Chinese Traffic - Bangkok Blues

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Aaaah, Thailand, Thailand, Thailand.

I’ve been coming here for 15 years, and I still can’t quantify the magic of the place. I mean, there are many more bizarre places on earth, and many more beautiful, and more culturally rich perhaps – but Thailand has some eccentric chemistry of its own that brings me to life and gives me joy, even when I’m totally exasperated.

You see, the country and its people are resplendently and unrepentantly eccentric, so it’s impossible not to be charmed by them. As an American friend said, ‘They’re quirky" - an understatement when it comes to describing the paradoxes of the Thai personality, often having an effect on Western mind similar to a Zen koan if pondered too much. After first confusing, they drive us mad.
Consider this – a Thai stall holder will rip you off for as much as he can get without a backward glance - and then laugh derisively when you complain. But if you leave your wallet on his stall he’ll call out, and even run after you to return it, as happened with a mystified acquaintance of mine.

Another of their quirks is, whenever a sound system is around, for some reason it is always turned up full. For instance, at the monastery where I go, the monks all eat together in an open air sala. Now, you’d think if you were only getting one meal a day, as they do, you’d want a bit of peace and quiet while you eat. But they like to listen to tapes of enlightened teachers giving Dhamma talks.
Nothing wrong in that.

But what is strange is that in this tiny peaceful temple in the Khao Yai national park, they have installed a huge black power amp in a cupboard behind them, and four large and heavy speakers strung up under the roof . I mean, this is serious wattage they have here. And every day, as soon as they begin eating, I watch the monk nearest this tower of power reach across, flick the tape on, then wind the volume up until it’s so loud the leaves of the surrounding trees are rustling. And with the words of their esteemed teacher distorting and farting in the wilderness, they’ll then set about calmly enjoying their food.

Same with riding motorbikes, well – any vehicle that has a motor really – as soon as a Thai hits the road some wild beast in their heart takes over and they cannot resist winding the throttle up as far as it’ll go. I met a German man on Koh Samuii who swore off riding on Thai motorcycle taxis because he’d become airborne at the crest of hills once too many times.

Added to this, they seem to dislike wearing helmets so its not unusual to see a middle aged Thai woman belting down the road at top speed with and her hair whipping behind her and her eyes narrowed like a serene banshee.

Anything with wheels gets thrashed to the max in this country – that’s why the engines of most cars in Thailand have a kind of tappety and rough sound, because they’ve usually been throttled to within an inch of their lives.

Now for me, with my delicate Australian sensibilities regarding road rules and such, when I first came here, my impression of speed was conservative – I felt like I was living dangerously if I got to 130 kms an hour. So when I got to Thailand, it took a long time to get used to roaring down the highway with the needle of the speedo vibrating at 160, with the driver turned sideways and driving one handed while he explained the benefits of green tea.

It took me ages to find it normal to be in a van full of chattering Buddhist monks being sped at 170 k’s along winding country roads to their morning pinabaht round.

“Don’t you think we’re going a bit fast?” I might bleat from the back, but the driver would give me a haughty glance in the rear mirror then go back to chattering with the Acharn as we hit dirt on a corner one more time.

I mean, think about it – could you imagine a van full of Anglican Bishops relaxing into a nice 160 kph drive? Thai Bishops wouldn’t think anything of it. In fact, I think high speed actually relaxes them – the middle aged woman, the driver, the monks – they all get this sleepy look when they’re razoring through the atmosphere at high speed, like, ‘aaaah, that’s better.’

But I’m getting used to it now, largely because I’ve been living in China – and I remember once again that it was the same in Sri Lanka and the Philipines - high speed and vehicular chaos are not restricted to the Thais – it’s an Asian thing.

But I digress - back to the aforementioned ‘quirkiness’ of the Thai personality.

It’s not just Thai driving habits and their use of amplifiers which is excessive. Their food is always heavily spiced with lashings of sugar and chili – they have no idea of the term ‘bland’ (until they eat farang food, which they dislike intensely). Their drinks are excessively sugared; their houses, temples and gardens are often littered with tasteless bits of everything – strange polished wood seats that no-one sits on, cuddly little statues that slowly disintegrate in the rain, bits of painted tin, old Christmas decorations, whatever – it’s all a hotchpotch of mismatched ornateness – all of it totally useless.

