Bangkok – the Complete Cultural Experience?
If its Got a Bucket, Drink It
When one’s more basic requirements – the requirements that aren’t food, clothing or shelter – aren’t met for a while, one’s behaviour can fall a little outside what one’s friends and associates might term ‘normal’ for that given person. But, notwithstanding the odd foray into less well respected quadrants of some of Asia’s cities, these requirements, in my own case, were indeed not being met.
Such a predicament, when faced by the common man on the pavement, might cause a somewhat headlong rush into the welcoming arms of a well presented Bangkok local, should one appear. Not 24 hours into my (unintended) 2 week exploration of the backpacking aorta of Khao San Road and its numerous, ever-changing arteries, I found myself – ably assisted by one or two plastic bucket-loads of Sang Som and Red Bull – in the arms of such an appealing Thai. In the arms, and, due to my residing in an 80 baht dorm room, unexpectedly in the well air-conditioned surroundings of what a penny pinching traveller such as myself would call a 5 star hotel – but what a normal tourist would easily recognise as a sub 3 star establishment. As eye poppingly drunk as we were, the experienced reception team batted not an eyelid as we made our assent.
Needs, requirements, boxes, well, these were met, fulfilled and ticked. If I can relate the experience to filling out a government benefit application form, it took about the same time to identify the appropriate form, took a similar amount of time to ‘fill it in’ and there was huge relief when I had finally managed to sign on the dotted line. In every other respect however it was almost nothing like filling out a government benefit form.
Yet in the following days, filling out that government benefit form might have seemed more like forming some sort of civil partnership. After two more expensive and drunken excursions to hotels, I at last moved into a much cheaper guest house away from Khao San – one whose 75 year old Thai landlady was unconcerned with additional late night visitors who may or may not boast Thai nationality. My good friend then essentially moved in, which I wasn’t expecting, a move which after a few days felt somewhat wing-clipping for your brave Bangkok correspondent. This, together with the assumption that I had to pay for everything – thereby making a mockery of my carefully calculated 700 baht a day budget – made the situation untenable.
As plans started to form in her head as to where I might go with her for New Year, I found myself taking the difficult step of bringing things to a halt. Despite our short time together, she was surprisingly passionate about the whole thing, which made it harder to conclude.
From what I have experienced and from what I have garnered from travellers who have had similar stories to share, Thai girls are very much living ‘in the moment’, and don’t seem to um and ah about life the way many westerners do. Being with this girl was refreshingly straight forward, uncomplicated. Bedroom antics were in the offing in the same way putting the kettle on might be at home – although infinitely more fun.
Having enjoyed such attention so soon after arriving at Bangkok, the average pastey English traveller might be fooled into thinking that one is a shiny golden gift bestowed upon Thai femininity by Buddha himself. While some girls are indeed attracted by genetically opposite attributes such as blue eyes and fair hair, they are, as far as I can see, in the minority.
That said, the ones that do fall into this happy bracket are most easily located in that splendiferous, unending bucket-fuelled street party that is Khao San Road.
Bangkok, Thailand: Happily Stranded
I appear, predictably, to not have updated my blog on quite as regular a basis as I insisted to myself and countless others that I would. If you’ve ever written a blog, it’ll be a familiar sensation. Unless you’ve actually managed to keep your blog up to date, in which case you’re probably called Seth Godin or are some sort of Indian spam blog slave.
So, skip from somewhere near the Thar Desert In India and hop across the Indian Ocean to the sex-washed streets of Bangkok, where there Indian Sub-continent is rapidly becoming a faint and rather sexless memory. I was here nine years ago, so it’s odd to be back. Back in 2002 I only managed 4 days in the Thai capital, drawn as I was by long nurtured dreams of the Swedish (or any other type) of flesh that lined the white sandy beaches of Koh Samui, Koh Pan Ngan – and the rest. I wasn’t entirely disappointed.
But Bangkok has ensured I remain firmly in its clutches, boasting as it does its fair share of womanly attractions, and not, to my surprise, the kind for which you have to stagger around trying to find an ATM at 3am after drinking two ‘buckets’ of whiskey and Redbull.
Still, this city is expensive. While tasty rice and noodle meals can be found for about 40p if you look hard, and dormitory accommodation can be as low as about 1 pound 80, it’s the non-essentials that seem to be cranking up the daily spend. Not least of which are the whiskey and Redbull buckets, or the hurriedly sought (yet always successully found) double rooms, for when that creaky old dorm bed surrounded by snoring backpackers just won’t do.
