Stories and tales about and from Thailand.

Happy Chug-A-Lug Day!

23 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tales, Thailand Travel Tips and Tales

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Raise a glass and toast Chulalongkorn Day. Oh, wait, this is Thailand . . .

Today is Chulalongkorn Day in Thailand. Which if you are in the kingdom right now, thanks to time zones, you’ve already discovered is one of those pesky Thai holidays that are meant to be celebrated dry. People talk about culture shock when visiting Thailand; I doubt there is anything quite as shocking to an American tourist than the idea you’d celebrate a holiday without getting drunk. We’re firm believers in the spirit of any holiday being celebrated with the spirits of your choice. Much in the same way that Aussies celebrate Monday. Or any other day of the week.

Being an experienced traveller to Thailand today, I can look down my nose at those poor slobs who bemoan the lack of liquid fun in Thai holidays. While each, as unpronounceable as the next, holds a special place in the hearts, minds, and morals of Buddhists, they are all celebrated on the message boards with the traditional post of someone whining about the lack of available booze. “You poor slobs,” I laugh. “Get your heads out of your bottle of gin and go honor the day with the locals.” That’s good, if not particularly polite, advice. Being in Thailand during a major holiday observance shouldn’t be viewed as one of Dante’s circles of hell. It’s an opportunity. Both to dry out your liver and to go watch the celebrations at a local wat. Not that that has always been the case for me. When you are a newbie to Thailand finding out you’ll have to spend one of the days of your holiday sober really puts a dampener on your vacation.

Back in my early days my favorite running partner for Thailand holidays was my buddy Dave, who was – and still is – a functioning alcoholic extraordinaire. I don’t think Dave has been sober since he turned 12. So, as you can imagine, he’s lots of fun to be around. As a travel partner he couldn’t be beat. Even back before the internet made exploring the world a breeze, anywhere we went in the world Dave knew what and where the hottest bars were before we even landed. It was his contribution to our travels. I’d book tickets, transpo, and hotels. Dave would have a list of every bar we needed to visit, categorized by those promising to be the most fun versus those more suited for getting a good buzz on. And Bangkok was no exception.

Patpong, of course, was easy. And we spent more nights getting blitzed in Thailand’s most famous red light district than anywhere else. But we also occasionally exchanged shot glasses for the pleasures of Nana and Soi Cowboy. Not that we only drank at seedy beer and gogo bars. That was our late-night entertainment. We’d start our nights off in the early afternoon – or morning as we called it – visiting one of the city’s popular watering holes that neglected to include naked flesh on their menu. Blues clubs, jazz clubs, or any bar with an extensive list of scotch were our favorites. Any bar we walked past, or any small, rickety, decrepit table squatting down some small dark soi being manned by a Thai or two with whiskey bottle in hand worked just as well.

Local clubs, which back then were still called discos, weren’t off our radar either. You can easily feel like a fish out of water the first time you walk into a local club in Bangkok. Thais have their own way of partying. But Dave’s DNA was familiar with any style of drinking and he immediately knew not only how and why to order a bottle, but the pros and cons of ordering a bottle of Johnnie Walker versus the local rot-gut named after and probably made with the waters of SE Asia’s most famous river. I hate to think about how many near empty bottles, level carefully marked and displaying our names, still sit on some dusty shelf of bars throughout Bangkok and its environs, waiting for our return. I’m sure those drinks not taken are cause for tears to spring in Dave’s eyes too. But the Thai clubs were always a blast. We spent a lot of nights partying with locals who didn’t speak our language any more than we spoke theirs. When you speak 80 proof, language is never a barrier.

Thais who make their living off touri appreciate those who spend freely. And when you are a functioning alcoholic, or travelling with one, spending freely is not optional. I suppose you could be miserly and only keep your own glass full, but half of the fun of partying is the camaraderie of those who you are helping to get as equally blitzed. Halfway through our inaugural trip to the kingdom we’d become fast friends with and the favorite customers of Somchai, a bartendress who worked at one of Patpong’s largest beer bars. She kept our glasses full, the ladyboys away, and taught us the finer skills of playing Connect 4. We put her kids through college and rebuilt half of her home village.

The night market was already in full swing in Patpong back then, but seedy still ruled the day. Guidebooks warned tourists away from Patpong instead of encouraging a visit like they do now. It was a different time, a different crowd. You never saw straight-laced couples with kids in tow wandering the sois. In fact, the only children you saw in Patpong back then were either beggars or for sale. We ignored those being trafficked, and quickly learned when money was at stake that any Thai child 8 years of age or older can drink a farang under the table any day of the week. Functioning alcoholic or not.

There were real bars in Patpong back then too. I mean drinking establishments as opposed to places peddling flesh disguised as a place peddling booze. Free-lancers were always part of the scene, far too many of whom were of the third gender, but between Dave’s love of booze and our obvious bromance most left us alone. Or scored a free drink and then left us alone. It made for a great night out of bar hopping; we’d start out at Somchai’s bar, have a few, wander a circuitous route up Patpong 1, down Patpong 2 hitting bar after bar with the occasional digression over to Soi Thaniya to laugh at the expression on the girls’ faces when we tried to enter one of the Japanese clubs, before heading back to spend more quality time with Somchai who often already had our next round poured and who more often than not quickly booted whatever unlucky farang who thought they’d found a place to drink off of the bar stools that had become our official home away from home in Bangkok. So you can imagine our shock when we attempted to start off our traditional pub crawl one night at Somchai’s bar when instead of shots of liquid gold she greeted us with a sorrowful, “No have!”

Huh. The problem with holidays in Thailand is that they are not those celebrated back in the States. They give a nod to our high days like Christmas, but that’s more about financial gain than it is about the holiday itself. Instead, they sneak their own in. Chulalongkorn Day, Makha Bucha Day . . . who in the hell knows what those are or when they occur? Much less why they exist. Most touri wouldn’t even know a holiday is being celebrated except all of a sudden, without warning, getting a drink in a town known for drinking is nigh impossible. And only a Buddhist would think the best way to celebrate a holiday is to lock up the liquor cabinet. For us it was a rude introduction to Thailand’s holiday customs. And Dave’s liver was not pleased.

But this is Thailand where rules are not made to be broken as much as they are made to be ignored. Somchai, with Papa’s retirement fund at stake, came to our rescue. After handling the pesky little matter of paying the bar fine on her behalf – a custom we’d become familiar with as we’d routinely off a handful of her bar mates at closing to go hit the after-hours clubs – she led us on her own version of touring Patpong, enriched with the local knowledge of which bars were serving up booze disguised as a cup of coffee. Or in local parlance, “Have!”