So, given this obvious penchant for excess, and considering they run the largest brothel in the world, wouldn’t you’d think their sex life would be excessive as well?

Well, no – rather the opposite. I think the only two things Thai’s do not care to do to excess are physical work, (which is understandable – it’s too hot) – and sex.

Unlike us Westerners who are utterly obsessed with everything to do with sex, the Thais seem relatively complacent about it. To most, except when money is involved, sex is simply a functional thing – neither good nor bad. They simply do it then think of something else.
They don’t understand our obsession, or the time and energy we spend on it – the elaborate theatre of titillation, craving and lust that characterises Western sex. In fact, if they didn’t find this lewdness so laughable, they find it quite grotesque – even dirty.

But, as I said, when it comes to commerce, being natural opportunists, they will do whatever the Westerner wants, but really, when it all comes down to it, on a personal level, they can take it or leave it.

Even their sex pornography is largely for the farang. A lot of Thai men would much rather look at pictures of slaughtered people than pictures of naked women. To this end they have magazines which are totally devoted to photos of maimed, mutilated, bleeding human bodies, which had many more men thumbing through them than the Playboys and Penthouses alongside.

The first time I saw one of these magazines was when it was shown to me by a Thai acquaintance a few years back, and I couldn’t comprehend the attraction; the photos were so shocking. And he couldn’t explain it to me. He just smiled, and said it was interesting, and I felt a chill tiptoe up my spine. The odd thing is that this same guy, who in the past had been a monk for a number of years, was one of the most gentle, helpful and generous people I have ever met.

So you see what I mean?

But even stranger than that is, when it comes to all the noise, speed and mayhem of their cities, towns and villages, together with the useless clutter and rubble they leave lying around most places they’ve been, and the ecological mayhem of their industrial estates, you’d think the Thais would be the most scattered, jittery, neurotic people on the planet – but they’re not.

Quite the opposite in fact.

Thai people are the most sublimely silent, aware and peaceful people I have ever met. Their mental grace is flawless and extraordinary, only matched by the Balinese, who I see great similarities with.
Often, if you happen upon a Thai man with nothing to do, he’ll simply be standing or sitting where he stopped, as if someone threw a switch. And he’ll be gazing into some distance all his own and remain in that apparently frozen posture for 10 minutes or more before apparently remembering he exists and perhaps shifting to do something else – usually to turn around and contemplate another direction if there’s nothing particularly pressing to do. And if there’s still nothing to do after that, he might sit or lie down on the nearest horizontal surface and go instantly to sleep, then wake up instantly when he’s required.

I’ve come across Thai women who’ve stopped in midstep as they were crossing the lawn at the monastery, then remained in that position, between one step and another, their face sublimely at peace, their body apparently forgotten as they peacefully enjoy the rich atmosphere of a Thai dusk. And they might stay in that position of suspended action for minutes before calmly continuing their stroll across the lawn.

When there is nothing to do, like cats, Thai people do nothing in whatever place they find themselves, and they do it so perfectly and with such understated grace, that it’s always poetry to my agitated Western sensibility.

So here I am again, staying at the Atlanta Hotel in Soi 2, off Sukhumvit road, in one of the red light districts of Bangkok - and it’s the same as it always was – rude staff, overpriced for what it is, but magical nonetheless – a haven of peace in a chaotic city.
The Atlanta is quite an amazing place to step into from the heat and noise outside. The foyer is totally lined, walls and ceiling, with dark polished wood panelling, giving it a cool ambience of antique European luxury, which you find out later is largely belied by the grimy rooms upstairs - but it’s comfortable nonetheless.

As you come in, you look across the foyer out through the glass doors opposite, to a gorgeous jungle garden with ponds and a path leading to the pool – and there’s usually two in-house cats strutting about the place, or dozing in various chairs. The ambience of ‘home’ at the Atlanta is so strong the rude staff and dingy rooms can be forgiven.
I suppose the other good thing about the Atlanta, or perhaps the bad thing, depending on what you came to Thailand for, is that it actively discourages sex tourists. In fact, over the front door is a large sign saying, “Sex Tourists Are Not Welcome!”

