Friday 19 January 2007

One night in Bangkok

Well I finally got here. It was a long trip via Hong Kong, an extra 6 hours on my journey, but to be honest by this point I was past caring. I was on my way!

Met a guy called Ben on the first plane, a rugby player form Birmingham who was starting out on a seven month trip to Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, NZ and South America. He's taking the break before he starts work on a real estate job in London in September. I was advising him to live in south London because, well, it's better innit? He was nice, cool, chilled. I wonder if I'll bump into him again.

I slept for most of the flight, though, after watching this formulaic romcom called Starter For Ten starring James McAvoy. So formulaic that even though the sound kept cutting out I still new exactly what was going on. I popped a couple herbal sleeping pills on the advice of my friend Eloise as she said she found she couldn't sleep when flying east. I wasn't sure about why that would be but wasn't taking any chances.

Hong Kong airport was... well like any other airport really. The only things marking it out as any different was that it is insanely clean and shiny. Both Jens I know would love it. It also has a really cool ceiling that's like something out of the newer Star Wars films. And outside I could see mountains beyond the grey mist that hung over the place. Oh and there were lots of Oriental-looking people. That was a bit of a giveaway I was no longer at Heathrow.

The flight from Hong Kong was notable only for the fact that one of the channels on the TV in the seat is a view from the bottom of the plane. They have a camera on the underbelly of the plane that is facing the front wheel so you can see what it would be like if you found yourself holding on to the bottom of the plane for dear life. Which is useful. As it was evening, and as the screen was quite fuzzy, once the lights of the airport had disappeared on screen and the front wheel was retracting into the plane, it was a bit like what you'd imagine Carol-Ann was experiencing in Poltergeist when that short, weird-looking woman was telling her to go into the light.

Anyway.

When I arrived I got a taxi to Bangkok rather than the bus suggested by Eloise. I chickened out to be honest. I was knackered and spaced and couldn't face trying to work out where to get off. It was a long journey into the city thanks to bad traffic and then the driver not being able to find the hotel. No one had heard of it! But we got there in the end and it was worth the wait. As you can see from the pic I'm not been slumming it. Thanks Maz!!



I settled in and got in touch with my friend Tom who had been here for two and a half weeks already. When he eventually found the hotel (it's near everything but it's tucked away) we went out to check out the nightlife. Tom wanted to see the ping pong pussy performance before he went (he left today) so we went hunting for it around some sex show bars in Nana.

I had to eat first and tried my first food from a street vendor. Sausage on a stick, chicken balls on a stick and pigs in blankets on a stick, all covered in sweet chilli sauce (emphasis on the chilli rather than the sweet). I loved it.

Then we scouted around the sex bars for this show. There were lots of girls trying to entice us into their respective clubs but none seemed to be doing what we were looking for. One bar was staffed by ladyboys and they grabbed Tom immediately, stroking his chest and trying to get him to come in. I stood and watched, laughing, but then one came up to me and started telling me about how the ladyboys in the other club over the way had had the snip but they hadn't. His voice dropped a decibel for a second and I stifled a laugh. I then felt my cock being grabbed and made a dash for it, having to yank my arm out of the ladyboy's grasp as he (she?) called after me. Welcome to Bangkok, Will.

We decided to head to the gay bars in Sala Daeng, if only to reassure ourselves of our sexuality. It was as you'd expect - lots of skinny Thai boys and a few older white men. I was amused to see that the usual gay pub/club rules apply the world over:
  • the men use the ladies toilets
  • nobody drinks beer apart from me
  • it's never long before Aqua's Barbie Girl gets played
  • Madonna will always fill a dancefloor

We sat in a karaoke bar for a bit, listening to an awful glam ladyboy singing awful Thai songs awfully, before we headed to DJ Station. I kept getting shoved, which annoyed the hell out of me until I realised that this is the Thai guys' way of getting your attention. Then I loved it.

We went on to the club GOD, which, with a brilliant lack of subtlety, stands for 'guys on display'. Looking around, I decided I had to buy a pair of jeans from this town. Everyone was wearing perfectly fitted jeans that weren't too loose, weren't too tight, and yet managed to show every curve of every muscle in every leg. Amazing.

We flitted around, getting lots of attention. We met a lad called Mickey who had just bought a bottle of whisky and wanted us to help him drink it. He's half Thai, quarter Japanese and quarter Belgian and is only here 'til May visiting family. He told me I looked half-Japanese and would probably be very popular here. Which'd be great if I had a taste for Asian lads, but I don't really. I'm going to have to develop one.

So Mickey plied Tom and I with whisky and cokes until five in the morning when the club kicked out. I was hammered but too hyper to notice it. I'd decided that before I leave Bangkok I want to dance on top of the dancing cage. Thinking about it now, it looks a little flimsy so might not be a good idea. Which is the only reason it's not a good idea, obviously.

Mickey tried to get us to go back to his place. We declined but I took his number, thinking it'll be nice to have a friend in the city. I headed back to Tom's hotel room, and woke up this morning feeling AWFUL. We decided to go to Wat Pho for a massage and tried to get the boat down there but none of them stopped at our pier. We got a cab instead and I was revived a little by some Pad Thai and an iced coffee - iced because it's bloody hot here. But a good hot - a better-than-being-battered-by-crazy-storms-in-Europe hot. I also had some pineapple on a stick but couldn't eat it all because basically it's A WHOLE BLOODY PINEAPPLE. Amazing.

Then we wandered around Wat Pho in a daze, unable to find the masseurs. Wat Pho is basically a load of fancy-looking, colourful religious monuments and temples, the most interesting of which holds a massive, and I mean HUGE (although he hasn't got much of an arse I noticed), gold leaf-covered statue called the Reclining Buddha, which is clever cos he's lying on his side.

We got the boat back up to our area of town. It was like getting on a London bus in that it was rammed full of people, but it vibrated a lot more (making Tom's nose itch) and had a nicer view. I'm going to get the boat as much as possible, I like it.

I was relieved to get back to the hotel as I was dying to just chill and nurture my hangover. Tom bid me goodbye and went off to try and get back into the UK (those storms look scary, man), while I tried to watch some film where Bruce Willis was shooting Jack Black's arm off. There's no photos of any of this (not even Bruce Willis shooting Jack Black's arm off) as I forgot to take my camera both times. I won't make a habit of it.

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