Have! and Not Have! were the first Thai words I learned.

I don’t remember which dive was the first where Somchai made a grand sweeping, welcoming motion with her arm while announcing, “Have!” but it didn’t matter. Dave’s system cried out for sustenance. And we toasted whatever in the hell that damn holiday was with camouflaged drinks before heading off to the next watering hole who honored cash above Buddha. As we approached each of our normal stops, with Dave displaying a hopeful look on his face, Somchai would grandly announce our chances. “Not Have!” was the more frequent assessment. “Have!” meant a round or two before playing another round of Have/Not Have. It turned out that for a dry holiday Patpong was quite damp.

As with most traumatic events in life, Not Have! quickly receded in our memories. Remembering bad times is never fun. Have! however became Dave’s new battle cry. Where once he’d mumble, “Let’s try this place” as we approached some new bar, after experiencing our first Thai holiday, anywhere in the world we traveled he’d instead let loose with the succinct and welcoming cry of, “Have!” It worked just as well when buying a six pack, or celebrating a successful take-off as soon as some unlucky flight attendant was given the green light for serving drinks.

We’d discovered the ping pong show bars of Patpong fairly early in our travels to Thailand, visited a few, and then crossed them off our list since they were more about selling pussy than selling liquor. The bars on Soi Cowboy were a bit less risque, selling lady drinks was a big part of their business. So those hit the mark even if your shot did come with a pair of tits. Eventually we discovered the gay gogo bars that offered a better vice than booze. In my opinion. Dave, who likes to claim he’s straight, wasn’t as thrilled with the boys on stage but since they too came with a drink he allowed me to indulge to my heart’s desire. On subsequent visits, as more and more gay gogo bars opened their doors, I co-opted his battle cry for my own. “Have!” took on a whole new meaning for me. And Bangkok was never the same again.

I’m an old hand at Bangkok and the pleasures it offers now. And Dave isn’t as free to travel as much as he once was. In the past, my liver just tagged along for the ride. So now when I find myself in Bangkok during a Buddhist holiday, I take it in stride and go find locals to celebrate their day with as Buddha and the government intended. Dave’s cry of “Have!” no longer echoes down the sois of Patpong. But it still does make a small entrance in my mind every time I walk onto Soi Twilight on the first night of my trip. Having a Buddhist holiday pop up in the middle of your vacation doesn’t have to be the end of your good times. But if you are smart, you’ll find out when they are and just avoid them like the plague.

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Hannibal Lecter Can Eat My . . .

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tales, Thailand Travel Tips and Tales

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That's Gay

Heeeeere’s Si!

Ghosts are big business in Thailand. Everyone believes in them, even those who tell you they don’t. And while none quite capture the cuteness of Casper, whatever you are looking for in a ghost you’ll find in the Land of Smiles. There’s a long list of Thai ghosts, both by name and by preferred method of haunting. The more famous get movies made about them, the less well known are still used to keep unruly rug rats in line. Farang can chalk them up as nothing more than local superstitions, but then we all know how silly farang can be. Ladyboys scare the heebeejeebees out of a lot of them and they aren’t even the most gruesome creatures Thailand is known for.

Some of Thailand’s more popular ghost stories, much as they often do in the rest of he world, stem from true historical accounts. Others, passed down by word of mouth, sound more like myth. Not that that makes them any less real to Thais. Mae Nak, a rather pissed-off female ghost who likes to take her anger out on the men of the world, preferably in the most bloody fashion, is probably the country’s most famous ghost. You can visit her shrine in Bangkok where she’s gloriously honored by those who believe that if you can’t get winning lottery ticket numbers from a vengeful and somewhat vain female spirit then there’s no hope for the world. Si Quey is almost as well known. But there is no shrine honoring him. Unless you count his mummified remains – which someone lovingly smothers in petroleum jelly every year to keep it fresh. And that not quite so grandiose bit of immortality is meant as a warning, not as a source for a quick path to riches. Or to a full tummy – there’s a hand-lettered sign hanging next to him that notes that he killed “because he loves to eat human’s organ not because of starving”. But then when it comes to ghosts, murdered pregnant women and their unborn off-spring rate higher than your run of the mill serial killer.

Coming from America where we’ve elevated serial killing to an art form, Si Quey – or more properly See Uey Sae Ung – seems to have been a bit of a slacker. Sure, besides being a serial killer he was a cannibal too, but Jeffrey Dahmer was also a multi-tasker and his record puts Si’s to shame. And unlike the city of Milwaukee who bought and then tore down the Oxford Apartments where Jeff lived and many others died, the best Bangkok could do for Si Quey’s home turf was to allow his fellow immigrants to expand the area into what today is known as Chinatown. Because in America that’s how we roll, you can still take guided tours around Dahmer’s haunts. Mention Si Quey in Chinatown, and everyone will act like they don’t understand you. Cross the river, however, and you can slap the dude a high five. Albeit you can only press his flesh through an inch of glass.

Before there were Soi Twilight, Nana, and Soi Cowboy the green light district of Chinatown was home to Bangkok’s horny citizens, as well as the stomping grounds for its most famous serial killer.

Si’s story began back in 1944 when as a Chinese immigrant he moved to Thailand. Back then, even in Bangkok, the Chinese were not well thought of, especially those without a fat bank account. China had been busy exporting its citizenry during World War II as well as after the country fell to the communists in 1949; most arriving in Thailand, like Si, were boat people. The locals called them pussy blood chinks, rickshaw chinks, and human animals and treated them accordingly. So the only work Si could find was as a coolie, rickshaw-puller, and vegetable farmer. During the day, as he had back home, Si toiled in the fields. At night he pulled wealthier citizens through Bangkok’s streets, centering his business around Green Lantern Lane, which was Bangkok’s main red-light district in the 1950s (though technically it was the green-light district where gambling, opium dens, and locals more traditionally associated with the red-light trade thrived). Si was not a happy camper as you can well imagine. And while you may not imagine the only path to happiness open to him was to kill and eat little boys, Wen Liang, a now retired police officer on active duty at the time Si Quey was on the loose says, “I have often wondered if his anger was not a more generalized rage against the world mixed with a kind of sorrow that came from knowing he would never see his homeland again.”

And that’s how Sunee Plaza came to be. Oh, wait. Wrong tale. My bad . . .