I mean, I personally find sex tourists interesting. I like watching them. But I do have to admit, when they stumble in to the room next door at 4 in the morning, drunk, ugly and obnoxious and dragging a vocally argumentative Thai girl as they often are, they can be a little wearing.

Plus, most of them are too lobotomised by alcohol and sex to give good conversation, so I don’t mind the Atlanta’s attraction now for bland middle class tourists. I mean, they don’t give good conversation either, but at least they don’t vomit on the floors and kick in their doors when the argumentative Thai girl has locked them out.

The quiet and luxurious ambience that is the main asset of the Atlanta is inestimably valuable in a city as noisy and grungy as Bangkok.

Built in the 50’s, the Atlanta was the first hotel in Bangkok to have a swimming pool. It was built by Max Henn, a Berliner, who is thought to have aided British and Czech intelligence against the Nazis until 1938, when he left Europe for good, eventually ending up in Bangkok. Like many Europeans, Max was charmed by the grace and chaotic hearts of the Thai people, so he stayed.

As it happens, the Atlanta didn’t begin as a hotel.

At first Max founded the Atlanta Chemical Co., a pharmaceutical lab devoted specifically to selling cobra venom to the United States – in retrospect, perhaps a little too specialised, but totally in keeping with the eccentric spirit of mad enterprise in his adopted country.
When the business eventually foundered, Max started renting rooms above the lab to visiting foreigners and the Atlanta hotel was born. During the 1960s it was used for R and R by the U.S. military officers, who, no doubt, all sat around the pool planning Vietnam operations, or drank Kloster with the Thai aristocracy in the hotel's Continental restaurant, a popular haunt of the expatriate community back then.

One of the things I love about the Atlanta is that it is one of only places I know of, in a world slavishly addicted to the cheap thrills of progress, that has actively tried to go backwards in time. Unlike the rest of Bangkok which is devoted to sleek, shiny and sharp edged modernity, the Atlanta seems to take pride in her history, like an eccentric old Aunt clutching her photo album. As Duke Ellington plays through the intercom, if you wander through the hotel, you’ll see scores of yellowing photos of the old jazz stars of the forties and fifties on the walls, together with other forgotten luminaries who stayed there.

On their web-site, (which also looks as if it was created fifty years ago) they announce themselves as:
“BANGKOK'S BASTION OF WHOLESOME AND CULTURALLY SENSITIVE TOURISM”

Then they sternly go on to say:
“Run on conservative principles and imperiously heedless of fashions and trends, the Atlanta is untouched by pop culture and post-modern primitivism. Its style and atmosphere hark back to gentler and more cultivated times. The Atlanta is popular with cultured occidentals, with writers, academics, artists, cinema & theatre and other professional people, with dreamers and innocuous eccentrics, and their families, who can afford to stay at more expensive places but choose to stay at The Atlanta.”

On the ‘references’ page of the site they feature a long quote from James Michener’s book of 1952, ‘Voices of Asia’, in which he writes about the glorious lunacy of Thailand:
“ …a famous newspaperman rushed up and cried, "My God! I just heard you were planning to skip Siam!"

I replied that I had other more important work to do and his face became mock-ashen. He grabbed me as the Ancient Mariner must have intercepted the wedding guests and said, "If you miss Siam you miss Asia. Siam is the sanctuary in a troubled world. Siam is the air-conditioned room in hell. The padded cell in the insane asylum. Siam is all things to all men and its girls are the most beautiful in the Orient.

"Take the revolutions. In Siam they're very simple. The Army kicks the Navy out, and then the Navy kicks the Army out. The revolution is always finished by breakfast so that everybody can spend a full day in his new office. Practically nobody gets killed except army or navy men ...."

The quote is much longer than that, and though nothing to do with hotel keeping, laterally speaking, it is perfect in evoking the character that underpins the Atlanta, and the best of Thailand.
The Michener quote goes on; the famous newspaperman tells the narrator about the mail sorting techniques of the Bangkok Central Post Office in 1952. It seems they’d divide all the mail into eight different post boxes - city mail; air mail; up country mail ; up country air mail; Europe; Asia; North America and Africa. And then, at the end of each day, a little old man with a cart would come along and empty each box into one big pile ...

I love that story – because it points to the heart of the immaculate and unselfconscious lunacy of being Thai.

