Bangkok, city of a thousand names

Thai­l­and, again we arrived in Thai­l­and, but this time by air.

The siege of Bangkok air­port, which had messed us about so much the last time, was over. The pres­id­ent was back in coun­try (he sneaked in via Chi­ang Mai) and the king was appeal­ing for calm. In fact, the situ­ation in Thai­l­and was no longer both­er­ing us. Rather, the emer­ging details of the hein­ous Mum­bai mas­sacre had us a little wor­ried. We were due to fly to the city in four days, but the gov­ern­ment was coun­selling that all but essen­tial travel be cancelled.

Cesca and I logged into the web to find an update.

“The gov­ern­ment site says don’t go,” she said.

“Then we can­not,” I replied crestfallen.

Cesca looked very dis­ap­poin­ted. “But, India is the reason I wanted to come away to travel!” I looked at her, and I knew that we must face the pos­sib­il­ity of not going, of shunt­ing the entire trip for­wards three months. It was a daunt­ing prospect.

“Let’s look around the web, I will try on the Thorntree.”

The Thorntree is the pub­lic forum of the travel pub­lic­a­tion, The Lonely Planet. It is a some­what clumsy col­lec­tion of per­man­ent trav­el­lers, newbie’s-without-a-clue and loc­als. If any­one has the news on the ground it would be these people. There were many pan­icked ques­tions threads from other con­cerned trav­el­lers, but I ignored these and looked for ones writ­ten by the loc­als in Mum­bai. They were mainly slightly annoyed and spoke of an over­re­ac­tion. The danger had passed. I was read­ing deeper, when Cesca sud­denly looked up from her laptop.

“You won’t believe this,” she said.

I craned over her shoulder and struggled to angle myself to be able to see her laptop screen, “What is it?”

“Its Team Gal­lo­way, they are in Bangkok!”

“You’re kid­ding?” I exclaimed in excite­ment, Mum­bai moment­ar­ily forgotten.

Team Gal­lo­way was the nick­name we gave to Colin and Marliuz, friends and fel­low trav­el­lers through Laos. We had sud­denly lost con­tact with them after put­ting them in a Tuk Tuk dur­ing the crazy Lao­tian “Olympics” in Pakse.

“He’s pos­ted on Face­book that they are stay­ing in the Khaosan Road for only three days.”

“We must go and find them!”

“What about India?”

“We have a few days before we fly, let’s wait and see how it goes.”

Bangkok, or as it is oth­er­wise loc­ally known “The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impreg­nable city of God Indra, the grand cap­ital of the world endowed with nine pre­cious gems, the happy city, abound­ing in an enorm­ous Royal Palace that resembles the heav­enly abode where reigns the rein­carn­ated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vish­nukarm”, is most fam­ous for its food. The Thais cook some of the best food in the known Uni­verse and the street mar­kets of Bangkok are the place to sample the delights of fra­grant and hot dishes. Our hotel was well away from the KoSan, but still inside the con­crete jungle of dark damp streets made all the darker by the sky rail sys­tem. We ven­tured out to find some dinner.

It was not until I saw the choice that I real­ised how hungry I was. There were res­taur­ants and street vendors as far as I could see. Side alleys and streets brimmed with people cook­ing all man­ner of fish, feast­ing on chicken and stir­ring strange bub­bling pots of curry sauces. Food to die for, smells to die for. None of it what I wanted.

And then, there it was: a pub.

God, I wanted a pint. You see, for the last three months we had been eat­ing spicy street food, fried noodle dishes and drink­ing local fire­wa­ter. I needed a taste of home, I needed to feel like I wasn’t lost, stuck on the far side of the world.

I needed a pint, a pie and some chips.

We entered the pub and were imme­di­ately reminded of home, for it was an Irish pub. Grin­ning to each other about the expense, we grabbed a seat and took in the (fake) Irish ambi­ance. For those who live close to the Blessed Isle, these fake Irish pubs are some­times dis­quiet­ing; full of green, brass and fake sign posts to Dub­lin. Walls covered in ‘Irish Quotes’, like “…May the cat eat you and the devil eat the cat” and “Top o’ the mornin’”. Nor­mally, I wouldn’t be able to relax in such a venue, but after months of strange beer, uniden­ti­fi­able meet on a stick and lan­guages I didn’t know, I need some­thing from my end of Europe: the cold end.

