Smiles
October 10th, 2010, 15:52
GREEN on BLUE
On the way down to the Big Mango from Hua Hin this mid-September we stopped (as usual) in one of those enormous gasoline malls ubiquitous on the main highways of Thailand. Three-Thais-to-a-car is common in these joints and windshield-washing is a duty here ... unlike Canada where the last car windshield I can remember being lovingly squeeged was in 1972 when Nixon was slowly sweating his way out the door.
Also a sweet past-time in these places is an Amazon cappuccino with-a-view: in this case deliciously enhanced by an emerald field of rice right on our table door step ... a lovely start to The Anniversary/Confessions/ Tour (apologies to Madonna) from Hua Hin to Kho Chang, with stops along the way for a few luxurious sleep overs in hoity toity hotels on the Chao Praya and the Gulf of Thailand.
I love rice paddies at this time of year, all as green as they'll ever get, all screaming out 'export, export', all emphasizing the great strong back bone of this country: the Thai rice farmer and his Irishy fields all soaked up in the water and brilliant colour and traditions of a thousand-year old labour. Is it any wonder that the background of many of the little King-adoration films which we stand up to in Thai theatres are rain-on-rice-fields.
This particular paddy is stunning in that way . . . the only one's I've seen which are even more evocative are on mountain back roads on the journey to Doi Inthanon, where they live on architectural steppes on the hillsides.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/ricefield.jpg
When I say 'anniversary' I really mean it: this year marks 10 years of (mostly) bliss with my man from Kap Choen County, Surin ... and I was determined to make amends for promising him ~ in a drunken love stupor a few years ago, with 2 witnesses! ~ 4 nights at The Peninsular Hotel, which has been over the years voted Best Hotel in The Universe and at which rooms start at 8000 baht a night for a room with no balcony (he found out later), stuffed into 15 square meters right next to the Aston Martins & RR's lined up in the basement car park.
So that wasn't happenin'!
Instead, on bended knee, I assured him that the Navalai Hotel ( http://www.navalai.com ) on the banks of the beautiful Chao Praya should easily be heads and shoulders above the dowdy old Peninsula and damned if we haven't explored that part of Bangkok before, and geeeeez doncha think we're more 'Navalai' than 'Peninsula' folks anyway?
So here we landed, after a leisurely excursion (cursin'!) through the very narrow sois of Old Krung Thep ... the Khet Phra Nakhon neighbourhood, close ~ but not too close ~ to Khaosorn and back packer country.
Checked in, getting dark, we held hands on the Navalai balcony, the river spread out before, my nose slowly plugging up from the Bangkok atmosphere.
Overlooking. The Chao Phraya is sparkly bluey beautiful at night. As it should be, just for us.
The party was starting to look good!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/A000.jpg
And party it was! That night, tired as I was from drooling over the metaphorical possibilities of that Thai rice paddy, we hopped a taxi over to Thonburi side and ended up in a sleazy and thoroughly terrific Isaan music bar. You have to go up to this place in a 50-year old elevator (holds 5 only) and who's door opens straight out into the bar ... a big cavern of a place with stage, dancers, never-ending mulan singers, dance floor, lady boys, gay guys, macho Thai men and waitresses/singers/hookers. I'd have never in a million years found this place by myself ... just another joy of being hauled around by my guy Who-knows-Everything when it comes to Bangkok.
We danced away 10 bottles of Heineken 'Yai' and huge plates of marinated-BBQ'ed-then-dried pork and staggered out at 4AM, putting the best cap on an anniversary celebration that I could have wished for.
Admission: We like Bangkok. Or, we like it in the dribs and drab time scale we go there regularly ... i.e. 3 or 4 days max.
Love the weirdnesses made ever-present by shoulder-to-shoulder living; enjoy the wildly different neighbourhoods; relish finding small brilliant gems in dirty crowded lockers.
And especially look forward to our evenings with the Queen of Bangkok (and her Princess), our friend and fellow poster on this Board, the ever-knowledgeable (Ex)Trongpai(Ex) who is Absolutely Fabulous with gossipy tidbits about nefarious and notorious fellow posters whose secret lives ~ you know who you are ~ become wide open laugh-fests sitting with him over drinks or fuck shows.
'Fuck Show' you say (ears all perked up)? Yep ... this time the choice ~ my old man's choice that is ~ was Tawan, that favourite and beloved pumped up hell hole of the long-deceased 'Wowpow': a place I would normally avoid, but Mr Suphot was determined to see Big Muscles, so, Anniversary Boy that he was, 'Big' was it.