I mean, even today, in the new, international Bangkok, with glistening spires in the sky and many new clean surfaces where there used to be crumbling decay, there is still that inimitable Thai capacity for strange and lunatic solutions to complex problems.
For instance, as I was walking along a lane in Bangkok a few years ago, I came upon a new house that had been build very close to the side of another, slightly older new house. As there was a not much room on the block, the builders had begun the walls of the new house very close to the older house. So they must have commenced madly piling bricks on top of one another until, to their inscrutable surprise (because a Thai will never show surprise) they reached the over-hanging guttering of the older house’s roof. Only then must they have realised that the corner of the roof of the other house would intrude through the wall they were building by about a metre.
But no problem.

They kept laying bricks and built the new wall up around the intrusive roof, while developing an improvised system of bright blue plastic pipes to divert the runoff from the intruding gutter back to flow down between the walls of the two houses.

I’ve no doubt the people in the new house, when they saw the next door neighbours roof poking into their lounge-room, would not have been happy with this arrangement. But in typical Thai manner, I imagine there would have been polite shrugs all round, and the improvised solution would have been agreed to, then they all would begin wondering if it was time to eat. And if, at a later time when the rainy season began, water leaked through, they’d simply have cemented more pipes into position, or invented a new improvised solution.

Thai history is rich with this strange logic-which-is-not-logical.
Recently I was talking to an American woman here in China, who had spent four years working in Thailand during the early nineties educating the Thai sex workers about AIDS. She described how, while they had no problem with men using condoms, they did have a problem with many of the men cutting the ends off them before using them.
“Why would they do that?” I asked.
“I never found out,” she said, then added, “It had something to do with the power of sperm.”
“The power of sperm?”
She looked at me, and I looked at her and we both shrugged, which is about all you can do really, because it only makes sense in Thailand … sort of.

Compared to most of the rest of Bangkok, the Atlanta was built a long time ago – about 50 years, so I’m sometimes worried about the safety of the upper floors. I mean, 50 years isn’t that long in Western terms, and not long compared to the ancient temples and palaces scattered throughout Bangkok which were built with the tireless devotion, energy and attention to detail that arises in every Thai when it comes to doing anything for their monks, or their King. But most of the older commercial buildings don’t have a long life span, not only because the builders didn’t really care, but also because the attrition from the extreme weather. I mean, this is a city built on the flood plain of the Chao Praya river, so when the rains come each year its not uncommon for the city to be paralysed by floods at least once a week over a three month period.

For this reason I’m not sure that the Atlanta is all that steady on her pins these days – if she ever was. Whenever I stay here, usually on C floor, at regular intervals, I can feel the whole building quiver – not just vibrate, but move from side to side, as if it had got a case of the shakes for a few seconds. It comes about every 15 minutes, and after many years of staying here, it has not changed.
Now, knowing how old the Atlanta is, this shaking originally made me very nervous. The first time I felt it I thought it was an earth quake…I was lying on my bed on D floor, up on the fourth level reading a novel when it came, and I thought, ‘what the…’ but when the quivering settled, I went back to reading, thinking, ‘must have been a small earthquake.’

And then, 15 minutes later it happened again. Another earthquake? That one passed, and this time I lay there, still clutching the novel, but now gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling, wondering what the shaking could be. Then it came again, and though I still lay clutching the novel, my heart began pounding. Was it a distant nuclear explosion perhaps? Or a war?

Throwing the novel aside I swung off the bed and in bare feet (frowned on in the Atlanta) I went down the stairs to the café. Nobody was screaming, or panicking, or even looking around. They were watching a video of The Beach’, with Ava Gardner looking like a figment from another dimension– in fact, they all did. Gregory Peck was so handsome he was practically alien – they all were.
But anyway, all was as it should be. So I went back upstairs and, while making a determination to change rooms to a lower floor tomorrow, I resumed reading. I eventually got used to the periodic quivering, but in the 10 times I have stayed there, I have never been able to identify the source. And given the age of the building, I wouldn’t be surprised if one day it all collapses in a cloud of old concrete dust one day. But still, it is a part of the Bangkok mindset that risks are taken just by being there – so I continue to stay at the Atlanta, regardless of its geriatric shudder.