Homesick or not, what everyone does seem to agree with was that Si was a bit sick in the head thanks to the years he spent as a soldier fighting against Japanese invaders on the Chinese island of Hainan during World War II. Professor Somchai Pholeamke, former head of Siriraj Hospital’s Forensics Department where Si now resides, is among those who believe Si’s bloodlust was stoked on the battlefields of Hainan province. “His military commanders told the troops to eat the livers of the enemy soldiers to take on their strength and power,” says Pholeamke while not commenting on just how dubious the strength and power of a vanquished soldier may be.

Si Quey 50-some years ago. Not that there is that large of a difference from now.

While the idea of dining on human liver might seem repulsive to you, Anthony Hopkins, licking his lips as only Anthony can, better hits the mark. In Asia, over the centuries, cannibalism has been practiced during times of warfare to dehumanize the enemy; the troops of the ancient Khmer empire and the more recent Khmer Rouge ate the livers of their enemies to increase their strength and stamina. You call it cannibalism, Si probably thought if it more as tradition. The part where he preyed only on little boys was his own twist. He apparently believed that the practice made him stronger, healthier, and immortal. And all things considered, you can’t argue that his little happy times didn’t immortalize him.

Back in the U.S. of A., Ed Gien, who like Dahmer hailed from Wisconsin – not that that automatically means everyone from America’s Dairyland is a cannibal – had racked up an impressive record that included a body count of 2 (or 3 if you count his brother) and a partial body count that totaled about a dozen – during a search of his home after his arrest authorities found four human noses, nine masks of human skin, ten female heads with the tops sawn off, nine vulvae in a shoe box – is this beginning to sound like a Christmas carol to you too? – human skin covering several chair seats, a belt made from female human nipples, human skulls on his bedpost, a pair of lips on a drawstring for a window shade, and a lampshade made from the skin from a human face. He’d later be immortalized as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of The Lambs. Si, being an uneducated immigrant didn’t realize the power of the press or that size always matters and so no one is quite certain just how many kiddies he dined on. It wasn’t like he was counting calories.

Most believe he murdered and ate anywhere from five to eight children, which to Jeffrey Dahmer would be considered but a light snack. Some speculate that Si wasn’t as picky as believed and dined on adults too. As his legend has grown, so has his body count. But Officer Liang disagrees. “Let me put it this way. It would not have been difficult to pin some other unsolved murders on a poor, illiterate ‘human animal’,” he says. “He did confess to killing some of the children, but it’s possible he may have targeted some adults, too. We found a few other corpses that had been cannibalized in Bangkok around that time, but he was never charged with those crimes or confessed to them.”

Look! Up in the sky!

Si’s dinner was interrupted one evening when the father of his most recent meal caught him in the act of burning the boy’s corpse, a bit of info you may want to recall next time you go out for Chinese barbecue and can’t quite identify just what that piece of meat you’re eating is. He was arrested in 1958, a year after Ed Gien (initially) got off on an insanity plea. At the time of his arrest Si told police that after stabbing the children in the throat, he then slit open their chests and ate their hearts and livers. Just in case you’re one of those cooks who always needs a detailed recipe. After sharing his secrets Si was quickly executed by hanging (though the bullet holes left by the executioner’s machine-gun, now filled in with white paraffin, tell a slightly different tale).

Today his cockroach-brown, wax-filled corpse stands slumped in an upright glass casket that looks a bit too much like Superman’s phone booth. Si is the star attraction at Bangkok’s Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum, on the grounds of Siriraj Hospital, where once a year a Bangkok masseuse rubs his body down with Vaseline to give him that same shine Kim Kardashian enjoys, undoubtedly the whole time muttering, “It rubs the lotion on its skin . . .”

That would be the end of Si’s tale except you have to give credit where credit is due, as well as pay honor to the Thai fondness for producing knock-offs. So just in case you were worried that cannibalism is dead in Thailand: last year a member of the Musur hilltribe in Thailand’s northernmost district of Chiang Mai, Mae Ai, was arrested by police for killing, cooking, and eating her two sons, who will forever be 1 and 5, respectively. According to the Bangkok Post, law enforcement officials allegedly found the woman asleep with several body parts strewn around her. The police report ‘hallucinations’ may have played a role in the tragic crime; Mai Ai says she thought her kids were pigs. Which, if you think about it, is a much scarier ghost story than Si Quey’s to tell your young ‘uns when they don’t clean up their room. But then a good ghost story takes years to develop into a truly frightening tale and Mai Ai’s kids probably still need to stew for a few more years before their tale appeals to the appetite of those who love a gruesome ghost story..

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Chiang Mai Is For The Birds

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tales, Thailand Travel Tips and Tales

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Chiang Mai

Whether by myself, with friends, or just with Noom, I always stay within walking distance of the Tha Pae Gate when visiting Chiang Mai. Usually, just across the street at what once was called The Montri and is now trying to brand itself as the Hotel M. It is a convenient, centralized location with plenty of restaurants, bars, and night life. And the plaza just in front of the gate is a great place to kick back and people watch. It may not quite rival St. Mark’s Square in Venice, but it’s also a good place to commune with pigeons.

Even when travelling alone I manage to spend a few hours on the plaza. When travelling with Noom, there’s little chance of missing that pleasure. If there is an hour or two to kill he always wants to go feed the birds. Even if we’ve already done that several times during that trip already. The food sold by an old guy in a rickety cart is supposed to be for the fish in the moat; sometimes they get a bit of Noom’s attention but the birds always get the bulk of food. I don’t think it’s so much that he prefers birds over fish, but rather once he has a humongous flock of birds surrounding him, some little kid will come along and want to play. Noom wears the child within him on his sleeve. It’s one of the things I love about him.

There is a 7/11 across the street from the plaza, and another just down the street from Hotel M. They are about the same distance away from the hotel. When we are in the room and I decide I need something from 7/11, Noom always asks which one I’m going to. If it’s the one down the street, he rolls over for nap. If it’s the store across from the plaza, he goes with me. At least as far as the plaza. Then while I pick up whatever it was I needed, he buys a bag of fish food and starts playing with the birds. On those occasions, it’s a quick feeding frenzy. He’s done by the time I get back.

Knowing that feeding fish and birds is a form of merit making, at least at temples, I asked him once, “Merit making?”

His answer was short and to the point. “No,” he said. “It fun.”

