"Rural Thailand" a Thailand Travel Page by JGB

Life in rural Thailand is vastly different from life in the city and centers around farming. My wife’s village, near Phayao, is surrounded by green rice fields and, on this trip in July, farm workers were busy planting this years rice crop. It was an extremely hot July and I marveled at the workers, laboring all day long, in the fields, bent over at the waste and almost knee deep in water. The workers wear long sleeve shirts, long trousers, and hats and I just can’t imagine how hot it must be. These are poor people, farm workers make something less than $100 US per month. Of course some families are full time farmers, but many who have other occupations also have a small rice field. Workers are hired to tend the field and are paid a portion of the crop for their labor

We visited a lot of my wife’s relatives on this trip, but I enjoyed the visit to the shallot farm the most (owned by an aunt and uncle). It was a small farm, and the shallots had already been harvested and they were waiting for the buyers to offer a price. Images of all the good things I could cook with such quantities of shallots swam through my head (shallots are expensive here and cooking is my #1 hobby)! But I was most impressed with the civility of the Thai people. There are no more friendly and polite people in the world! At every introduction I was greeted with such politeness; two thing always happened with in a few minutes of meeting someone, first drinks of some sort were offered and I was always paid the nicest complement..... you look kind or friendly or hansom. I have to mention here something that has caused me a lot of thought. Some time back my wife told me that the Thai’s respected the technological advances of the Western world, but felt that we were not very civilized. Meeting these polite people I finally understood what she meant. Somehow we have confused civilization with material possessions and wealth, but these kind people showed me that civility is more about behavior, politeness and respect for each other.
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One of the things I was most impressed with was that of all the poor families I meet, all of the children had gone to college and were now, by their parents standards, doing very well for themselves. I meet children of farmers and tailors that were doctors, nurses, physical therapist and one mathematics teacher. Many of them had new homes and nice cars, and so it seems to me that rural Thailand is changing extremely fast.
In the small towns and villages the center of the city is still dominated by the market place. A wonderful assortment of stalls selling everything you can imagine! The food stalls have some of the best food in Thailand; curries, fresh pork rinds, fruit, rice, noodles and anything you can think of grilled on a little stick, to make eating easer, all accompanied by spicy Thai dipping sauces (If you visit a market see if you can figure out how they tie up the plastic sacks every thing is served in with rubber bands with such a quick twist!). This is Thai style fast food, but a thousand times better than anything in the West. A full meal for two can be had for a few dollars only.
In the larger cities the big stores, similar to Wal-Mart in the US, seem to be taking over. They are big, clean and air conditioned places, that have most anything you like. I hate to think that one day the markets will give way to the super stores, but it seems likely to happen.
The photo to the right is a new Thai house in the old style. It was built on what once was a rice field (a bit troubling) and cost something close to $35K US.