The Tuk-Tuk Bar or The dangers of following in the father's footsteps.

On my way back to my guest house, I hear laughter and loud live music up ahead and I find an open sided bar half full with people laughing and watching a few older people totally wigging out to two Thai men playing The Rolling Stones. It is seriously like witnessing your drunken relatives dancing at a wedding. The dancing man is definitely the proud owner of a Freedom Pass and sweating profusely, but having a good time. I decide to stop in for a nightcap. I grab a beer and sit down in the back of the bar on a table next to a couple of younger local guys who look like they are in a of Thai version of Guns & Roses. No sooner do I sit down, than one of them offers me a shot glass and a bottle of tequila. I smile and thank him, but decline.

The two older men are proper hipsters: Fu Manchu beards, long hair, round, David Hockney, horn-rimmed glasses and flat caps. (Tianjin ‘Jims’ people, think older Mr Zhou but not into lift muzak!) They are also quite good. They run the gamut of 70’s rock and do it well. The young guys next to me are using their table as percussion to play along drunkenly and the tequila guy leans over and shouts to me that one of the guys playing is his father. “He’s cool”, I say. “Oh, fuck him!” he says. Oh… “Sorry, so sorry, I’m drunk…”. It’s clear there are some Daddy issues going on here. I discover that these two guys are also in a rock band, but they don’t play in the bar (his fathers). Meanwhile, the Dad has been watching our conversation guardedly and makes a face to me as if to say “Sorry, my son is a drunk”. I am beginning to get the picture. The son actually seems quite nice, but just a little worse for wear and his friend is really nice and coherent. As we talk about what kind of music they play, the son looks really very sad and is clearly slightly embarrassed at trying to hold a sensible conversation with this sober foreign woman so far under the influence of the tequila. During his table drumming he manages to rattle a small bottle of what seems to be a kind of vitamin drink off the table and it smashes on the floor. At this point, he just slumps in his chair and puts his head in his hands. The Dad gives a withering look and I feet quite sorry for all involved.

They wind up the music and the Dad comes over to talk to me. He is very sweet and friendly and as the other people start to leave the bar, I end up chatting to him and another local guy; his friend who makes acoustic guitars. The friend tells me that the Dad is an artist and university lecturer and taught the Kind of Thailand painting…. I am a little sceptical, until he pulls out the guy’s catalogue, with an introduction by the King himself! He is actually pretty good, most of this stuff being paintings of jazz musicians and instruments. I’m told that the King of Thailand was in younger days also quite the musician and has jammed with the Dad! Now I understand the father - son dynamic to a tee… it’s the same story the world over. What a pair of shoes to walk in, eh?

The Devil you know...

I find myself a little pop-up pavement ‘restaurant’, mainly full of locals and order myself some noodles. I sit down on one of the mini plastic stools (not made for anyone over 5’6’ but, hey! When in Rome and all that.) and a really sweet guy brings my food over and has a chat with me as I wrestle with getting my Thai sim card into my phone. A few minutes later, as I’m tucking in a guy comes up to me, who I recognise as the same guy who had called out something to me about looking good, earlier that afternoon.

“Hey, how are you? You remember me? I called to you earlier””
“Uh-huh”
“Where are you from?”
“London”
“I’m from Guinea Bissau. Are you alone?”
“Sort of”
“Is that real?” (gesturing to the big turquoise ring I bought in Tibet)
“What do you mean?”
“The ring, is it real? Are you married?”
“Er, yes, it’s real, but it’s on the wrong hand… I’m not married”
“Oh, we can be friends, I thought maybe you are afraid of guys so you pretend to be married”

Oh brother! Go away.

“I’m meeting my boyfriend”
“Oh, can I get an address or something, so we can stay in touch?”
“No. I’m meeting my boyfriend”

At this point the Thai guy on the food stall comes over and hovers… Guinea Bissau makes a swift exit… some things never change, eh? Including my lack of interest in men who make cat calls at lone women walking down the street…

Touching the Void

And so, fighting the jet-lag, I get myself a good breakfast and decide to get my bearings. I am full of bright ideas of stuff to go and see, but honestly, my body absolutely refuses to volunteer the energy necessary to get my shit together and predictably, I am drawn like a moth to the flame to the ‘farang’ wonderland that is Khao San Road. I soon realise that last night, in my jet-lag induced fug, I didn’t actually get to the Khao San Road and I had only wandered along a neighbouring street, so you can imagine my distain for the real Khao San! I won’t go into too much detail, but with the music, the stalls, the tourists and chaos of signage screaming silently at me it’s enough to give my brain one of those spinning disc icons that my computer gets when I ask it to do too much at the same time!

I have some stuff to sort out i.e. decide what I’m going to go next and so I get to the task in hand and check out guest houses and travel options, all the while fighting off the offers of tut-tuk tours and the advances of old women in traditional garb trying to sell me stuff… Lady, seriously, I don’t want to buy a carved wooden croaking frog toy/percussion instrument! It really doesn’t matter how many times you ask me!

After a couple of blocks of this, I really need out, so I stroll down over to the river and take a seat in a quiet spot. Sitting taking in the passers by, I suddenly have a minor panic attack… what the hell am I doing? I have just left friends, family, security and a perfectly good job, got on a plane halfway around the world, with no solid plan, no real contacts, I’m alone and prone to episodes of minor depression… I must be crazy! After a sneaky cigarette, I find myself thinking about what made me happiest when I was away from creature comforts in China and I decide I need food… I need good old -fashioned street food and I need it NOW!

One night in Bangkok

So I arrived on Monday. Took a walk around the Khao San Road area and decided very quickly it wasn’t for me. Had a couple of beers and some street food and went to bed. Luckily I chose a hostel away from the main drag in a nice quiet spot and so I had a pretty good and well needed night’s sleep; at least, that is, until about 7.15am when I was rudely awoken by crashing footsteps from above and strong Bangkok sunlight pissing through the huge window next to my bed… Ah, welcome to the world of the backpacker!

Yes, folks, I have begun this new adventure in the style I must become accustomed to... the lumpy pillows, the bugs, the unlined curtains, the paper-thin walls, the smell of the unwashed gap-year traveller, the earnestly dreaded and pierced cultural vampires, the drug tourists, the sex tourists, the package tourists, the ravers and rockers, the tuk-tuk chancers and two-bit hookers, the lady boys and lovers. You name it, I’ll find them for you!