cuz girl knows every detail about that.
Revengeance
of the Oppressed, Middle-Class, Middle-Aged White Woman
I
know I’ve mentioned before that my time at Banana Republic taught
me that the worst people on earth can be middle—class, middle-aged
white women. For some reason this sect of human has a knack for being
grumpy, mean, and condescending to a degree that other age, races,
and genders can only ever strive to attain parity with.
This
tour was no different. The amount of Lady-Rage present during certain
parts of the tour was off the charts. I already mentioned the lady
who flat out called John an “idiot,” along with her there was a
general battle cry after we had had six days of Thai Food.
“What’s
for dinner,” says White Lady 1. “You can take a good guess
it will be THAI food!”
For
some reason the older people on the trip didn’t really realize that
WE WERE IN THAILAND. Yes, we are eating a lot of Thai food. And yes,
you’re an idiot if you think this is somehow an affront to your
enjoyment of the tour.
I
mean, can you imagine going to a cereal factory and be given a bowl
of cereal, only to say, “Oh brother! Cereal!” What?
Along
with forgetting the whole I’M IN THAILAND thing, these ladies also
failed to remember that WE ARE IN A TROPICAL CLIMATE. Thankfully,
during most of the tour we had cloud cover, which kept a thick
blanket over the seething rage that erupts from White Ladies
who begin to break a sweat on a vacation.
Poor
John wasn’t so lucky on Day 5 when we took a tour of a summer
palace. It happened to be 90 degrees and there was almost a mutiny.
As
John was standing with all of us in the shade, describing the
architecture of the palace, one of the White Ladies tottered
passed and just yelled, “Let’s keep it moving! It’s hot!”
Lady!
If you hate the heat and Thai food, why didn’t you stay home?! Go
to McDonald’s and get a cappuccino because that’s the kind of
cultural exposure you deserve with this attitude of yours.
That
being said, it’s also worth mentioning that along with breeding
some of the most vile sort of person, White Ladies can also
be of the most compassionate and caring variety.
When
Loren sprained her ankle slipping on the bus stairs, a line of the
old matriarchs was lined up with health advice, ice, and ibuprofen.
*Warning
this next bit is probably offensive to everyone
Our
tour group split into two groups after about 6 days in. Half of us
were shipped back to Bangkok and the other half were continuing on
with John to see some more temples to the north. This led us to
getting a new tour guide, an androgynous-looking female named Ronnie.
Because her name is Ronnie and I have seen the following:
She
will hereby further be referred to as Shy Ronnie. So Shy Ronnie turns
out to be an immense improvement over the WTF tour leadership
stylings of John. She said helpful things and explained history and
avoided the topics of tapioca and square footage of rooms in her
house.
But
Shy Ronnie also decided that she should address the issue of
transgendered peoples in Thailand. I feel it necessary to reflect her
tone and grammar (see above note about being offensive) because it
was like a Michael Scott from The Office leading a gender discussion
in broken French.
“You
may heah in Thailand we have many of da Lady-Man. In Thailand we no
afraid of Lady-Man like in America. The Lady-Man have feelings. The
Lady-Man have dreams. I work for long time for Lady-Man.”
I
don’t know what kind of PR nightmare the US has on its hands in
terms of transgendered peoples, but evidently Thai people think that
we still debate whether they belong to the human species. We ask
ourselves questions like: Does the Lady-Man breathe Oxygen? Does the
Lady-Man really eat locusts in order to complete their transformation
from Male to Female? Because of their more muscular thighs and
calves, do Lady-Men have an easier time in heels?
I
mean… what? “The Lady-Man have dreams.” Is that something that
we didn’t know? Also, if Thailand is so open why is their no
politically correct term for “The Lady-Man”? These questions and
more ran through my head as I put my head between my legs and tried
not to laugh out loud on the bus thinking of Martin Luther Lady-Man
giving her famous “I a Lady-Man and I have a Dream” Speech.
