The glittering facets of Thailand are generally well documented, and Bangkok is, as it always has been, a dazzlingly fun place to visit. Leaving aside the Golden Temple, the ladyboys selling fried cockroaches, the pleasures of pad thai, and the 4D traffic, Thailand also maintains the element of surprise, as we found out to our credit and debit. So let's balance the books.
Our guest house for this visit was situated within the greater Khao San Road area, home of the one dollar hostel and the globe-on-a-shoestring Shangri-La. The neighborhood streets overflow with travellers from all over the planet in various states of smart/casual disarray, poring over DVDs, grilled squids, cheap luggage, kickboxing lessons and more massage options than a website like this one can explore. It rolls on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, just as it has for thirty years or more. Purists and those who remember the good old days argue that the Scene has been irrevocably sold out (a vibe explored accurately in Alex Garland's the Beach). Indeed, Khao San Road has become so entrenched that it has itself become a tourist attraction, and now features on the city tour of Bangkok, along with the National Museum and the Democracy monument. More to the point, there's now a Starbucks and a KFC on KS Road, which is of course a sign of apocalypse riding in our midst like so much bird flu in a henhouse.
Despite the taint of commercial spoilage, there are quirks to the KS area which continue to make one smile into one's papaya shake. Travellers of all shapes and sizes use Bangkok as their jumping off point for exploring every place else, so the traffic is considerable. But a time comes in every traveller's voyage when it is time to cast off the livery of the Road, and rejoin the world they came from. Alternatively, living on the cheap is part of the Experience, and with cash in short supply, it may become necessary to pawn that camera/Da Vinci code/pair of hiking boots for bus fare to Singapore. Hence the emergence of the We Buy Everything market stalls dotted along the shady backstreets.
That is what they do: Buy Everything. Hand over your tired Tevas, your clapped out back pack, the flashlight that saved your life in Sarawak, and in exchange get a pittance of baht, or trade it for some other equally second hand bit of kit. Looking at the goods on display at these stalls, one realizes that it is possible to outfit oneself for one's search of self entirely from cast offs from other selfs who went to look for themselves. That sleeping bag may have travelled thousands of kilometres and yet may never leave. And so the backpacker and his Thai hosts have created an entirely self sustaining microeconomy all of its own. No sell out here, greedheads. So please, when next in Bangkok, remember to replenish your water bottle at the Buy Everything well, for it will be returned to you in time.
Moving crosstown somewhat, Natty brought with him from Mongolia a particularly robust cough which required the services of the medical sector, and so we discovered how Bangkok has become a world centre of medical prowess, attracting the infirm and injured from all corners of the globe.
Based on a pointer from a colleague, we headed to the Bumrumgrad medical centre, a gleaming mothership of chrome and green glass built to make you well again. The triage begins in the road leading up to the complex, where uniformed guards peer in the car and point you to the ER, out patient, inpatient, or shopping plaza, and clear traffic for you as befits your condition. When you pull up to the front doors of the place, uniformed bellboys bustle around your car gathering your stuff for you. Next, green suited concierge ladies glide up and politely enquire as to the nature of the ailment, before gently taking your arm and gracefully escorting you to the appropriate bank of elevators. Note the splendid marble atrium and food court on the mezzanine as you go. If English is not your preferred jive, spot a uniformed lady with your national flag on her lapel, and she will translate from Japanese, Urdu, Tagalog or whatever other specials of the day there may be.
Arriving at Kids World (also known as the pediatric outpatient ward), get registered, have a complimentary juice or mineral water, get your new medical credit card thingy, and see one of the bank of doctors on shift. When we were there, the clinic was only half staffed, so there were a mere eight general peds MDs on duty (not counting specialists). If for some bizarre reason you have to wait, then pass the time in the indoor playground, or watching cartoons, or drawing pictures at the crayon table. Racks of the day's newspapers in various languages are on hand for adults. Upon seeing the doctor, who already has your particulars in front of him, get examined, diagnosed, prescribed, get meds, get paid up and get out of there. It took us a whopping fifteen minutes to complete the above, thirty if you count from when we entered the building. We repeated the procedure a few days later, when an x-ray and nebulizer hits were required, and it was equally smooth, the x-ray emailed upstairs in the time it took for us to take the elevator from radiology to Kids World.