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Noom Meets The Dragon Lady

13 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tales, Thailand Travel Tips and Tales

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Markets & Shopping

It was a battle of epic proportions. Not a knock down drag out Mike Tyson bites your ear off type of fight; it wasn’t so much about blows being traded. At least not physical ones. But ego, face, status – those all suffered damage as did the psyche. And even when it is mental not physical damage being inflicted, in Bangkok, when blood is spilled someone has to pay. It’s amazing how often that someone is my wallet.

The battle between good and evil is the stuff of legends. The story, as on-going as it may be, is as old as the hills. It is the basis of the myths we’re taught as religion, the fables we’re told as children to teach us right from wrong and the consequence of choosing the wrong path. It is what moves every piece of literature ever written, it serves as the basic story structure of every play ever performed. Hollywood has never awarded an Oscar to any movie that failed to triumph good over evil, and dressing the good guy in a white hat and the villain in black is always a must to ensure the audience knows who to root for. It is the storyline of every war ever fought, and thanks to the victor being blessed with the right to write history, good always prevails while evil slinks off to lick its wounds waiting for its next opportunity to do the devil’s work. It’s America and apple pie versus Islamic extremists who are only interested in the virgins they will be rewarded with in the afterlife. It’s Wall Street versus those strange Occupy folk; Newt, Michele, Sarah, The Donald, and Hannity against the man from Kenya. And on a tiny street in Bangkok where the gods of consumerism hold sway, it was the story of an angelic bar boy and the draconian black heart known as the Dragon Lady of Khaosan Road.

Noom – my bar boy friend and current love of my life – for the record, is not into wearing hats. So even for literary purposes I can’t dress him in a white one for this tale. But then Thais have never made convincing cowboys, and Noom’s skin tight T-shirt, hugging every muscle in his chest and arms to show off a build that could only be wrought with the gods’ blessings was blinding white, a dazzling apparition reflecting the rays of the hot afternoon sun. So the vision still works. And since all heroes must have a fault, Noom allowed his T-shirt to do double duty with its bold black print proudly proclaiming ‘I’m Not Gay But My Boyfriend Is’, a joke that I knew he wouldn’t quite get but would succumb to displaying out of the fondness for English that he shares with his countrymen regardless of any slogan’s meaning or lack thereof. Sidekicks to The Man in White, at least according to Hollywood, are supposed to be on the side of good too. In real life, sometimes they are demented and a necessary evil. But then what farang isn’t?

When I hit town and hook up with Noom he moves in for the duration. Whether that is for a few days or a month or more, we pretty much spend 24/7 together. If I have places to go and people to see for business, which I almost always do, Noom tags along. Unless shopping is involved that can be boring for him. But he’s a trooper. And being bored to death is part of what he feels is his duty in taking care of me. I suspect as honor bound to our relationship as he is, that 80% of my business does in fact include shopping has a lot to do with his constant attention to my needs. Still, I try to get a lot of that work out of the way within the first day or two of a trip, before we hook up and he no longer has a choice in the matter. Doing battle with the Dragon Lady is almost always a part of my business, though when the two of us go head to head it isn’t so much about good versus evil as it is about our never-ending effort of agreeing to a lose-lose proposition. Ours is a dysfunctional relationship with both of us viewing the other as the parasite on our respective back. But it familiar and it works.

The Dragon Lady owns a small wholesale silver shop on Khaosan Road. Staffed by minions of the devil, and overseen by Her Surliness herself, the establishment doesn’t exist to turn a profit but rather provides the Dragon Lady with a lair in which to maul her prey out of eyesight of the passing hordes who nonetheless from some basic atavistic instinct tend to steer clear, often inexplicability crossing the road to safe passage on the other side of the street. Rumor has it that she served as the model for the witch in Hansel and Gretel.

Even a willing as I am to deal with the devil when it comes to turning a buck, I too would avoid the Dragon Lady like the plague that she is, but she carries a small silver bead that no one else in town stocks, and unfortunately, by accident, it became an integral though largely unnoticed part of the line of jewelry I manufacture. I have no doubt that in her succubus form she visited me in my sleep one night, implanting that cruel design in my head where it would fester until it forced me to her small shop’s doors. Too late now, the devil’s pact was agreed to and every visit I make to Bangkok includes paying homage at her self-built shrine. But that’s my bad karma. To date, Noom had lucked out. Though he had accompanied me to Khaosan on several trips in the past, he’d never had the joy of feeling the Dragon Lady’s talons encircle his heart, had never experienced the blackness of her heart that was so deep it made midnight jealous.

Perhaps it was the Dragon Lady’s version of a siren’s song, an other worldly enticement that could only be heard by soi dogs and the foolish, a plea born from the depths of hell for fresh meat and new souls to ravage that caused Noom’s first visit to her store. Maybe it was some failing of his in a previous life that finally demanded to be tallied. I’d hate to think my karma is so bad that it would suck those I love to their doom too, but there is always that. More than likely, because the gods are neither good or evil but endlessly bored and enjoy watching the tribulations of mankind, it was probably nothing more than a cosmic joke that would allow fate to determine who would be the punch line. A bar boy and a Dragon Lady walk into a bar . . . somehow you know slapstick will be the comedic device chosen, that as yet unnamed in the prank it’d be my ass that got bitch slapped.

Being known by sight by a demon is never a good idea. Unfortunately, the Dragon Lady knows me. Or perhaps just scents a familiar fear when I walk through her door. On good days my appearance on her door step is met with indifference. But those days are few and far between. More often my greeting is the sight of her aged mouth scrunched into a disapproving pout, her entire face puckered like a dog’s ass sucking on lemons. If we are to do business, rather than waste her vocal chords on the undeserving, she waves me in summoning me to her perch behind an ancient desk overflowing with invoices that is tucked into the darkest recess of her narrow store. Where she will rape my wallet into an inch of its life. If not, when my money is of little concern to her world, she stops me with a banshee’s cry, “You no shop here today!”

But that’s a story I’ve told before.

On this fateful day before she could decide which version of fucking with me would be the most pleasurable, The Man In White (With The Gay Slogan On His Chest) stepped out from behind me and let loose with one of his more dazzling smiles, the one in which his entire face takes part in bestowing a welcoming benevolence on all in its path. And with a simple, “Sawadee kap!” the Dragon Lady was fucked.

