Religious Prostitution
Thailand
Thailand
Thailand Chronicles Day Two: Bangkok (day 1 of 7 in country)
The first real day of our vacation began around about 9:00 am. The posse had to struggle its way through reveille in order to be downstairs in time to catch the complimentary breakfast offered by our hotel. This was a wasted enterprise however, for the breakfast could be uniformly described as lackluster, if not terrible.
But breakfast really doesn't matter when you have three different temples and a whole city to explore.
Leaving the hotel presented a much different Khaosan road than the night before. Street vendors had materialized every, selling everything from souvenir tchochkes to burritos. Hell, one intrepid copyright-infringer had even set up a computer to import single albums onto iPods. I tipped my hat to the latter. Now that's creative thinking.
We proceeded on foot out towards the nearest temple, Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace. A somewhat perplexing obstacle struck us almost immediately: how do you cross 4 lanes of extremely busy street without the benefit of a stop light or a crosswalk?
One carefully timed game of frogger later, we were on our way to the temple again and, unfortunately, headed like the Titanic into our first negative impression of the Thai people.
On the way to the Grand Palace we walked down a wide tree-lined pedestrian walk when we noticed a large flock of pigeons in front of us. Seth told us that he'd seen this before, and that the pigeons had grossed him out last time as they had kind of swarmed him. The group split up for a minute here. I went over to the road to snap a couple pictures of a government building and when I turned back I noticed that Melissa and Ryan had both been stopped by Thai people. As I was skirting the edge of the pigeon flock a woman in a bright yellow shirt walked up to me and threw three small bags of feed corn into my chest.
This was somewhat surprising, as might be expected.
I barely even reacted to the bags of corn hitting me. They fell to the ground, so I picked them up and offered them back to the woman. Instead of taking the bags, she deftly untied the elastics that held the bags closed and spilled the corn all over the ground. This of course attracted dozens of pigeons towards us, which I guess was mildly amusing. It occupied maybe the same level of entertainment as riding one of those little mechanized rocket ships/trucks/helicopters that are always parked outside of malls in America, existing solely to occupy the bastard children of suburbanites while their parents yell at each other about how a 12 pack of Coke is cheaper just down the street.
It was about that entertaining.
I tried to laugh it off, but as I was turning to leave the woman grabbed my wrist, slammed another 3 bags into my hand and opened them, again spilling corn everywhere. At this point, I was getting a little bit pissed. I dropped the corn immediately and turned to leave again. Same thing happened. I felt her grip on my arm and then all of a sudden pellets of corn the colour of day-old urine are falling to the sidewalk again.
This time, when I turned to leave, she grabbed my arm and said "You pay 650 Baht!"
*sound effect - needle being pulled off of a record mid-song*
650 baht is approximately equivalent to $20.
What the fuck?
650 baht is approximately equivalent to $20.
What the fuck?
I smiled at her and told her I wasn't paying that, which prompted the two other grifters (as I now knew they were) to collapse on me and start yelling for me to pay. I tried to talk them down, but no dice. What topped it all off was that when I opened up my wallet to pay the woman actually REACHED into it and took what I hope was only a 1000 baht bill. One of her buddies stuffed the change into my hand and I beat a bewildered retreat.
Not a great way to start a day off sight seeing. On the plus side it provided a great way to joke about prices for the rest of the trip. "Our flight to Phuket only cost 18 bags of corn."
Ah well.
We finally made it to the grand palace only to be struck with another interesting grift. We were stopped on the way to the gate by a fairly distinguished looking Thai fellow bearing a blue umbrella and a pair of dark shades. He proceeded to inform us that the Grand Palace was closed and that the best way to tour it would be to take a Tuk Tuk ride to another few temples before coming back to that one later on in the day.
A Tuk Tuk, for those who are uninformed, is a small, three wheeled (in Bangkok anyways) vehicle that sounds like the most hardcore lawnmower you've ever seen and is about as sturdy as one too. Actually, maybe less. They're very light, quite nimble, and decently fast. This allows them to move fairly effectively through the congested surface streets of Bangkok.
