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Medway, United Kingdom
Anecdote - Fun - Short story
One night in Bangkok I accidentally found myself in Pat Pong, watching one of its ludicrous sex shows. I had been strolling around the night market when I was approached by a tout and handed a laminated flyer. This is what it read:
BANGKOK SEXY SHOW Sexy BananaFREE ENTRY
When in Rome, or Bangkok, or wherever, I thought to myself. Inside, the club was suitably gloomy and dark with a faint odour of pathos. The free entry was well compensated by the drink prices, a warm bottle of Singha beer costing roughly the equivalent of king Bhumibol’s crown jewels. The club was practically empty of customers, apart from a creepy man in a corner booth, who was surrounded by three semi-naked Thai girls, one of whom, had her hand down his trousers like it was casually hanging in her own pocket.
In the middle of the bar there was a catwalk stage, topless girls were walking nonchalantly up and down it with apparent disinterest, as deafening house music blasted out. One of the young girls was actually looking at her watch and yawning as she strutted down the stage wearing high heels and little else. The show started and the sexy banana performance looked positively unhygienic and possibly cruel to fruit. The razor blade act induced many leg crossings and could potentially put you off cunnilingus for life. The pussy smoking cigarette was a lot less interesting than it sounded. But I suppose the lady didn’t have to worry about throat cancer so much. The ping pong ball routine was disappointing, more of a plop than a pop. But the darts show was very impressive. The little darts were loaded up in the lady’s special area whilst she lay on her back on the stage floor. The darts were fired at balloons over the other side of the room, which burst with a whiz bang one after another. I gave the lady a loud clap, I was the only one who did, but I felt her special talent deserved applause.
My favourite performance of the night was the trumpet blower. Raunchy burlesque music was played as a naked young lady walked stage centre, laid on her back, raised her knees in the air, placed the trumpet betwixt her legs, waited for the music to pause, then blew a note. The music continued for a few minutes more, stopped then she blew again. This went on for a while, but it never ceased to amuse. The first stop for a lost confused backpacker when arriving at Bangkok is the infamous Kho San Road. One long road of cheap hotels, travel agents, book shops, internet cafes, bars and clubs. Street stalls lined the pavement flogging T-shirts, trinkets and tourist tat. The food stalls were the best, sweet and savoury smells filled your nostrils, made your tummy rumble and almost concealed the perpetual stench of garbage. The road was sealed off either end from road traffic. Tuk tuk’s lined up next to the barrier, waiting lazily for customers. They’d take you anywhere in Bangkok as long as you stopped off at least five overpriced tourist shops, where the driver earned commission for the kidnap and delivery of you to their retail penitentiary. Down the busy main strip, drunk English men staggered around in the relentless sun, skin the colour of boiled lobster. Mingling with the touts, gangsters, thieves, hustlers, beggars, hookers and lady boys.
I found myself a threadbare room to rent off the main road, hidden down a narrow alleyway, which led to an open courtyard with decaying charm, where there was a pool table and a fridge stocked with beer. A Thai girl sat at a desk next to the fridge, which represented a reception of sorts. This sweet looking girl was a fixer, and could get you a visa or fake visa, fake passports, bus tickets, rail tickets, plane tickets, marijuana and bar girls, should you find yourself in want of any of these things. Most of Kho San road stopped serving alcohol after midnight, but I could pull beer out of the fridge any time I liked, I could get up and have a cold beer for breakfast, and some mornings, I did. I shared this courtyard with gang of local Thai pool-sharks – who played luckless tourists for money – and a group of lady boys who hung around the courtyard and made a living by turning tricks for the more kinky elements of the sex tourist trade. I had meet all sorts of interesting characters by drinking in the courtyard, I had met a scouser whose father had died leaving him a large amount of money in a Will, on the provision he went out and saw the world. The scouser had arrived on the Kho San Road three months ago and never left. He hadn’t even seen the rest of Bangkok, let alone any of the beautiful Thailand countryside or magnificent postcard beaches. He wore a collar-less suit made at one of the many tailor shops in the district, so there he was in the heat and dirt of Bangkok looking like the missing Beatle. He was an idiot.
One such moron was in the courtyard one night, munching a bag of crickets and downing plenty of Singha beer. He was drunk and boasting loudly about playing Bangkok roulette. “Me and four lads went to a brothel in Patpong last night,” he was saying in a broad Aussie accent for anybody who was listening, “We all sat around this large round table with a low hung cloth, what happens is this Thai girl goes under the table and blows somebody off, you have to keep straight face and guess whose getting blown. It was a right bloody laugh!”
He was playing pool as he was boasting, gambling for money with a Thai pool hustler called Annan, which was a very foolish thing to do. I had played pool with the short taut, spiky haired Annan myself, but never for anything more costly than beer. I had watched him hustle tourists many times, playing lackluster slouchy games for a couple of bucks, making his opponent feel they can beat him, but when the stakes were raised to fifty or sometimes a hundred dollars, Annan would wipe the floor with them, six or seven balling his opponent as easy and as fast smoking a cigarette. This tactic was exactly what he was doing with this antipodean gobshite right now.
I was sat at table nearby drinking beer with a young English couple who had sold their house and were using the substantial profit to travel the world. They were six months into their trip and heading to Australia next. They asked me if I’d been there, I told them I had waited at Sydney airport for an hour waiting for a flight to New Zealand, but unfortunately that was all I had seen of Oz. The insect muncher suddenly jumped in the conversation and asked, “Who said that? Who went to New Zealand but didn’t stop in Oz?” I told him that I had. “You’re an idiot mate, Oz rules, we’ve got better beaches, better women, better beer, New Zealand’s like my back garden mate, you know what I’m saying, you have to be an idiot if you go there instead of Oz!”
I looked at him in what I hoped was a measured British way, “Why do you care where I’ve been? I couldn’t give a shit where you’ve been.” I finished off by saying, “I might go to Australia soon though, as I’ve heard they let people in these days, even if you haven’t got a criminal record.”
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