Goodness, even in its bar boy from, was not something the Dragon Lady was used to dealing with. Being forced to consider respective status while in her own domain was a foriegn experience for her. And it fouled her mood even though as with all Thais her ability to assign this strange creature’s role in society moved at a speed that would make a Cray computer weep. But it was a tough call nonetheless. She had him on age (though that was always a given since true evil existed even before the creation of the earth). As a businesswoman, even if that was only a disguise, she probably ranked higher too. Her wealth surrounded her and certainly was of higher value than that displayed on his every finger and draped around his neck (though those disturbing flashes of gold in her world of silver gave pause). His trump card however was that he was with a farang, a feat the Dragon Lady could never pull off since most farang are taught the dangers of ugly old crones as children. Worse yet, in the world of Thai the lesser creature always takes the initiative to pay honor when it is due, and this strange apparition was just standing there beaming out that accursed light that was causing her minions to quake and giving her the mother of all headaches at the same time.

Ambivalent over the lack of greeting he’d received, with bling on display Noom got busy pouring over her store of riches looking for the choicest pieces to plunder. The Dragon Lady’s devil spawn in their guise of shop clerks followed closely at his heels mindful of their fate should a dastardly customer pilfer their good lady’s riches. Noom, who usually makes best friends for life with any store clerk at any shop ignored them until he found a piece he liked. Then, turning to the closest one, he dropped the piece into her hand and waved her off in a manner so imperious the Dragon Lady was stunned, speechless and gazing in awe and admiration.

One of her minions tittered. The Dragon Lady shot her a withering glance that caused her to burst into flames, sending her soul back to the bowels of hell where it had been born. Noom casually selected a second piece of bling and dropped it over his shoulder, assuming one of the surviving devil spawn would make a life sacrificing dive to catch it and add it to his growing pile of goods. Game on.

Noom and I have rules regarding his shopping while I’m conducting business. We’ve never discussed them, never laid them out, never acknowledged they exist, but both studiously comply with them nonetheless. There is a limit on how much of my money he can spend, based on the amount of time I take and the amount of goods I purchase for business. And the bling we buy to adorn his body instead of my store’s shelves is all about me, not him. Because the more I buy for business, the cheaper his bling will be. So it’s not about buying him stuff. It’s about me saving money. And saving me money is what he’s all about. We had not spent that much time in the store, and while the pile of silver I’d picked out wasn’t small, Noom had certainly watched me buy much more on other occasions. Regardless, from the amount of bling he’d picked out for himself it looked like he planned on saving me a hell of a lot of money that day.

The one rule we have that we have discussed, which took every ounce of tact on my part in establishing, is that when it comes time to barter over price Noom is supposed to make himself scarce. As inbred as haggling over a purchase as it is in Thais, as shoppers they suck at it. Big time. So Noom allows me to indulge myself as long as we both acknowledge that he could get the better deal. Even though he can’t. But when you are operating inside of a black hole, all bets are off, the normal rules do not apply. When it came time to settle up with the Dragon Lady, Noom stepped up to the plate.

“How Mut?” he asked sweetly with yet another blinding smile while flicking his hand in a circular motion over our respective piles of silver, a casual indication of indifference that could have meant all of it, or the desk too, even possibly the entire shop and the Dragon Lady’s lair to boot.

Silver at wholesale pricing is by the gram; it is a discounted price by weight in recognition of quantity bought. No problemo. Except Noom’s pile comprised single pieces, which too would be priced by weight but at a much higher rate. The Dragon Lady reached down, separating the two piles while her mind fulminated on a price to quote that would bring the most profit while not scaring the sale away. Noom wasn’t buying it. At least not in the sense of one from column A and one from column B. He pushed the two piles back together before she could come up with a starting price. And flashed the Dragon Lady a smile that should have caused the scales on her back to shudder.

Nostrils flaring and so upset at the affront that she forgot to hide the smoke spewing forth from them, the Dragon Lady sputtered out a baht per gram price as ridiculous as those charged foolish backpackers out on the street. My heart dropped in anticipation of the damage about to be inflicted on my wallet. From past experience, and the reason why we do not allow Noom to barter, I knew his countermove would be to agree to that price. But he didn’t. Instead he picked up the most expensive piece of bling he’d selected, set it to the side and then indicating the remaining pile of silver asked again, and just as sweetly, “How mut?”

The Dragon Lady reared back in astonishment. What kind of black magic bartering was this? You don’t get a better per gram price by buying less, you get it by buying more. She looked at Noom, hoping for a clue and completely flummoxed over his odd method of bargaining. She looked at me, hoping I’d be a source of reason and explain to The Man In White that this was not how it was done. She looked at her minions, daring any one of them to find the least bit of enjoyment in her predicament. And Noom calmly removed a second costly piece of bling from the pile, goading her with another polite enquiry, “How mut?”

The temerity of Noom’s move left the Dragon Lady feeling more frustrated than an Amish electrician. Looking as happy as a bulldog chewing on a wasp, she fell in line with his unusual form of negotiations and lowered her asking price. With an expression as blank as a dead man’s mind, Noom ignored that she’d even made an offer and moved even more of his bling to the side, asking once again, “How mut?”

David took on Goliath with nothing more than a small rock. Little Red Riding Hood trounced the big bad wolf despite the big teeth that he had. James Stewart fired a single shot to kill Lee Marvin (even though it was John Wayne’s bullet that did the deed). The basic goodness of the Autobots will always prevail over the Decepticons despite Shia LaBeouf being an ungrateful little bitch with a not very impressive penis. I routinely went one on one with the Dragon Lady and still always overpaid for my goods, at least when she would allow it. Noom fought the good fight never acting as though he was doing anything other than making a routine purchase. The pricey pile of bling we started with slowly diminished with each offer the Dragon Lady put forth until none of the jewelry Noom had picked out was left. And I ended up scoring the best rate I’d ever gotten out of the Dragon Lady for the silver that we did buy from her that day.

“Why you buy from her?” Noom asked me as we strolled away from the Dragon Lady’s store, leaving her to take out her displeasure on the minions who served her in hell. I started to explain about the bead she sold that I couldn’t find elsewhere. He wasn’t interested. “She not good,” he said, the first inkling he’d given for his motivation in bartering with her. I’ve seen Noom upset over being slighted, both imagined and real, but he had not felt his ego had suffered at her hands. I’ve seen Noom incensed when some fellow countryman of his failed to treat him in the manner he expects Thais to treat Thais, but that wasn’t the case either. “She tink you too easy,” he informed me, the fault possibly mine but the slight as much of a blow had it been directed toward him.