I ordered a Guin­ness with Pie and Chips and Cesca ordered Shep­herds pie.

There was one other thing that made this exper­i­ence stand out, for not many Irish pubs that I fre­quent have the food served by 18-year-old Thai girls in latex tops and fish­net stockings!

I supped by Guin­ness and decided that per­haps I had actu­ally found heaven itself.

The next day we moved hostel to a strange place that was, for some reason, 90% full of Dan­ish people. This was obvi­ously a well-known place in Den­mark, but no one could tell us why. Des­pite its high repu­ta­tion and good food, it was dis­ap­point­ing with poor rooms and (as we found later) bed bugs, but the staff were friendly and they had one of the best travel desk I used in Asia.

We caught a taxi to Khaosan Road and took a walk around. The main “road” is a crazy strip of con­crete about a mile long between tall build­ings on either side. Most of these are bars or clubs, and the road is awash with throngs of tour­ists, touts, col­our and may­hem. Europeans, mostly high or drunk, wobble their way up and down the mile, while an armies of loc­als try to sell them things they do not need. Behind the bright build­ings squats a war­ren of dark alleys and covered walk­ways that host even more shops, bars and hos­tels. This was a place given over to the tour­ist trade and the seedier side of a trip to Thai­l­and. This is where people were preyed upon. This is where the young girls were per­suaded to “carry some­thing home” for a new lover. A decision that ends up being a life sentence.

Or worse.

Thai­l­and has the death pen­alty for drug offenses and what may be suffered in these back alleys, would lead to a series of very sharp shocks to someone try­ing to take “a little of Thai­l­and” back home in their bag. The Thais believe in sharp shocks in the form of a ser­i­ous beat­ing with a cane at the very least.

How­ever, when you are on a mis­sion and in unknown ter­rit­ory there is only one thing you can do: fit in. We pulled up at a large street bar and got the beers in. Cesca spied along the street and I watched a group of tour­ists with a 20 pint “tower” jug fill their boots to burst­ing. The road was packed with people. What chance did we have to find Colin and Mariluz in all this?

After a few beers, Cesca and I, know­ing our task to be almost impossible, star­ted to relax and just enjoy the night together. Cesca made a sign, which we would post on the web the next day, so at least they would know that we tried.

Five beers in, I wanted to call it a night.

Then I saw her. Mariluz was walk­ing right by us. Her hair was dif­fer­ent, it was in dreads, but we recog­nised her imme­di­ately. We ran over and it was hugs all round. Cesca and she were jump­ing for joy and scream­ing in hap­pi­ness, but where was Colin?

“Eee’s play­ing Pool”,” said the Span­ish lady, “in there.” She poin­ted into the bar.

I walked around the side and spied the, also dread­locked, Irish­man pot­ting and talk­ing toot to his chums. I leaned against the rail,

“Will you be tak­ing a pint with me sir?” I asked out loud.

He looked up and broke into an emer­ald smile. “Bloody Hell! Basho!”

Our mis­sion was com­plete. Amongst the thou­sands lin­ing this road, we had found two great people. In great Brit­ish style we got our drink­ing boots on and the rest of the long night is some­what of a happy blur. Think­ing back to it now, I really miss them both.

What were the chances of find­ing them like that? I wondered at this good luck for over three months, until, amaz­ingly we ran into them again in Hong Kong.

But, that is to come later, what of the sights of Bangkok? The next morn­ing, nurs­ing our hangovers, we ven­tured down to the river and caught the boat around to the temple area.

There are many excel­lent sights in Bangkok and we had to be select­ive. Walk­ing through street mar­kets we made our way up to the Grand Palace. At least we tried to. The entrance is not imme­di­ately obvi­ous and stand­ing look­ing like we did, we attrac­ted a shark.

A well dressed man in black trousers and white shirt approached and spoke to us in excel­lent Eng­lish, “Good morn­ing, sir.”

“Err, hello,” I replied.

He smiled prob­ably the most genu­ine smile I have ever seen, “This way to the entrance, to buy your ticket sir. This gate is closed” He ges­tured along the road to the next gate around which a few people were stand­ing. So expert was his per­form­ance that I star­ted to move towards it led a few steps ahead by the smil­ing man. Then a hand caught my arm; it was Cesca.

