The Blood on Our Hands

I wish my story from Thailand was a heartwarming tale of adventure and humor. Instead, I need to share a profound takeaway from my experience, as a tree-hugging surfer from California, traipsing through the open-air butcheries of Bangkok. 

It might not be what you expect, but it is something we all should hear.

On my first morning in Thailand, I awoke in a Bangkok hotel, starving as usual. Bangkok’s famous street markets seemed like the best place to find the tropical fruits I was craving, so Frances and I packed a bag and ventured out to the chaotic concrete jungle below.

The city immediately flooded our senses. The sputtering of moped engines and honking of car horns drowned out the soft rumble of air conditioning units, and the hot, humid air carried with it strong odors of exhaust and sewer pipes. 

As we walked towards the market, we followed a murky stream that was contained by concrete walls. With each structure it passed, the stream collected a new human artifact: suds from someone’s laundry, oil droplets off a motorbike, or a plastic straw blown in by the wind.

The first place we entered the market did not have the fresh fruit I desired. It looked more like a scene from a horror movie than somewhere that sells products for human consumption. Pigs were strung up by their hind legs and filleted open from stomach to throat. Their entrails laid in a pile beside the corpses, where people vigorously sifted through feet of intestine.

Countless chickens were clustered on top of one another in small rusty cages. Occasionally, they would let out loud screeches as one would be plucked from the pack and thrown into boiling water. Beside the chickens lay all manner of fish flopping about in less than an inch of water—gasping as they baked in the tropical sun. 

My feet grew dirty as I walked through the puddles that gathered in the market. The puddles came not from rain, but instead from the constant washing of butchering blocks. The water carried animal remains as it slowly made its way into the same stream that wove between people’s homes and eventually flowed to Thailand’s famous beaches.

I could feel my appetite quickly fading. Knowing I would regret leaving empty-handed, I found a few fruit vendors scattered amongst the carnage. I quickly grabbed a few bags of dragonfruit, mangosteen, and rambutan, then fled the market.

As much as I wanted to ignore everything I had just seen, there was an inescapable pit of discomfort growing inside me. With each black cloud of exhaust spewed from passing trucks, and every piece of plastic I saw lining the streets, I grew more upset. What I remember the most is a few vines sprouting out of the most minuscule cracks in the concrete. Their leaves were covered in brown from the rusty structure they so delicately balanced on.

These stunted vines were all that remained of the mighty jungle. The rest was smothered in concrete that laid a foundation for the human species to display its unrelenting, unapologetic, consumption of the natural world.

It’s not easy to process our ills. 

Our psychological coping methods are quite impractical, if one takes the time to analyze them. Some justify their actions by claiming they are stuck in a larger system that is too great for one person to fix. Others find ways to deny involvement or make their actions seem less extreme in comparison. To escape the discomfort, people even seek ignorance and distraction in attempt to hide from the problem, as if that would suddenly make it vanish.

To quell my internal distress, I reminded myself of how I didn’t contribute to the destruction I was witnessing. I don’t eat meat, so animals aren’t being harmed because of me. I have a reusable water bottle and dispose of my trash in garbage cans, so I’m not contributing to plastic pollution. And of course, I planted pretty flowers and trees in my backyard, instead of cutting them down.

This line of reasoning worked for a time, but deep down, it didn’t sit right.

It took me until later that evening to recognize the irony of my reaction. Sure, I may not consume as many animal products as others do, but I have been burning far too many fossil fuels through all of my plane flights. And while my plastic trash may end up in a landfill, where I won’t have to look at it, I still am creating demand for an unnatural product that will take thousands of years to decay.

I came to the realization that I was so bothered by my time in Bangkok not because the Thai culture is more destructive, but because the Thai culture made no effort to hide humanity’s dark side.

In Los Angeles, our cars emit clear fumes, so we don’t have to think about the greenhouse gasses spewing from our exhaust pipes. We hide our waste water beneath the ground and send our trash to landfills in far-off basins, so we can ignore the messes we make. We pump in water to grow plants in an area that is naturally a desert, so the sprawling concrete jungle looks more palatable.

Instead of seeing where our meat comes from, we expect it to be delivered in nice, neat packages to our grocery store with labels like “organic,” “grass-fed,” or “free-range.” The Thai cows were probably grass-fed, but actually witnessing their limbs get dismembered makes the practice of raising and butchering animals far less palatable than the American labels let on.

Lastly, and probably worst of all, we do a lot of our dirty work in other countries. The factories that dye our clothing and the mines that extract rare metals for our electronics are conveniently kept out of the American public eye in other continents. The average American probably has no idea of the environmental impacts of those practices. 

The complexity of these problems is yet another reason American travelers need to reserve judgement, especially when visiting developing nations: there is blood on all of our hands.

My point in all of this isn’t to convert everyone to being a vegan or expect we all immediately stop using single-use plastics. I recognize that is far too much to ask. What I do hope to shed light on is our truly destructive relationship with this planet and the many species we share it with.

I want people to take ownership over the choices they make and genuinely understand the consequences of their actions. If we continue to blindly believe that buying organic items in trendy recycled packaging is enough, then we will fail as a species.

Don’t try and make a drastic change immediately. Instead, next time you want to buy a coffee, think about the impact of your consumption. Decide if the land cleared in the rainforest to grow the beans, and the plastic cup and straw it comes with, are worth the caffeine buzz. Sometimes it might be, and sometimes it might not. 

What matters is we make decisions with that same depth of thought and moral conscience.

So carry on with a more astute, discerning mind, and make your decisions based in reason. Be honest with yourself, and others, about why you’re making certain choices. And lastly, don’t be too upset because if you’ve made it to this point in the article, you’re probably a good person. 

I know this post wasn’t the easiest to read. It certainly wasn’t the most fun to write, but sometimes we need to have the difficult conversations.

I don’t want to leave you on a sour note, so here is a gallery featuring all of Thailand’s natural wonder. Outside of Bangkok, the scenery was stunning, and meeting the workers and elephants at Patara Elephant Farm was enough to put a smile on the most cynical of faces.

There is still a lot of beauty left in our world; thank you for caring about it.

—Chris Buchanan

Sidenote: If you want to see elephants in Thailand, Patara is the most ethical place to go. It is a hospital and sanctuary for mistreated elephants that rehabilitates and releases them into the wild.