"A Decompression Chamber... A Halfway House Between East And West"

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Prologue: Seb's Apartment

From the Spartan conditions at Sor Vorapin's homestay gym, complete with bucket-flush toilets and cold running water, our heroes were magically transported (by taxi) to the nineteenth-floor opulence of Louis' cousin Seb's apartment. Located as it was in a significantly more affluent district of Bankok, Seb's boasted a commanding view of the sprawling urban landscape that is the Thai capital - not to mention a hot shower, an expansive DVD collection, and a plentifully-stocked fridge. Seb himself is older and settled with a wife (who was away on business) and a delightful young daughter, and if his apartment is anything to go by then his labours over the years as a sort of design consultant have certainly borne fruit: a cool place, the opportunity to work on some cool projects with various cool brands such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci... it was all just really cool. After the previous week's hardships, Louis and Jamie convalesced in their new environs by bumming around, watching films, eating food and generally taking full advantage of Seb's excellent hospitality, interspersed with a few excursions to some of Bangkok's many shopping malls and, of course, one late-night foray into the city's notorious red light district, Patpong.

Patpong

Except that Patpong is no longer the den of filth and iniquity it once was- instead, imagine if you will what it would be like if Disneyland had a red light zone. For starters, an enormous night market selling the usual same same selections of t-shirts, sunglasses, and watches runs up the middle of Soi Patpong 1, which attracts all manner of tourists - not just the sex variety. The famous ping-pong shows meanwhile are just another tourist attraction, as demonstrated by the fact that more than half the audience at the show the boys went to were female. Nor did it make for particularly comfortable viewing, not least when one enterprising performer produced a string of razor blades from an unlikely orifice. More disconcerting still though were the hordes of scantily-clad Thai girls who surrounded you when you sat down and hounded you for money in return for massages or a surreptious trip "upstairs" - nor were they averse to helping themselves, as Jamie found out to his cost when he got out his wallet to pay the exorbitant entry fee.

The show itself was actually relatively tame, and wasn't so much a show as a continuous rotation of acts with one happening every fifteen minutes, so that no matter when you entered the bar you'd be able to witness the complete repertoire. But it was all fairly standard fare, from the ping-pong balls themselves down to dart firing, the only excitement coming when our heroes unwittingly sat down in the firing line and were very nearly taken out by one of the aforementioned projectiles (what a way to go). Much better were the go-go bars, which as a rule involved a catwalk of underwear-sporting ladies around which punters sat sipping drinks and perusing their wares before making their, ahem, selection. The boys sat back with a beer or two, had a look at what was on offer, and paid for sex before heading home (joke). For any bona fide sex tourists reading this blog, apparently Soi Cowboy is where the real action's at these days - but you probably knew that already, right?

Khao San Road

In Alex Garland's cult travel novel The Beach, this is how the narrator Richard (played by Di Caprio in the film of the same name) describes the "backpacker land" that is Bangkok's Khao San Road: "Almost all the buildings had been converted into guest-houses, there were long-distance telephone booths with air-con, the cafes showed brand-new Hollywood films on video, and you couldn't walk ten feet without passing a bootleg-tape stall. The main function of the street was as a decompression chamber for those about to leave or enter Thailand, a halfway house between East and West."

Change "video" to DVD and that description's pretty much spot on. In fact, the only glaring omission is that Khao San stinks of shit - but then so does the rest of Bangkok. Khao San contains more westerners and western amenities than you can shake a globalised stick at, from 7-Eleven (standard) to Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts. A kind of cross between an open-air market and a street party, whatever it is, Khao San is not Thailand: the only Thais you'll meet are the ones trying to sell you naff wooden frog souvenirs, measure you up for a cheap suit, or get you into their tuk-tuk (their name is legion, for they are many). Khao San's tourist honeypot attracts more than its fair share of sharks, if you'll permit your humble narrator to mix his animal metaphors, from taxi drivers who refuse point blank to turn on the meter to the local girls in Gulliver's who grab a hold of your arm, arse, and other less appropriate appendages in order to attract your attention (and secure your custom) as you make your way through the bar. Nevertheless, Khao San remains an institution, and as a base from which to explore the rest of the city, not to mention socialise with other travellers, it's still unrivalled.