We plodded over from Dick's Cafe in Soi Twilight into a black hole of intimidating musculature. One out of twenty was what I would characterize as good-looking: a very poor ratio normally, but the boys were all standing up, all elastic-banded and viagara-ized and flicking each others' cocks and then, finally, getting down (what we came to see) to a good solid fucking of a guy who was under no circumstances a lady boy (like so many other femmy squealers in other bars who do this for a living).
He was fucked in all manner of positions I've never tried, including the back wall upside down thing, and thank Christ, NOT including on that which was directly beside me, Trongpai's ample lap.
That was interesting, as was the follow-up jerk off contest in which 6 out of about 12 guys managed to squirt all over the stage. The clean up guy scampering on and off.
I imagine the Dry Six were immediately fired.
We parted company on that sloppy note. Next year: another meeting, more delicious gossip, another Fuck Show, another clean up guy.
TREKKIN' IN THE 'HOOD
Bound and determined to shoot a series of shots on the back streets of a small Bangkok neighbourhood, we ventured out the next morning together: him with a brand new pair of Nike running shoes needing to get a good breaking in ... myself with a pulled calf muscle limping along behind snapping pictures.
He, making the Rama 8 bridge the goal of his run this morning ... me, just hoping for rest break at some small coffee shop, resting my leg, firing off some reasonably defining photographs of this small corner of Krung Thep which we'd chosen to hang out in for 3 or 4 days.
Phra Sumen Fort is an historical example of the defensive monuments of Bangkok during the 18th and 19th centuries. Frankly, I believe by that time Bangkok was in little danger from anyone ~ the Kingdom having been united, but still, forts are needed for a place to store cannons and balls, which is what this place served as. The balls are probably still there.
Well kept (signage in Thai & English) in a beautiful little park along the river, it's not that well-known by farangs. But it's a cool little oasis, with lots of chairs and viewpoints and Thais scurrying around playing Tak Raew and trying out hip hop and breakdancing. The odd farang Young Person decked out in old hippie tie-dye throwbacks. Army guys with machine guns hiding behind trees made me feel safe from the Red Shirts, and shirtless army guys on breaks down by the river made me feel at home and rather horny.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/R011_BW.jpg
Walking a smooth long curving corner of a road stumbled across an exquisite example of old Bangkok urban townhouse architecture. I love the roundness of the outer walls, built perfectly to follow the graceful curve of the sidewalk. Some builder got The Point here ... he was an artist for sure, or at the very least had the artistic weltanschuang: "Let's not square this one off Somporn, it'd be a crime".
This row housing is no museum ... it's being lived-in right now. Who knows what the interiors look like, but I'm certain someone sure delights in the curvilinear.
Even the air conditioner units' boring chunkiness and the electrical wire anarchy aren't enough to wreck things: The Krung Thep way.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/B001_BW.jpg
From the park one gets a very nice view of the graceful proportions of Rama 8 Bridge. This entire bridge is held up by that one immense double-legger ... (I shut my eyes and imagined a scene of those cables failing, then snapping one by one, flying at light speed backwards like giant elastic bands into the cement support pole, gouging out tons of concrete at each smash, those falling down on the cars below).
Anyway ... this is the puppy we were slowly heading for in our quest for exotic running spaces, but once out of the park and the river banks it grew a bit more complicated: we knew the general direction we needed to head in, but unfortunately (well, perhaps fortunately really) none of the little original sois which make up this older part of Bangkok would cooperate. They were skewed helter skelter in every direction, the dark shadows of three story buildings were ever-present, and the landmark bridge top was soon lost.
To be found later, but sweatier.
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Around some corner (and finally, under that damn bridge) a government building of a strictly un-Bauhaus nature (in a Bauhaus world).
Rather old, 19th century, stately, precise, almost prissy in it's exterior embellishments it stood out amongst the general messiness of a vibrant street life almost underneath the bridge.
Highly European in detail, the overall silhouette was perfectly Thai, the end result being a refreshment with it's muted yellow colour and it's uplifted roof edges and it's wooden shutters.
Love walking around corners in Bangkok and being greeted by the expected.
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An wheeled and motorised apparition came into sight.
Across the road, a vendor watching over his a cart and wares. A customer (I think) squatting to peruse 'the product'. The cart being built up to some height by some unseen scaffolding, then boards placed on that, and then 'some product' piled on that. But what was it? Or rather, what were they?
More investigation: a cart full of sticky signs. Signs of every topic imaginable. Signs for every occasion. Signs of all sizes. Pornographic signs. 'Don't go there', 'don't do this or that', 'do do this or that', 'keep away', 'Go Fuck Yourself', 'Bite me', 'Farang Friendly' etc etc etc ... and those were just the few in Engish.
Around and around Bangkok (I presume) this guy went: a sign for anything and everything, for the city which has anything and everything.
