Ladyboys and Budget Disasters

Bangkok appeared deathly quiet yesterday, which seemed strange considering how hard it was to find a hotel room. It turns out, I was the only one who did not know it was one of the most important annual Buddhist holidays and Thailand had gone on leave. Being very lazy, I had booked a room off Sukhimvit because I knew the monorail and underground trains are so close. From my hotel window one can see the delightfully named Cabbages & Condoms restaurant sign board. This innovative restaurant gives out condoms instead of after dinner mints and actively educates the local sex workers in safer 'business' practices.

Despite the fact that Sukhimvit Road cuts through a modern part of Bangkok with many business hotels, it has a sleazy reputation. Some of Bangkok's infamous Go-Go bars litter the side streets, particularly Soi 4 with the predictably named G-Spot and Spanky's screaming for business with their garish neon lighting. The problem is, with yesterday's holiday, Soi 4 was practically the only place to have a drink and get some food within walking distance of my hotel....I settled on the least sleazy looking option, a simple bar elevated a meter or two above the street and ordered a beer. Below, the ladyboys and whores were already plying their trade at six in the evening and the grizzled, toothless street-food vendors were cooking skewered squid and yellow corn cobs in giant oil-filled, sizzling woks. Tuk-Tuk drivers were yelling for business and mustachioed, gold-chained, bulging-bellied, washed-out, tattoo-covered Europeans were strolling arm-in-arm with dainty women in short skirts, ridiculously small tops and rickety acrylic stilettos. Competing music from the surrounding bars drowned out the background traffic. Life's rich mosaic was crammed into Soi 4 - filthy tramps, dreadlocked backpackers, brazen business men, limbless beggars, fake-goods vendors, chunky gold-ringed pimps, lottery ticket sellers that yell "lucky numbers!", grubby bare bottomed children, scrawny battle scarred cats, rabid (but well fed) dogs that srounge for tidbits, pushy touts and scam-artists all mixing and bargaining the night away. After my second beer, the waitress said to me, "We don't often see that", pointing at my book, "single men coming in with a brick-sized book reading by themselves". It then struck me how bizarre it must seem to someone observing the whole scene around them that I was in the midst of this cesspit quietly reading Vikram Seth's 1500 hundred pages of 'A Suitable Boy' while the sordid nightlife bubbled all around me. And yet, that is the joy of backpacking. The juxtaposition of one's secluded internal travel with the buzz of life going on around you is thought provoking and liberating.

Little Arabia is just opposite Soi 4 and another bizarre contrast is apparent. 30 second's away from Spanky's neon throb-fest are streets peopled with hijab and niqaab covered Muslims and restaurants only serving The Great Satan's coca-cola or fresh guava or lime juice. Restaurant signs are in Thai, English, Chinese, Farsi and Arabic. Deciding against wok-fried squid offered by a gummy crone, I ventured into a Lebanese cafe for supper, which proved an expensive mistake. Chicken Biryani was dry, tasteless and above budget. The cafe still seemed to be celebrating Iraq's win in the Asian Football Cup and Mr. Chef may have had his thoughts elsewhere. After a rash espresso and packet of butter biscuits bought in the afternoon, beers and ill-considered supper, the budget is looking dire and this is only day one. With a renewed sense of austerity I look forward to the trip up to Chiang Mai by sleeper this evening. I had to opt for the non-aircon upper berth sleeper to attempt some fiscal responsibility. I hope you are finding time for a Siesta.