So this Thai gentlemen was saying the temple was closed despite the stream of tourists exiting the compound further down the street and the sign behind him indicating that the visitor's entrance was in the other direction. The grift is apparently just to get you to buy a Tuk Tuk for a couple of hours and ride around to the other major temples in Bangkok and return to the one you're at in the end.
We didn't fall for this one.
Instead we meandered down the road to the entrance and rented some long pants in order to appear decently respectful on the temple grounds and in front of the Grand Palace.
Wat Phra Kaew was quite impressive. Never have I seen a greater wealth of coloured glass, gold foil and just all around glam and glitter accumulated in one religious monument. The three main spires of the temple complex are absolutely beautiful, especially on an incredibly bright, warm afternoon, with the sun warming up your neck and a nice new camera dangling off its strap begging to be used.
So I used it. A lot.
The centerpiece of the temple section is the Emerald Buddha, which has a very interesting history as elaborated here. We spent about 10 minutes sitting in the inner sanctum with the Buddha, legs carefully placed so that our feet were facing away from the altar. One would not wish to disrespect the Buddha. It was awe inspiring, sitting in that incredibly decorated temple with an artifact that may be nearly 2000 years old. Very peaceful, very spiritual.
After wandering around the Palace grounds a little bit and taking in all the sights (I was particularly impressed by a model of Angkor Wat. Maybe Cambodia next year?) we left the temple grounds, traded in our loaner pants and found a nice little place for lunch. It was just a small restaurant off the side of a busy street. The food was good and it was nice to have my first Singha of the Thailand trip.
The real champion of this lunch break was the restaurants bathroom. In an incredibly memorable twist, you had to walk through the tiny kitchen where the cook was hard at work into the bathroom. The air freshener was sliced up limes in the urinal and the toilet required a manual flush using water from the sink. Classic, if not classy.
From the restaurant we walked over to the next of the three most holy temple complexes in Bangkok, Wat Pho. The centerpiece of this temple is the largest reclining Buddha, fully 46 meters long and 15 meters tall. Staggeringly large, and covered in gold foil, along with mother of pearl on the soles of it's feet. The Thai's certainly do know how to roll. We spent a little while wandering around this temple soaking up the sound of people praying and watching the orange-clad monks go about their work.
The last stop after Wat Pho was Wat Arun. On the way over we stopped by a small coffee shop that touted the best iced cappucino in Bangkok. I didn't really have time to compare but Seth assured me that this was in fact the case. It was pretty delicious.
We took a short barge ride across the river to visit this final temple in our trip. Wat Arun was, in my opinion, the most impressive temple in Bangkok. For one, it really stands out by being located on the bank of the river. You can also climb it, which if you remember from my Fuji post, is something I've expressed a passing interest in. The view from the top of the temple is very impressive too. Most of the city is laid out in front of you, incredible view. There's some unusual skyscraper architecture in Bangkok too. It was neat to get a good picture of how the city is laid out, with downtown to the south and the sprawl in almost every other direction. In this respect, Bangkok and Tokyo are fairly similar.
I had a nice little moment at the top of the temple when it struck me where exactly it was that I was standing. I find that whenever a realization like this strike me the first thought afterwards is almost always "I never thought I'd see anything like this." There's a sense of the surreal that occupies my mind everytime I see something really amazing on this trip abroad. Guess I never thought I'd have the guts to strike out on my own(-ish) like this. Surprised myself.
We headed back to the hotel via Tuk Tuk. This was a ton of fun, if somewhat nerve-wracking. If cars drive fast but orderly in Canada, slow but somewhat disorderly in Japan then in Thailand they drive fast and extremely disorderly. Our Tuk Tuk driver would routinely veer into oncoming traffic at high speed, scoot between cars and trucks on the centerline and narrowly avoid collisions with passing motorbikes. They would even drive headlong into the middle of massive 4-lane-in-each-direction intersections and just kind of force their way through.
Scary.
Entertaining.
I did find myself making sure my fingers were fully inside the Tuk Tuk at all times. Didn't want to lose anything unnecessarily.
Arriving safe and sound at the hotel we dropped off our stuff and headed out for dinner (I can't remember where). Afterwards we went back to the hotel and bounced up to the top floor of the guesthouse to both play and use the pool that had taken up residence there. The water was a bit cold (Bangkok cools off quite a bit at night) but it was nice to relax in the water and enjoy the panorama of the Bangkok cityscape.
