A Local Village: Kenglae

Highlights from the first day of the cruise: a yummy lunch buffet and visiting a local village.

The village Kenglae is very small, simple, and poor. I’m frankly not even sure to which extent they have electricity. There’s certainly no WiFi or other “luxuries”.

As soon as we arrived at the river shore of the village, we were eagerly welcomed by a few children there.

Together with them and our guide, we climbed uphill – sandy/muddy mounds with the occasional rift.

There were plenty of free-running chickens and their adorable chicklings, as well as dogs, goats (not running free), and at least one pig.

We went through the tiny village and were headed to the school there. Since it was a Sunday, there was no school business, but all the children went with us, even taking our hands.

My impression: the kids were generally calm, modest, and seemed balanced/well-adjusted.

I couldn’t help but notice that and compare it to my experience with children who seemed entitled in comparison, not at all noticing or valuing how privileged they are. Of course, this is very generalised.

But I think the effect of screens is nothing short of detrimental in Western culture.
The school building was more of a structure put together with any material that could be found.

I am not sure what material they have for their lessons, but normally, when I saw schools before, you see books, chalk, a blackboard, etc.

There – nothing. Chairs, desks were scarce (not to be fair, the village was really small), and the wood they’re made of wasn’t polished or anything, more on the mildewy side. The absolute bare minimum for being able to sit down.

Outside, there were a few papers pinned that had fallen victim to the elements.
On the boat, we were told that if we had any spare items, we were welcome to donate them to the children/villagers there.

One couple on the boat must have known about the itinerary specifically and came equipped with crayons, paper, and stickers.

While I think it was truly kind of them to hand that out to the children, the spectacle they made of it was cringeworthy and entitled. The vibe was strongly “Look at how benevolent and generous I am, giving you all these things.”

There were quite a few crayons she had, and she gave them out one by one, kneeling down in front of the children, holding them out in front of her.

The children were shy and happy at the same time, but they barely dared take the crayons because they felt taking more than one would have been too much.

Of course, the couple filmed their spectacle of benevolence.

Then she sat down and started writing something in a booklet, demanding the children’s attention and that they circle around her.

None of the villagers spoke any English, so I wonder what that was all about.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was for social media exposure.

But of course, the children got some donations out of it.

At the end, the kids led us back to the river. And what followed was more cringe.

Our guide told the children to all line up in front of us. Then a woman from our tour group handed each child a twenty Baht note as they stepped forward one by one. All of this was filmed again.

This was a rather absurd scene because the children were almost regarded as objects for tourists to display their benevolence and feel good about themselves. This was NOT about the children – at least that was my impression.

And, at the very end, when we said our goodbyes, the generous couple kneeled down with one of the boys who was minding his business and positioned him in a half-hug to take a photo with him. It was obvious here that the boy didn’t know what to make of that: he stood stock still in the stronghold.

While gliding away from the little village of Keanglea, I noticed several landslides of the village’s rubbish furrowing their way down towards the river. This was heartbreaking.

You do notice those rubbish landslides out here when you spot “civilisation”. In the river itself, there were several plastic bottles and even entire trash bags.Read more