Spare Change.

The school has been looking into getting me a work permit and a teachers visa; it’s what the rest of the teachers have, and it more appropriately reflects what I’m doing out here than my current documents. I would have had to get a new visa anyway, as mine runs out in December. At least 4 months too short. We’re hoping that it can all be done in country, down in Bangkok, which would make things a lot easier. But the visa commission wants applicants to have at least 25 days on their current visas, so before I can head south I need to do a border run; go to the border, hop over, get a stamp and come back. It’s part of the Thai visa system, all required for me to remain here legally. So on Wednesday I got on a minibus and headed for Burma.

This is my second run: this time I’ve decided to take a tour bus rather than a direct route, one recommended by some friends. See some touristy stuff during the school holidays, relax after the exam rush. By the time everyone’s been picked up and were leaving Chiang Mai it’s 8.30, and the tour guide has just started making jokes about the Golden Triangle and opium, and how she can get us some if we want it. I’m too tired to find it funny, and unsure if the last part is even a joke or actually a subtle invitation. The rest of the bus stays quiet.

There’s nine of us, plus the tour guide and the driver. A Scotsman who lived near my mum and now lives in Australia, two women from Singapore, together, a French man and a women, not together, and a group of three Spanish people, two men and a women. I don’t think the Spanish group speaks English, but the rest of us do; by the end of the trip we have developed that kind of superficial friendship that comes from being forced to socialise with strangers.

We see a hot spring, a White Buddhist temple and then arrive at the Golden Triangle just before lunch. It’s not an actual physical triangle (As I originally expected, and was vaguely disappointed to be corrected on) but an area of land where three countries meet. Laos, Thailand and Myanmar (The new name for Burma, so I’m told), with rivers dividing them. We’re told that a lot of the minority tribes would illegally border hop, growing opium in one country and selling it in another. With all the different currencies making things complicated they instead traded in gold.

We meet up with more tour buses and are all showed onto a boat, which drives around the rivers for a bit looking at the three different countries and the various ‘no-man-land’ islands in between. We then land in Laos, in a small market that looks purpose built for these tour bus groups. We’re led over to a small shop and encouraged to drink some of the local whiskey; there are at least six tubs, each with a different animal or animal part in it. Armadillo skin, tiger penis, gecko, snake. I pass up on it and follow the Frenchwomen to the back of the store, looking at things with no intention of buying. Wandering back to the entrance I pass the Scotsman, who engages me in conversation about the whiskey. It’s good, he says. I’m not really sure about drinking animal parts, I say. There is always the ginseng, he replies. I try some, and find it just tastes like extremely weak whiskey. Perhaps the snake wouldn’t be so bad either, and it would be nice to say I’ve drunk snake whiskey. I have a small taste, and there’s not even a hint of snake. Just weak whiskey. I prefer the British stuff, I tell the Scotsman. He agrees.

We part ways as we head into the main part of the market, and I wonder if there’s anywhere that sells fried rice. There’s not that I can see, but I do find a stall near the back selling sunglasses. I could do with a new pair. I’m always breaking them, sitting on them or crushing them in my bag. They should be cheap too.

I have a look, and a young man comes up. I don’t know if he would understand the Thai for ‘How much?’ so I ask in English instead. With the amount of tourists that come here he probably knows a few words, I think. He does. Eighty baht he says. An older women sitting nearby laughs and says something to him, presumably in Laos. Sixty baht, she says among the foreign words. Sixty baht he repeats. I don’t bother bartering; the price is already half of what I would pay in Chiang Mai. Only £1.20. And I remember something Alice once said to me; they need that twenty baht I might save from bartering more than I do.

I meander back towards the boat, still looking out for fried rice. A child comes up to me, says something. I try and work out if my limited grasp of Thai is any use. Oh, ten baht. Twenty pence.

I’ve never seen a beggar in England who’s bothered to ask for twenty pence. It feels strange now, even though I know it goes a lot further here. You could by a meal for ten baht, if you go to the right market.

I decide to go through the spare change I have, give him some of the coins. The instant my purse comes out of my bag a mass of children appear out of nowhere, surrounding me with desperate faces and grasping hands. One of the children, possibly the smallest, has a mass of blood on his head. An open wound, not even cleaned. I feel sick, suddenly, try not to think of the worst situation in which this child could have been left to run around like this. I dig worriedly though my purse: I want to give each child a coin, even if it’s just one baht. I get all my wayward change in my grip and hold it up, and instantly I’m being scratched and clawed by skinny hands and any chance I had of doing this orderly has evaporated. I can’t even tell them to calm down. I give up and open my hand, and the coins and children vanish again. I’m left with the few stragglers who didn’t get anything, murmuring over and over ‘Ten baht. Ten baht.’ I don’t feel any better.

I plaster on a smile and murmur back ‘Kor tort ca.’ Sorry. I see the Scotsman again. He makes a comment on the children, on the market. Terrible, heartbreaking. I agree. We arrive back at the boat, and children follow the tour group’s right up until we get on the boat, still asking for meagre change. Some even stand on the side, wait until it starts moving before jumping back to the harbour. It’s on my mind for the rest of the tour, and I’m horrified when I realise I had notes in my purse I didn’t even consider giving away. Notes worth between two pounds and twenty. I could survive without a twenty, just buy food carefully, and not buy anything I don’t need. Twenty pounds, a thousand baht, could buy food for these people for months. So much for them, so little for me.

There are so many of these people here in Thailand, those who occupy the gaps and cracks of society. In England the homeless have shelters, charities, soup kitchens. Here they have derelict buildings, what scraps they can find and the charity of tourists. Thais believe in karma; if something bad happens to you it’s because you deserve it. So you won’t get help, because that might affect their karma too. There aren’t social care services worth speaking of; if you’re a single parent with no-one to ask to look after you children while you work, then you beg. If your parents split up, remarry, then you’re abandoned; your bad karma would affect the new family. Parents sell their children into trafficking or prostitution because they have no other way to get money. The school I work at has a lot of these children as students, and they are the lucky few.

My birthday was on Sunday, and I’m going to ask you all for a birthday gift. You might not feel like it, but you are some of the wealthiest people in the world. I want you to look at that wealth, see how much of it you can spare. It may not be a lot to you, but to another it could stretch ever so far. Find someone who lives in societies gaps. Someone or something that calls to you; be it a charity or a sponsorship program or just a homeless person you might usually not notice. Spread your wealth just a little bit.

Best birthday present I can think of.

Emma.