“You not shop here witout me now,” he said settling the matter for any future dealings I might have with the Dragon Lady. And for once I wisely followed his advice. I do as much business with the old bitch as I ever had, but my participation is no longer required. I take Noom with me when I visit Khaosan Road, and then patiently wait out on the street while he deals with the devil on my behalf. Ours is still a dysfunctional relationship, even more so now. And it works even better.

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Going Native In Bangkok

30 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tales, Thailand Travel Tips and Tales

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Bangkok, Scams

But then sometimes a little evil is a good thing.

Generally, I’m an upstanding citizen. My moral compass may have a slightly different north than yours, but – within reason – I’m honest, loyal, trustworthy, and all that other good stuff the Boy Scouts wanted me to be. As long as you overlook the gay thing. In business, I have a rep for being both honest and fair. And while many have trouble working their little minds around it, I say what I mean, shoot straight from the hip, and my word is sacrosanct. That doesn’t mean I won’t take advantage of a situation when it is to my advantage to do so, but even then it depends more on the person I’m dealing with than it does on the profits I may make. I take great pleasure in scoring a win against blowhards and know it alls. Fleecing the exceptionally stupid too appeals to me. Everyone else is safe. Okay, so maybe my moral compass’ north is where south is on yours. But my friend Noom tells me I’m a good man, so that’s what I’m going with.

I’ve written before – more than once – about the scams that await the unsuspecting touri in Bangkok. Each time I’ve done so I’ve pointed out that the best way to avoid being scammed is to reign in your greed. Greed plays an integral part in any scam. The chance to get something for free or at an unbelievably low price is what makes you overlook all of the warning signs that would otherwise tell you to flee. So when I say ‘exceptionally stupid’ I really mean ‘greedy little bastard who should know better’. And to a lesser degree, since all of the traditional scams in Bangkok are so well known, anyone who doesn’t do just a tiny bit of pre-trip research and then for failing to do so falls victim to a scam has it coming. Walking blindly into a scam that everyone knows about is stupid.

Now you may consider the locals who run these scams to be dishonest. I don’t. There may be a good deal of subterfuge involved, but when it comes down to it – when your money becomes their money – seldom are you getting anything less than what you agreed to. Take the Grand Palace Is Closed Scam for example. Yes, the Grand Palace isn’t closed, but the 50 baht tuk tuk tour of several wats is a real bargain; you get more than what you pay for with that part of the scam. Yes, the professional gentleman you happen to meet while touring one of those wats who clues you into the money you can make by buying gems and jewelry in Bangkok and then reselling them back home is a lying sack of shit. But then if you take business advice from strangers you meet on the street . . . well, I guess it’s your call whether you are greedy or just plain stupid. And then when you are delivered to the huge jewelry store where you are offered incredible savings on expensive pieces of bling of which you have no knowledge as to its value . . . seriously? Minus greed at work, would you make a purchase like that back home?

Did you get what you paid for?

The part of that scam where money exchanges hands is the purchase of jewelry. Where the unsuspecting feel they’ve been scammed is in that they bought a piece they were led to believe was worth a few thousand dollars that they were getting for a few hundred when its retail value is much lower. I’d agree it was a scam if you were sold a piece of glass instead of a gem, or the metal was plated instead of real gold or silver. But that’s not what happens. What happens is your greed allows you to grossly overpay for a cheap piece of bling. And whose fault is that?

Ditto for the suits for 99 baht tailor shops where your custom tailored clothing doesn’t include even a single fitting. You paid a cheap price for a tailor-made outfit and you got a cheap outfit worth every penny you paid. That’s not a scam, that’s greed and stupidity at work. And an Indian tailor. It is no different than paying $100 for a $10 fake Rolex. The vendor cleaned up, but you agreed to the price. And I don’t consider that dishonesty on the part of the vendor.

So it’s not surprising that I found myself one day while visiting the Weekend market helping a vendor who I’d done business with before to scam a touri who was just asking for it. When in Rome, do as the Romans do they say. It just so happens I was in Bangkok instead so I decided to go native. And fleece a touri.

Thai handcrafts made in Vietnam:
Scam, not a scam, or time to book a flight to Saigon?

The vendor is a little old Thai lady who speaks no English. Her small shop is filled with dazzling displays of cut gems and a little bit of finished jewelry. She also sells rough (un-faceted / un-polished) gems. The first time I bought from her the initial price per gram she quoted by using her calculator was laughable. So I did. And then promptly pecked out a figure as ridiculous as hers has been. Which gave her a good laugh too. Game on.

I enjoy bartering with Thais. They have a good time with it and seldom get angry as long as you are working toward a common goal. No claim to buttress your price is too outrageous. In fact, you’ll gain points – and a lower price – for originality. Using the sick or dying relative card before they get the chance to is greatly appreciated too. In this case, once she realized it wasn’t just for the sake of haggling but that I knew the value of what she was selling, we came to a price with which we were both happy. And we were both happy with each other. I’ve visited her tiny store on every trip I’ve made to Bangkok since then, and as soon as she spots me she pulls out trays of treasures she knows I’ll be interested in. Which means, I’m sure, regardless of the great deal I assume I managed to barter for on that initial visit, in her mind I payed far more than I should have.

On one visit, a middle-aged touri from Brazil was busy inspecting a tray of cut green stones while the old lady and I were busy cracking each other up with far-flung prices and tales of woe. I never understand her stories, I doubt if she understands mine. But the general gist is obvious from the vocal tones we use and the faces we make while taking turns punching out new numbers on her ancient little calculator. The lady from Brazil was impressed. And then, assuming she could speak English in front of the vendor without her understanding what she said, asked me if the woman was a thief or if she could be trusted.

A different kind of uncut gem.

Huh. Now you could ask me if a price was fair, you could ask me what the value of a stone was, you could ask me if I thought a particular stone was a bargain at the price you were haggling toward. Asking me if someone I like is a thief isn’t a good move. And then compounding your error by showing your greed and stupidity in one fell swoop . . . okay, so maybe my moral compass’ arrow fell off a few years ago.

I told the touri that I’d been doing business with the lady for years in reply to her question about the vendor’s honesty. Then, holding up the stone she was interested in she asked me, “Is this emerald real?”

Not that I’m that pedantic , but usually when I get the ‘is it real?’ question my reply is, “No, it is a figment of your imagination.” This time I shot a quick look at the old lady. Who managed to keep a straight face while her eyes implored me not to kill her sale. She does not speak English, but does know the English names of stones and undoubtedly knows the difference between an emerald and a piece of tourmaline. Taking advantage of someone’s stupidity is one thing, purposely mis-identifying a stone is another. I asked the touri what the vendor had told her and her reply was, “She doesn’t speak English, she just used her calculator”

The vendor had not said the stone was an emerald, the touri had decided it was. Emeralds are not native to Thailand. You are not going to get a good deal on an emerald in Thailand. You would though in a country where they are mined. Like Brazil. Idiot. “How much does she want?” I asked.

