Being naive

I’ll admit it: I’m a bit naïve. It’s hard not to be when you’re traveling in a place that’s completely new to you. There have been times, I can be sure, that we’ve been played, ripped off, taken for fools. Generally, we laugh it off. Should I have tried to bargain more  at the night market in Siem Reap? Probably, but three dollars for a scarf is three dollars and haggling makes me feel like an asshole. Have the extra dollar and the laugh at my expense. In another example, we probably shouldn’t have paid as much as we did for our minibus across the Cambodian border, but after turning down a dozen tuk-tuks, buses and taxi offers we were forced with either putting our faith in someone, sometime, or walking the 150 + kilometers to the city center with our hands folded across our chest. So fine, have my ten dollars extra, but can you at least make me think I’m getting a good deal?

As a traveler, my naivety is often the most obvious when I put blind faith in the others that I meet along the way. I have told our Thai and Cambodian friends, time and again, that they could give me any answer and I would absolutely, without a doubt, believe it. “What’s that you say? Thai people are naturally immune to mosquito bites? Makes sense to me!”  “You have actually tried elephant meat? What does it taste like?” And so on.

There are, of course, some things that are impossible to be ignorant to. Thailand’s sex industry is perhaps the most striking example of this. When I started this trip, I was ready to write it all off as hype. Shira and I would have sworn to the fact that we never one saw a prostitute in Bangkok, despite scouting in an attempt to find the red-light district. A few short days later, in a hot spring in northern Thailand, we met an elderly man who spoke about his Thai wife and kids. Upon meeting the family, and realizing that they spoke absolutely no English, he spoke no Thai, and they seemed to want to have little to do with him, I raised an eyebrow. After that point it seemed like the more we looked, the more we saw. I’m pretty sure those young women aren’t actually laughing at your jokes, sir, as you sit resting a beer on your gut and stroking their cheeks. I may be mistaken, but I don’t think these creepy dinner dates I often see or mis-matched couples at the bar are completely innocent. Something tells me that beautiful, young, Thai women just don’t normally go for the balding look. Last Thursday our gut feeling was verified, as we spent the night doing outreach for a local non-profit that specializes in providing a respite for young, male prostitutes. We had spent that day with the boys, cooking with them and teaching them a bit of English before we met them and the center’s lead volunteer at a bar downtown. The scene was just about as stomach-turning as you’d imagine, and although we didn’t stay long we sat front row to the flirting between overweight, white men and the teenagers they planned on bringing home. So now, yes, we are a little less naïve. In fact, I can’t seem to pass any white man above a certain age without scowling in his direction. “Came here for the Pad Thai? You’re sick.” Of course, many of these men are completely innocent of the crimes my eyes accuse them of, but I’d rather not give them the benefit of the doubt. In this case, I can’t stand being naïve.