As usual on this particular day, the foyer of the Atlanta is thronged with neat Westerners in their holiday gear - couples and families, all wearing perfectly ironed clothes. How do they manage that, I’ve never been able to work it out? How do they manage to pull perfectly ironed clothes out of crammed suitcases?

I don’t know, maybe it’s just my innate misanthropy, but if I’m truthful, I’d have to admit that I don’t like these people. I mean, I’m sure they’re nice and everything, but over the years I’ve been watching them in my travels through various cities of Asia, I’ve always found them peculiarly numb to whatever they cannot consume - smug and sort of padded – oblivious – almost parasitic - as if for them Bangkok is merely an Asian division of Disneyland – an adult entertainment from which, at the end of their stay, they will fly away from totally untouched by the chaotic magic of where they’ve just been.

It’s as if, because Bangkok is not like their own cities, it is in some way not real – it is a temporary entertainment – that’s all.
But I suppose I can understand their position if I think about it a little further. I mean, the place is so much like a fantasy to us farang.

And it always has been, ever since the 16th century when European ship captains began to arrive home with ships full of spice and tales of the exotic east - since Captain Cook and his sailors were seduced by the svelte sirens of Siam. Added to which, Thailand has always capitalised on its reputation for the strange and exotic, and for having probably the most tolerant people on the planet.
Even today, though the flowing palms and dusky maidens have been replaced by high-rises and prostitutes, and the famous Thai smile is getting a little forced, there is still a faint thrill as you come in through customs, that anything could happen here.

The departure doors funnel us into an alien place where our ‘real’ money is changed for thick bundles of Thai baht which look just like play money. And though we might have well been struggling for cash at home, in Thailand, we’re suddenly, instantly, and obscenely rich.
Then we are launched into a place where every one of our delicate Western senses is immediately engorged – the heat, the sensuality of the air itself, the noise, the beauty and grace of the people, the highly spiced food – the bizarre adventure of Thai ingenuity, in which they’ll do anything anytime if there’s a enough baht in it to bother. And this is where we get to spend all our play money on an unbelievable range of whatever our desires require – and it’s all so excessive, so instant, and so cheap – and it’s as if it’s all free.
So as we wander through the streets handing out baht like waste paper, the fire of our desires is constantly flaring. And in the frenzy of consumption that most people find themselves dancing to, there’s not enough time or energy to see beyond the tacky carnival of the senses that this place seems to be on the surface – to see the magic.

To see how that Thai girl squatting on the lawn of that house is painstakingly cutting the grass blade by blade with a pair of scissors, carefully missing all the flowers that are scattered throughout.

To see the immaculate movement that she makes with her hand as she flicks her fingers while making a point to her friend, who is gracefully collapsed on the seat of a nearby motorbike, sucking lemonade from a plastic bag.

The perfect poise of the old woman perched side-saddle on her son’s bicycle - as they weave through the traffic she is gazing into space, thinking her own faraway thoughts.

The cheeky crystal clear giggle of the shop girl, and the effortless turn of her body as she leans back to throw a rat-a-tat quip to her friend who is behind her, as they both watch the clumsy farang man stumble over cracks in the pavement outside.

All these tiny moments of magic in Thailand beckon us to stop, and be still for a while. But for most Westerners, in the maelstrom of consumption that Bangkok is known for, this stopping is impossible.
So as I watch these excited tourists, babbling and giggling and checking the clips of their money belts, I do understand. I really do. The excess and tumult of Bangkok can be unbelievably overwhelming – such that many expatriates who return to the West after a few years in Bangkok find they cannot adjust. Their blood has become too needful of the adrenaline that this place creates.

As I hand my passport to the girl behind the counter, the tourists all check their money belts once again, as if preparing for a risky expedition, then follow each other out from the cool dark foyer of the Atlanta into the racket of the city in the glare and heat beyond.
And outside, next to the food stalls, there’s a row of Thai men squatting in the shade along one side of the road - I saw them when I arrived – and they will watch these farang emerge from the hotel, and I imagine their eyes will follow them as they giggle their oblivious way up Soi 2 to the roaring bustle of tired old Sukhumvit.

And perhaps it is indicative of my own farang self absorption - but though I have often watched the Thais watching me, I still have no idea what thoughts scroll through those inscrutable dark eyes as they sit there watching us passing by.