Close to 9PM at this point.
Time for one last sightseeing activity.
Patpong.
Patpong is known for two things. One: the night market that caters to foreigners that runs down the center of the street. Two: it's also one of Bangkok's premiere red light districts. It's a pretty chaotic place. As soon as we got onto the street we were immediately confronted with a half dozen menus advertising the oh-so-infamous ping pong show, or variations there on. This, combined with the street vendors attempting to draw you over to peruse their capable, if obvious, counterfeit products, makes for a bit of a sensory overload. The area is confined to a street with bars and go-go bars running down either side and a huge complex of markets stalls running down the center. Pedestrian traffic only, please.
Our primary goal on this outing was to find a ladyboy cabaret or something similar and, failing that, simply soak up the atmosphere. As we walked down the street we quickly picked up what I would loosely describe as a club promoter. VERY loosely. He was incredibly tenacious though, as he followed us all the way down the street despite Seth's repeated rejections.
Eventually we headed back the way we came and went into what our guide claimed was a lady boy cabaret.
Yeah, not the case, just a regular old go go bar.
And a really dead one at that. There were a grand total of 8 customers or so including us, which made for a pretty uninteresting experience. We had a couple of beers and then headed off down the strip again.
We were still on the hunt for a Ladyboy show, but never did find one, so we just ended up sliding into another go go bar for drinks. We spent a little bit more time making our selection this time out. It immediately struck us that the only real difference from one go go bar to the next was what colour bikini the women were wearing. Walking past the bars felt kind of like perusing a rack of hoodies at American Apparel.
We decided on a patterned white.
This bar was much more hectic than the previous one. Unlike our previous watering hole, all four of the men were immediately approached by numerous employees about various forms of prostitution. I declined politely several times and, fortunately, sat beside Melissa. When the bartender asked if Melissa and I were together I took advantage of the opportunity and nodded enthusiastically.
Voila, no more harrassment for the rest of our time there. The bartender was actually pretty funny, I had a good time joking with her everytime I ordered a new beer.
After a while, Melissa and I got a bit bored and wandered out to explore the rest of the strip. We stopped by a bar that had live music and unfortunately could only enjoy a couple of songs before the band finished its set. I had kind of an unusual experience using the bathroom here. While I was using the urinal some kind of bathroom-attendant-like person came up behind me and started massaging my neck and shoulders...very surprising, and kind of awkward. He also sort of followed me around the little bathroom, so I was still being massaged while I washed my hands and dried them. I tipped him 20 baht and left the bathroom very confused, but a little bit more relaxed. I rejoined Mel, finished my beer, and took off down the strip.
As we left the live bar our "guide" from earlier showed up. Again, requesting ladyboys, he led us to a bar, this time upstairs.
Following him was a mistake at this point.
I remember earlier in the night that Seth had mentioned something about the basement of a bar we had been in being more lascivious then the ground level. Apparently this rule also follows for the second floor of bars. Little to our knowledge, Mel and I were about to be grifted again.
We sat down at a table in the club and before we even got a chance to realize that this was no cabaret, we were surrounded by 7 or 8 women. We both ordered a beer which, surprisingly, seems to translate to "shots for everyone." What the hell?
They immediately shoved a bill in our face for 3000 baht, which is close to $100. Melissa and I at this point were pretty pissed. I left 1000 baht and so did she, but we left immediately with all the bar employees yelling at us as we walked out.
That was it for us. We intended to go home but, on our way out of the strip we noticed a NORMAL bar. No girls, nothing. Just drinks. And a couple knock-off versions of Connect 4. Like an oasis in a desert, we stumbled desperately towards it. Giving our feet a rest Mel and I finally sat down and just talked for a bit while we played 3 games of Connect 4. Despite winning the first Melissa took the match 2-1, but I think I put up a pretty good fight. It was really nice to be out of the go-go bars and so we could just relax and talk without having to scream. It was a neat little bar too, right on the street, kind of small, sort of reminded me of something you might find in Tokyo, if a little bit rough around the edges. The capstone of the night though was using the washroom at this place.