While Khao San Road and surrounding streets are crawling with some of the finest examples of European and North American flesh I’ve seen for quite a long time, it’s the extreme friendliness of the Thais that has meant I’ve mainly hung around with locals, along with the odd Jap.
Speaking of Japs, I arrived at the sparkling, ultra-modern Suvarnabhumi Airport from Delhi in a haggard state at around 2am – and bumped into one almost immediately. I was barely functioning, despite having imbibed an excellent 7-Eleven coffee, but this did not disuade an appealing Japanese girl from asking to see my map of Bangkok. A few hours later we had checked into a twin room and were exploring the reclining Buddah and the Wat Arun temple together. It still amazes me how easy it is to meet people when you’re travelling; it occurred to me that you could wander around most British towns for years and not make any friends (and I may have done just this). The same is probably true of Japan as far as I can tell.
So it looks like I’ll be spending Christmas and New Year meandering between the many, many (many) 7 Elevens, and tracking down the very cheapest Pad Thai I can find for my Xmas lunch. I keep forgetting Christmas actually exists, let alone winter time. But if I do get any feelings of home sickness out here, I think the various unexpected delights of Bangkok will help me muddle through.
Fatality in Bombay
The Salvation Army Hostel in Mumbai is not a place to die. In fact, if you’re from a western country, you might be of the mind that India is not a place to die. Yet one morning, whilst I was eating my modest but welcome Salvo breakfast in the canteen, and wondering why there were Mumbai police officers in the reception office, an Indian working in the kitchen gently informed me that someone was found dead in one of the dorm rooms. Drug overdose, he said.
This particular Indian seemed quite affected by the situation, but the older, grumpier members of the Salvo team were less touched – at least that’s how it seemed to me. When a stretcher borne by police passed by the open canteen door, down the stairwell, I gained a deeper understanding of how different India is to my own country, and in fact any western state: the already-pale body of a bearded backpacker was awkwardly carried down on the stretcher – completely uncovered for the other residents to see – and presumably on full view when taken out into the street and into the waiting ambulance.
Aside from the burning corpses in Varanasi, I had never seen a dead body – and this one was so young. I remember thinking how heavy the body looked, but moreover, how unspent it looked; it should have been on the planet for another 50 years.
I myself had been staying in a room across the corridor from the dorm room the man had been staying in. But because my room had been booked by someone else, I had been asked, the very next day, to move into the same room as the deceased. There was a smaller room attached to this main room, where I found an empty bed. But on the way through, I noted that the bed on which the traveler had died had already been rented out – to a Korean by the looks of him. He was of course oblivious to the fact that someone had OD’d on heroin (according to other travelers) on that very mattress, and no-one made him any the wiser.
Some of the Indians who worked in the hostel – unlike most Indians I hasten to add – barely disguised their disdain for backpackers, but I think the lack of a blanket over the body and the fact that the bed was rented out almost immediately speaks of a different attitude to death in India.
People die, and in India it’s not covered up and hidden away from sight as it is in the UK. Life and death seem to occur much more visibly – and more frequently. At least I hope the treatment of the body and the place of death wasn’t born of disrespect.
The most upsetting thing about the situation though, was the fact that the friend of the dead traveler was simply left to deal with his loss - no support or councillor as you might see in the west. The body was removed, a cursory search for drugs made: case closed. The dead man’s friend just sat in the canteen staring blankly into space, comforted by some female companions, but ultimately just sitting there minus a friend, and facing, perhaps, the prospect of phoning his friend’s parents and telling them what happened to their son, in a grotty bed-bug ridden hostel in downtown Bombay, thousands of miles from home.
Bombay: Four Days Lying in Bed
Throughout my trip thus far, I had wondered what breed of illness India would give me. Everyone gets ill, they say, and I was almost excited about seeing what sickness I would be awarded. The 17 million person city of Mumbai had been saving up something special for me…
Having explored many of the delights of Rajasthan, I and a travelling comrade took the bus from Udaipur to Mumbai (Bombay). We booked a sleeper compartment on the coach, making the journey far more palatable than it would have been if we’d chosen normal seats. We survive the journey and then get ripped off by a taxi driver who takes us down town to the Colaba district, where our final destination is to be found: The Salvation Army Hostel.