It might be my own cynicism, but sometimes I imagine they’re thinking how one day they’ll own the world, just like we seem to now. And when that time comes it’ll be them strolling through our streets, giggling and pointing at our third world adventure – and they’ll be fucking our women, buying our worthless trinkets and gorging themselves on our food. And they’ll be smoking our cheap cigarettes and ordering our beer to drink out of the bottle, and haggling over every cent ‘because the natives expect it’.

Or maybe they’re simply resting their eyes on a play of colour and light, with their mind idling peacefully, simply passing the time – as Thai’s do.

I leave my luggage in my room to go wandering to look for an internet café – up past ‘Annies Bar and Massage’ along Soi Nana to Sukhumvit, through the jostle of young boys setting up the day stalls to sell cheap clothes and fake watches, and the ever-present and ever-watchful working girls slouched over glasses of water in empty bars with names like ‘Harry’s Pub’ and ‘Sally’s Bar – Your Home Away from Home’ – getting ready for the harvest of the night.
And the streets are thronged with farang men with their pale haunted eyes, pulling their rent girls behind them, walking too fast for the heat, as if running from some phantom that follows them, that screams with the accusing shriek of their mother, or their wife, or their faraway family. These men – their exhausted eyes never stop flickering, as if they’re afraid to rest. They’re always in a rush, as if their pleasure has to be on the run, to keep one step ahead of their suppressed shame - so they keep on walking, spending, drinking, eating, while all the time dragging the girl behind them so she’ll be there when they need her – to fondle, kiss, to look at, to fuck, to be the temporary embodiment of a lost adolescent dream. All these men; their pleasure is so urgent and they just don’t have enough time. We westerners never have enough time.

And the Thais?

Well, they own these remnants who lurch through their streets.
He doesn’t know it, but from the time the farang man stepped off the plane clutching his brand new overnight bag and stinking of airline scotch, all the way through the following days – the manic obstacle course of hot smoky bars, oily massages, velvet Thai flesh, shouted boasts over thumping music, hangovers and forgotten meals which he threw down between beers – right up to the moment he wanders dejectedly back through the departure doors to go home - he was owned.

He was owned by every Thai he came in contact with, who took baht off him. All the hard faced bar owners, the hotels and stall holders; all the bargirls and giggling transvestites; the street stall workers and even the legless, armless, godawfully maimed beggar crawling face down in the dirt on Sukhumvit road - all of them owned a small share of these rich westerners.

They saw him coming and assessed him with cool knowledgeable eyes – then led him where they needed him to be, then worked him like the professionals they are, herding him like a randy bull; worked them with the electric prods of his own insatiable desires.
But who gives a shit – most of the men certainly don’t.
Most of them are barely conscious – the slag of the Western world’s manhood; the drunks and losers; the ones who have lost faith in everything but the fast fading tickle of their aging nerve ends.
They are the old, lost or rejected ones for whom this immense brothel is the last chance to sink themselves into female for just one more taste of the immaculate completion they always craved.

They’re the angry ones whose poisoned hearts have begun to eat them alive.

They’re the physical wrecks who’ve come to wait out their time in a place which doesn’t judge them, where they can be the men they never were - drinking themselves to death while spinning glorious tales of heroic lives they’ve never lived.

They’re the young hyperactive cock cowboys out for a laugh, who’d stick it in anything that was warm, wet and screamed, and they just don’t care – whatever it is, they just don’t care.

Sitting here in this internet café, I’m trying to write an email home, but there’s too much going on outside. So I sit sipping at a bottle of water and gazing over the computer at the bustle outside the plate glass window.

And right now I’m watching a neatly dressed man with perfectly organised hair follow his equally neat wife and pastel coloured daughters along the street, and …ooop …there it is - as he passed the open air bar beside this café he glanced across to that Thai bargirl lounging on a stool, with her dress riding up on a thigh - and the flash of primal lust in his eyes was like the glint of a primitive fire in the distance within him.

This is not what he expected – or maybe he secretly did.
Now, perhaps that morning, as he was having breakfast with his family at the Marriott Hotel – air conditioned, sparkling cutlery, tea, eggs and toast just like home - he might have jauntily suggested that it might be a doddle to have a look at the red-light district of Bangkok. See how the other half live. And perhaps his wife and two daughters squealed and giggled as he lewdly winked.
But now, standing in the ferocious heat looking around for a sign telling them where they are, they’re all regretting it, because the white hot sun is burning the tops of their heads and the sweat is dripping down from their armpits, and it’s not fun at all – every one of their air-conditioned senses is overloaded - the noise, the crowds, the cracked and heaving concrete, and that black oily grime that gets everywhere.