Getting the attention of the bartender with a raised hand and the query "toilet?" I was promptly led out of the bar and down the alley immediately adjacent to the bar. About halfway down the alley I was starting to wonder if I would actually get to see a washroom or if I was a couple seconds away from a knife in the kidney and a stolen wallet.
My guide led me into a parking structure which had a bathroom right inside past the front toll booth. It was surprisingly clean, except for the cockroach the size of child's fist that alighted on my shoulder while I was using the urinal. Fortunately I was too drunk at this point to be surprised, so I just muttered "fuck off" and brushed it to the ground. Still, that was a damn big bug.
We finally hit the road home. Just as we left the bar we passed by a baby elephant, which was Melissa's first of the trip (I saw one from the taxi on the way in the previous night). She managed to snap a picture without being harrassed for money by the Elephant's minders. I give it a pat on the head as I passed by. Their hair is reallllly coarse!
The cab ride home was the last remarkable thing of the night. Melissa and I were talking rather animatedly in the back seat of the cab and, for some reason, at seemingly arbitrary times, our cabbie would burst into quiet laughter. It was kind of disconcerting, but just added to the surreal nature of the night.
I claimed the key to my room on the way through the lobby and parted ways with Melissa. Shortly after laying down to sleep Ryan turned up, followed by Don and Seth a bit later.
And that was the first full day in Thailand! I have to say, I was already looking forward to leaving the city after these experiences. Grifters and the flesh trade seem to be generally unavoidable in Bangkok. I was even approached by a couple of prostitutes on the short walk from the cab to the hotel at the end of the day. Hell, the entrance to the D&D guesthouse is lined with suit stores. You get asked about a new suit about 5 times everytime you leave your room.
Honestly though, the street vendors aren't so bad. The red light district on the other hand I found quite difficult to take. I found most of the area around Patpong to be pretty depressing. This is an entire district of a city devoted to foreigners getting their jollies off. Kind of disgusting in my opinion. I'm no prude, but I have a pretty fundamental objection to paying money for sex. It does a pretty good job of taking everything important out of the actual act itself. At the risk of sounding like a naive romantic, sex as a purely physical act has never really had very much meaning for me. Without emotional ties sex is about as meaningful as a pair of wildebeasts mating in the wild. Which makes it fundamentally meaningless to a sentient (mostly) thoughtful species like human beings. Too each their own, but I'm definitely not a supporter of the flesh trade.
Which may in fact be a damaging opinion to take towards Thailand. We visited in the low season shortly after a bought of political turmoil in the country, which had what appeared to me to be a highly negative impact on the tourism industry. The lack of clientele may have made the various prostitutes and street vendors more aggressive than usual, which made me feel less enamored of the general atmosphere. This seemed especially true at the go-go bars.
Patpong was further depressing due to the type of clientele the brothels seemed to be servicing. A lot of old white men, about 50+ being the average. It's just gross seeing one of those guys with two MAYBE 18 year old girls hanging off each arm. It was really hard not to pull them aside and yell "Dude, you're not 19 anymore, grow the fuck up and go home." Sex tourism, it's the name of the game in Thailand.
Maybe it's just me though. I haven't really spent any time in red light districts before this trip, so maybe it was just shock on my behalf. Either way, I was pretty down after that night.
I'll be back to update the blog again ASAP. It's going to take me quite a while to move through everything, the process is going slower than expected. Pics from the trip should be up on Facebook by tomorrow.
Rantfully yours,
Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello
(Pictures: #1 Wat Phra Kaew, #2 Wat Pho, reclining Buddha, #3 Wat Arun, #4 detail shot, Wat Phra Kaew, #5 Near Khaosan road, from Tuk Tuk)
Not a great way to start a day off sight seeing. On the plus side it provided a great way to joke about prices for the rest of the trip. "Our flight to Phuket only cost 18 bags of corn."
Ah well.
We finally made it to the grand palace only to be struck with another interesting grift. We were stopped on the way to the gate by a fairly distinguished looking Thai fellow bearing a blue umbrella and a pair of dark shades. He proceeded to inform us that the Grand Palace was closed and that the best way to tour it would be to take a Tuk Tuk ride to another few temples before coming back to that one later on in the day.