Efficacy and medical glitz is all good, but the real draw of medical Bangkok is the cost. For all of the above, consults, x-rays and prescriptions, we paid a total of 160 USD. People from all bits of the world, rich and poor, having expended the available medical options in their neighbourhood, make their way to Thailand. The waiting rooms of the complex were a mushmouth of languages- kids get along with whatever they speak, and adults with not a word in common traded WetOnes, soft toys and held each others kids in an effort to keep everyone happy. So please, when next in Bangkok, remember to have your nose done on the cheap at Bumrumgrad. Today's nose at yesterday's prices. What a wonderful world, folks.
Or rather, it both is and isn't. Our final Thai musings derive not from Bangkok, but from Pattaya, two hours drive southeast on the road to Cambodia. We selected it for our weekend excursion on the basis of its proximity to Bangkok, and the need to see the sea before returning to the steppe. Our expectations of a sleepy seaside town of thatched beach huts, hammocks, and slow boats in gentle clear seas were as fictional as the beach in The Beach. Had we known where we were going, we would probably not have gone. But that, of course, would have been the way of the wuss. And wuss we do not.
Pattaya is a heaving city of two million, most notable for being the epicentre of the seedy, nasty tourism which has long been a mainstay of Thailand’s tourist industry. Given the number of other possible candidates for sleaziest place in Thailand, being the winner is the doobiest of dubious awards.
The town has hundreds of girlie bars, staffed by thousands of bar girls. These establishments are simply ranks of u-shaped bars, lit with the requisite red neon, behind which stand at least one barmaid per barstool, to attend to the client as they enjoy one or more beverages. As language is often (the only thing) not shared between x & y in these transactions, many bars keep a stack of board games on hand, so that the culture gap between can quickly be bridged by a bracing round of Snakes and Ladders. The most popular game by far was Connect Four, by the way. To these bars add dozens more gay/straight/other go-go bars advertising in at least half a dozen languages, market stalls selling key rings and t-shirts with 'amusing' smutty slogans, beersweat and too loud music, and many, many pairings of young Thai women and old, older, oldest white men, and you have a fun filled holiday destination for all the family. As was pointed out to us in Bangkok by a fellow in the know, the advent of Viagra has meant that the age gap between the gent and the lady has broadened considerably. May-December romances are now able to see in the New Year, as it were.
In fact, Pattaya has such allure to some of the world's male population that there is now a significant permanent expatriate population of 200,000 or more, with many more on a quasi-permanent basis. Sun, sand, female companionship, beerhall bonhomie, all in a Benny Hill atmosphere and affordable on a pension to boot: what more could one want? What is most impressive about this enclave is that far from letting their brains turn to mush in this dissolute atmosphere, these émigrés are highly organized. In addition to the requisite club activities, amateur dramatic societies, Rotary and the like, the expats of Pattaya have their own television station, the Pattaya's People's Channel (PPC).
PPC exists to remind the resident farangs of the city that in moving to Pattaya they have made the wisest choice they have ever, ever made. From here on out, it's paradise. The super smiling mzungu presenter and all of his smiling guests share the same evangelical certainty (and blinding teeth- cheap whitening is just one of the many benefits available in Pattaya), and feel the need to convert you, the viewer, to their way of thinking. One interview I saw went a bit like this- two blokes in Hawaiian shirts and cheap linen are smiling at each other on a beach:
Presenter: So how long's it been since you moved here?
Happy Pattaya Farang Resident: Oh, about three years now.
P: And have you EVER been happier?
HPFR: I can honestly say that my life has never been better, and I've never been happier.
P: That's great to hear, that's great to hear. And what were you doing before you came to Pattaya?
HPFR: Brrrr! I don't like to remember it! I was working in [insert profession] in [insert dreary place] when all of a sudden I decided I'd take early retirement and come out there and I here I am and I've never been happier.
P: And will you EVER work again?
P and HPFR together (for this is the funniest joke in the world): Hahahahaha!
HPFR: No fear of that!
P: And you've never been happier?
HPFR: You can say that again! I've never been happier.
P: Really? We get that a lot here at PPC. That's great. You enjoy yourself now.
HPFR: Thanks for that, I will, I will. Many thanks.
Not working ever again is a key component to the Pattaya lifestyle. Following on from the illuminating interview, the next bit of programming was a highlight reel from a recent workshop on the topic of How to Make Money Without Working. Expats in sunwear sat around a hotel conference room and watched a powerpoint presentation on how to make a buck by doing bailiff work, verifying insurance fraud, cockfighting, stunt diving, and many other foolproof schemes, none of which require you to wear a tie or work a nine to five. Unfortunately, I was unable to pick up some of finer points of this process, as the highlights were overdubbed with some happy upbeat music, to remind you how easy and simple it all is- all you need to do is walk away from the rat race and into the arms of Pattaya. What could be simpler?