Unlike most of India, Mumbai is not cheap, so us filthy backpacker types have to down grade somewhat – namely by giving up our ensuite guest house rooms for a dorm bed in a room full of dorm beds. At 225 rupees a night including breakfast, this is the cheapest place in town, and affords views of the much-more-expensive Taj Mahal Hotel.
I take a trip out to Elephanta Island with my friend and another chum – a German girl – who had also been on the camel trek in Jaislamer, Rajasthan. The caves, with their various Hindu statues were surprisingly good to see. However, whilst there I decided to try some street food, as did my fellow travellers. I think it was this that would confine me to my dorm bed and the nearest toilet bowl for four whole days.
On the way back from the Island, my stomach started to bloat and I had the distinct impression that something was ‘in the post’. And so it was. After a very long boat ride on which myself and the German girl were befriended by an annoying Indian who incessantly took pictures of us and was of the opinion that were were his best friends – culminating in him paying for us to have our photo taken with him by a professional photographer in front of the Gateway to India – I made directly for the hostel.
I never knew you could actually piss out of your arse, not, at least for 4 days straight.
Being in a room full of people might seem like the most undesirable place to be if the contents of your guts have the structural integrity of a Chocolate McFlurry that’s been carelessly stored in an oven. But the people in my dorm really helped me: an Australian brought me curd and plain rice (even through I couldn’t keep more than a few grains down for more than a nano second), while others ensured I was stocked up with water and sympathy.
When, after four whole days, I eventually hobbled outside in order to find an ATM so I could pay my rent, I was almost insane with boredom – that, and the horrible smell of paraffin that the hostel used in an attempt to kill the prolifically reproducing bed bugs.
The experience reminded me how wonderful it is to be healthy.
Jeep to Nara Nag
Indians drive with one hand on the horn and the other on the wheel; Vishnu must take care of gear changes. I’m in a jeep with two Kashmiris (one is Tiger) driving into the mountains. And I have to admit, they’re pretty good mountains. After the bus ride up to Kashmir, the precarious journey along the mountain-side road doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is the cheese sandwich drought I have been experiencing since I landed in Delhi. That, and wondering when Tiger washed his hands last; he’s going to be cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner whilst we live in a tent for three days. Twangy-twangy mountain music plays on the stereo.
I bet the Mujahadeen love this shit.
Srinagar, Capital of Thieves
Morning on the creaky old houseboat. I’ve been told of a certain Omer, he will come. The kind of second in command, 40, bushy black hair - named Tiger – points to the rug on the ground and smiles. No house, only backpack, no need rug.
I get breakfast – a passable omellete and, more importantly, a jug of Nescafe: perhaps it never tasted so good. An Indian family (as distinct from Kashmiri) arrived the previous night – they appear to have been double booked, thereby turfing out the bushy haired boatman from his bedroom in order to make way for them. More disgruntling, however, is the fact they have used all the hot water up. Naughty Indians do such things, the Kashmiris say.
After the cold and mist disappear, I’m taken around Srinagar on foot by Tiger. It seems even more dirty and impoverished than Delhi, more dusty dogs, more ancient dirt-blackened brick houses. Days later, I find a much prettier side to Srinagar, among the 1400 houseboats on the Golden Lake, but for some reason Tiger takes me on a tour of the shittest parts of town, which may have been to stimulate feelings of dependence on the houseboat staff. It certainly doesn’t seem as friendly as in Delhi. Locals don’t even blink an eyeball. Not much begging here, except outside a huge red fort-like building, now a prison (The British converted it in the days of the pink map). I’m not in any way impressed by anything in the town and don’t feel particularly safe here.
Later, Omer, the trendily dressed son of the granddad look-a-like, a 21st Century i-phone toting Kashmiri, begins his initial probes as regards ‘trekking’. The word has been used on a regular basis since my arrival. He’s very persuasive indeed. I manage to write a few blogs on his laptop whilst continually being interrupted by him and his expert tips on travelling around India - most of which involve booking tours with him.
Having already been sold an overpriced trip to Kashmir, it shouldn’t be too surprising to learn that I get sold a 14 day trip around the Kashmir and Leh regions, including a 4 day trek in the mountains. He tries to organise my trip right down to Goa, but I resist. It’s a lot of money – much more than I had ever planned on spending: essentially a month’s budget for two week’s travel. I don’t sleep well: the Scotsman in me is furious.
Everything Omer says is delivered in excellent English – every argument and opinion apparently leak proof - yet I don’t trust him or anyone else on the boat.