A Tuk Tuk, for those who are uninformed, is a small, three wheeled (in Bangkok anyways) vehicle that sounds like the most hardcore lawnmower you've ever seen and is about as sturdy as one too. Actually, maybe less. They're very light, quite nimble, and decently fast. This allows them to move fairly effectively through the congested surface streets of Bangkok.
So this Thai gentlemen was saying the temple was closed despite the stream of tourists exiting the compound further down the street and the sign behind him indicating that the visitor's entrance was in the other direction. The grift is apparently just to get you to buy a Tuk Tuk for a couple of hours and ride around to the other major temples in Bangkok and return to the one you're at in the end.
We didn't fall for this one.
Instead we meandered down the road to the entrance and rented some long pants in order to appear decently respectful on the temple grounds and in front of the Grand Palace.
Wat Phra Kaew was quite impressive. Never have I seen a greater wealth of coloured glass, gold foil and just all around glam and glitter accumulated in one religious monument. The three main spires of the temple complex are absolutely beautiful, especially on an incredibly bright, warm afternoon, with the sun warming up your neck and a nice new camera dangling off its strap begging to be used.
So I used it. A lot.
The centerpiece of the temple section is the Emerald Buddha, which has a very interesting history as elaborated here. We spent about 10 minutes sitting in the inner sanctum with the Buddha, legs carefully placed so that our feet were facing away from the altar. One would not wish to disrespect the Buddha. It was awe inspiring, sitting in that incredibly decorated temple with an artifact that may be nearly 2000 years old. Very peaceful, very spiritual.
After wandering around the Palace grounds a little bit and taking in all the sights (I was particularly impressed by a model of Angkor Wat. Maybe Cambodia next year?) we left the temple grounds, traded in our loaner pants and found a nice little place for lunch. It was just a small restaurant off the side of a busy street. The food was good and it was nice to have my first Singha of the Thailand trip.
The real champion of this lunch break was the restaurants bathroom. In an incredibly memorable twist, you had to walk through the tiny kitchen where the cook was hard at work into the bathroom. The air freshener was sliced up limes in the urinal and the toilet required a manual flush using water from the sink. Classic, if not classy.
From the restaurant we walked over to the next of the three most holy temple complexes in Bangkok, Wat Pho. The centerpiece of this temple is the largest reclining Buddha, fully 46 meters long and 15 meters tall. Staggeringly large, and covered in gold foil, along with mother of pearl on the soles of it's feet. The Thai's certainly do know how to roll. We spent a little while wandering around this temple soaking up the sound of people praying and watching the orange-clad monks go about their work.
The last stop after Wat Pho was Wat Arun. On the way over we stopped by a small coffee shop that touted the best iced cappucino in Bangkok. I didn't really have time to compare but Seth assured me that this was in fact the case. It was pretty delicious.
We took a short barge ride across the river to visit this final temple in our trip. Wat Arun was, in my opinion, the most impressive temple in Bangkok. For one, it really stands out by being located on the bank of the river. You can also climb it, which if you remember from my Fuji post, is something I've expressed a passing interest in. The view from the top of the temple is very impressive too. Most of the city is laid out in front of you, incredible view. There's some unusual skyscraper architecture in Bangkok too. It was neat to get a good picture of how the city is laid out, with downtown to the south and the sprawl in almost every other direction. In this respect, Bangkok and Tokyo are fairly similar.
I had a nice little moment at the top of the temple when it struck me where exactly it was that I was standing. I find that whenever a realization like this strike me the first thought afterwards is almost always "I never thought I'd see anything like this." There's a sense of the surreal that occupies my mind everytime I see something really amazing on this trip abroad. Guess I never thought I'd have the guts to strike out on my own(-ish) like this. Surprised myself.
We headed back to the hotel via Tuk Tuk. This was a ton of fun, if somewhat nerve-wracking. If cars drive fast but orderly in Canada, slow but somewhat disorderly in Japan then in Thailand they drive fast and extremely disorderly. Our Tuk Tuk driver would routinely veer into oncoming traffic at high speed, scoot between cars and trucks on the centerline and narrowly avoid collisions with passing motorbikes. They would even drive headlong into the middle of massive 4-lane-in-each-direction intersections and just kind of force their way through.