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Finally, The Bridge. All pleasing perspectives, odd angles, intriguing juxtapositions, geometrics of Gehry and Kandinsky.
Fired this one up a pole.
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Mr Suphot was having none of this crap. Architectural impressiveness be hanged, he had only his own priorities, which were two: (1) getting his photo taken closeup on the bridge, and (2) getting his photo taken while running away from me.
He got both, eventually, after putting up with lectures on the Chao Phraya River below which was a true Working River (as opposed to a tourist photo op) with it's great barges and tugs and drug smuggling work to get done . . . a working man's river (and bridge) which brought the produce of Thailand down the rivers of Thailand, down to the massive dock yards of Bangkok just a few miles downstream. Yadayadayada ... he took off into what was now a sun getting low in the sky, and goddamn if I want to be running on this bridge after dark.
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And there he goes. Into the distance. Into some peace from me.
And me from him. Me, in Lautrecian search of solitary and pithy metaphors (see below): I turned and headed back, hobbling, the way I came, agreeing to meet up with him in a small cafe we had passed back underneath the bridge.
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LIFE UNDER A BRIDGE
Beneath this bridge: Dark. A home. A sleeping bag, some cooking utensils, a bicycle on it's side, bridge railing as laundry hanger.
Hideouts under bridges all over the world serve as sleeping quarters for The Forgotten. This one however was on a terrace, the second floor of three which need to be climbed to get on top of the bridge. This man (woman? family?) was not out-of-sight or hidden in any way. Anyone walking up to the top of the bridge would fall over the stuff if not careful in the dark.
(I came back the next day. Things had changed ~ there was more 'stuff') ~ and the sleeping quarters had been embellished and improved. True squatting had started.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/G013.jpg
Thais sense no apprehension nor fear when they sleep. Not the at-home, after 11 type of sleep which we (mostly) all find safe and comfy ... I mean the street-sleepers, the working Thai folks who ~ at any time ~ can doze off in a million small spaces, in a thousand positions: the spaces and positions any average farang would find psycho bending and intimidating enough to ensure any sleep would be fitful and one-eye-open .
And so it was, under-the-bridge became just another sleep zone for tuktuk drivers and motor bike taxi dudes to grab some more winks.
What was this guy dreaming of? What kind of position is that for a man with any decent sense of, er, decency. Was I being propositioned? I recalled, wincing, the fuck shows the previous night.
At the moment of my first secretive observation of this display I recalled a scene from some Monty Python show (years ago) where one man, having just been in great argument with another, threw his arms up in a huff and pronounced to his opponent (as if the argument was now finished and he wished it to end in his favour, and with huge disdain): " ... I fart in your general direction ... "
I took the picture and left quickly, feeling beaten.
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A slow day for tuktuks as well.
One has to creep up on these scenes, embarrassed at stooping to photograph 'Local Colour'. But I quickly thought lovingly of Bao Bao ~ a man who is quite shameless in his brave photography of perfect strangers ~ and furtively glanced around to see how many people were thinking of me as a tourist geek. And started firing away.
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The things one comes across under a bridge.
I almost walked past this shop, but a sharp reflection of colour came from the window and I looked to the right and was confronted with ~ in hardly-farang Bangkok ~ dozens of farang female heads-&-shoulders mannekins (womannekins?) with Really Bad Rugs.
I thought for a fleeting second that I was in Corner Bar in Sunnee Plaza at around 8, but shook my head hard and peered in more carefully. Does this shopkeeper actually sell these things (the wigs, not the mannekins)? Who would buy a gold or blue nylon(?) rug besides an ageing British lip-syncher.
As lightening, it struck me: tacky Isaan music bar dancers!
In fact, the kind ~ whom I love, let me tell you ~ who we were carousing with the first night of this Anniversary Party in the sleazy music and dance bar upstairs in Thonburi just across the river. I had in fact, if I recall, whispered in Suphot's ear sometime that night and asked him: " ... where in hell do these girls get those ghastly cheap wigs ... ?"
And here I was standing, dumbfounded, in front of the very place ... the answer to my question.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/Q008.jpg
This bridge underbelly holds a huge variety of food life, trinket life, gossiping life, older-female life. The men seem to be gone in late afternoon and their middle aged wives mop up dozens of small businesses selling everything one might need of the trivial kind during a days outing.
The bridge protected them ... from the sun, the rain, and in fact, the noise: directly under the bridge cradles one from the harsh sounds of the open spaces (the top of the bridge is cacophony), and the sounds one hears down here are 'people' sounds, rather than 'machine' sounds.