It’s a funny place this Kashmir. Did I mention there are heavily armed troops on nearly every street corner?
Into the Kashmir Mountains and boarding the houseboat
I was told the bus took 24 hours, it took 28; not bad for an Indian schedule. I met another inhabitant of Essex, a Pole and a Czech – all of them had bought similarly overpriced ‘treks’. I however, seemed to have paid the most.
The big, comfy, first class style seat did not prevent the lunatic driving and constant braking from ensuring I got no sleep. I felt the beginning of the flu, too, which did not help my feelings of well being at all. There are some really shitty places in India, it’s amazing just how many.
The latter part of the bus ride was better; I saw the sun rise over the foothills of the Himalayas and drunk sweet chai with fellow travellers.
Things start to go chilly at the Kashmir border. People are less friendly, border guards wearing shell suits, and the temperature is more like that of an English October. We stop in some ramshackle town with the rain pouring – beggars and an extremely dirty canteen are abiding images.
Later, in Srinagar, I get picked up by an oldish man who looks like my grandad. He’s very keen for me to get in the car. Havig exchanged numbers with the Czech, the Pole and the Essex, with a view to meeting later, I go with Grandad in the car. If the leaden skies and biting cold aren’t enough to make me wish I hadn’t started talking to that innocent looking cricket fan in Delhi, the fact that he tries to run over a street dog probably is. He parks up and after several unanswered phone calls and some shouting, a boy who looks like an Indian version of Mr. Kidd from Diamonds are Forever slides across the water on a battered looking boat – a chikara. With deep misgivings I get in the boat, which has shallow sides and is already taking in water from its hull. Mr. Kidd tries to bail out as much as he can before setting off.
The houseboat is hard to explain. Very old, wooden, yet quite ornate. Perhaps Persian in decor, with carved walnut walls and furniture; later I would read it had more in common with the British Raj. I am shown into a large room with two beds on it; it looks like it would have been top dollar in 1960s Iran. Mr Kidd, who might also look like a youthful Ahmadinejad, offers me tea, then leaves me alone in my ancient creaking room. The tea lies there steaming for sometime. I look around the room and find some backpacker’s backpack in one of the large cupboards. Books inside look like Arabic. Flight tickets from two weeks ago. I note there’s a bolt on the outside of the door.
I pour the tea down the sink.
Kashmir: Why you should read your guidebook
I go out into the street to find the internet. I know where a clean, modern one is, kind of, but get accosted by a young Indian who starts talking about cricket. He says he practices English with tourists he meets around the bazaar – and says he can show me where I can get internet. He takes me to a building that says TOURIST INFORMATION in big blue, official looking letters. Inside, I meet a charming man called Imran, who offers me chai and tells me he knows England well, having owned a flat in Wood Green, London, for 12 years. It doesn’t occur to me that he has chosen the word’s dirtiest city in preference to a Nice Flat in Wood Green. In short, he sells me a 6 night (127 pound) stay on a houseboat in Kashmir – I’m not sure how – maybe I’ve had too much sun. Into the bargain he gets someone who appears to work for him to drive me round the main sights of Delhi.
Highlights of drive round Delhi: whilst near India Gate, a boy runs out in front of me with a round box. He lifts the lid to reveal a perky looking python: ‘Picture? Picture?’ Naturally I bolt.
Also near India Gate: a couple asks me to take a photo of them. I do. They don’t try to sell me anything and simply wave me goodbye.
I get back to my hotel. Lucky tells me I made a big mistake and shows me a post on Scam.com about people ending up on houseboats in Kashmir and being intimidated into buying rugs and expensive mountain treks. He tells stories of girls who have been ‘made to fall in love’ with Kashmiris and who are then persuaded to ‘lend’ them all their money. Lucky advises: ‘go, but don’t buy anything’. He also intimates his dislike of Kashmiris and muslims in general, saying they cannot be trusted. This makes me wonder who to trust.
Next day, Lucky discounts a night’s accommodation, saying ‘I don’t want you to have a completely bad impression of India’. With these words I check out, saying goodbye to a smiling, long-legged American girl – who I had just met and annoyingly had to leave – sitting sexily on the lobby sofa. Imran has already started to ruin my life.
