No such luck. Instead Sanam Luang park, which is right next to Bangkok’s Grand Palace (the former royal residence), is bereft of anything, let alone kite-flying. It’s merely an open area with a few tufts of grass trying to squeeze itself through the ground. Mainly it’s used for royal ceremonies, such as cremations (nice) and the annual Ploughing Ceremony (might explain the lack of grass) where the king officially initiates the rice-growing season. (Does this mean no rice is allowed to grow until he says so? Hmm.)
What’s happening there today? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. You get the idea. Mengly vows to maim the pupil that told her the kite-flying lies.
Instead, we get ripped off by the evil male twin of the Mary Poppins pigeon lady. On entering the ‘park’, we have to tiptoe through a flock of horrible pigeons, by which the Evil Pigeon Man (as he shall henceforth be known) is standing. Now I hate fucking pigeons. They smell, they flutter annoyingly and they spread disease. I’ve hated them since I worked in the stockroom at Body Shop in Southampton and the fuckers would shit everywhere out the back which I then had to trod through each day. But Mengly wants to take some pics (she photographs EVERYTHING and each shot comes out looking amazing) so we sit down by them. Evil Pigeon Man comes over and offers us some corn to feed the pigeons. I decline. I hate them and I’m not paying to feed them. But he insists, basically making it clear we don’t have to pay. I figure he’s job is to look after them, then, not rip off tourists. Oh, how wrong am I.
I take a bag off him, basically so I can throw the corn far away and get the horrible little blighters away from me. This works for awhile. Then Mengly wants me to walk through them, get them to fly up in the air for a shot. Dear God. She’s got a bag as well and keeps throwing corn. I’m now in the midst of them and Evil Pigeon Man is trying to get me to put corn in my hand so the birds sit on my hand. No chance. Mengly gets some shots of me looking absolutely disgusted and we make to head off. That’s when Evil Pigeon Man’s evil side rears its ugly head.
He comes over looking grim-faced and mutters, “150 baht.” I can’t believe my ears. He practically forced these bags on us and now he wants 150 baht?? Even if we’d wanted to feed the pigeons, I wouldn’t have paid that much. It’s just over two quid, which might not seem much, but when you’re living on Thai money it’s quite a lot. But Evil Pigeon Man starts to get a bit scary as we resist, stamping his foot and looking a bit unhinged. Mengly gets out her purse and I can’t blame her but I’m still resisting a bit. I eventually give up and hand over the money, fully aware I’ve been had good and proper. It stings even more 20 minutes later when a young boy come sup and offers us a bag of corn to feed the pigeons. How much? 10 baht.
It’s an up and down day after that. Mengly goes off to meet some record company guy to sort out interviews for a story on Thai music she’s doing. I buy an NME, which makes me homesick. I see a blond couple, which is a bit of a shock after getting used to being around Thai people all the time. I got to Khao San Road and feel a little different to all the wide-eyed Westerners there now that I’m actually working and living here. I find a Muay Thai school which specialises in training foreigners but it’s an open gym on a little alley behind Khao San Road, so lots of travellers walk past and sit down and watch for a bit, which puts me off a bit. Not sure I could train with such an audience, but we’ll see. I really need to train. I’ve not done so for two months - it tailed off after I got my kickboxing purple belt, what with Christmas and preparing to leave the country and that – and it’s starting to show. Gone is the flat, toned stomach I’m used to, and while I’ve not reached beer belly status just yet, I’m not happy.
The Muay Thai itself? I watch a mix of Thais and Westerners train. Most of the blokes are ripped but there are a few who are a little overweight and have obviously come to shift it. It’s very different to kickboxing, with a lot less moves to learn, but it looks hard and intense physically. You can tell by the shape the blokes here are in that it’s a good workout, but it’s nowhere near as frenetic as my kickboxing classes were. It’s obviously a good workout, just a different one to what I’m used to.
I talk to some Irish dude while watching the Muay Thai training. He has a very thick Irish accent which is mostly impossible to understand. He’s come looking for a show rather than to train, and I tell him about the two big Muay Thai stadiums in Bangkok. I ask him if he fancies training as well and he shakes his head, says he goes to the gym. Looking at him in his vest and shorts, that much is obvious. But he has these really skinny legs, which annoys me. You see that sometimes, where guys are really beefed up on top and then have skinny legs. What’s wrong with working out your legs as well? Do they just forget or what? Anyway. Irish dude tells me he’s been travelling Australia for months and months and thought he’d check out Thailand on the way home. I ask him about Australia. He says he liked Brisbane but not Sydney. He said the best kept secret about Sydney is that it rains and it’s cold there in winter. Which is when I’m going. But I am going to be heading up to the warmer bits so that’s okay.
We then talk about Thai girls. He asks if I’ve had one yet. I say I’m not really into them. He says he’s not sure if he fancies them either, he prefers Western girls. I nod. He then goes on about paying for sex here and says he’s adamant he wouldn’t do it. I agree with him. Then he laughs and says, “But you know what it’s like when you get desperate, don’t you?” I think he’s having a conversation with himself, really, so just laugh.