The coffee shop we had agree to meet up at was just around the bend, so I turned around with some flourish and took a shot looking down towards the river, under the bridge, where the capitalist ethic Thai style goes on apace.
It seemed a rather happy place. Peacefully busy.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/L017_BW.jpg
Now we're in Montmartre: a Parisian cafe on a corner, under a bridge. Excellent cappucino (recommended ... see map last photo), very very hot ~ unlike the lukewarm found so often in Thailand ~ and very relaxing. A cafe in time for just what I wanted: a waiting place for a very sweaty partner ("don't sit here, sit outside, you're a smelly mess" he said later upon meeting); a Bangkok Post for free (yesterday's); a solitary time; arty stuff on the yellow and orange walls; big honking flat screen playing Chelsea and Some Other Team (sound off).
There was a small stage there, probably for Friday or Saturday nights, and it looked like it was going to be Jazz so I was glad I missed it. But, aside from music choice, a terrific place to while away an afternoon waiting for the Anniversary Boy.
I must also say ... the A.B. has no taste! When he arrived, panting and puffing and drooling bodily fluids all over the sidewalk and the waiter, he had little interest in the European ambience of the place. "That bridge was hell" he announced (meaning a tough run, the poor dear) and it seemed that the curve of the bridge upward into the distance was much much steeper than it looked from the beginning.
Too bad ya pussy ... wanna cold Coke, or a really really hot coffee ... ha ha ha.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/J015.jpg
A short aside regarding this cafe and it's interior: the floor was inch-thick marble, not the usual tile floors everywhere in Thailand. This corner shop was quite un-renovated in it's deepest bones. It was certainly many other types of things during it's life: a hardware store? A magazine shop? A wiggery? A paint shop? A motor repair store? A mafia gambling front? A Chinese opium den?
Colour schemes change. Lighting goes 'mood'. Toilets get changed from squat to western.
But none of them changed that glorious floor ... the Mafia and Friends know good marble when they see it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/K016.jpg
OUT INTO THE LIGHT
We moved on. The huffing and puffing had stopped, but for him a shower was number one and walking essays on the intrigues of Khet Phra Nakhon were hardly on the agenda.
But I held him back, and for instance, look at that old building over there on the corner. Now there's a fucking metaphor if I've ever seen one.
Blank stare.
But it was. A metaphor that is.
This building 'look' can be seen all over Bangkok, in every neighbourhood, close to every skytrain station, downtown, uptown, in Silom, in Thonburi ... well, everywhere.
These rickety old 3 and 4 storiers house the backbone of Bangkok labour ... the day and night workers who come to the Big Mango by the millions to help support families back in Isaan and north eastern Thailand.
Waiters and small shop keepers live in these places: and taxi drivers and tuktuk'ers and Indians who hawk cheap suits and som tum and khao mun gai stand cooks and the guys who haul in the river ferries and security guards and flower selling children and the thousands of Thai workers who lost their jobs when the Red Shirts went on their arson rampage.
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One of the little Sois we got lost on coming out on our Quest Day . . . and the same type where Suphot got lost coming back to the hotel ahead of me, running for the hong nam.
We joined up some hours later, after I'd seen what I want to see, and snapped more photos, and put this little neighbourhood on my list of places I'd like to take my friends, sip cappucino, and jump off a bridge (if that option ever came up).
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Jump to the vegetable and flower markets. Awash in colour, dripping impressionism (if only I could have had a lake in front of these pictures, for reflection).
Great baskets of red and green chili peppers all over the place. I had this overwhelming desire to thrust my arms up to the elbow in chilis, but I knew I had a partially-open wound on my arm and that that might be a problem.
I bought the old man a small bag of each colour instead.
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These puppies look like peas-in-the-pod, but they were much too big for that. Suphot had deserted me by this time so I had no translator . . . but their shape and colour was enough.
What ARE these things?
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Down a bit from the veggies, a raucous flower market's side walk's were awash in fallen cuttings and petals and ribbons and water and water and water.
The colours here were as vibrant in a different way, a softer hew, a gentler aura, a careful touch rather than a rough throw of a sweet potato into a waiting bin, less Mafia-faced. Here, amongst the flora, Thais caressed rather than groped their wares. Folks smiled more.
I felt more like Buddha here. You might as well.
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For those interested in someday immersing themselves in small Bangkok neighbourhoods for a few days, I heartily recommend the journey.
For this particular neighbourhood in Phra Nakhon, here's a map of the area for your amusement.
The best way to get into the area is by river boat, get off at Phra Athit Pier (large red dot) and then just start walking.
The Navalai Hotel mentioned above is an excellent choice if you want to stay for a few days right in the heart of Exploring Territory. The Phra Athit Pier is right in front of the hotel: just a few steps to the lobby.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/W023_withcaptions.jpg
On to Kho Chang . . .