Getting to grips with Delhi
Nothing can prepare you for this city. Everything you thought about how a city or how a society works (if you’ve lived in the UK for most of your life, that is) can prepare you for it. My guest house – a collection of single-layer brick boxes that had been built upon decade after decade in Delhi’s main bazaar – was a sight to behold. The entrance was secreted away along a labyrinthian set of ramshackle alleys, where tiny businesses – from iron mongers to clothes sellers – gave me a sense that this could have been 1911 as much as 2011 – easily centuries earlier. Each one eeking out a few rupees a day providing all manner of minor services, usually in a space the size of an outside toilet. Speaking of which, most of the main bazaar appeared to be an outside toilet, where the aroma of sun-baked urine provided a heady backdrop to sacred cows nuzzling piles of rubbish and children playing in the street; all this against the cacophony of beeping, roaring traffic. It’s amazing the streets weren’t littered with bodies.
The hotel manager, nickname Lucky, looked like the Buddah of Suburbia, and quizzed me extensively about my travel plans in India. I didn’t trust him completely – perhaps his directness was a bit too much after my long trek to find the guest house through the dust and noise of the city. My room was a box of roughly cemented bricks perched at the top of the building, and afforded me views over the intimate lives of dozens of Indian families. If I pressed hard enough against the wall I felt there was a good chance it would collapse. A man appears to live on a fold-out bed in the strange open space outside my room, from which I can see the haze over Delhi.
Venturing out into the streets as night came was not the most stress free of experiences, mainly because I was approached by many people who wanted me to go back to their wool shop, or see pictures of their home town, or take a ride in their tuk tuk. The most extreme example came in the form of an ridiculously stoned Kashmiri, who followed me for maybe 20 minutes, asking me to go back to his shop and see some pictures of Kashmir. The word Kashmir would feature a great deal in the days that followed. He finally gave up; a terribly irritating man who clearly had some business proposition for me.
I took my first curry on a roof top restaurant with a Kingfisher, then returned to my small room with its rattling fan and tried to get some sleep in the sweltering Delhi heat.
Arrival in Delhi, India
I met an old friend under the pink neon of Terminal 3’s entrance, which added to the tension and excitement I felt about leaving for India. A short period beforehand, I had panicked about having packed a 200ml bottle of shower gel in my hold luggage (massive signs stating 100ml maximum were everywhere in the airport, but didn’t specify if it related to hold or hand luggage); a busy looking woman told me it was fine. Such gaps in my knowledge would prove to be far more problematic in the days that followed, as I fumbled my way round India’s dusty, chaotic capital, Delhi.
I sat drinking peppermint tea with my friend, in a quiet, tidy corner near the security gates. Spotless floors, all the café and restaurant staff preparing to shut shop and go home, perhaps via the busy Piccadilly train I had arrived on. Everyone knew where they were going, what they were doing, who was expecting them to be where – and when. Eyes down, mind on a certain future. This, I was thinking, was the rigidity I was trying to escape from.
If anything, though, Delhi Airport was even calmer, roomer and more civilized than Heathrow’s Terminal 3. The cavernous structure was efficiently cooled by what must have been an immense air conditioning system.
I couldn’t help smile as I walked under the Welcome to India sign.
I’d read a lot about India’s effect on Westerner’s bowel movements. Perhaps it was ironic then, that the first dump I took in India – in Indira Gandhi Airport – was of the constipated variety. Leaving the airport and the soft toilet paper behind me, I came out of the arrivals exit, where a skinny Indian is holding up a piece of paper with my name on it. He doesn’t say much, but he is my first shaparone into the insane world of the Indian capital.
The sun rises over Delhi - view from my guest house
Sunrise, other side of building. A man appears to live outside my door. I think I was in his living room when I took this.
The ride into the city centre (and my Main Bazaar accommodation) is like the old computer game Paper Boy. Under a baking 35 degree sun, sights and lifeforms that you might not expect to see on a road appear to be careering all over it: dogs skip in front of trucks, a scooter owner wears his helmet at such jaunty angle as to totally obscure his view with the chin guard, and the skinny Indian taxi drivers uses all three lanes with gay abandon, narrowly avoiding being crushed (at least to my mind) by a cement mixer. Every vehicle looks like it has been rebuilt from rusting scrap yard debris sometime in the 1970s. A filthy pig snuffles in a pile of rubbish. Pretty girls wearing saris perch on the back of their boyfriends’ motorbikes – sans helmet, naturally. A taxi driver skins up a joint, shortly before bringing up the important subject of his ‘tip’.
I can’t help but chuckle at the unbridled lunacy of it all.
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