On that inspirational point, we will bring the Thai chapter to a close. A big wai to you all, and here's hoping that if you end up in Pattaya, you know why you're there.
Taa gaawn,
Jannie
Our guest house for this visit was situated within the greater Khao San Road area, home of the one dollar hostel and the globe-on-a-shoestring Shangri-La. The neighborhood streets overflow with travellers from all over the planet in various states of smart/casual disarray, poring over DVDs, grilled squids, cheap luggage, kickboxing lessons and more massage options than a website like this one can explore. It rolls on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, just as it has for thirty years or more. Purists and those who remember the good old days argue that the Scene has been irrevocably sold out (a vibe explored accurately in Alex Garland's the Beach). Indeed, Khao San Road has become so entrenched that it has itself become a tourist attraction, and now features on the city tour of Bangkok, along with the National Museum and the Democracy monument. More to the point, there's now a Starbucks and a KFC on KS Road, which is of course a sign of apocalypse riding in our midst like so much bird flu in a henhouse.
Despite the taint of commercial spoilage, there are quirks to the KS area which continue to make one smile into one's papaya shake. Travellers of all shapes and sizes use Bangkok as their jumping off point for exploring every place else, so the traffic is considerable. But a time comes in every traveller's voyage when it is time to cast off the livery of the Road, and rejoin the world they came from. Alternatively, living on the cheap is part of the Experience, and with cash in short supply, it may become necessary to pawn that camera/Da Vinci code/pair of hiking boots for bus fare to Singapore. Hence the emergence of the We Buy Everything market stalls dotted along the shady backstreets.
That is what they do: Buy Everything. Hand over your tired Tevas, your clapped out back pack, the flashlight that saved your life in Sarawak, and in exchange get a pittance of baht, or trade it for some other equally second hand bit of kit. Looking at the goods on display at these stalls, one realizes that it is possible to outfit oneself for one's search of self entirely from cast offs from other selfs who went to look for themselves. That sleeping bag may have travelled thousands of kilometres and yet may never leave. And so the backpacker and his Thai hosts have created an entirely self sustaining microeconomy all of its own. No sell out here, greedheads. So please, when next in Bangkok, remember to replenish your water bottle at the Buy Everything well, for it will be returned to you in time.
Moving crosstown somewhat, Natty brought with him from Mongolia a particularly robust cough which required the services of the medical sector, and so we discovered how Bangkok has become a world centre of medical prowess, attracting the infirm and injured from all corners of the globe.
Based on a pointer from a colleague, we headed to the Bumrumgrad medical centre, a gleaming mothership of chrome and green glass built to make you well again. The triage begins in the road leading up to the complex, where uniformed guards peer in the car and point you to the ER, out patient, inpatient, or shopping plaza, and clear traffic for you as befits your condition. When you pull up to the front doors of the place, uniformed bellboys bustle around your car gathering your stuff for you. Next, green suited concierge ladies glide up and politely enquire as to the nature of the ailment, before gently taking your arm and gracefully escorting you to the appropriate bank of elevators. Note the splendid marble atrium and food court on the mezzanine as you go. If English is not your preferred jive, spot a uniformed lady with your national flag on her lapel, and she will translate from Japanese, Urdu, Tagalog or whatever other specials of the day there may be.
Arriving at Kids World (also known as the pediatric outpatient ward), get registered, have a complimentary juice or mineral water, get your new medical credit card thingy, and see one of the bank of doctors on shift. When we were there, the clinic was only half staffed, so there were a mere eight general peds MDs on duty (not counting specialists). If for some bizarre reason you have to wait, then pass the time in the indoor playground, or watching cartoons, or drawing pictures at the crayon table. Racks of the day's newspapers in various languages are on hand for adults. Upon seeing the doctor, who already has your particulars in front of him, get examined, diagnosed, prescribed, get meds, get paid up and get out of there. It took us a whopping fifteen minutes to complete the above, thirty if you count from when we entered the building. We repeated the procedure a few days later, when an x-ray and nebulizer hits were required, and it was equally smooth, the x-ray emailed upstairs in the time it took for us to take the elevator from radiology to Kids World.
Efficacy and medical glitz is all good, but the real draw of medical Bangkok is the cost. For all of the above, consults, x-rays and prescriptions, we paid a total of 160 USD. People from all bits of the world, rich and poor, having expended the available medical options in their neighbourhood, make their way to Thailand. The waiting rooms of the complex were a mushmouth of languages- kids get along with whatever they speak, and adults with not a word in common traded WetOnes, soft toys and held each others kids in an effort to keep everyone happy. So please, when next in Bangkok, remember to have your nose done on the cheap at Bumrumgrad. Today's nose at yesterday's prices. What a wonderful world, folks.