Rough has its admirers too.

In a low whisper to not alert the gods to her good fortune, her eyes filled with greed, she murmured, “She only wants 2,000 baht!”

The old lady followed our conversation, her eyes moving from one of us to the other as we discussed her goods. That piece of tourmaline, had it been an emerald, would have sold on the wholesale market for at least five grand. U.S. dollars. Using the same clandestine voice, I told the touri what she wanted to hear, “At 2,000 baht for an emerald of that size, it’s a steal.”

And it would have been. But for a piece of tourmaline it was about ten times higher than what it should have been at retail. The Brazilian woman quickly handed over her cash and scurried away quite pleased with the deal she’d just pulled over on the stupid old Thai woman. She knew she’d just been part of a scam but thought she was the scammer. When she’d cleared the area, the vendor let loose with the epitome of a Thai smile (which you may just want to keep in mind the next time you are on the receiving end of one of those glorious face-wide smiles). And then offered up a tray of rough that I always buy a few pieces of with a nod and, not surprisingly, one of the few English words she knew, “Free!”

Not only did I get to participate in a scam on the side of the scammer, I got a cut of the profits too. Now whenever I visit her booth the first thing she does is pull out her tray of tourmaline to offer to me, a joke so that we can both have a laugh and remember our day of mutual good fortune. That woman from Brazil, on the other hand, has probably been busy telling everyone she knows about how dishonest Thais are and of the gem scam she got taken for during her visit to Bangkok.

Related Posts You Might Enjoy:

Gems, Scams, and Greed in Thailand

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The Arrival: An Ode To Don Muang, Circa 1986

24 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tales

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Bangkok, Transportation

At four o’clock in the morning Bangkok is an exhausted prizefighter, recuperating after surviving another brutal round of ceaseless blows to the groin delivered by a night pissed off by its existence. Emulating tipsy touri returning to their hotel from unsuccessful forays into the less than salubrious neon-lit depths of the city’s after-hour clubs, cars swerve drunkenly along near-empty avenues, freed for a brief hour from the constant bullying of buses and trucks and the demolition-derby antics of crazed tuk tuk drivers who keep everything that is anything a safe distance from the road. The clear skies of recent days, now under siege from masses of dark clouds, promise an ineffectual drenching that will paint the city with muted water colors leaving the day’s break looking as though some giant dog slobbered all over the town.

Even at such a godless hour, like a seductive woman Bangkok hints at unparalleled delights while always keeping part of itself covered, hidden from view – a secret yet to be revealed – while cruelly offering tempting whispered promises of sexual fulfillment that would make a porn star blush. But that temptress (a goddess greatly revered by the local nut-brown skinned population) as with all those recently disembarked and spewed rudely into a toxic cacophony designed to stun the senses and make one and all easy pickings for government sanctioned scams, must wait its turn for a taxi driver to embody her promise with the lurid come-on of, “ You want girl? You want young girl?” the evil, puppy-drowning vileness of the pedophiliac offer disguised behind a smile so wide and warm it hugs your body that nonetheless prods some atavistic instinct deep within to decline participation regardless of the ensuing fine to be coughed up in lieu as fare for safe passage to lodging, where the registration clerk with an expression as blank as a dead man’s mind will echo the same greeting of happy endings to come, along with a reminder that the hotel has chosen to play the role of pimp and collect its share of the city’s sin tax in the form of a joiner’s fee, an act that decades later will remind you that despite the protestations of a more recent movie there is, and always was, a valid reason for the town to be known as Bangcunt instead.

But that is all fun yet to come, the Big Mango’s inaugural greeting is the welcoming arms of SE Asia’s oppressive humidity that makes you feel like you are walking around between two loaves of warm bread, a mind-numbing assault to the body afforded equally to both the travelling reprobate and the vice-free people who conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority, whose knack for sucking the life right out of a party is no less noxious than the coming event of having the life-blood sucked from your soul by the sudden babble of foreign tongues and strange lighting coupled to create a frisson of excitement in the former and a feeling of well-deserved dread in the latter, encouraging both to readily accept fate as delivered by the first approach of salvation offering transport into the depths of a city known for its casual disregard for the value of human life in favor of the prospect of the more heady and intrinsic value of an orgasm bought and paid for.

Hurriedly dodging persistent, fat lazy drops of rain that pester like flies that can not be killed, accompanied by the miasma of bloated diesel fumes floating above the odor of unidentifiable dead things, zombie-like, travellers follow the local version of Charon to his clown car that, with an intricate clattering of gears and belching clouds of smoke, scurries onto dimly lit roadways to do battle with a kaleidoscopic army of four-wheeled beasts with no brakes, or piloted by taxi drivers with a strong superstition against touching them.

Flying past the same strange houses of worship, filled with gods whose long elegant fingers twisted in ritual shapes are reminiscent of gang members flashing hand signals, as those disinclined to pay for an equally lengthy tollway ride whose fare suspiciously duplicates the same coinage charged for a boat ride to Hades, forward and onward your ride breaches a coming dawn garishly illuminated by twisted flickering tubes of neon and a graveyard of 1970s fluorescent tubing that cast a pallor on the few denizens still awake, begrudgingly finishing up the task of cleaning their kill of the night, your chariot that no gods would ever deign to ride makes a circuitous route through one way streets being traversed in three directions, screeching past hasty flashes of the competing dioramas of a developed, world-class capital city and a third world slum reeking of despair, both equally enveloped in a smoky haze from fires lit for cooking or warmth, their often mixed use smoke permeating the city with the smells of an ill-conceived dinner of street food viciously hawked back up and splattered over the broken, crumbling paving stones that often serve as a bed for human and dog alike. There but for the grace of the gods, and the grand good fortune of not being born Thai, go I.

Crawling through small, poorly lit, twisted streets that mirror the morals of its residents, past mange-ridden soi dogs whose existence provides muse to the warning of letting sleeping dogs lie, with the languorously paced speed of your ride timed to provide yet one last flip of the meter, your arrival at what only in Bangkok would you willingly call home is announced by the sputtering attempt at life of a hundred light bulbs doing the job of one that fill the ceiling of a once grand portico now sentenced to guard the entrance to a slatternly hotel ominously reeking a sense of seediness and foreboding that would give Hitchcock a chub, it’s decrepit exterior recently refreshed with a new layer of grime thanks to the morning’s rain that is equally responsible for the cascade of liquid sewage blubbering off its eaves like a wound that bleeds afresh.