Scary.
Entertaining.
I did find myself making sure my fingers were fully inside the Tuk Tuk at all times. Didn't want to lose anything unnecessarily.
Arriving safe and sound at the hotel we dropped off our stuff and headed out for dinner (I can't remember where). Afterwards we went back to the hotel and bounced up to the top floor of the guesthouse to both play and use the pool that had taken up residence there. The water was a bit cold (Bangkok cools off quite a bit at night) but it was nice to relax in the water and enjoy the panorama of the Bangkok cityscape.
Close to 9PM at this point.
Time for one last sightseeing activity.
Patpong.
Patpong is known for two things. One: the night market that caters to foreigners that runs down the center of the street. Two: it's also one of Bangkok's premiere red light districts. It's a pretty chaotic place. As soon as we got onto the street we were immediately confronted with a half dozen menus advertising the oh-so-infamous ping pong show, or variations there on. This, combined with the street vendors attempting to draw you over to peruse their capable, if obvious, counterfeit products, makes for a bit of a sensory overload. The area is confined to a street with bars and go-go bars running down either side and a huge complex of markets stalls running down the center. Pedestrian traffic only, please.
Our primary goal on this outing was to find a ladyboy cabaret or something similar and, failing that, simply soak up the atmosphere. As we walked down the street we quickly picked up what I would loosely describe as a club promoter. VERY loosely. He was incredibly tenacious though, as he followed us all the way down the street despite Seth's repeated rejections.
Eventually we headed back the way we came and went into what our guide claimed was a lady boy cabaret.
Yeah, not the case, just a regular old go go bar.
And a really dead one at that. There were a grand total of 8 customers or so including us, which made for a pretty uninteresting experience. We had a couple of beers and then headed off down the strip again.
We were still on the hunt for a Ladyboy show, but never did find one, so we just ended up sliding into another go go bar for drinks. We spent a little bit more time making our selection this time out. It immediately struck us that the only real difference from one go go bar to the next was what colour bikini the women were wearing. Walking past the bars felt kind of like perusing a rack of hoodies at American Apparel.
We decided on a patterned white.
This bar was much more hectic than the previous one. Unlike our previous watering hole, all four of the men were immediately approached by numerous employees about various forms of prostitution. I declined politely several times and, fortunately, sat beside Melissa. When the bartender asked if Melissa and I were together I took advantage of the opportunity and nodded enthusiastically.
Voila, no more harrassment for the rest of our time there. The bartender was actually pretty funny, I had a good time joking with her everytime I ordered a new beer.
After a while, Melissa and I got a bit bored and wandered out to explore the rest of the strip. We stopped by a bar that had live music and unfortunately could only enjoy a couple of songs before the band finished its set. I had kind of an unusual experience using the bathroom here. While I was using the urinal some kind of bathroom-attendant-like person came up behind me and started massaging my neck and shoulders...very surprising, and kind of awkward. He also sort of followed me around the little bathroom, so I was still being massaged while I washed my hands and dried them. I tipped him 20 baht and left the bathroom very confused, but a little bit more relaxed. I rejoined Mel, finished my beer, and took off down the strip.
As we left the live bar our "guide" from earlier showed up. Again, requesting ladyboys, he led us to a bar, this time upstairs.
Following him was a mistake at this point.
I remember earlier in the night that Seth had mentioned something about the basement of a bar we had been in being more lascivious then the ground level. Apparently this rule also follows for the second floor of bars. Little to our knowledge, Mel and I were about to be grifted again.
We sat down at a table in the club and before we even got a chance to realize that this was no cabaret, we were surrounded by 7 or 8 women. We both ordered a beer which, surprisingly, seems to translate to "shots for everyone." What the hell?
They immediately shoved a bill in our face for 3000 baht, which is close to $100. Melissa and I at this point were pretty pissed. I left 1000 baht and so did she, but we left immediately with all the bar employees yelling at us as we walked out.
