Day 70 to 75: Bangkok and flying ping pong balls

It really is a different ball game

A game of meticulous dexterity, passed down through a generation, combining idiosyncratic talents with a controlled head for accuracy, that unfolds centre stage in front of a hundred probing, judging, unforgiving eyes poised to applaud the success or decry the failure of the single solitary player.

A darkness wraps them all, confining them to the ritual that has persisted to define the hot, sordid metropolis they now inhabit.

The game?

Shooting a ping pong ball out of a vagina into a glass bowl.

Welcome to Bangkok

Sprawling out as far as the eye can see, Bangkok lures you in within seconds of leaving the airport. Leaving Kathmandu, polarizes the two far more than I would ever have given it credit for.

Wide, expansive freeways dissect a neon paradise of skyscrapers and supersize hotels where huge LED screens pour out advertising slogans in a malicious attempt to distract the driver from the road ahead.

I gave Nepal credit for its attempts at turning the impoverished tide of its past. Its not that I take it all back, but you can only classify poverty , when you see the riches that eclipse it.

And we’re definitely not in Kathmandu anymore, Toto.

As a typical unimaginative traveler, I headed straight to the tourist comfort blanket of the Khao San Road. The lights of 7/11, Mcdonalds, Burger King, Subway shine down on the bustling street, full to bursting with wide eyed (and hammered) holiday makers and travellers, gawping at the stalls packed with T-shirts, tattoo designs, phone cases, glo-sticks, artwork, deep fried insects, fresh coconuts, and salivating by the wondrous array of food that rejoices the most fussy of palettes.

Thais, Nepalese, Indians and Burmese deny you the freedom of making your own decision by insisting upon you their services.

White men with their Thai partners walk the streets hand in hand, while well-to-do Thais enjoy the carnival that their own city has cultivated.

Come with one philosophy: as long as your stamina holds out, sit back and enjoy the ride.

And I was no different.

My first night I ate locust (peppery).

 My second day was spent in the juggernaut of shopping that is the MBK department store (Bullring, move over – you’re small fry) and the delights of it food centre.

My third night I was watching a ping pong show, and the pantomime of the red light district.

The fourth I was losing money on the fights at the Thai Boxing (and bumping into Bryan bloody Robson!).

But Bangkok isn’t a one, two or even three trick city. And it would definitely be an insult to define it by its sex industry.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still plays a big part.

Stunning ladies saunter down all the main tourist traps, and only when they speak, or you sneak a glance at their Adam’s apple do you realize their true biological make up.

In the red light district, girls still line up on catwalks, with numbered labels on them waiting for their Western sugar daddy to pick out theirs.

But there’s not the desperation about it that I had predicted. The whole thing has a real sense of performance about it, as if it’s there to tick a box of one the ‘must-sees’ of the city, but they give out an air that they don’t really mean it.

It’s true that many a white man has bagged themselves a nice Thai bride, but with so many of them still living in the city, the dreams of being their betrothed’s great escape seem a little antiquated.

In fact the Thais are really quite self absorbed. While the Indians and Nepalese are at pains to please you at every step, the Thais really can’t be fucked sometimes.

After the bargaining bouts on the streets of Kathmandu, many Thais are more than happy to flick their hand at you and leave you to it if the price is not to their liking. Compromise sometimes seems way down on their vocabulary.

The taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers especially.

They seem more content to laze around, enjoying the sunshine and people watching rather than take to from A to B, at a reasonable price.

That is unless you have something to offer them of course.

Shops all across Bangkok offer rickshaw drivers commission should they bring an unsuspecting gringo over their doorstep – regardless of whether they buy anything. A friend of mine had given me a handy bit of advice to exploit this. So having been the victim of some serious spending already, and with an evening to kill, I spoke to the nearest auto rickshaw driver and gave him a proposition.

I would be his stool pigeon with these commission stops they so persistently tout, and we split the profits 50/50. For the first time, I had a driver smiling at me with something resembling mutual respect.

And sure enough, it worked like a charm. After 2 hours driving round Bangkok, seeing the sights this behemoth of a city offers, I had made over £8. May not seem like a lot, but it was a proud moment to turn the tables on a place that willfully wants to drain you of funds with every step.

With my winnings I paid for nice new T-shirt, and a slap up feed. And I cannot stress enough how mouth-wateringly delicious the food is here. After a disappointing culinary journey in India, and only the occasional triumph in Nepal, Thailand just offers delight after delight with wonderful ease. Succulent, duck, chicken, pork loin hang in street stalls calling your name, and you’re never more than 2 metres away from a bevy of fresh squid and king prawn.

Unless you’re a vegetarian (there’s always Papaya salad) this is paradise. And if you get of the Thai cuisine bored, there’s always the Double Big Mac at a nearby golden arches (guilty as charged).

And alongside Bangkok’s heaving, hedonistic itinerary there’s still a nice slice of religious history to enjoy.

Huge, sparkling temples. Gigantic golden Buddhas. Hawkers dodging traffic (and Bangkok does traffic with a vengeance) to hand out Buddhist garlands to taxi drivers… the Thais love their religion as much as they love their king.

And boy do they love their king. His image is plastered on almost every available wall space this city hasn’t filled with corporate messaging, pictures of food, Thai-script (or marijuana eulogies).

And that’s why to define this overwhelming, tiring, busy, glorious, sumptuous city by its sex industry would be a huge crime.

Its no place to linger for those of little stamina, but getting out of the glare of the bright lights of the Khao San Road can offer you wonders enough to stick around.

It never seemed a place to escape from – and talking to the girls who smile on the stages, and wiggle their wares to entice, they have no plans to leave either.

Why would they?

Bangkok offers everything any aspiring modern Global city should yearn for.

And then some.

I’ll be back soon. To dodge the traffic (and the lady boys), to revisit the Commission scam with my taxi driver mate Woody, to shop till I’m broke, to fatten myself with its dazzling cuisine… (and more practically  get my Visa for China).

But it can wait.

There’s one thing that Bangkok doesn’t have, but that elsewhere in Thailand has kudos on any other place in the world.

Beach.

Next stop: the golden sands and clear blue water of Ko Samui.

It’s a tough job.

But then I was never one to shirk a challenge.