Where to begin on this? At the time, I didn't think too much about this little incident, but as time's gone on it's started to inflame me in ever greater proportions.

One day in Chiang Mai, I had bumped into Mazzy, one of the two Israeli girls from the VIP bus up here - and we agreed I'd come over to the guesthouse at 9pm so we could all catch up. I wandered over at nine, Mazzy was there with a few friends. Karina wasn't, but would be along soon - the two girls had clearly fallen out during their three day jeep trip (they had only just met before leaving home via the internet).
So I was sitting with Mazzy and a few male friends of her's, they had ordered food. For this story to make sense, a description of their guesthouse is needed.
The way several of the big guesthouses in Chiang Mai get their customers is not through walk ins or through recommendations in the LP, but from agreements with other guesthouses and tour companies. The first place I stayed in Chiang Mai, for example, runs a bus at the Lao border, so that every traveller coming across from Laos gets dropped at the reception of this guesthouse. Likewise, many "VIP" buses from Khao San drop their passengers at a particular guesthouse. These guesthouses then charge a pretty low room rate, so that people will stay with them and hopefully book trekking tours, cooking courses etc through them. All this had been explained to me by an Australian traveller who was on the same bus out of Laos with me. She saw nothing wrong with all this, after all, the guesthouses you got dropped out were usually ok, and it cost a ride in a tuk tuk to take you anywhere else.
Ok. So, the meals arrived, three of them had ordered the same thing - steak with chips. One guy was trying to work out which was his - loudly and aggressively, he questioned, "Which one is well done"? The friends were then stunned at how small the steaks were - they complained to each other and then one of the men to the waiter: "You said it would be like this [joining his fingers together]"! The Thai manager smiled confidently how yes, it had once been that big, but the cooking process ensured there had been some shrinking.

I thought at the time about Mazzy and her friends: You have no fucking clue about what's going on here, do you? This kind of guesthouse always serves bad food, particularly the Western style part of the menu. They get you in because you were 1. Too lazy to look elsewhere for somewhere to stay; 2. Too lazy to look elsewhere for somewhere to eat once you booked in. Hence, they really don't make much effort to produce fine food. Asking if the steak was well done or medium rare - HA! Just be hopeful it's been cooked! And given that you've come in a big en masse group, and are openly rude to the Thai staff if ever you feel displeased, I'd bet they have little other than contempt for you. It isn't really Thai style to answer someone back to their face, but, is it really wise to be shouting at the people who prepare the food you are about to put in your mouth? You shout and posture, as if you're the experienced one, in control, but the truth is these Thais have brought you here seamlessly and are now extracting your money daily.

These guys were planning out the rest of their trip - they asked me about Pai, in north west Thailand, and about Laos. I hadn't been to Pai, but I started telling them about how lovely Luang Prabang was - the atmosphere, the low buildings, monks collecting alms in the mornings. I mentioned Viang Vieng, and their eyes lit up - "Yes, we want to go there"! I realised I'd been wasting my time talking about low buildings. "Yes, Viang Vieng is supposed to be good for relaxing [everyone understood I meant by this places to smoke opium and eat pizza]". They were very happy to hear all this.

Perhaps I'm being unfair. But meeting these people, who I'm sure were no different to lots of other travellers, aside from that they were very honest about what they wanted, I just saw why tourism often has such an ugly form in SE Asia. Be aware of where your money is going. We keep these drab concrete block guesthouses and their crappy meals going. We build these streets like Khao San, these "Bunny Clubs" with girls in little dresses sitting expectantly on bar stools. Then we arrive and complain that "everything's so touristy!", "the sex industry's everywhere here"!
This is not something that we can exempt ourselves from by calling ourselves "travellers" or "backpackers" - a pound or a dollar from us is no different from the money of a "tourist" on holiday. While defining a word like "traveller" is not an easy thing, and there are many times I suspect I am not one, part of it must surely be: being aware of the country one is in, being relatively independent and doing some exploration by one's self.
Thailand, at least in places like Bangkok and Chiang Mai, is enormously artistic and stylish - funky bars, little shops with cool t-shirts and spangly jeans, art galleries and shops with silk and teak, garden restaurants with cream paper lanterns lighting up the trees, cafes serving great coffee to relaxed Spanish music - it easily puts London's Soho to shame. Do your clothes and furniture shopping here! Yet typically, there are only ever a few backpackers in these places.
There are laid back, openly welcoming bars in Bangkok, a ten minute walk from Khao San road, where the majority of clientele is invariably groups of Thai friends or work colleagues, where the staff also speak English and provide English menus; there are delicious restaurant stalls in Chiang Mai saying, "Thai food at local prices" - but it seems we want something different.
Thailand only seems very touristy because we hang out in the areas designated for us. Walk ten minutes and leave this behind. Three months ago, I went with my cooking course teacher Yui to her local market, along with the other two members of the class. A couple of the women running a stall started gossipping over my (eternally popular among Thais) rosy red cheeks. As I had returned to Chiang Mai, last Sunday I did another day of cooking with Yui, and as the day included a trip to the market, we ended up walking past the same two women. They immediately recognised me and started saying hello and laughing.

I'm not advocating that everyone visiting Thailand should spend learn Thai and live with families in villages - of course not. And I wouldn't want to suggest that the Thais (or any nationality) are the innocent, passive victims of tourism. I just mean - think about the kind of tourist infrastructure you would like to see, and spend your money to encourage that. I sometimes smile at what the Thais must think of foreigners, as they design some beautiful restaurant, or invest in individual coffee presses for their new cafe, and the vast majority of us never seem to leave our slap dash guesthouse restaurants. Right now I'm writing this in the Siam Tea House - yes, it's completely "for tourists", but equally, it's a beautiful old style Thai building, the fresh mint tea was lovely, the people are friendly, the prices aren't particularly higher than elsewhere. There are always a few other foreigners in places like this, but usually only a few, and generally they are older and (I am guessing) wouldn't describe themselves as backpackers.

Clearly, we aren't locals, we can't know how things exactly connect to one another. Most of us are travelling very fast, too fast to really get an understanding of how the places we are visiting work (did you know that when you pay 700 baht for a day's cooking course in Chiang Mai, if you book it through a guesthouse, the guesthouse keeps 200 of that?). All I try and do is ask questions and be a bit cunning. Places that lots of tourists visit usually do deserve their popularity - but the trick is I think to walk among the little streets, the quieter neighbourhoods, find the places that still feel magical, where people's eyes aren't deadened to another same same visitor.

"Chang", my favourite cafe in Chiang Mai:

Traditional Thai grandeur:

Bunny's:

Daniel, 26 August 2004, Chiang Mai