“Darling!” She whispered with an urgency, “He’s mafia.”

I looked again at the man and then it struck me. Of course he was. We were about to get fil­leted and I was taken in by it. The Bangkok Mafia is the name given to the the com­pan­ies who run the Tuk Tuk’s in the city. They are justly fam­ous for their tac­tics, their aggres­sion with tour­ists and the their abil­ity to con the unsus­pect­ing. I sud­denly knew how this would go. This guy was lead­ing us to a closed gate, which would have a fake ticket inspector out­side. He would say that the palace was closed for lunch and that we should come back. Our friend here would then con­vince us to buy tick­ets form this man which “included” a tour of the city while the palace was closed. We would get in the Tuk Tuk and not be let out until all our cash had been fleeced. If we spoke up, we would be dumped at the side of the road. It was an invit­a­tion to be ser­i­ously extorted.

A lucky escape.

We turned back towards the gate and a shout came from the guy ahead. We kept walk­ing but I looked back. His smile was now gone, replaced by an annoyed grim­ace. He waved to us in the Asian way; arm held out towards you and hand flap­ping up and down. We ignored his protests that the gate was closed and strode straight inside it. Of course it wasn’t closed. The palace doesn’t close for lunch. Inside we found a real ticket booth and made our way through.

We later met a very nice Eng­lish couple that had not spot­ted the scam. They had been driven all over town and to store after store. At each store the driver forced them inside and did his best to pre­vent them from leav­ing. This pre­ven­tion took the form of plead­ing, cajol­ing via ref­er­ences the health of his dear-hearted mother, his children’s live­li­hood, the souls of his grand­fath­ers, the souls of their grand­fath­ers, up to and includ­ing veiled and not so veiled threats. After 4 hours they were dumped nearby the Khao San Road where the driver deman­ded $40 for the priv­ilege of the “City Tour”.

Not much fun, but for us thank­fully avoided. We don’t have $40.

Buddhist palaces in South East Asia are always large and impress­ive, more a sort of focus point for the people than a palace in the tra­di­tional sense. They are full of small temples, amaz­ing national treas­ures and tour­ists. With more of the later than of the former. Join­ing the crowds at any time can be daunt­ing, but we swam into the mix and walked around the structures.

The first thing that struck me about the build­ings that I was see­ing was that they were not only Buddhist. Sim­ilar to Cam­bodia, there was a large Hindu her­it­age to be found. The walls enclos­ing the main temple com­pound were painted with the story of Ramna, one of the Avatars of Vishnu, and his story where his wife is kid­napped by his rival. Not that she seemed to mind, judging by a closer inspec­tion of what the kid­nap­per was doing to her. I also spot­ted, hold­ing up giant Buddhist stu­pas, the form of Garuda who is Vishnu’s mount.

This half eagle, half man is pos­sibly the most awe­some form of trans­port ever ima­gined. Here he was shown stand­ing on a giant snake. A clear ref­er­ence to his hatred of the giant snake/dragons called Nagas and his prom­ised food by the God, Indra. Of course, in Buddhism the guy is known by a dif­fer­ent name, and the Buddhists have made some attempt to appro­pri­ate the legend into their own mythos, but it remains a clearly Hindu icon. This is because Thai Buddhism is built on part of the remains of the even more ancient prim­it­ive Hinduism of the Kamchup­kans; build­ers of Ankor Watt, et all. While Buddha him­self and the rise of Hinduism are of roughly the same time period, you find places all over the world were one had sup­planted the other, and visa versa.

After a few hours amongst the crowds of the palace, we moved on to the nearby Wat Phở temple. Again we had to walk around hordes of Tuk Tuk drivers, one of which tried to con­vince me that the temple was a short ride away and he could take us there for free as long as we vis­ited his uncle’s store… This was on the very steps of the temple itself!

Inside this struc­ture is a giant golden rest­ing Buddha.

It is often called a “Sleep­ing” Buddha, but actu­ally the statue depicts the moment of his death. It is import­ant to real­ise that Big B, once he became such, had cracked the secret mean­ing of life. Death held no more fear for him. As he lays dying of food pois­on­ing, he is smil­ing hap­pily, with no fear. His final words echo down through etern­ity, “Look after your own sal­va­tion with dili­gence”. This giant rep­res­ent­a­tion of this event held me cap­tiv­ated. It is inside a build­ing barely able to con­tain the giant fig­ure and it is only pos­sible to see parts of it at once.