That was it for us. We intended to go home but, on our way out of the strip we noticed a NORMAL bar. No girls, nothing. Just drinks. And a couple knock-off versions of Connect 4. Like an oasis in a desert, we stumbled desperately towards it. Giving our feet a rest Mel and I finally sat down and just talked for a bit while we played 3 games of Connect 4. Despite winning the first Melissa took the match 2-1, but I think I put up a pretty good fight. It was really nice to be out of the go-go bars and so we could just relax and talk without having to scream. It was a neat little bar too, right on the street, kind of small, sort of reminded me of something you might find in Tokyo, if a little bit rough around the edges. The capstone of the night though was using the washroom at this place.
Getting the attention of the bartender with a raised hand and the query "toilet?" I was promptly led out of the bar and down the alley immediately adjacent to the bar. About halfway down the alley I was starting to wonder if I would actually get to see a washroom or if I was a couple seconds away from a knife in the kidney and a stolen wallet.
My guide led me into a parking structure which had a bathroom right inside past the front toll booth. It was surprisingly clean, except for the cockroach the size of child's fist that alighted on my shoulder while I was using the urinal. Fortunately I was too drunk at this point to be surprised, so I just muttered "fuck off" and brushed it to the ground. Still, that was a damn big bug.
We finally hit the road home. Just as we left the bar we passed by a baby elephant, which was Melissa's first of the trip (I saw one from the taxi on the way in the previous night). She managed to snap a picture without being harrassed for money by the Elephant's minders. I give it a pat on the head as I passed by. Their hair is reallllly coarse!
The cab ride home was the last remarkable thing of the night. Melissa and I were talking rather animatedly in the back seat of the cab and, for some reason, at seemingly arbitrary times, our cabbie would burst into quiet laughter. It was kind of disconcerting, but just added to the surreal nature of the night.
I claimed the key to my room on the way through the lobby and parted ways with Melissa. Shortly after laying down to sleep Ryan turned up, followed by Don and Seth a bit later.
And that was the first full day in Thailand! I have to say, I was already looking forward to leaving the city after these experiences. Grifters and the flesh trade seem to be generally unavoidable in Bangkok. I was even approached by a couple of prostitutes on the short walk from the cab to the hotel at the end of the day. Hell, the entrance to the D&D guesthouse is lined with suit stores. You get asked about a new suit about 5 times everytime you leave your room.
Honestly though, the street vendors aren't so bad. The red light district on the other hand I found quite difficult to take. I found most of the area around Patpong to be pretty depressing. This is an entire district of a city devoted to foreigners getting their jollies off. Kind of disgusting in my opinion. I'm no prude, but I have a pretty fundamental objection to paying money for sex. It does a pretty good job of taking everything important out of the actual act itself. At the risk of sounding like a naive romantic, sex as a purely physical act has never really had very much meaning for me. Without emotional ties sex is about as meaningful as a pair of wildebeasts mating in the wild. Which makes it fundamentally meaningless to a sentient (mostly) thoughtful species like human beings. Too each their own, but I'm definitely not a supporter of the flesh trade.
Which may in fact be a damaging opinion to take towards Thailand. We visited in the low season shortly after a bought of political turmoil in the country, which had what appeared to me to be a highly negative impact on the tourism industry. The lack of clientele may have made the various prostitutes and street vendors more aggressive than usual, which made me feel less enamored of the general atmosphere. This seemed especially true at the go-go bars.
Patpong was further depressing due to the type of clientele the brothels seemed to be servicing. A lot of old white men, about 50+ being the average. It's just gross seeing one of those guys with two MAYBE 18 year old girls hanging off each arm. It was really hard not to pull them aside and yell "Dude, you're not 19 anymore, grow the fuck up and go home." Sex tourism, it's the name of the game in Thailand.
Maybe it's just me though. I haven't really spent any time in red light districts before this trip, so maybe it was just shock on my behalf. Either way, I was pretty down after that night.
I'll be back to update the blog again ASAP. It's going to take me quite a while to move through everything, the process is going slower than expected. Pics from the trip should be up on Facebook by tomorrow.
Rantfully yours,
Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello
(Pictures: #1 Wat Phra Kaew, #2 Wat Pho, reclining Buddha, #3 Wat Arun, #4 detail shot, Wat Phra Kaew, #5 Near Khaosan road, from Tuk Tuk)
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