Originally Published – Itchy Feet Magazine, 2002
It’s like the main street of Dodge City meets the alien traders bar in Star Wars meets Diagon Alley from Harry Potter. It’s a melting pot. It’s a sell out. It’s Bangkok at it’s best and worst. It’s Khao San Road. When planning my first trip to Thailand, I remember studying guidebook maps of Bangkok. The backpacker centre seemed to be a suburb called Banglamphu, the centre of which was Thanon Khao San. Two years earlier, Alex Garland had described the place in his novel The Beach as a decompression chamber that allows western backpackers to adjust to the east.
My flight was scheduled to arrive at Bangkok International Airport late at night. If I was delayed at all I would miss the public bus, and even then I would have no idea where I was. The STA consultant pointed to a 4 star hotel in the airline brochure.
“It’s very popular with Australians and there is a market underneath,” she said sensing my trepidation. “The price includes transfers from the airport too.” She clinched the sale. It was all too easy.
Apart from thirty seconds when I felt like someone had wrapped a velvet blanket soaked in boiling durian juice around my head and shoulders, arriving in Bangkok was just like arriving in Sydney. The airport terminal was air-conditioned, and the big family Toyota was air-conditioned and the billboards advertised brands like Nokia and Sony. I sped into the centre without a hint of the traffic chaos associated with the city.
The lobby of the Indra Regent was large and cool. Potted palms were set amongst the teak finished atrium and piano music wafted through from one of the three bars to the reception desk. It was nice, but I didn’t get the feeling for one moment I was in Bangkok.
Upstairs the room was what you would expect. The reading material boasted that all the great sights of Bangkok were within easy reach. The Pratunam markets were downstairs, and the shopping palaces of The World Trade Centre and Siam Square were a short cab ride away. For meals, guests could choose from the restaurants in the hotel, or for something a little more exotic there was Planet Hollywood or the Hard Rock Café. This was Bangkok right?
The next morning I didn’t wait to see what delights the hotel’s recommended gem stone shop had to offer. I put on a pair of long shorts, my favourite tropical cotton shirt and unzipped the panel on my pack that turned it from luggage to backpack. I was transformed from airport lounge tourist to Lonely Planet carrying backpacker. The Duty Manager at reception looked confused. He quickly pushed my bill at me with a smile that said, “Who let you in last night?”
“Your car to the airport is ready,” he whispered, shepherding me to the door. I pointed at the map in my Lonely Planet. “I don’t want to go to the airport. I would like to go to Khao San Road.” His face darkened a little, but he kept smiling. “You need to get a taxi. If you stand on the road, you will get a taxi.” He escorted me off the steps.
After telling the taxi driver that I wanted him to turn on the meter so I didn’t have to pay the number of grains of rice left in his breakfast bowl in baht, he started telling me why I should change my mind about Thanon Khao San.
“Why do you want to go there,” he said as he swerved to avoid a pick-up truck carrying seven families, some clutching live pigs. “There are gangs. It’s very dangerous.” He swore in Thai at a Tuk-Tuk that lurched into our path. “There are lots of hippies there, why don’t I take you to stay at my brothers hotel. It’s very cheap. I will take you there.”
“I would like to go to Thanon Khao San.”
He grumbled but didn’t speak for the rest of the trip. I sat in the back seat and in the hazy light of day looked out at the Thai flags on the triangular temple rooftops, stray dogs, people walking along shanty market lined railway tracks, smog belching Tuk-Tuks, spiky green durian stacked high under blue tarpaulins and beaming beauty queen winners on billboards advertising toothpaste.
“Khao San,” the driver sighed half an hour later. I got out and hitched my pack. Standing in the middle of the road where the cab had stopped I looked around me. The scene was like nothing I have ever seen.
Hundreds of signs shouted to me; guesthouse, bar, travel agent and tours, internet café and massage. Old timers with enough time to care nodded in my direction and identified me as a newcomer, my jaw at my ankles for a number of seconds until I was jolted out of my awe by the bleating horn of a Tuk-Tuk driver.
Two years later, I returned to the Thai capital knowing that Thanon Khao San was not the real Bangkok.
“Twenty baht for one hour,” a tuk-tuk driver said as he tried to get my attention. Another smiled, recognizing my deep tan that said, “I have been here long enough to know that one hour tuk-tuk rides for that price end in tears.”
The road had not changed much in two years. As I left last time, the UK chain pharmacy Boots had opened its doors to the lament of the holier-than-thou travelers who thought toothpaste was a luxury item and the joy of English gap year students with a week to get a tan on the islands before heading off to do the east coast of Australia. The rest of the road had not changed much, which was a relief.
I could still buy a brand name t-shirt; Thai Red Bull, Quiksilver, the latest hot brand Oakley, also t-shirts with the smoking twin towers flanked by Osama Bin Laden and George W Bush just weeks after the tragedy. I could pick up cheap sunglasses that allowed me to mix and match styles. I picked up a pair with a Ray Ban label on Gucci frames. I could no longer get pirated cassette tapes to put in my Walkman for long bus trips but I could flip through photo albums full of CD covers that could be produced while I waited. If I didn’t think that Australian customs would make my return a nightmare, I could buy wooden beads, incense or carved chopsticks. If I was traveling to Europe on a museum binge, I could pick up a student card complete with magnetic strip in four minutes. All this and I hadn’t even walked into a shop yet.
The market stalls mostly hide the shops along Khao San Road, but apart from Boots they divide into only a few categories. The main reason travelers keep coming back here is to arrange some of the cheapest flights, tours and accommodation on the planet. Demand is high and competition is fierce, though low fares usually mean a lower level of service and quality. Indian men in turbans stand outside their custom fashion houses and smile as they offer to reproduce the latest Hugo Boss suit for fewer than thirty dollars. In the heat and humidity, even the thought of a suit is enough to make me sweat and develop a sudden need for a drink.
There are two choices when buying a drink on Khao San Road. One of four 7/11 convenience stores, air-conditioned to around 4 degrees will sell you Coke or Singha beer or a Slurpee for half the price of a sit down café, however, your only choice is to stand in the sun and drink it. The alternative is to pay a little bit extra for a seat at a table. The sit down option is worth the admission price. This freak show is great value for money.
I found a spot. An eerie feeling of freedom came over me. I didn’t really have to be anywhere. I didn’t have to rush. I pushed a twinge of guilt away. Telling myself that I had earned this break and I could relax. I could pay attention to the little things like; what colors the neon signs would be when darkness came, like how drinkable a large Chang beer looks with condensation dripping off it, about how the music belting out of each café competes and yet somehow seems to complement not clash, about whether Oakley even made backpacks and about what sort of person buys a rip off Hugo Boss suit from Khao San Road.
Sunset came early. The question marks about the neon signs were solved as the hordes lined up for the frog-march up the road to the bus lottery.
“I paid for Super VIP.”
“This bus is not the one on the picture.”
“The seats don’t even recline.” At five dollars for twelve hours on a bus, one wonders what they were expecting.
Later, a new type of street seller arrived flogging mirror balls and motorbike rides to strip shows in Pat Pong. The mirror balls are just an excuse for the sellers to stand outside the cafes and watch the latest Hollywod movies on pirated DVDs. The sun has gone down but it is no cooler, the Premier League is on telly. In front of my table, a new act, a girl squealed and danced, keeping her knees high. A large rat sitting up on its hind legs chewed on a stray noodle and scampered as a local tried to catch it in a Slurpee cup.
Wait. A man carrying a pristine suit bag just bought a mirror ball.
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