Discerning or even disconcerting (in-joke alert) travellers that they are, our heroes plumped for Prakorb's House as the pick of Lonely Planet's bunch: 250 baht for a teak-floored double room in a characterful old wooden building towards the police station end of Khao San, with a roadside restaurant that serves some of the best reasonably-priced Thai food around. Your narrator will now summarise for your convenience the adventures of the next four or five days via the medium of the bullet point:

*A tour round the Grand Palace. Opulent is not the word.
*A tour round more shopping malls: the hip Siam Centre, the plush Paragon, and the mall to end all malls, Central World. Obscenely large is not the word(s). And it wasn't even finished yet.
*Chinatown's Chinese New Year preparations and Thieves' Market. Underwhelming is the word.
*Many same same but nevertheless enjoyable nights out, which typically began with cheap cocktails in the street and ended at Shamrock's Irish bar.
*Some nights out with the gang from Sor Vorapin, one of whom (James) managed to get punched, have a machete pulled on him in a bar, and get his foot run over by a tuk-tuk, all in the same night. Sterling work, you'll doubtless agree.
*Getting henna tattoos and pretending that they were real.
*Another encounter with the boys from Krabi, just back from Cambodia (standard).

All in all, Khao San was fun for Louis and Jamie, if not exactly a taste of the real Thailand (whatever that might be). But it only served to whet their appetite. Our heroes craved more. They wanted unbridled hedonism. They wanted western amenities and comforts. They wanted to forgo all semblance of travelling, along with any worthy connotations that term might carry. They wanted... Ko Phangnan.

Ko Phangnan

Some travellers though hanker after a real taste of wherever they're travelling through. More than that, they want to boldly go where no or at least not very many travellers have gone before, a desire that then develops into a kind of travelling oneupmanship, a competition, a constant striving to be in the know as to where the new scene is. This is compounded by the fact that that when a certain place becomes the cool destination, and the volume of vistors naturally increases, then the hardcore types have to move on once more to pastures new. Richard in The Beach identifies the predicament: "Set up in Bali, Ko Phangnan, Ko Tao, Borocay, and the hordes are bound to follow. There's no way you can keep it out of Lonely Planet, and once that happens it's countdown to doomsday." Yet even he acknowledges that Ko Phangnan - and Had Rin beach in particular - still has a "slightly legendary reputation", something our heroes were only too well aware of. More than that, Had Rin is the site of the very much legendary Full Moon parties.

If you number with Richard as a hardcore traveller, then never mind "countdown to doomsday": Ko Phangnan is Apocalypse Now, Khao San-On-Sea. Had Rin extends outwards from a main drag of guesthouses, eateries, travel agents, and Internet cafes, all of which line a beach that is nice enough, although frankly average by Thailand's ludicrously high standards, and never really recovers from the monthly battering that the Full Moon party administers. Everywhere serves western dishes while screening films, Family Guy, or Friends. There's a 7-Eleven. You can even play PS2. The only Thais you'll meet will be serving you food or drink: everyone else is western (probably Swedish) or Israeli.

But people don't come to Ko Phangnan to taste the real Thailand: as the song goes, they want to party all the time, party all the time, party all the ti-ime, and they've come to the right place. As the sun goes down, the beachside bars turn the volume up. Ko Phangnan is like a vampire: it sleeps all day (as do you, hopefully on the beach if you can make it that far), only comes alive at night, and after a few days here on the buckets of whisky and Red Bull you'll feel like you've had all the life (not to mention money) sucked out of you. But like a vampire, Ko Phangan also seductive, and once it gets its teeth into you, it's not easy to shake off. Hence why our heroes holed themselves up here for a whopping two weeks in a cheap and cheerful (not to mention mirrored all the way around, a la porn star) room in the Anan Bungalows at a mere 300 baht per night - the cheeky owner Ms Kae even gave them a special price at Full Moon because they were such good customers. Cue a fortnight of frivolity, the highlights of which your narrator will once more summarise in bullet point format:


*American breakfast at the Casablanca restaurant every morning while watching Friends.
*Both Jamie and Louis falling over spectacularly in front of the whole beach while playing frisbee.
*Jamie making the best frisbee catch ever, not to mention hitting various beachgoers with it, including a dog.


God (or the Jewish god or Allah or Tom Cruise, whoever you believe in) bless the bullet point.

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Photos

Seb's Apartment
Cool.

Shopping Mall
A Paragon of virtue - Siam Paragon, to be precise. Puts most botanical gardens to shame.

Grand Palace
Grand.

Khao San Road
The real deal.

Frog Sellers
Persistent.

Henna Tattoos
Real men only need apply.

Prakorb's
Characterful.

Debriefing And Cocktails
Friend to the underage drinker.

Had Rin Beach
Ok. Alright. Not bad.

Anan Bungalows
Like looking at the Pink Palace in Corfu, only not.

Smack My Beach Up
The day before the Full Moon. Note the absurd quantity of people.