The Land of Double Takes

When I told an old Thai woman who was renting out deck chairs on the beach in Cha Am that we were headed to Phetchaburi she quickly said "Phetchaburi, no beach, no happy". And after spending 4 of the hottest hours of the day travelling on a crowded 3rd class train further and further inland we could see exactly what she meant. Purely because it is slightly inland, Phetchaburi is worlds apart from the touristy coastal towns. It is (relatively) famous for its unusually large number of impressive Wats (temples), its huge caves containing hundreds of old buddha statues and shrines, and its mountain covered in yet more temples and buddha statues as well as a palace as well. This panoply (as soon as I thought of this word I couldn't think of a less ridiculous or pretentious one so I'm keeping it) of culturally significant stuff ("panoply of stuff" is beautiful english), however, is just not enough to attract the tourists, either Thai or international, as much as the salty water and sand at the beach. What shows up most about this difference is the reaction that the people themselves have upon seeing westerners. In Cha Am and Hua Hin the majority of people would either ignore as normal or yell out 'hello' from a hundred metres away to try to sell you something. In Phetchaburi, however, we were something of a novelty and while walking around a festival of local art and music, obviously put on for the locals themselves, I noticed with a bit of a laugh that the most common reaction was that of a double take. That is, they would glance at me as the would any other person and look away before registering, only a split second later, that I was a foreigner and would look back with more interest. If I looked directly at someone they would invariably realise that they were staring at me and would smile with a bit of a nod and say hello and would keep looking. They would take an interest in everything that I looked at and even at how I would react to it. It was kinda embarrassing but more funny as I sometimes became as much of an attraction as the stuff that was on show. One group of guys about my age became very excited when I walked past and pointed and said what must have been "hey look, here comes a Farang". Farang is a word that I've heard a fair bit by people as they point me out to their friends and I was told back in Australia that it is an almost derogatory and impolite term for westerners or white people. One old guy in one of the temples having just finished preying to a 300 year old statue of buddha, ran up to me to shake my hand for good luck. But the best reaction occurred when we had accidentaly wandered into the middle of a crowded school just as the children were being let out. We were heading towards a big Wat which we could only get to after doing 3 decreasing circles around it past classrooms and down little alleys. One girl walked past and almost yelled "Farang, hello" which made the surrounding teachers and parents laugh with embarrassment. It was great.