On the way down to the Big Mango from Hua Hin this mid-September we stopped (as usual) in one of those enormous gasoline malls ubiquitous on the main highways of Thailand. Three-Thais-to-a-car is common in these joints and windshield-washing is a duty here ... unlike Canada where the last car windshield I can remember being lovingly squeeged was in 1972 when Nixon was slowly sweating his way out the door.
Also a sweet past-time in these places is an Amazon cappuccino with-a-view: in this case deliciously enhanced by an emerald field of rice right on our table door step ... a lovely start to The Anniversary/Confessions/ Tour (apologies to Madonna) from Hua Hin to Kho Chang, with stops along the way for a few luxurious sleep overs in hoity toity hotels on the Chao Praya and the Gulf of Thailand.
I love rice paddies at this time of year, all as green as they'll ever get, all screaming out 'export, export', all emphasizing the great strong back bone of this country: the Thai rice farmer and his Irishy fields all soaked up in the water and brilliant colour and traditions of a thousand-year old labour. Is it any wonder that the background of many of the little King-adoration films which we stand up to in Thai theatres are rain-on-rice-fields.
This particular paddy is stunning in that way . . . the only one's I've seen which are even more evocative are on mountain back roads on the journey to Doi Inthanon, where they live on architectural steppes on the hillsides.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/ricefield.jpg
When I say 'anniversary' I really mean it: this year marks 10 years of (mostly) bliss with my man from Kap Choen County, Surin ... and I was determined to make amends for promising him ~ in a drunken love stupor a few years ago, with 2 witnesses! ~ 4 nights at The Peninsular Hotel, which has been over the years voted Best Hotel in The Universe and at which rooms start at 8000 baht a night for a room with no balcony (he found out later), stuffed into 15 square meters right next to the Aston Martins & RR's lined up in the basement car park.
So that wasn't happenin'!
Instead, on bended knee, I assured him that the Navalai Hotel ( http://www.navalai.com ) on the banks of the beautiful Chao Praya should easily be heads and shoulders above the dowdy old Peninsula and damned if we haven't explored that part of Bangkok before, and geeeeez doncha think we're more 'Navalai' than 'Peninsula' folks anyway?
So here we landed, after a leisurely excursion (cursin'!) through the very narrow sois of Old Krung Thep ... the Khet Phra Nakhon neighbourhood, close ~ but not too close ~ to Khaosorn and back packer country.
Checked in, getting dark, we held hands on the Navalai balcony, the river spread out before, my nose slowly plugging up from the Bangkok atmosphere.
Overlooking. The Chao Phraya is sparkly bluey beautiful at night. As it should be, just for us.
The party was starting to look good!
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And party it was! That night, tired as I was from drooling over the metaphorical possibilities of that Thai rice paddy, we hopped a taxi over to Thonburi side and ended up in a sleazy and thoroughly terrific Isaan music bar. You have to go up to this place in a 50-year old elevator (holds 5 only) and who's door opens straight out into the bar ... a big cavern of a place with stage, dancers, never-ending mulan singers, dance floor, lady boys, gay guys, macho Thai men and waitresses/singers/hookers. I'd have never in a million years found this place by myself ... just another joy of being hauled around by my guy Who-knows-Everything when it comes to Bangkok.
We danced away 10 bottles of Heineken 'Yai' and huge plates of marinated-BBQ'ed-then-dried pork and staggered out at 4AM, putting the best cap on an anniversary celebration that I could have wished for.
Admission: We like Bangkok. Or, we like it in the dribs and drab time scale we go there regularly ... i.e. 3 or 4 days max.
Love the weirdnesses made ever-present by shoulder-to-shoulder living; enjoy the wildly different neighbourhoods; relish finding small brilliant gems in dirty crowded lockers.
And especially look forward to our evenings with the Queen of Bangkok (and her Princess), our friend and fellow poster on this Board, the ever-knowledgeable (Ex)Trongpai(Ex) who is Absolutely Fabulous with gossipy tidbits about nefarious and notorious fellow posters whose secret lives ~ you know who you are ~ become wide open laugh-fests sitting with him over drinks or fuck shows.
'Fuck Show' you say (ears all perked up)? Yep ... this time the choice ~ my old man's choice that is ~ was Tawan, that favourite and beloved pumped up hell hole of the long-deceased 'Wowpow': a place I would normally avoid, but Mr Suphot was determined to see Big Muscles, so, Anniversary Boy that he was, 'Big' was it.