Or rather, it both is and isn't. Our final Thai musings derive not from Bangkok, but from Pattaya, two hours drive southeast on the road to Cambodia. We selected it for our weekend excursion on the basis of its proximity to Bangkok, and the need to see the sea before returning to the steppe. Our expectations of a sleepy seaside town of thatched beach huts, hammocks, and slow boats in gentle clear seas were as fictional as the beach in The Beach. Had we known where we were going, we would probably not have gone. But that, of course, would have been the way of the wuss. And wuss we do not.
Pattaya is a heaving city of two million, most notable for being the epicentre of the seedy, nasty tourism which has long been a mainstay of Thailand’s tourist industry. Given the number of other possible candidates for sleaziest place in Thailand, being the winner is the doobiest of dubious awards.
The town has hundreds of girlie bars, staffed by thousands of bar girls. These establishments are simply ranks of u-shaped bars, lit with the requisite red neon, behind which stand at least one barmaid per barstool, to attend to the client as they enjoy one or more beverages. As language is often (the only thing) not shared between x & y in these transactions, many bars keep a stack of board games on hand, so that the culture gap between can quickly be bridged by a bracing round of Snakes and Ladders. The most popular game by far was Connect Four, by the way. To these bars add dozens more gay/straight/other go-go bars advertising in at least half a dozen languages, market stalls selling key rings and t-shirts with 'amusing' smutty slogans, beersweat and too loud music, and many, many pairings of young Thai women and old, older, oldest white men, and you have a fun filled holiday destination for all the family. As was pointed out to us in Bangkok by a fellow in the know, the advent of Viagra has meant that the age gap between the gent and the lady has broadened considerably. May-December romances are now able to see in the New Year, as it were.
In fact, Pattaya has such allure to some of the world's male population that there is now a significant permanent expatriate population of 200,000 or more, with many more on a quasi-permanent basis. Sun, sand, female companionship, beerhall bonhomie, all in a Benny Hill atmosphere and affordable on a pension to boot: what more could one want? What is most impressive about this enclave is that far from letting their brains turn to mush in this dissolute atmosphere, these émigrés are highly organized. In addition to the requisite club activities, amateur dramatic societies, Rotary and the like, the expats of Pattaya have their own television station, the Pattaya's People's Channel (PPC).
PPC exists to remind the resident farangs of the city that in moving to Pattaya they have made the wisest choice they have ever, ever made. From here on out, it's paradise. The super smiling mzungu presenter and all of his smiling guests share the same evangelical certainty (and blinding teeth- cheap whitening is just one of the many benefits available in Pattaya), and feel the need to convert you, the viewer, to their way of thinking. One interview I saw went a bit like this- two blokes in Hawaiian shirts and cheap linen are smiling at each other on a beach:
Presenter: So how long's it been since you moved here?
Happy Pattaya Farang Resident: Oh, about three years now.
P: And have you EVER been happier?
HPFR: I can honestly say that my life has never been better, and I've never been happier.
P: That's great to hear, that's great to hear. And what were you doing before you came to Pattaya?
HPFR: Brrrr! I don't like to remember it! I was working in [insert profession] in [insert dreary place] when all of a sudden I decided I'd take early retirement and come out there and I here I am and I've never been happier.
P: And will you EVER work again?
P and HPFR together (for this is the funniest joke in the world): Hahahahaha!
HPFR: No fear of that!
P: And you've never been happier?
HPFR: You can say that again! I've never been happier.
P: Really? We get that a lot here at PPC. That's great. You enjoy yourself now.
HPFR: Thanks for that, I will, I will. Many thanks.
Not working ever again is a key component to the Pattaya lifestyle. Following on from the illuminating interview, the next bit of programming was a highlight reel from a recent workshop on the topic of How to Make Money Without Working. Expats in sunwear sat around a hotel conference room and watched a powerpoint presentation on how to make a buck by doing bailiff work, verifying insurance fraud, cockfighting, stunt diving, and many other foolproof schemes, none of which require you to wear a tie or work a nine to five. Unfortunately, I was unable to pick up some of finer points of this process, as the highlights were overdubbed with some happy upbeat music, to remind you how easy and simple it all is- all you need to do is walk away from the rat race and into the arms of Pattaya. What could be simpler?
On that inspirational point, we will bring the Thai chapter to a close. A big wai to you all, and here's hoping that if you end up in Pattaya, you know why you're there.
Taa gaawn,
Jannie
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