A few months in Bangkok.

Here is a somewhat short and definitely crappy visual tour of the last few months in Bangers. When people come to visit, they expect a little something that we like to call the 'cultural tour'...

Gazebo, a Turkish styled bar, in open air on Khoa San Rd. It is possibly one of the nicer bars I have been into in Bangkok. You can roast up some apple (or strawberry, or pineapple, or whatever fruity taste you want) flavoured tobacco in a big Hookah pipe and puff away to your hearts content.

Entertainment provided is the standard fare of the Philippino cover band (every band in Bangers is a Philippino band as they are known for their fantastic mimicry), and a small, enclosed, boxy nightclub space where the Thai style of DJ-aying is butchering top 40 songs into 30 seconds of chorus, proceeded by bad mixing.

One of the great aspects of this bar is the many couches which you can get horizontal on. The only thing that didn't seem right was the smoking of apple tobacco through the Hookah. I was sure it was meant for something else.

I had probably the first conversation with a white chick, Penny was her name, in about... well since I left Australia really. It was refreshing to not talk about sexpat shit for a night, where the men just 'feel so sexy'. After months of rehashing the same topics, in virtually the same manner, by rote every time, even though the face changes, it does get old.

Got introduced to the bar by some california pseudo hippy... or maybe he just had long hair. David – the professional house minder. Maybe less hippy than sensitive new age guy. You would have to come from a pretty good family to get paid for minding million dollar houses around the world. Personally, I couldn't understand it myself. I guess he was non assuming enough.

The last is probably one of my favourites, momentarily inspired by the polish guy who took photos of binge drinkers in Cardiff, Wales, over the period of 4 years, I couldn't resist. Have a look at his shots, they are awesome, here

Of course mine is taken with no decent lighting on an iPhone, near 5am in the morning, so looks grainy as shit, but I still thought it was a good representation of Khoa San Rd.

Moving on...

A film shoot for an ad I was on. The film studios were initially purpose built for a little film you may know called The Beach. Bangkok film crews, I have been told, are generally Hong Kong trained, so extremely efficient and fast.

What amused me was the laxity behind the scenes, they have little notion of the Australian fascist regime dictate "Occupational Health and Safety", and the director, along with many crew members, chain smoked through out the shoot – I liked their ashtray, it was a little, steel kidney shaped, surgical tray, filled thrice over. Alcohol is provided, and after an 18 hour shoot, the white guys are pissed. Nobody got hurt - amazing isn't... (hardly).

A Thai Chinese wedding we attended.

The unassuming 3D guy at work got married, we were kind of surprised, as we didn't even know he had a girlfriend. The wedding and reception are held at odd times like 9.19 and 11.29, from what I could ascertain they seem to be fortuitous numbers. The wedding present is an envelope with money in it and most people who get married usually keep a ledger of who gave what amount, and reciprocate it when the time comes for another envelope gift giving affair.

I spent ages waiting for the cake - the only food I could recognise, only to learn the one they cut was fake, and the cake they gave out was only for special people, like senior family members and bosses. The bride and groom are supposed to drink with senior guests at every table, and by the end are too pissed to enjoy their wedding night. So I have heard.

Luckily we only got invited to the reception.

Ahhh Soi Cowboy... Now this is where the cultural tour really starts...

This is a small street which at night time fills with neon lights and women. Where every man is handsome, whether he be old, fat to the point of morbid obesity, bald, ugly, obnoxious, misogynistic, detestable or impaired... every man is 'very handsome'.

I occasionally go when there is clients in town. Essentially, Bangkok is a boys town. I can enjoy it for a while, come the fourth bar I get bored. The music is loud and crap and the girls can't dance.

A good majority of the girls are poor Issan (has variable spelling) girls, supporting their children and parents. From the very old hags to the very young nubile. Usually I don't mind seeing western girls dancing in strip bars, where it's kind of a mutual exploitation, and is better paid, having better hours than a crappy hospitality job. But these girls do it much more out of necessity. Poor, uneducated, with a family of mouths to feed. It gets a bit wearing when you take it into consideration. Regardless, the boys seem to like it.

And Occasionally I find it enjoyable too... When I see some forethought and creative license has gone into performances, instead of the usual slothery around a pole.

Umm... yeah, you're looking at cooked bugs. This is one of the local Issan delicacies. I haven't been brave enough to try this... I'm more likely to say something wholly inappropriate like 'you're going to put that shit in your mouth?'. A micro-politically incorrect phrase I have learnt they take great offense to here. Now I try and say, 'No thanks, I just ate'.

I kind of like Soi Cowboy for its colourfulness and character. I like leaving the boys inside, and strolling around taking pictures of weird shit and talking to the girls – who can usually only say a few things, repeatedly, 'happy yes, happy yes, what your name, where you come from?'.

Of course at the beginning of the night, the boys are generally a little shy, and somewhat wide eyed at the sexual proclivities and free license of it all. Maybe even a little bashful, but as time rolls on and the liquor is imbued, well... they become less embarrassed and more, how would one describe it: lascivious and gluttonous would be the best adjectives, I think.

And please don't tell me your husband wouldn't... They all do.

Our house...

We have been told we live like kings. And I think it's somewhat true. For $250 US dollars a week, we have a 5 story house in what is known as the 'Beverly Hills of Bangkok'. There is, let me think, 3 bedrooms, a maids room and an edit suite, also bathrooms for each room. One floor for the lounge room, one for the kitchen and dining room. And a lot of flights of stairs.

For an extra $280 dollars a month (fixed price we can't raise because she is cousin of the maid at work – whose job is quite a bit more demanding), we have a live in maid – Noi. Primarily she was hired to take care of the dogs, so we can go out and not worry about the average number of eyes dropping. But she cleans, does washing and occasionally cooks. All by about 10am. She can't speak much English, or read Thai, and I can't speak Burmese and only minimal Thai, so communicating gets tiring. By the end of the day it's mostly a game of charades. And me slapping my forehead thinking the word for this object in thai will somehow magically appear. Needless to say it doesn't.

Anyways, we have lots of room if you want to come and stay... and I like you. Fuckwits need not apply.

How could bangkok be complete without a trip into bureaucracy, so last but not least a looksie at immigration...

Immigration, a funny kind of place. People have lovely gold jewelry and fabulously expensive shoes. The paperwork is stacked up to the rafters, the plumbing room with the pumps dealing with sewerage is perfectly fine place for the staff to eat, you have to buy toilet paper out of vending machines, if you can, as they are most likely on the blink, and immigration comes complete with a soi dog. I don't think you would find anything quite like it in officious Australia.

The immigration lawyer foisted on us by work... how can I say this delicately, I fucking hated her. She is an extortionist, blackmailing, bribing fat sack of shit who speaks perfectly good english but pretends not to understand a thing you're saying. She takes months to do anything, while your bill creeps up, and then expects to be paid immediately. There, delicate enough I suppose.

She also has all our details and is probably on first name basis with immigration agents, so it's in our best interest to not report her. Just try our hardest to never use her again. After over charging for our visas, she then tried to milk 30,000 baht out of us to get our maid a working visa. We then got our maid a working visa for 5,000 baht. So, you get the drift.

But through all of it, I find we are incredibly lucky. Bangkok is a great town. It's a heady thriving metropolis, modern and ... kinda smelly. It has charm, intrigue, mystery and it's kind of fucked up, with no other place like it on earth. I mean, you have to love a country where David Carradine dies from auto erotic asphyxiation and the next day his tied up body is on the front page of the local rag. Well maybe not you, but I do.