We plodded over from Dick's Cafe in Soi Twilight into a black hole of intimidating musculature. One out of twenty was what I would characterize as good-looking: a very poor ratio normally, but the boys were all standing up, all elastic-banded and viagara-ized and flicking each others' cocks and then, finally, getting down (what we came to see) to a good solid fucking of a guy who was under no circumstances a lady boy (like so many other femmy squealers in other bars who do this for a living).
He was fucked in all manner of positions I've never tried, including the back wall upside down thing, and thank Christ, NOT including on that which was directly beside me, Trongpai's ample lap.
That was interesting, as was the follow-up jerk off contest in which 6 out of about 12 guys managed to squirt all over the stage. The clean up guy scampering on and off.
I imagine the Dry Six were immediately fired.
We parted company on that sloppy note. Next year: another meeting, more delicious gossip, another Fuck Show, another clean up guy.
TREKKIN' IN THE 'HOOD
Bound and determined to shoot a series of shots on the back streets of a small Bangkok neighbourhood, we ventured out the next morning together: him with a brand new pair of Nike running shoes needing to get a good breaking in ... myself with a pulled calf muscle limping along behind snapping pictures.
He, making the Rama 8 bridge the goal of his run this morning ... me, just hoping for rest break at some small coffee shop, resting my leg, firing off some reasonably defining photographs of this small corner of Krung Thep which we'd chosen to hang out in for 3 or 4 days.
Phra Sumen Fort is an historical example of the defensive monuments of Bangkok during the 18th and 19th centuries. Frankly, I believe by that time Bangkok was in little danger from anyone ~ the Kingdom having been united, but still, forts are needed for a place to store cannons and balls, which is what this place served as. The balls are probably still there.
Well kept (signage in Thai & English) in a beautiful little park along the river, it's not that well-known by farangs. But it's a cool little oasis, with lots of chairs and viewpoints and Thais scurrying around playing Tak Raew and trying out hip hop and breakdancing. The odd farang Young Person decked out in old hippie tie-dye throwbacks. Army guys with machine guns hiding behind trees made me feel safe from the Red Shirts, and shirtless army guys on breaks down by the river made me feel at home and rather horny.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/sawatdeephotos/On%20the%20road_Sept_2010/R011_BW.jpg
Walking a smooth long curving corner of a road stumbled across an exquisite example of old Bangkok urban townhouse architecture. I love the roundness of the outer walls, built perfectly to follow the graceful curve of the sidewalk. Some builder got The Point here ... he was an artist for sure, or at the very least had the artistic weltanschuang: "Let's not square this one off Somporn, it'd be a crime".
This row housing is no museum ... it's being lived-in right now. Who knows what the interiors look like, but I'm certain someone sure delights in the curvilinear.
Even the air conditioner units' boring chunkiness and the electrical wire anarchy aren't enough to wreck things: The Krung Thep way.
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From the park one gets a very nice view of the graceful proportions of Rama 8 Bridge. This entire bridge is held up by that one immense double-legger ... (I shut my eyes and imagined a scene of those cables failing, then snapping one by one, flying at light speed backwards like giant elastic bands into the cement support pole, gouging out tons of concrete at each smash, those falling down on the cars below).
Anyway ... this is the puppy we were slowly heading for in our quest for exotic running spaces, but once out of the park and the river banks it grew a bit more complicated: we knew the general direction we needed to head in, but unfortunately (well, perhaps fortunately really) none of the little original sois which make up this older part of Bangkok would cooperate. They were skewed helter skelter in every direction, the dark shadows of three story buildings were ever-present, and the landmark bridge top was soon lost.
To be found later, but sweatier.
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Around some corner (and finally, under that damn bridge) a government building of a strictly un-Bauhaus nature (in a Bauhaus world).
Rather old, 19th century, stately, precise, almost prissy in it's exterior embellishments it stood out amongst the general messiness of a vibrant street life almost underneath the bridge.
Highly European in detail, the overall silhouette was perfectly Thai, the end result being a refreshment with it's muted yellow colour and it's uplifted roof edges and it's wooden shutters.
Love walking around corners in Bangkok and being greeted by the expected.
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An wheeled and motorised apparition came into sight.
Across the road, a vendor watching over his a cart and wares. A customer (I think) squatting to peruse 'the product'. The cart being built up to some height by some unseen scaffolding, then boards placed on that, and then 'some product' piled on that. But what was it? Or rather, what were they?
More investigation: a cart full of sticky signs. Signs of every topic imaginable. Signs for every occasion. Signs of all sizes. Pornographic signs. 'Don't go there', 'don't do this or that', 'do do this or that', 'keep away', 'Go Fuck Yourself', 'Bite me', 'Farang Friendly' etc etc etc ... and those were just the few in Engish.