And the sassy tough-girls in the open air bars are not as contrite and abased as they should be. Rather they are defiant and confident, and the bawdy sex they suggest with every gesture is almost satirical.

As they flick disdainful glances at the farang women gawking in at them, they yackety-yak wry remarks to each other in Thai from the backs of their throats, and the wife resents this. These sin saturated girls have no right to their sassy pride. They have no right to be so beautiful and have such radiant sang-froid. Where is their shame? Where is their chagrin at having become so debased.

The family has gone now, stumbling off to stage right - but in my head the theatre goes on, and call me a cynic, but I imagine that at some point the wife might look back and catch her husband in the middle of another stolen glance, and maybe she’ll spot his secret yearning, and perhaps see the long forgotten animal of lust that’s arisen in him once more – after so long.

So she’ll walk faster, and as she walks perhaps she’ll remember that once that powerful animal in the man behind her was devoted to her, but she had thought it was gone. But it was only sleeping. And now it yearns for freedom again. It wants to fuck – not make love, or have sexual intercourse – it just wants to fuck.

So she snorts with disgust, drawing hubby away up the concrete stairs that lead to the SkyTrain which runs the length of Sukhumvit, to take him back to shopping and eating bad Thai food in Silom. Anywhere but this immense, cluttered, raucous outdoor brothel where the girls seem constantly naked no matter what they wear.

Or maybe they’ll go back to the hotel and leave the daughters by the pool – sneak up to their room where perhaps he’ll work off some of that awakened lust with her, and maybe she’ll wonder why it can’t be like this every time.

I love it - the theatre that arises out of the adrenalised flash of illicit sex that’s so easily lit in Western men’s hearts – how it lights us up and makes us lunatics. Even if we choose not to participate, it’s still invigorating. And in Sukhumvit road, the theatre of illicit sex is as vibrant as it ever was.

All these girls; and there are so many - from every doorway their sassy magnetism is almost palpable, like a visceral pull, causing the blood of most of the passing men to stutter in their veins.
And right in the middle of that thought I remember how in times before Christianity exchanged its spiritual integrity for power, and insinuated itself through world culture like a noxious vapour, imprisoning sexuality in shame and channelling lust into violence, the whores in many world cultures had been priestesses - and sex was the sacrament, the physical affirmation of life-force. And in the arms of those women, men sublimated their dissociated restlessness and were renewed – made whole again. These beautiful Thai girls who carry themselves with such aristocratic grace - my ridiculously romantic sensibility enthuses to itself that, for all the hideously injured male wrecks of the world, who have flocked here to their arms, it’s as if each girl is an angel of succour, a priestess of whatever’s left of his heart.

For sure, in all this rhapsodising, I’m also aware that that there is a lot of tragedy attached to many of these women’s lives. But I really don’t think it’s the sex that they sell that crushes them. It’s the fraudulent shame they are made to feel by the same men who use them that cuts at their hearts. It’s the rage and violence of Western sexual dysfunction that they have to deal with – a dichotomy of opposites that, in the end, they don’t understand. To them it’s just commerce. Simple. But to us, it’s a cesspool of conflicting social codes, together with our own murky, distorted sexual life.
Most of these ‘Tough Girls’ as they’re known by the Thais, support their families with the money they earn, but being Thai, with typical Thai grace, they live the life they’ve been given with equanimity and good humour.

Their giggling is full of mischievous joy as they lean over the computers in this café, dictating the hundreds of ‘love letters’ to all the men they’ve been with over the past year or two – letters pleading for money for fictitious sick mothers and children; letters pleading for help to ‘escape’ from Thailand and come to Holland, England or Germany, or America, or Australia; to be with ‘the only one they ever loved’.

As they dictate these perfectly modulated money hooks, their faces are alight as they laugh about everything with the young, fresh-faced students who make money typing the letters for them – because in the end, in Thai life, laughter is ultimately all that can be done, because life is just too ridiculous to do anything else.