Bangkok bedlam
After catching a 5hr hard-seat train from Hua Hin (for 65p) we had arrived at the infamous Bangkok. Once housed and fed we headed, via the subway, to Patpong where all the fake stuff in the world seems to exist at the night market that is nestled, not so discreetly, alongside the the sleazy nightlife that is in abundance here. There is a curious mix of ’sex’ tourists and demure ‘normal’ tourists here. We headed home via tuk-tuk after spotting our first elephant in Thailand (in the middle of a massive city - eh?).
We took a passenger boat down the very choppy and very large Chao Phraya river which dissects this city and headed for Koh San Road which is a sort of decompression chamber for newly arrived Western backpackers into Asia. It is a lively place that never seems to sleep. It is also the site of the most ‘interesting’ travellers I have met this far. On arrival here I got the tattoo I had been after for 1000B. I then got drunk in a hostel that we moved into the next day for 100B per night. The people in the company here are as varied as they are interesting. In no certain order: An 30yo Irish boxer/musician, a 50yo Aussie historian looking to be an English teacher, a N Irish heroine addict (who got busted by the Thai police while I was there), a drug dealer from Manchester (who has done time in both the UK and Thailand), an old cockney geezer with 6 kids (from 6 different nations) who lives in India, a Burmese t-shirt seller, a gay Thai lad who is saving to become a ladyboy once he has shagged enough falangs to start paying for the requisite operations, a Canadian airline pilot and an old Brummie lad that has just written a book about Cambodia. Like I say, you meet all manner of live’s characters here! However, the one thing all these people seem to have in common is a self-destruct mechanism that they push to the limit. Many is the night where we have all sat and drank shit-loads of cheap Thai whiskey/beer and smoked until your lungs hurt. Needless to say I participated with schoolboy-like enthusiasm and came to the conclusion after 1 week that this place would kill you sooner rather than later.
We did do some normal things here like visit Sukhumvit Road via the Seb Sen Khlong (canal). This is Bangkok’s Regent St but also hosts some of Bangkok’s well known sleazy nightlife; namely Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy. We strolled around Nana Plaza at dusk as everybody was preparing for the night ahead. This involved 100’s of lasses doing makeup and hair at various points within this 3 floored drinking complex while fat ugly falangs hung around boozing in anticipation. We headed back to KSR and the ‘clinic’ (our hostel’s nickname) for a drink with the lads.
We saw the Royal Palace and collected our passports from the Cambodian embassy and jumped a bus to Khorat (Udon Ratchasima) feeling like we had cheated death by escaping Bangkok alive. I got an insect bite on my lip and it swelled to the size of a small marble with the nightmarish associated pain. We watched movies in our posh room with air-con and TV while we recovered from the excesses of BKK. Next we went to Surin which is deep in Thailand’s Isaan province. Visibly poorer people live here and it follows that fewer foreigners venture out here as a result so you get a much more authentic Thai experience which suits me just fine. I am currently sitting in Surin’s seemingly only Internet cafe which is full of young local kids playing PC games. This place was packed last night so we had to wait until the bairns go to school today and it is still packed??
On Saturday we head into Cambodia and the supposedly spectacular ancient ruins the Khmers left at Angkor.
Kao Pat Gai (Chicken fried rice in Thai)
Tags: 1