What a guy!

You walk around and the eyes and smile, the feet, the hands flash bright gold as the pil­lars hold­ing up the roof hide and reveal. It is quite magical. I saw very few actual Buddhists, and many many tour­ists, but I don’t sup­pose Big B would have minded.

Out­side this build­ing the temple com­plex con­tin­ues. Strangely though, all the tour groups don’t make it this far. This is good for us, but a giant mis­take for them. Around a few build­ing and paths lays a mag­ni­fi­cent temple. Inside is the tra­di­tional high-end Buddhist temple exper­i­ence of golden treas­ures, mag­ni­fi­cent statues, emer­ald idols and smil­ing Buddha. It is only lack­ing in vis­it­ors. We went in and sat amongst the quiet and med­it­ated for half and hour. The splend­our of a hun­dred king­doms sur­roun­ded us and, for a moment, I almost felt the peace that comes from being a priest.

Cesca, moved us on, for she had other plans.

Thai mas­sage is evoc­at­ive. The idea of being rubbed down by a pretty Thai lady is on the to do list of most human males. This temple was the home, the heart, of all Thai mas­sage and the most fam­ous school for such is at the far back of the grounds (http://www.watpomassage.com/2009/). There, Cesca assured me, is the best place in Asia to get a mas­sage. The idea appealed to me; I am a big fan of hav­ing my back mas­saged, hav­ing a very large back, and love to relax every now and again face down while a mas­seuse plies the trade. I often fall bliss­fully asleep as the fra­grance of the oils makes my mind drift away in peace.

Stop right there. Thai mas­sage is not, I repeat not, like any­thing you have enjoyed in Eng­land. Indeed it is fair to say that I hated it with a vengeance.

It all star­ted so well, the lady was indeed small and looked expert. We paid and were led to our beds amongst about a hun­dred all full of people being “mas­saged”. I wish I had looked closer at what was hap­pen­ing as I may have picked up a clue and made a bolt for the exit, but no like lamb I want to the slaughter, led by the Judas goat of Cesca’s smil­ing assurance.

I lay down on my front and sud­denly I was in combat.

I even screamed, “Good Christ!” The “little” lady had just expertly body slammed me.

And so began one of the most pain­ful and hor­ri­fy­ing exper­i­ences of my life. Now, I am no wuss. I prac­tice full con­tact kar­ate. In fact I am often to be found hav­ing a ser­i­ous kick­ing ses­sion and a wrestle with a suc­ces­sion of huge Lon­don geez­ers. I prac­tice arm locks, leg holds and chokes against people who fight in Cage Rage on Sky TV.

They were as nothing.

This lady put me in more pain than Neil “Goliath” Grove did. She poked nerve end­ings, he battered muscles, she pulled arms in sock­ets and dug into shoulder blades with elbows. It didn’t stop for half and hour and it was executed with a pro­fes­sional slow­ness that even now makes me quiver.

After the pain was lif­ted, I thanked the lady, who wasn’t fooled for a minute, col­lec­ted my stuff and hobbled out.

Cesca joined me, and she was smil­ing. Smil­ing!

“Ooooh that’s bet­ter!” she said. “What did you think?”

I was on the verge of tears so much was the pain in my limbs, “I think I have just been beaten up, just very slowly.”

She laughed, “What did you expect?”

“Well not for it to bloody hurt for a start!”

“That’s a Thai mas­sage, did you not know?”

“I do now.” I took her hands in mine and looked into her eyes, “I will never, never, never, have that hap­pen to me again.”

“Blimey,” she laughed. “You really didn’t enjoy it did you?”

“I spent the entire time des­per­ately try­ing to remem­ber the Thai for, ‘Call the police!’”

“Then lets get you a beer.”

“Hell yes.”

And so, we did.

Com­ing next – our amaz­ing adven­ture into the Burmese Bor­der, where we meet wild spiders, wash in rivers, trek jungles and see the hor­rors of the Japan­ese inva­sion of Thai­l­and for ourselves.

Regards,

Basho

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