Around and around Bangkok (I presume) this guy went: a sign for anything and everything, for the city which has anything and everything.
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Finally, The Bridge. All pleasing perspectives, odd angles, intriguing juxtapositions, geometrics of Gehry and Kandinsky.
Fired this one up a pole.
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Mr Suphot was having none of this crap. Architectural impressiveness be hanged, he had only his own priorities, which were two: (1) getting his photo taken closeup on the bridge, and (2) getting his photo taken while running away from me.
He got both, eventually, after putting up with lectures on the Chao Phraya River below which was a true Working River (as opposed to a tourist photo op) with it's great barges and tugs and drug smuggling work to get done . . . a working man's river (and bridge) which brought the produce of Thailand down the rivers of Thailand, down to the massive dock yards of Bangkok just a few miles downstream. Yadayadayada ... he took off into what was now a sun getting low in the sky, and goddamn if I want to be running on this bridge after dark.
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And there he goes. Into the distance. Into some peace from me.
And me from him. Me, in Lautrecian search of solitary and pithy metaphors (see below): I turned and headed back, hobbling, the way I came, agreeing to meet up with him in a small cafe we had passed back underneath the bridge.
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LIFE UNDER A BRIDGE
Beneath this bridge: Dark. A home. A sleeping bag, some cooking utensils, a bicycle on it's side, bridge railing as laundry hanger.
Hideouts under bridges all over the world serve as sleeping quarters for The Forgotten. This one however was on a terrace, the second floor of three which need to be climbed to get on top of the bridge. This man (woman? family?) was not out-of-sight or hidden in any way. Anyone walking up to the top of the bridge would fall over the stuff if not careful in the dark.
(I came back the next day. Things had changed ~ there was more 'stuff') ~ and the sleeping quarters had been embellished and improved. True squatting had started.
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Thais sense no apprehension nor fear when they sleep. Not the at-home, after 11 type of sleep which we (mostly) all find safe and comfy ... I mean the street-sleepers, the working Thai folks who ~ at any time ~ can doze off in a million small spaces, in a thousand positions: the spaces and positions any average farang would find psycho bending and intimidating enough to ensure any sleep would be fitful and one-eye-open .
And so it was, under-the-bridge became just another sleep zone for tuktuk drivers and motor bike taxi dudes to grab some more winks.
What was this guy dreaming of? What kind of position is that for a man with any decent sense of, er, decency. Was I being propositioned? I recalled, wincing, the fuck shows the previous night.
At the moment of my first secretive observation of this display I recalled a scene from some Monty Python show (years ago) where one man, having just been in great argument with another, threw his arms up in a huff and pronounced to his opponent (as if the argument was now finished and he wished it to end in his favour, and with huge disdain): " ... I fart in your general direction ... "
I took the picture and left quickly, feeling beaten.
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A slow day for tuktuks as well.
One has to creep up on these scenes, embarrassed at stooping to photograph 'Local Colour'. But I quickly thought lovingly of Bao Bao ~ a man who is quite shameless in his brave photography of perfect strangers ~ and furtively glanced around to see how many people were thinking of me as a tourist geek. And started firing away.
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The things one comes across under a bridge.
I almost walked past this shop, but a sharp reflection of colour came from the window and I looked to the right and was confronted with ~ in hardly-farang Bangkok ~ dozens of farang female heads-&-shoulders mannekins (womannekins?) with Really Bad Rugs.
I thought for a fleeting second that I was in Corner Bar in Sunnee Plaza at around 8, but shook my head hard and peered in more carefully. Does this shopkeeper actually sell these things (the wigs, not the mannekins)? Who would buy a gold or blue nylon(?) rug besides an ageing British lip-syncher.
As lightening, it struck me: tacky Isaan music bar dancers!
In fact, the kind ~ whom I love, let me tell you ~ who we were carousing with the first night of this Anniversary Party in the sleazy music and dance bar upstairs in Thonburi just across the river. I had in fact, if I recall, whispered in Suphot's ear sometime that night and asked him: " ... where in hell do these girls get those ghastly cheap wigs ... ?"
And here I was standing, dumbfounded, in front of the very place ... the answer to my question.
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This bridge underbelly holds a huge variety of food life, trinket life, gossiping life, older-female life. The men seem to be gone in late afternoon and their middle aged wives mop up dozens of small businesses selling everything one might need of the trivial kind during a days outing.
The bridge protected them ... from the sun, the rain, and in fact, the noise: directly under the bridge cradles one from the harsh sounds of the open spaces (the top of the bridge is cacophony), and the sounds one hears down here are 'people' sounds, rather than 'machine' sounds.