Past a somnolent, rail-thin guard wearing the uniform of a general, who’d be incapable of providing security against an ill-tempered child, the exotic, fetid odor of durian provides as welcoming of a greeting as the surly check-in clerk whose mind decided your worth was not justification for arousing from its two-day slumber, the only version of the world famous Thai smile that greets your arrival are those chirped your way by the bruised flesh colored geckos busily dropping their recently digested turds onto the counter below.

Formalities concluded, and with a final reminder of the pound of flesh soon to be owed for the flesh you’ll later be pounding that undoubtedly belongs to the clerk’s sister, brother, or child – or in some cases all three – your tired body beaten senseless by passage through a dozen time zones makes its way on autopilot to fill an elevator with the posted capacity of eight for a five minute ride to the second floor whose empty, dead silence is broken only by the buzzing of tiny mosquitos pulverizing the still of the night with the beating of wings in a frenzy over the scent of fresh meat, to a room decorated by the unskilled labor of a few dozen refurbishments in the hands of locals to whom your comfort is as unimportant as the plight of the deformed beggars who crawl the streets just outside your hotel’s door competing for space with the city’s rats, and a bed whose thin mattress is stuffed with the sins and shame of hundreds of sex touri who have come before, and came often.

Sleep, blessed sleep; your mind craves rest from the bloody assault you’ve put it through, all for the unbridled joy of the cheap sexual conquests and drunken binges you’ll fill your next two weeks of nights with, but for this morning the ankle high repository of 80 count man-made fiber sheets laundered stiff by chemicals banned in your country twenty years ago and the promise of awakening to a tepid shower of polluted water in which you’ll have to kneel to wet your head is all that matters, for you have arrived.

Ahh, those were the days.

[As of October 1st this year Don Muang airport, now officially spelled ‘Don Mueang’ will serve as Bangkok’s LCC airport for both domestic and international flights. The say you can’t go home again and in this instance I’m going to follow that sage advice; the ambiance of Don Muang in the days of old was a fitting greeting to the Big Mango, a slightly decrepit enormously cramped run down at the heels complex drenched in teak and filled with strange colors and even stranger people that hinted at the exotic delights that awaited just outside its doors.

It was a welcome partially responsible for my falling in love with Thailand, one that today would probably convince me instead to book the next plane out of town. Don Muang is a cherished place in my memories, one that I don’t wish to contaminate by revisiting the place in an effort to save a buck or two, no more than I’d want to track down the first guy I offed from a bar. That that gives me good reason to never set foot on an Air Asia flight again is just a happy bonus]

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Let There Be Light

19 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tales, Thailand Travel Tips and Tales

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Chiang Mai, Gay GoGo Bars

Ooops, wrong religion . . .

In my post about Wat Phra Singh the other day I mentioned a photograph my friend Noom took of the main Buddha at the wiharn which was surrounded by mysterious spheres of light, light reflecting off a dirty camera lens in my estimation, the power of the Buddha being captured on film in his. I couldn’t locate the shot for that post but have since so I thought I’d throw it into the mix.

Noom has a very intimate relationship with his gods and expects that they know of him and are willing to pay an equal amount of attention to the glory that is Noom. The photo below was taken at the white wat just outside of Chiang Rai (that’s the public restroom in the background). The beam of light wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but showed up in the photograph. The result got a very satisfied nod from Noom. I’d argue, again, that the boy needs to clean his camera lens a bit more often, but then I can’t really disagree that the gods shouldn’t favor him. At least not if they have good taste in men.

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10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Tales, Thailand Travel Tips and Tales

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Stupid Tourist Tricks, Wats

The first time I became aware of the concept of merit making by Buddhists was thanks to a vendor at a sparsely visited temple who was making merit of a different kind by selling caged birds to touri to set free. This practice was not originally geared toward visitors but rather toward locals. It’s but one of hundreds of ways Buddhists earn brownie points for performing a good deed. But someone figured out touri were willing to drop a few baht to participate too and a new industry was born.

It is still practiced by locals, there is always a vendor with a stack of sparrows confined in brightly painted red cages at the entrance to the Erawan Shrine, a popular place of worship located near the Grand Hyatt Erawan in Bangkok. I don’t think many Thais patronize the vendor selling them at the entrance to the Bo Sang Umbrella Village in Chiang Mai where they are restrained in small woven baskets though. Whether a religious practice or an interactive touri experience, I’d always thought the custom was cool; friends visiting the Kingdom with me also always enjoyed the experience.

It wasn’t until a visit to Phnom Penh that I began to consider the birds’ side of the ritual. One evening as dusk approached I was visiting a small, rather popular shrine on Sisowath Quay, the pedestrian boulevard that runs along the Mekong. Several bird vendors were busy selling their feathered friends to the locals to set free. A great photo op, maneuvering for the best shot I ended up next to a dumpster and watched one of the vendors unceremoniously pulling dead birds out of his cage to throw into the dumpster. I don’t think the Buddha would have been pleased.

Up north on the same trip I began running into signs posted along the inside of temple grounds asking visitors to not patronize the bird sellers; a short explanation of why the wat’s monks frowned on the practice was included. You’d think the better option would be to not allow the vendors to conduct their business within the wat, but Thai culture tends to be non-confrontational, and I guess when it comes to racking up karma points it’s best to leave it to the individual on whether they are striving to reach enlightenment or setting themselves to come back as a cockroach the next time around.

Not being part of the Buddhist sect that refuses to even harm an earth worm, Thais don’t place a high value on animals’ lives. I doubt PETA has an active branch in Bangkok. I really can’t fault locals who release the caged birds as part of their religious beliefs – and I note the signs asking people not to that I’ve seen have all been in English only so perhaps the monks too are willing to cut the local populace some slack.

For touri, sometimes ignorance is bliss; knowing that by participating in the ritual (which has no religious connotations for you) you are encouraging the mistreatment of the birds is kind of a bummer. I’ve been with too many friends who have enjoyed the experience, and I’ll miss not doing so in the future. You’ll have to weigh the experience against the consequences yourself. And if you did consider participating in the practice as a way to earn merit, maybe you can off a barboy and let him fly free for the night instead.

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