So, another day in Bangkok. Yesterday I went to the Sukhumvit Rd area, a big tourist spot. Not much there outside of hotels, although apparently there's a lot of clubs around. One thing that's crazy is that there is a large Arab, Pakistani and Indian presence here, so a bunch of shops around Sukhumvit Rd. are in Arabic and whatever other crazy languages they got over there. I also went to a large park nearby called Lumpini Park, where I saw a group of Thai school kids doing an American style marching band procession. Kinda random. Not much else besides that.
Later, I went with Nora and David to a friend's place for a small party. It was really neat, got to meet some local Thai's who work with David. They eventually agreed to drop me off after the party to a bar they like, although they couldn't go along. After looking for for a while, they dropped me off at some upscale place that was 100% local, and probably 200% over capacity. There was a band that was playing, but they stopped five minutes after I had squeezed my way to the bar and ordered a $6 Corona. To give you perspective on that, most meals at a restaurant here cost about $1 to $2. I downed my overpriced beer and headed out, seeing if I could find another spot. I ended up just walking for about an hour. It's crazy how busy the city is, even at night, and at midnight, you find throngs of people out on the street, checking out pants that some guy is selling on the corner.
While I was walking back, I ended up going past a gaggle of hookers. Being the only one on the street, let alone the only white guy for miles, I figured I was gonna get harassed big time. Well, I walked past, and I didn't even get as much a casual glance. They seemed to be only looking for people in cars, and captain hoofin'-it over here didn't seem to be their style. It actually made me even more annoyed I got ignored. While I have nothing morally against it, getting a prostitute is not my scene. But at the same time, one of the reasons you come to Bangkok is to at least come back with a crazy story that involves getting some weird, broken English come-ons from a Thai street-whore. And here I am, dorky-looking mid-30's white guy, pe-rrrrime candidate for customer of pay sex, and I don't even get a "herro, you want boom-boom big man?" Wtf? Adding insult to injury, I get bugged by a male prostitute 20 minutes later. Damn it.
Anywho, today I went on a long ass walk through the city. Took a river ferry to the north, and got dropped off near Khao San rd, which is the backpacker's mecca in the city. I love to travel, but one thing that always irks me is when local peddlers hawk their crap at you, since it inevitably seems to always insult your intelligence. The cheesy lines like "Hey dude, where you go bro? You like Ed Hardy shirt?" or the fact they try to sell you some shitty plastic statue, you think, "damn, how dumb do these guys think we are?" I mean I know Americans and Western Europeans are shallow and materialistic, but c'mon, we do have standards. Ed Hardy shirts are worn in America, yet also shunned. And you have to think that the people trying some corny vulgar line on you were raised to never use that kind of language with the locals. Why would they think we talk that way with ourselves. I know Westerners can suck, but we're really not that bad.
Well, then I step into Khao San rd. The absolute capital of grovelling third-world tourist peddling. Street vendors selling crappy plastic buddhas, food carts selling very westernized Thai food. I never saw one place selling pad-thai or egg rolls in Bangkok, and yet they're a dime a dozen here. This place is literally over-flowing with white tourists; they outnumber Thais easily, and it's the only part of town where I've seen that be the case. Bars line the streets blasting Lady Gaga and shitty Euro-techno, filled with drunk tourists from around the white-world competing to out-douche the other. It's about as bad a Rosarito or Vegas, (although no one ever goes to Vegas with the pretense of "Hey, I want to stay away from the tourist areas, and really get to know the local culture here") and then you realize that yes, it's true, Westerners are that bad. Those corny lines street vendors try on you are used because they not only work, but are used loudly by visiting frat boys on each other. (they had to learn them somehow) All those shops selling worthless crap stay in business for a reason, and that reason is that people from France, Australia and else where come and clean them out. It's like Khao San Road is not real, and it's actually filled with Thai's in white-face doing some sick version of a Westerner minstrel-show. The place has a very secluded, green-zone feel to it, where people come not to check out another culture, but simply want to go where the drinking laws are lax, and the prostitutes are cheap. Back home, people get shit on at work, owe burdening debts, and get screwed over by their banks and credit cards, but in the third-world, they can feel like big shots. Fuck anything local or authentic, they don't want to be anywhere near where those fucking rice-monkeys congregate. They just like to know that some of them out here are desperate enough to do ANYTHING for just one of their euros, and who wouldn't feel better about themselves knowing that. To be fair, I do plan on going there later during the night. It may suck, but then again, not being able to talk to anyone at a bar filled with locals only does too. It's all about balance, I suppose. Or maybe I'm just trying to feel better about myself by bringing other tourists down. Ah, who cares
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