After he’s wondered off, I check the price of the Muay Thai shorts (800 baht) but don’t buy any cos I want to shop around. I’m pretty sure I could get them cheaper than that. Then I go and meet Mengly who is meeting some rapper called Joey Boy later and do I want to come. Of course! We decide to hang out in MBK shopping centre to wait for him to call; Mengly wants to buy some luggage and I want to see if I can find cheaper Muay Thai shorts.
We are in there FOREVER – partly cos Mengly is a demon bargainer and attempts to play all the shop assistants off against each other, and partly cos we can’t find our way out. It reaches the point where I resign myself to the fact that we are stuck in there for the rest of our lives before finally we a magical-looking EXIT sign.
Mengly calls Joey Boy, turns out he’s playing football and won’t be able to meet her tonight. She tells him she’ll arrange to meet him another time.
We go back home, much to my relief, and go and buy Thai steak on the soi (this is basically fried pork steak, fries and vegetables and has become a comfort meal for both Mengly and I).
All I want to do is go home and go to bed after but it seems Mengly is in the mood to talk. She’s got some problems and basically I’m the only person she’s met in Thailand who she feels she can reveal all too. She tells me a lot about her family, her childhood, how she was some kind of genius child that won lots of awards, how that brought shitloads of pressure, especially in the fiercely and fearsomely competitive, ‘my kid’s better than your kid’ environs of the rich community of LA (her family are loaded). So it turns out that Mengly is here running away from something much like many of the other people I’ve met here. It gets me thinking about whether I’m running away from something. I don’t really think I am. Yeah I wanted to leave my job; I wanted to leave the irritatingly never-ending drama with my ex; I wanted to leave the hectic nature of my life in London. But going away wasn’t about running away from these things, it was about putting an end to them for good - running TOWARDS something new. Running away suggests you’re still looking back, which a lot of the people I’ve met here are – they don’t think about where they are going, just what they want to get away from, and they meander around the world not really sure where they’re going next. I, however, have got my eyes firmly on now and the future. Leaving London for me was a chance to book-end that period of my life, start a new one with no overlap. And I feel like it’s worked. Even if I go back to London, it’ll all be brand new – new job, new place to live and friends who are all going through big changes in their lives as well.
Mengly talks for ages, understandably – she’s got a lot of shit to sift through. But she’s a lot stronger than she gives herself credit for and while she does need to address her past, she, also, has her eyes firmly on the future, with applications to various grad schools in the US being processed as we speak.
I walk her home and we bump into Ting. I’m quite relieved as it lifts the heaviness of the evening. Ting has been to the flower market for his girlfriend, to get her something for Valentine’s Day. Mengly is not ready to end the evening, and insists we go there right now. It’s about half ten and all I want to do is go to bed. But, typical me, I can’t say no if my life depends on it, so off we head.
Earlier I was moaning to Mengly that my photos weren’t as good as hers and was blaming my camera and its weird ways. She suggested I just play around with it, get to know it better, then I might get some better pics. The flower market is a great place to do it - lots of interesting and beautiful flowers to photograph. There are flowers for decoration and also lots of flowers specially made up for worship purposes. There’s lots of food and veg as well – this is obviously the place where restaurants come and buy in bulk.
We try fried caterpillars. On a stall that has fried grasshoppers, beetles and other unrecognizable things, the caterpillars seem the most edible. I’m not even happy about those though. They are covered in soy sauce and pepper, to give them taste, but even this doesn’t win me round. I eat about five before giving up. Eating them is like eating Quavers – very light and crunchy. It’s more the idea of what I’m eating that puts me off than the taste or texture. I tick that box and move on.
By the side of the road we find a shrine to the Buddhist water goddess, and Ting gets me to kneel down in front of it, guiding me through a Buddhist prayer. He’s done this before with Mengly, apparently, but I feel a little silly doing it. But, hey, it’s an interesting thing to do, and nice to speak some Thai. And you never know, it might bring me some good luck.
I go and buy some Oreos and ice coffee to make my mouth feel better after the caterpillars experience, and then we head to what Mengly calls the ‘dark’ market. It’s situated by the canal near Sanam Luang park, where we were this morning, and is basically a load of people with random goods like phone chargers, used shoes, jewelry etc to sell. Imagine a jumble sale but a lot more sleazy – with added corruption and minus the tea and cakes. I figure most of the stuff is stolen or lost goods. I even see a man about to open a full rucksack which looks like it’s been lifted off someone.
We walk up and down, me with my bag in front of me and my hands in my pockets. There’s nothing here you’d want to buy really, but it’s interesting to see.
We walk around the park again. No Evil Pigeon Man, but the well-lit area is full of homeless people sleeping, seeking sanctuary from the darker corners of Bangkok. The outskirts of the park are populated by prostitutes as well. Ting tells us that there are different areas – one for women, one for male prostitutes, and another for ladyboys. We wonder through the women’s area on our way to the main road to get a cab home. They’re so young – 17, 18 – thin, beautiful, whole lives ahead of them. It’s a bit depressing.
With rats scuttling across our paths, we finally make it to the main road and head home having had enough of ‘dark’ Bangkok.
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