The coffee shop we had agree to meet up at was just around the bend, so I turned around with some flourish and took a shot looking down towards the river, under the bridge, where the capitalist ethic Thai style goes on apace.
It seemed a rather happy place. Peacefully busy.
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Now we're in Montmartre: a Parisian cafe on a corner, under a bridge. Excellent cappucino (recommended ... see map last photo), very very hot ~ unlike the lukewarm found so often in Thailand ~ and very relaxing. A cafe in time for just what I wanted: a waiting place for a very sweaty partner ("don't sit here, sit outside, you're a smelly mess" he said later upon meeting); a Bangkok Post for free (yesterday's); a solitary time; arty stuff on the yellow and orange walls; big honking flat screen playing Chelsea and Some Other Team (sound off).
There was a small stage there, probably for Friday or Saturday nights, and it looked like it was going to be Jazz so I was glad I missed it. But, aside from music choice, a terrific place to while away an afternoon waiting for the Anniversary Boy.
I must also say ... the A.B. has no taste! When he arrived, panting and puffing and drooling bodily fluids all over the sidewalk and the waiter, he had little interest in the European ambience of the place. "That bridge was hell" he announced (meaning a tough run, the poor dear) and it seemed that the curve of the bridge upward into the distance was much much steeper than it looked from the beginning.
Too bad ya pussy ... wanna cold Coke, or a really really hot coffee ... ha ha ha.
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A short aside regarding this cafe and it's interior: the floor was inch-thick marble, not the usual tile floors everywhere in Thailand. This corner shop was quite un-renovated in it's deepest bones. It was certainly many other types of things during it's life: a hardware store? A magazine shop? A wiggery? A paint shop? A motor repair store? A mafia gambling front? A Chinese opium den?
Colour schemes change. Lighting goes 'mood'. Toilets get changed from squat to western.
But none of them changed that glorious floor ... the Mafia and Friends know good marble when they see it.
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OUT INTO THE LIGHT
We moved on. The huffing and puffing had stopped, but for him a shower was number one and walking essays on the intrigues of Khet Phra Nakhon were hardly on the agenda.
But I held him back, and for instance, look at that old building over there on the corner. Now there's a fucking metaphor if I've ever seen one.
Blank stare.
But it was. A metaphor that is.
This building 'look' can be seen all over Bangkok, in every neighbourhood, close to every skytrain station, downtown, uptown, in Silom, in Thonburi ... well, everywhere.
These rickety old 3 and 4 storiers house the backbone of Bangkok labour ... the day and night workers who come to the Big Mango by the millions to help support families back in Isaan and north eastern Thailand.
Waiters and small shop keepers live in these places: and taxi drivers and tuktuk'ers and Indians who hawk cheap suits and som tum and khao mun gai stand cooks and the guys who haul in the river ferries and security guards and flower selling children and the thousands of Thai workers who lost their jobs when the Red Shirts went on their arson rampage.
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One of the little Sois we got lost on coming out on our Quest Day . . . and the same type where Suphot got lost coming back to the hotel ahead of me, running for the hong nam.
We joined up some hours later, after I'd seen what I want to see, and snapped more photos, and put this little neighbourhood on my list of places I'd like to take my friends, sip cappucino, and jump off a bridge (if that option ever came up).
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Jump to the vegetable and flower markets. Awash in colour, dripping impressionism (if only I could have had a lake in front of these pictures, for reflection).
Great baskets of red and green chili peppers all over the place. I had this overwhelming desire to thrust my arms up to the elbow in chilis, but I knew I had a partially-open wound on my arm and that that might be a problem.
I bought the old man a small bag of each colour instead.
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These puppies look like peas-in-the-pod, but they were much too big for that. Suphot had deserted me by this time so I had no translator . . . but their shape and colour was enough.
What ARE these things?
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Down a bit from the veggies, a raucous flower market's side walk's were awash in fallen cuttings and petals and ribbons and water and water and water.
The colours here were as vibrant in a different way, a softer hew, a gentler aura, a careful touch rather than a rough throw of a sweet potato into a waiting bin, less Mafia-faced. Here, amongst the flora, Thais caressed rather than groped their wares. Folks smiled more.
I felt more like Buddha here. You might as well.
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For those interested in someday immersing themselves in small Bangkok neighbourhoods for a few days, I heartily recommend the journey.
For this particular neighbourhood in Phra Nakhon, here's a map of the area for your amusement.
The best way to get into the area is by river boat, get off at Phra Athit Pier (large red dot) and then just start walking.
The Navalai Hotel mentioned above is an excellent choice if you want to stay for a few days right in the heart of Exploring Territory. The Phra Athit Pier is right in front of the hotel: just a few steps to the lobby.
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On to Kho Chang . . .