Drinking lager with a gin & tonic and Baileys chaser

Fascinating creatures…looks like a lady but really it’s a man. I don’t find them attractive; it’s just confusing.

- Alan Partridge, 1997

Yes, I’m in Bangkok – the capital of Thailand, rather more infamous than famous thanks to pollution, sex tourism and ladyboys. It’s noisy, humid and the smog levels are so high that the sun turns red and viewable three hours before sunset. It’s apparently very safe (intimidating yet docile packs of stray dogs roam the streets – a bit like hooded teenagers in the UK), but at the same time it’s Scam Central. One of the most popular scams I’ve heard about is one where a tuk-tuk (that’s a three-wheeled motorised buggy) driver offers to take you sightseeing for a very low price only to take you to a tailor where he’s promised a commission. All the “victims” I’ve spoken to managed to get out of it, so I don’t know why they keep doing it. I did see one schmuck who’d been ripped off bigtime. His t-shirt read “Harlay Davison”.

I don’t really like Bangkok, though people who’ve been here for longer than three days say it grows on you. And that’s not just dirty old men either. But I don’t fancy spending longer than necessary here. I got a visa for Vietnam at one of the travel agents near Khao San Road (probably the biggest backpacker ghetto in the world) but it took several days so I got out of town once I’d seen the temples and palace. I’ll check out the weekend market tomorrow (I’ve finally decided to buy a digital camera) then get an overnight train to Chiang Mai. Unless I meet a group of folk who are up for a laugh, I shan’t be going to Patpong, the red-light district where, as well as a night market, they have them ping-pong shows. I don’t fancy going there as a single man, especially with these why-would-I-need-to-pay? good looks.

Between Wednesday and today I’ve been in Kanchanaburi, where there’s a bridge over the River Kwai. There was a film about it. I think I started watching it but got bored. Back in the Second World War, the Japanese had thousands of Asian workers and POWs build a railway from Thailand to Burma, and thousands died of malnutrition, disease and brutality. It took 17 months to complete and was operational for only 22 more. First I went to the Railway Museum, where I learned a lot, then to the bridge, which was packed with tourists, then to the WWII Museum, which would have made my afternoon rather depressing were it not laughably shit. They had lifesize but far from lifelike plaster models of people like Mussolini and Churchill.

With the history out of the way, I spent the following day cycling around the Kwai valley, dropping into a couple of cave temples and a monkey school, which was endearingly tacky (like most of Kanchanaburi). The next day I splashed out (about 12 pounds) on a day trip which took in the Erawan waterfalls, elephant-trekking, bamboo-rafting and a ride on the Death Railway. It was tourism on a mass-produced scale, which diluted the sense of adventure, but luckily it was a young group and we had a laugh. The guide also tried to rip us off by plugging the chicken at our free lunch in a “good restaurant”, then after a disappointing dining experience for those who’d partaken, tried to extract an extra 40 baht from them. The elephants were awesome. They had a baby one who performed a skit involving a harmonica, a hula hoop and a dance. It was depressing and hilarious at the same time.

I like Thailand overall, and the people are friendly and up for banter even when they’re not after money. Bless them – they really love the king and wear yellow polo shirts because the King was born on a Monday and yellow is the colour for Monday. It causes deep offence to slag off the King, so I’d better not say anything about how he needs to upgrade his NHS specs, in case they put me in the Bangkok Hilton (that’s a prison (well, the one I’m talking about is) – noticeboards all over Khao San contain requests for people to visit Western drug mules who are serving life sentences there).

The whole ladyboy thing? I reckon it’s well easy to spot them. However, folk who’ve been here longer reckon those ones are only the tip of the iceberg. So one has to establish whether the Thai girl one’s just met in a bar is indeed a woman as well as not a hooker. Unless, of course, one likes that kind of thing.

Did you know
Ping-pong the game was invented in Patpong, and the show was actually the precursor. In 1949, sport (and brothel) enthusiast Raymond Cresswell saw the patpong balls and thought they’d be good in a tennis-style game utilising a table, and named his creation after the inspirational locale. When Cresswell resigned his presidency after one ladyboy incident too many, the sport’s governing body changed the name slightly in order to disassociate itself from whores. Of course, “ping-pong” took off and eventually patpong became “them ping-pong shows”.

Daniel Wilson Craw : 27 Jan 2007 12:25 |  Tags: Bangkok Kanchanaburi Thailand Travel |  Comments (0) |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem